This book served as a strong example of a collection of short stories that can be used in the classroom. The stories were very real with solid and relative characters, exciting plot points and meaningful outcomes. The stories have clear messages of moral that young adult students will easily relate to and be able to understand. The stories in brief summary are as follows:
1. Angus Bethune: An overweight and hilarious adolescent tells about his experience as Senior Winter Ball King as well as his interesting family circle background. Starts the book off in a light-hearted and fun way.
2. Johnny Rivers: a struggle to to satisfy his infamous Dad, leads to Johnny against his Dad in a public wrestling match and a family change that brings plenty of tears.
3. Petery Shropshrire: Johnny Rivers' best friend pushes him into another wrestling match that will embarrass Petey for life if he loses, which is likely. His opponent has a different point of view (among other differences) that leads Petey to a life-long lesson, and maybe even a new girlfriend.
4. Lionel Serbousek: a high school senior who lost his family in a tragic accident has to put his feelings aside and help a long lost friend that no longer has a happy place in his life, and for good reason. It's life or death.
5. Jack Simpson: a young student trying to overcome many issues in school, especially the one thing he has been taught to stay to true: hating people because of their race. Can Jack save himself without letting his father down? - This one is a very good moral story!
6. Louie Banks: Still in pain after the loss of his girlfriend who taught him to fight in what he believes in, Louie meets Darren and his life begins to change. But Darren has secrets that Louie must keep. Throughout this story, Louie struggles with right and wrong and most of all death.
Phewwww, this book was really good. I would love to be able to teach it in my classroom (planning around a text!) and would reccommend it for reading to my students very often. It's a good thing to give the students with reading capability issues a good short story to read, and these stories will give them tons of literary elements in a short time that make the stories really rich and fun to read!
Friday, October 9, 2009
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Inexcusable - Chris Lynch
One word, WOW.
This book is great, totally captivating and exciting and at the same time it's very real and terrifying. It is about a senior in high school named Keir and his story of an accusation of rape made against him. The girl he's accused of raping, he is basically in love with. He gives some details about his feelings in the moments they are felt which is a very real setup, but he never goes all into depth about how he feels. It is my honest opinion that this boy is slightly crazy, and it begins to show throughout the text. His mother died when he was young and he has grown up with just his father and two older sisters who are now in college. His character is built off tragedy it seems, and it begins to reveal the way others see him, rather than how he sees himself as the story reaches this end. The timeline and plot are really great, like I said, they are incredibly captivating!
I really enjoyed this book, I could not put it down. The characters were so real and believable and the story the narrator (Keir) was telling was very angled and exciting.
High school students will relate inevitably to this book. I'm an on the fence about whether or not it is appropriate material to teach because of it's intensity in some of the content and some of the situations. However, there are some incredible examples of writing elements in this book such as plot, time-line, voice, point of view, characterization, and foreshadowing. It's a really great example of how a strong combination of literary elements really make for an excellent story. Many students would find this book easy to read, easy to connect with, and very realistic. The appropriateness would be in question, but they would definitely get a lot out of reading this, even as a free read, or using excerpts in the classroom. The male perspective that the story is told in is also an intriguing attribute that would help male students get into reading very easily. It puts a different twist on a very real situation, and I really appreciated this piece of writing.
Read it!
This book is great, totally captivating and exciting and at the same time it's very real and terrifying. It is about a senior in high school named Keir and his story of an accusation of rape made against him. The girl he's accused of raping, he is basically in love with. He gives some details about his feelings in the moments they are felt which is a very real setup, but he never goes all into depth about how he feels. It is my honest opinion that this boy is slightly crazy, and it begins to show throughout the text. His mother died when he was young and he has grown up with just his father and two older sisters who are now in college. His character is built off tragedy it seems, and it begins to reveal the way others see him, rather than how he sees himself as the story reaches this end. The timeline and plot are really great, like I said, they are incredibly captivating!
I really enjoyed this book, I could not put it down. The characters were so real and believable and the story the narrator (Keir) was telling was very angled and exciting.
High school students will relate inevitably to this book. I'm an on the fence about whether or not it is appropriate material to teach because of it's intensity in some of the content and some of the situations. However, there are some incredible examples of writing elements in this book such as plot, time-line, voice, point of view, characterization, and foreshadowing. It's a really great example of how a strong combination of literary elements really make for an excellent story. Many students would find this book easy to read, easy to connect with, and very realistic. The appropriateness would be in question, but they would definitely get a lot out of reading this, even as a free read, or using excerpts in the classroom. The male perspective that the story is told in is also an intriguing attribute that would help male students get into reading very easily. It puts a different twist on a very real situation, and I really appreciated this piece of writing.
Read it!
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Who Am I Without Him? - Sharon G. Flake
Who Am I Without Him? turned out to be a little different than I imagined! A Coretta Scott King Award Winner, this book was very centered on African American teenagers, which was a positive attribute, but I was unaware before I read the book! The culture was made to seem extra dramatic and was almost over the top with the different type of dialogue. It was easy for me to follow, I'm just not sure whether it was an accurate representation. I would have enjoyed it a little more if it wasn't so heavy and was a little more flighty and innocent. Sorry to sound so negative at first! Let's get to the good stuff!
The stories were good and most of them were pretty fun to read! Characters like Mookie, (who is the cousin of the narrator in the story Mookie In Love), go through the ups and downs of relationships at an adolescent time in life. Mookie falls for a new girl and his family full of women wants to keep him to themselves, but the couple makes it through all the trials. They really are cute stories! Some of them have a lot of association with behavior in school, contrasting between girls and boys, which I found really interesting. The characters were believable and honest about themselves and their feelings, while the stories were of experiences that were definitely relatable and could be easily connected with by the reader.
These elements are what made me believe some of these stories could be useful in the classroom for showing my students examples of narratives or short stories. They contain strong elements such as voice, tone, characterization, dialogue, and perspective.
This book was honest and at times shocking and though it was not always incredibly memorable, it was different! I enjoyed the read for the most part and if there are ways I can use it to teach, I will probably keep it around as reference! It may not be the most reliable source for accurately portraying African American community, but it gives a very good idea of perspective and personalities!
The stories were good and most of them were pretty fun to read! Characters like Mookie, (who is the cousin of the narrator in the story Mookie In Love), go through the ups and downs of relationships at an adolescent time in life. Mookie falls for a new girl and his family full of women wants to keep him to themselves, but the couple makes it through all the trials. They really are cute stories! Some of them have a lot of association with behavior in school, contrasting between girls and boys, which I found really interesting. The characters were believable and honest about themselves and their feelings, while the stories were of experiences that were definitely relatable and could be easily connected with by the reader.
These elements are what made me believe some of these stories could be useful in the classroom for showing my students examples of narratives or short stories. They contain strong elements such as voice, tone, characterization, dialogue, and perspective.
This book was honest and at times shocking and though it was not always incredibly memorable, it was different! I enjoyed the read for the most part and if there are ways I can use it to teach, I will probably keep it around as reference! It may not be the most reliable source for accurately portraying African American community, but it gives a very good idea of perspective and personalities!
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