Printz Award winner: Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snooging: Confessions of Georgia Richardson

Bibliographic Data
Rennison, Louise. Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging: Confessions of Georgia Nicolson. Harper Collins Publishers: New York, 2000. ISBN 006028871X.

Plot Summary
Georgia's life is taken up by boys she doesn't like kissing, boys she wishes she could kiss, a half-breed wildcat who won't stop stalking her neighbor's pets, friends in and out of love, suspicious teachers and clueless parents. In between all of that, she manages to write in her journal for a whole school year.

Critical Analysis
The main character in this book, Georgia, records her thoughts, actions, and dreams in her journal. She fantasizes about boys like Robbie, the Sex God working at the greengrocers in town (48). She deals with an unsympathetic mother who doesn’t tell her that her nose isn’t big. Instead she advises Georgia how to hide the bigness with makeup (45)!

Her father leaves for New Zealand to look for work and Georgia’s not sure she even misses him: “Watching TV Mum said, “Do you miss your dad?” and I said, “Who?” (148). Meanwhile, she’s sure her mother is having an affair with the remodeler, Georgia is stuck too often taking care of her little sister, Libby, and Robbie hates her. Her best friend is having an on again/off again relationship with Robbie’s brother Tom, and Georgia is forced to listen to every detail. That’s what best friends are for after all, right?

She hates Robbie, she loves him, she hates him, she loves him.

She tries to shave her legs for the first time and ends up bleeding all over her mom’s nightgown. When she tries to wash it, it shrinks to the size of a doll’s nightgown.

We’re not given physical descriptions of the girls in Georgia’s life, but we are given detailed information about the boys’ appearances. Rosie’s boyfriend Sven is “about eight feet tall” (122). Robbie is “very tall with long, black hair and really intense, dark-blue eyes, and a big mouth.” (48) Tom has sort of crinkly hair and great shoulders.” (47). Mark, a boy from the neighborhood looks like Mick Jagger (94). At the age of 14, Georgia looks at the boys much closer than she looks at her girlfriends.

The story takes place in England. The introduction announces to the reader that Georgia lives in England, and she’s aware that some of the American readers may not understand all the words she uses, so there’ll be a glossary at the end of the book. Since British schools all expect their students to wear uniforms, school uniforms, or the dislike of same, play a minor role in the story line.

The theme of this story is growing up and learning to be happy with yourself. Georgia doesn’t really know what she wants, but she’s willing to try just about anything to find out. No boyfriend? Maybe she’s destined to be a lesbian. Big nose? Disguise it behind a new haircut (that her Mum vetoes). Parents don’t understand you? That’s because they’re stuck in the 80s. This is a story of the day-to-day life and thoughts of a typical 14 year old girl. What makes this book appealing to YA readers is learning that Georgia and other girls feel the same confusion, mistrust, and joy at growing up as they do.

Awards and Honors

• American Booksellers Book Sense Book of the Year (ABBY) Award 2002 Finalist Children's Literature United States
  
• Garden State Teen Book Award 2003 Winner Gr. 9-12 (Fict.) New Jersey
  
• Michael L. Printz Award 2001 Honor Book United States
  
• Smarties Book Prize 1999 Bronze Award Winner Ages 9-11 United Kingdom
  
• Soaring Eagle Book Award 2002 2nd Runner-up Grades 7-12 Wyoming
  
• Virginia Young Readers Program 2003 Winner High School Virginia

Review Excerpts
Michael Cart (Booklist, July 2000 (Vol. 96, No. 21))
Although performer and comedy writer Rennison clearly owes a large debt to Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary (1998), her Georgia is a wonderful character whose misadventures are not only hysterically funny but universally recognizable. This "fabbity, fab, fab" novel will leave readers cheering, "Long live the teen!"

Rebecca Joseph (Children's Literature)
In this diary- formatted novel, young Georgia details the ups and downs of her unique teenage English life. Complete with a helpful glossary, the novel comically covers a year in which Georgia's father moves to New Zealand (he wants the family to join him there), her cat Angus (of the title) launches an attack on the neighbor's poodle, and she falls in love with an older boy (leading to some snogging, that is, kissing for Georgia). As spunky Georgia describes her unusual exploits, she reveals the insecurity that plagues most teenagers.

Book Hook

• For more adventures of Georgia Nicolson, read On the Bright Side, I'm Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God: Further Confessions of Georgia Nicolson, also by Louise Rennison.
  
• If you want to read other funny books about English girls in boarding schools, try one of the Calypso Chronicles books by Tyne O'Connell.

Online Connections
Louise Rennison's website

YA classic: The Chocolate War

Bibliographic Data
Cormier, Robert. The Chocolate War. New York: Pantheon Books: 1974. ISBN 0394828054.

Plot Summary
Freshman Jerry Renault bucks the system by refusing to participate in his school's annual 'voluntary' chocolate fundraiser. Archie Costello, leader of a secret organization known as the Vigils, declares psychological war on Jerry, with the unspoken approval of the assistant headmaster.

Critical Analysis
Jerry Renault has a poster in his locker that reads, "Do I dare disturb the universe?" (123) His life has been recently turned upside down by the death of his mother, and now he wonders if has what it takes to change the universe. His universe, up to this point, hasn’t been very satisfactory. After his mom’s death, his dad retreated into himself. The only emotional moment they’ve shared in the last few months was at Mrs. Renault’s funeral (57-58). Now Jerry sees a chance to change the status quo, his own little universe, at Trinity Prep School by refusing to participate in the traditional chocolate fundraiser sale. Unfortunately, he comes up against an assistant headmaster, Brother Leon, who has more at stake during this chocolate sale than he’s caring to admit. Archie Costello, the unofficial leader of the secretive group known as the Vigils, is coerced by Brother Leon into ensuring that all the chocolate gets sold. Resenting Brother Leon’s assumption that the Vigils will help him, Archie decides to strike back at Brother Leon. He assigns the task to Jerry of refusing to sell chocolates for ten days (81, 110). But when the ten days are over, Jerry continues to refuse to sell the chocolates. When he announces this decision on day 11 of the chocolate sale, the class is stunned. “Cities fell. Earth opened. Planets tilted. Stars plummeted. And the awful silence (112).

At first, the other boys at school think it’s a great idea. One after the other, they discuss the possibility of refusing to sell the chocolates, just like Jerry. But Archie’s also got a lot riding on this chocolate sale. He takes Jerry’s refusal to sell chocolate as a rejection of himself, the school, and the Vigils. Brother Leon is also on Archie’s back, wanting to know why Jerry won’t sell the chocolates that Brother Leon so desperately needs to get rid of. Archie, the master con artist, decides to exert peer pressure against Jerry by making chocolate selling the cool thing to do. But Jerry won’t be allowed to participate. He is beaten up, his locker is vandalized, and he is made to feel invisible. He enjoys the few hours of anonymity the invisibility offers him, but it’s over way too soon. Somebody tries to push him down the stairs at school. Boys start harassing him at home also, making threatening calls and standing outside at night calling his name. All this psychological harassment takes its toll on Jerry. He is persuaded by Archie to try and get his revenge against the school by fighting the school bully, Emile. But in the end, Archie is ultimately victorious. Mob mentality takes over the student body, and Jerry ends up being to the hospital in an ambulance after realizing that he has been reduced to no more than an animal performing for Archie and the other Vigils. And like the real world, sometimes, good doesn’t triumph over evil. Brother Leon, who was secretly watching the fight between Jerry and Emile, refuses to discipline Archie or even acknowledge that there is a problem at the school. A hard lesson to learn at the age of 15, one that Cormier’s readers are left wondering who besides Jerry learned anything.

The characters are true to life. Incidental characters are depicted as normal high school aged boys. My favorite character sketch is of Kevin Chartier in Chapter twenty-one. Kevin has developed the ability “to translate whatever [his mother] was saying into gibberish. She could talk her head off now and the words reached his ears without meaning. A wild trick” (131). The other boys talk about sports, girls, masturbate in their rooms at night, ignore their parents, and just want to fit in with the cool crowd. Even Emile, the ultimate bully, dreams of being accepted by Archie (49),

Brother Leon is the archetypical villain. He is the one responsible for loading the students down with double the amount of chocolate from previous years. He doubles the amount of chocolate for personal glory, i.e. to show he is worthy of being named headmaster after the current Headmaster is taken ill. He uses cunning psychological force to ensure that the sale goes as he wants it to, and when Jerry is punished at the end of the story, he smiles in sick pleasure from Jerry’s fate and awards Archie for doing his dirty work for him by letting Archie go unpunished for any wrongdoing (250). That’s part of the appeal of this self vs. society novel to young adult readers. The adults ostensibly in charge of the teenagers are either helpless, like Brother Jacques (250) or abuse their authority over the young people in their charge (Chapter 16). This book shows the YA readers that sometimes bullies win no matter if they’re your age or adults.

The theme of this tragic story is that even when we stand up for what we believe in, the world may sometimes beat us down. Jerry learns this lesson in a brutally traumatic fashion.

The setting, in a New England Catholic boys’ prep school, is important to the story. In today’s headlines, we read story after story of Catholic priests who have molested young men in their charge. While there is no allusion to sexual abuse in the story, the mental and physical abuse rings true to today’s headlines, contributing to this book’s reputation as one of the most challenged books for young adults.

Awards and Honors
Best Books for Young Adults, 1974 Young Adult Services Divison of the American Library Association.
Books for You: An Annotated Booklist for Senior High, Eighth Edition, 1982 National Council of Teachers of English; United States
Books for You: An Annotated Booklist for Senior High, Sixth Edition, 1976 National Council of Teachers of English; United States

Review Excerpts
"The characterizations of all the boys are superb... This novel [is] unique in its uncompromising portrait of human cruelty and conformity."-School Library Journal, starred review

"The novel is cleverly written with a good sense of the realistic and a good ear for dialouge, qualities which will attract any reader."-Bestsellers

"Robert Cormier has written a brilliant novel."-Children's Book Revie[sic] Service -- Review (Amazon.com)

Discussion Questions

1. There are no main female characters in this book, partly because Trinity is a boys' school. Yet the Trinity boys often discuss girls. Jerry wishes he could talk to the girl near the bus stop. Janza watches girls as they walk by, and Archie won't let anyone touch him except certain girls. What function(s) do you think girls play in the novel?
2. Why do you think Archie is repulsed by human sweat? What do you think this says about Archie as a person?
3. Archie's greatest strength is in exploiting other people's weaknesses. Why do you think Archie does this? Why do you think he needs to manipulate every situation?
4. Discuss the significance of the title. Why is it a chocolate "war"?
5. Why do you think Jerry decides not to sell the chocolates even after his assignment is over? Have you ever dared to "disturb the universe"? What happened?
6. How do you feel about how Brother Leon treated Bailey? At the end of the class Brother Leon says that the students had allowed him to turn the class into Nazi Germany. Do you think this is a true statement?(Random House)
7. Why did somebody cleanup Jerry's locker after it had been vandalized? What was this a precursor to?
8. Why did the author have Jerry's mother die shortly before the book begins?

Sources
Amazon.com. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier/Editorial Reviews. Accessed 9/14/2009 from http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/product-description/0440944597/ref=dp_proddesc_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books.
Random House, Inc. Teachers@Random. Copyright 1995-2009. Accessed 9/14/2009 from http://www.randomhouse.com/teachers/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780394828053&view=rg

YA award winning book: Copper Sun

Bibliographic Data
Draper, Sharon. Copper Sun. New York: Atheneum Books, 2006. ISBN 9780689821813

Plot Summary
Amari leads a typical fifteen year old's life. She has friends, a beau, a loving family, and doesn't listen to her mother often enough. When Amari is kidnapped from her village and her family brutally murdered, Amari begins a life of slavery in America. She escapes with Polly, a 15 year old indentured servant, and Tidbit, the 4 year old son of another slave. Along the way, she encounters various people, both free and slave, who help her keep alive the hope that her brutal slavery existence will not be her ultimate fate in life.

Critical Analysis
The main character in this book is Amari and to a lesser extent, Polly. Both girls are 15 years old. One is black, one is white. One is a slave fresh from Africa, the other is a newly indentured servant. Neither girl has ever known a girl of the other color before. Over their months of sharing a cabin and duties, they come to realize that their differences are only skin deep. A friendship begins to develop and as it does, it changes both girls. Amari grows to realize that even if her previous life is dead and gone, there’s hope for a new, free life in America. Polly grows to realize “that being a fine lady didn’t necessarily mean finding joy” (144).

Minor characters also encourage Amari to not give up her hope for freedom. Afi, a woman who Amari meets in Cape Coast, is a surrogate mother to Amari up to the point when Amari is sold to Mr. Derby. However, Afi refuses to be a nurturing mother. Instead, she sees strength in Amari and wants to prepare her for most likely what lies ahead for the young woman. Her advice to Amari is to “Find strength from within… You will know when it is time to use that strength as your shield from what they will do to you” (55).

Teenie is another woman who comes into Amari’s life. She is the cook on the Derby plantation, and entrusts her small son, Tidbit, to Amari when Amari and Polly finally escape. She teaches Amari and Polly that as long as you remember something or somebody, nothing will ever really be gone (113).

Mrs. Derby is also a sympathetic character. She is white but secretly in love with her slave, Noah. The two of them grew up together, and she is actually pregnant with Noah’s child, not Mr. Derby’s. When the child is born obviously black, Mrs. Derby enlists some of the slaves to help hide the obviously black child from Mr. Derby. They commit the cardinal sin of lying to the Massuh, telling him that the child was born deformed and was already buried by the time he returns with the doctor. However, the child is found in the slave quarters, and Mr. Derby kills both the child and Noah.

Dr. Hoskins is yet another sympathetic adult. Although he lets Mr. Derby get away with the murders, he shows his distaste for the turn of events and slavery in general by helping the two girls and Tidbit escape from his wagon as he drives them away from the plantation to sell down the river.

The story also has its evil characters. Mr. Derby is shown to be a cold, sadistic brute by his murder of Noah and the baby. He inadvertently trips Amari when she is serving at the dinner table but blames her for the resultant mess. He administers a whipping then and there that is so severe, it puts Amari into a feverish delirium. He at first seems to care for his wife, but when her child is revealed as another man’s, Mr. Derby tells her that he won’t kill her, instead, he “shall refuse to let you die” (183), and forces her to watch the murder of both her lover and child.

Clay Derby is as bad as his father. Amari was purchased as a birthday present for the 16 year old Clay, and he takes full advantage of his role as Master over Amari. He thinks that Amari likes him even though she has no choice in participating in sex with Clay at his beck and call. He’s even more sadistic than his father, using Tidbit one day as ‘gator’ bait by throwing him into the plantation’s river for sport. He is the one who finds the baby in the slave quarters and brings her to Mr. Derby because he has always hated his stepmother.

Draper uses the omniscient third person narrator in this story, alternating sections between Amari’s and Polly’s thoughts. It’s interesting to read the contrast between the protaganists’ thoughts and the few words they actually dare to speak out loud. This omniscient point of view serves a dual purpose. Not only does it serve to show us just how repressed the slaves were – they were not only physically enslaved, but discouraged from being intellectually and emotionally free to express their thoughts – but it also serves to highlight the few dialogues there are between characters. Clay and Mr. Derby have discussions about their property, including the slaves, while the slaves have discussions about how to maintain their emotional freedom and gain their physical freedom. One of the few dialogues that does take place between Master and slave in this story is one night when Clay has called Amari to his bed:

               He lifted his head off his pillow then and spoke directly in her
          face. His breath smelled of spoiled food, and Amari had to force
          herself not to gag. “You like me, don‘t you?” The question was
          sudden and abrupt.
               Shocked at the question, Amari swallowed hard. If she said no,
          he might get angry. If she said yes, he might manage to
          misunderstand her hatred of him. So she pretended she didn’t
          know what he meant.          
               “I asked you a question. I know you understand much more
          than you let on. You do like me, don’t you?” he implored quietly.
          To Amari, his voice sounded a little plaintive, almost as if he
          needed her to say she liked him.
               “Yassuh,” Amari whispered, cringing.
               Amari was amazed to hear him breathe a sigh of relief. “I had a
          feeling you cared about me,“ Clay said, assurance creeping back
          into his voice. (110-111)

Even indentured servant Polly is expected to speak only when spoken directly to, and never, never allowed to speak her own mind. This is evident from the very beginning, when Mr. Derby gets furious at Polly for reminding them that Amari probably already has a name, when he has just told Clay to name his new “acquisition” (85).

The setting symbolizes Amari’s journey. The story begins in Amari’s village in Africa. She is young, in love, her whole life ahead of her. This setting is “fragrant with hope and possibility” (6). As Amari arrives in Cape Coast after watching so many of her friends die on the arduous journey, Cape Coast “smelled of blood and death.” (25). Onboard the slave ship, Amari is chained below in the daytime and taken on deck at night to be raped by whichever sailor gets to her first each night. “The air in this place seemed to have been sucked out and replaced with the smells of sweat and vomit and urine” (43).

Once Amari reaches the Derby plantation, the setting emphasizes the difference between Master and slave. The Derbys live in satin rooms with carpets and heavy drapes to keep out the heat (138). The slaves live in one room shacks, “barely large enough to turn around in” (92). Mr Derby works in a room filled with leather bound books. The field slaves work in knee-deep muddy rice paddies with no shade. Snakes and gators are a constant concern. During Amari’s first visit to the rice fields, one of the slaves is bitten by a copperhead and left to die because the slaves can’t stop working “just because of a little snakebite” (135).

The overall conflict in this story is self vs. society, as Amari and Polly find themselves in roles that they had not chosen for themselves, but were socially acceptable at the time. The story is not in how the girls learn to cope with their situation, but how they gain the moral and physical strength to change their circumstances. Their meetings with different people along their path to freedom show them that not all of colonial American society supports slavery. These chance encounters give them the emotional strength to continue on their journey towards freedom. At the end of the story, when Amari is free but learns she is carrying Clay’s child, she lovingly remembers the people who helped her get to this point and vows her child will never forget Amari’s journey either. Home is where the heart is, and Amari has found her home once more.

Awards and Honors
Coretta Scott King Book Award 2007 Winner Author United States
Heartland Award for Excellence in Children's Literature 2007 Winner United States
Ohioana Book Awards 2007 Winner Juvenile Literature United States
Society of Midland Authors Book Awards 2007 Finalist Children's Fiction United States
South Dakota Teen Choice Award 2008 Winner High School South Dakota
Top 10 Historical Fiction for Youth, 2006 - American Library Association-Booklis; United States
Best Books of the Year, 2006 - School Library Journal; United States
Best Children's Books of the Year, 2007 - Bank Street College of Education; United States
Notable Books for a Global Society, 2007 - Special Interest Group of the International Reading Association; United States
Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People, 2007 -; National Council for the Social Studies; United States

Review Excerpts
Gillian Engberg (Booklist, Feb. 1, 2006 (Vol. 102, No. 11))
Draper's latest novel… begins in Amari's Ashanti village, but the idyllic scene explodes in bloodshed when slavers arrive and murder her family….So begins the account of impossible horrors from the slave fort, the Middle Passage, and auction on American shores, where a rice plantation owner buys Amari for his 16-year-old son's sexual enjoyment. Draper builds the explosive tension to the last chapter, and the sheer power of the story, balanced between the overwhelmingly brutal facts of slavery and Amari's ferocious survivor's spirit, will leave readers breathless, even as they consider the story's larger questions about the infinite costs of slavery and how to reconcile history. A moving author's note discusses the real places and events on which the story is based.

Claudia Mills, Ph.D. (Children's Literature)
Draper's riveting tale weaves together Amari's desperate quest for freedom with the equally compelling narrative of Polly, a white indentured girl who initially scorns the black slaves who work beside her but comes to pity their sufferings as she grasps their fellow humanity. Draper succeeds in making Polly's initial racism understandable, given her deep and ignorant prejudice; Polly's transformation proceeds gradually in a way that helps readers to understand both how racism begins and how it can be overcome.

KaaVonia Hinton, Ph.D. (KLIATT Review, January 2006 (Vol. 40, No. 1))
Draper charters territory few traditional slave narratives dared when she explores a consenting sexual relationship between the Derby mistress and her "bodyguard" that results in the birth of a black daughter, depicts the cook as more than willing to poison her owners when they threaten to sell her only child, and troubles the assumption that all white women were "free." Already being compared to Roots, this novel is best suited for mature YA readers, and accompanied by discussions about early African culture and sensibility, acts of resistance executed by slaves (alone and in partnerships with indentured servants), and abolitionist efforts.

Book Hook
Pair this book with Elijah of Buxley by Christopher Paul Curtis.

Online Connections
Sharon Draper's resource website for Copper Sun
Africans in America Resource Bank, from PBS

New semester

Well, it's a new school year and a new literature class. This semester, I'm taking Advanced Young Adult Literature, with Dr. Vardell once again. It should prove an interesting term as we explore YA classics and award winners; realism, romance and censorship; fantasy and science fiction; history, biography, and nonfiction; and finally, poetry, drama, film and graphic novels. Sounds like fun!




graphic downloaded from: library.ppld.org/.../index.php?m=200703&paged=2 Accessed 9/1/2009.

Fantasy - The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

THE GRAVEYARD BOOK. Neil Gaiman. Ill. by Dave McKean. New York: HarperCollins Pub., 2008. ISBN 9780060530938.







Neil Gaiman has written a ghost story that is also a story about the power of family ties. Nobody Owens is raised by a cemetery of ghosts when his real family is murdered one night. He is given the nickname Bod along with the Freedom of the Graveyard, which enables him to pass through solid things, see the ghosts in the cemetery, and see in the dark. He is tutored by Silas, who although it is never explicitly stated, seems to be a vampire, and Miss Lupescu who turns out to be a werewolf. His ghostly mother and father love him, and he has the normal adventures any boy growing up in a cemetery would have. Despite his happy life, Bod still can't stop wondering what's outside the cemetery fence. Bod comes to realize that since he's still alive, he won't be able to stay in the graveyard forever. One day, he learns about the man who killed his family and is still looking for Bod. Unfortunately, venturing outside the fence brings Bod face to face with Jack Frost, the killer. He manages to use the Freedom of the Graveyard to escape Jack and his cohorts safely, but over the next few months, Bod comes to realize it's time for him to venture out into the world. The confrontation with Jack Frost gave him the confidence he needs to succeed in the outside world. Not only have his ghostly parents learned to let him go, but Bod has learned how to let go of them as well and venture out on his own.

One style technique of Gaiman's I especially enjoyed was how the ghosts have lived their mortal lives from ancient unknown times to about 80 years before the story takes place. They all use different colloquialisms and grammar appropriate to their lifetimes, and it's funny to read how Bod switches back and forth to address each ghost respectfully using his or her own criteria of what respect consisted of when he or she was still alive.

Awards and Honors:
• Battle of the (Kids') Books, 2009 Nominee United States
• Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Excellence in Children's Literature, 2009 Honor   Book Fiction and Poetry United States
• Cuffies: Children's Booksellers Choose Their Favorite (and not-so-favorite) Books of
  the Year, 2008 Honorable Mention Best Novel for Young Readers That Adults
  Would Love If They Knew About It United States
• Cybils, 2008 Winner Fantasy and Science Fiction (Middle Grade) United States
• Elizabeth Burr/Worzalla Award, 2009 Winner United States
• Indies Choice Book Award, 2009 Winner Best Indie Young Adult Buzz Book United
  States
• John Newbery Medal, 2009 Winner United States
• Los Angeles Times Book Prize, 2008 Runner Up Young Adult Literature United
  States

Reviews:
Holly Koelling (Booklist, Sep. 15, 2008 (Vol. 105, No. 2))
Starred Review* While a highly motivated killer murders his family, a baby, ignorant of the horrific goings-on but bent on independence, pulls himself out of his crib and toddles out of the house and into the night. This is most unfortunate for the killer, since the baby was his prime target. Finding his way through the barred fence of an ancient graveyard, the baby is discovered by Mr. and Mrs. Owens, a stable and caring couple with no children of their own—and who just happen to be dead. After much debate with the graveyard’s rather opinionated denizens, it is decided that the Owenses will take in the child. Under their care and the sponsorship of the mysterious Silas, the baby is named “Nobody” and raised among the dead to protect him from the killer, who relentlessly pursues him. This is an utterly captivating tale that is cleverly told through an entertaining cast of ghostly characters. There is plenty of darkness, but the novel’s ultimate message is strong and life affirming. Although marketed to the younger YA set, this is a rich story with broad appeal and is highly recommended for teens of all ages.

Nicola Turner (Children's Literature)
Gaiman, famous for his creepy and often scary tales, Coraline and The Wolves in the Wall, has created in his new novel something that is neither creepy nor scary, despite its chilling first chapter and spectral cast of characters. This is a story about the power of family--whatever form it takes--and the potential of a child who is raised with love and a sense of duty. Nobody Owens (Bod) is adopted by a couple of ghosts after narrowly escaping death at the hands of the mysterious man who murdered the rest of his family. After much debate, he is granted the “Freedom of the Graveyard” by its long dead inhabitants. His guardian, Silas, who is neither dead nor alive, brings him food and ensures he is educated in the ways of the dead and the living. Of course, life for young Owens is not all smooth sailing. Bod must face the ghoul gate, the ancient force that waits in the oldest grave, and the mysterious man who still searches for the boy he failed to kill. The story of an orphaned boy being hunted down by a secret society and protected by magic sounds familiar, but while the story of Harry Potter resonates here, the sympathetic, flawed, and ultimately very human character of Bod saves this from being merely a reshaping of Rowling’s epic tale. In fact, Gaiman’s title is an homage to Kipling’s The Jungle Book. I cannot help thinking, however, that this novel should be the first in a series. There are too many questions unanswered. While I never really believed that Bod was ever in any real danger in the graveyard, a boy who sets off in to the world of the living with his “eyes and heart wide open” can only be headed for uncertainty.

Connections:
1. This novel lends itself well to Readers' Theatre.
2. If possible, visit a nearby cemetery to make gravestone rubbings like Mr. Frost
    was doing when Scarlett first met him in Chapter 7.
3. How many diffferent Jacks in the story can the students identify? For example,
   Jack Frost, Jack of all trades, Jack Dandy. Can the students come up with any
   more Jack names that would work in this story, such as Jack Sprat?

Graphic novels - Rapunzel's Revenge by Shannon Hale

RAPUNZEL'S REVENGE. Written by Shannon and Dean Hale. Ill. by Nathan Hale. New York: Bloomsbury, 2008. ISBN 9781599902883.







Fairytale heroine meets the Old West in this hilarious graphic novel version of Rapunzel. When Rapunzel escapes from her tower, she runs into Jack, a loner with ideas of his own, including how to get his goose to lay golden eggs. Rapunzel uses her hair as a lariat to get her and Jack out of frequent scrapes, and in the end, Jack turns out to be none other than the Jack of beanstalk fame. Jack subsequently grows a beanstalk to rescue our fair heroine. But Rapunzel has everything under control. Or does she? When Jack plants a kiss on her at the end of the story, will there be a hapy ever after for this adventurous duo, or will more fairy tale adventures await them? Although it seems funny to hear Rapunzel and Jack using Old West jargon, the dialogue is short and sweet and fits perfectly with the setting. The illustrations are bright and vibrant, and it's almost possible to believe Jack and Rapunzel could be real.

Awards & Honors:
Cybils, 2008 Winner Graphic Novels (Elementary/Middle Grade) United States

Reviews:
Tina Coleman (Booklist, Sep. 1, 2008 (Vol. 105, No. 1))
This graphic novel retelling of the fairy-tale classic, set in a swashbuckling Wild West, puts action first and features some serious girl power in its spunky and strong heroine. Young Rapunzel lives a lonely life, never knowing what lies beyond the high garden walls of her mother’s royal villa until one day she climbs the wall to see what’s on the other side. When she finds that the world outside is a dark place oppressed by her mother’s greed for power and uncovers the real secret of her own birth, she is imprisoned in a magic tree tower. In her years of captivity, she learns a lot about self-reliance and care for her exceptionally long hair, and eventually she is able to escape, vowing to bring down her mother’s cruel empire. Hale’s art matches the story well, yielding expressive characters and lending a wonderful sense of place to the fantasy landscape. Rich with humor and excitement, this is an alternate version of a classic that will become a fast favorite of young readers.

Laura Lehner (VOYA, October 2008 (Vol. 31, No. 4))
This version of the classic fairy tale Rapunzel is set in the old Southwest, complete with cowboys, coal mines, and coyotes. Rapunzel is a young girl living in a fortress with Mother Gothel, an enchantress who can make plants grow at her whim. Although their home is overflowing with fruits and flowers, it is surrounded by a wall that masks the desert and coal mines outside-Gothel owns everything, and the native people depend on her good will to keep their crops growing. When Rapunzel sneaks over the wall on her twelfth birthday, she sees the desolate world over which Mother Gothel rules, and she meets her real mother who was forced to give Rapunzel to Gothel at birth. To punish her curiosity, Gothel imprisons Rapunzel inside an enchanted tree that has only one window, far above the ground. Just as in the original version, Rapunzel's hair grows prodigiously. But this girl does not need a prince to climb up and rescue her. She uses her braid as a lasso to escape the tree and goes on many adventures that lead her ultimately to reunite with her mother and find true love in a boy named Jack, whose companion is an uncooperative goose. The Hale team creates an engaging heroine. Rapunzel gallivants across the unexpected setting, meets a cast of characters both humorous and threatening, and in the end comes to inherit the land that Gothel had stripped of life and returns it to the native people. This novel presents entertaining girl power at its quirkiest.

Connections:
Have your students write their own graphic novel representations of a fairy tale of their own choosing.

Contemporary Realistic Fiction: Jellicoe Road

Marchetta, Melina. JELLICOE ROAD. New York: HarperTeen, 2008. ISBN 9780061431845.








Meet Taylor Markham. When she was eleven, her mother dropped her off on Jellicoe Road and never came back. Now she’s 18, a tough survivor, and trying to figure out the puzzling pieces of her life. Why did Hannah disappear and is the manuscript she left behind fact or fiction? Who is the mysterious Brigadier who seems to show up at the exact times when the last thing Taylor wants is adult interference? Is Jonah Griggs her future or her enemy? What secrets do Sergeant Santangelo and his son know about Taylor’s past? And who is the mysterious boy in the tree who persists in appearing in Taylor’s dreams? Told by Taylor in first person alternating with excerpts from Hannah’s manuscript, we follow Taylor on her journey of discovery as she and Jonah travel to Sidney to look for her mother and the answers to Taylor’s questions. Along the way, Taylor learns the joys and fears of loving somebody else and what it means to become a responsible, caring adult. The story is set in Australia sometime between the year 2000 and the present, and one of the recurring themes is how Taylor connects a song from the 80’s with the father she never knew. Some of the colloquialisms and slang are Australian, but understandable in context to American readers. The storyline is confusing at first for two reasons: First is this story realistic fiction or fantasy because of the boy in Taylor’s dreams? Second, the frequent switches back and forth between Hannah’s story and Taylor’s story are confusing at first, but once the reader understands what’s happening, this problem disappears. At that point, we find ourselves really caring about what will happen to Taylor when she finds her answers. What Taylor ultimately discovers about her past is totally unexpected, but it will help both Taylor and Hannah ultimately resolve the past.

Awards and Honors:
• Best Books for Young Adults, 2009; YALSA American Library Association; United
  States
• Best Young Adult Books, 2008; Kirkus; United States
• Kirkus Book Review Stars, August 1, 2008 ; United States
• Cybils, 2008 Finalist Young Adult Novels United States
• Michael L. Printz Award, 2009 Winner United States

Reviews:
Daniel Kraus (Booklist, Nov. 1, 2008 (Vol. 105, No. 5))
Taylor Markham isn’t just one of the new student leaders of her boarding school, she’s also the heir to the Underground Community, one of three battling school factions in her small Australian community (the others being the Cadets and the Townies). For a generation, these three camps have fought “the territory wars,” a deadly serious negotiation of land and property rife with surprise attacks, diplomatic immunities, and physical violence. Only this year, it’s complicated: Taylor might just have a thing for Cadet leader Jonah, and Jonah might just be the key to unlocking the secret identity of Taylor’s mother, who abandoned her when she was 11. In fact, nearly every relationship in Taylor’s life has unexpected ties to her past, and the continual series of revelations is both the book’s strength and weakness; the melodrama can be trying, but when Marchetta isn’t forcing epiphanies, she has a knack for nuanced characterizations and punchy dialogue. The complexity of the backstory will be offputting to younger readers, but those who stick it out will find rewards in the heartbreaking twists of Marchetta’s saga.

Stephanie Petruso (VOYA, December 2008 (Vol. 31, No. 5))
Taylor Markham has been living at the Jellicoe School since her mother abandoned her at a gas station when she was eleven. Taylor's whole life is a mystery to her-from what happened to her mother and who her father was to why certain people in town are so interested in her well-being. As the Jellicoe School students begin their annual territory wars with the Townies and military school cadets, Taylor is thrown together with Jonah Griggs, the leader of the Cadets. Although they are sworn enemies, Taylor and Jonah have a history and find themselves drawn to one another. Together they begin to unravel the tragic story of the five teenagers who started the territory wars a generation before and how their lives are tightly linked with Taylor's own…. The interwoven lives of Taylor and the doomed teenagers from the past create a complex tale with some great twists that readers will not see coming. It is a great choice for more sophisticated readers and those teens who like multifaceted stories and characters.

Connections:
Since this book is recommended for high school level or above because of the intense themes, this would be an excellent choice to read in a high school health class to discuss the negative aspects of drug abuse and/or teen pregnancy.