11/8 Best Books for Young Adults 2011 Discussion

[Pam Goble]

PART 3 - PARTICIPATION CRITERIA FOR THE NING.

1. Since all of you are reading different books, the idea is to share the many reads students can experience from reading YA literature. For each list you, will get
reviews on approximately 20 or more books.

2. What must be included in your posts are:

            a. A short summary

            b. A connection to YA Lit criteria

            c. A link to a resource for further information about the book/novel( these may include author information, reviews, insight or information about issues the text references.

            d. Your opinion/recommendations of the book/novel relating back to criteria. A key
question to consider is whether the book is
classroom appropriate, and, if so, what reading level/grade/studentswouldbenefit from reading the text. If it is not suited for the classroom, if students are reading the book, what is the appeal?           

3. Lastly, you must respond to at least 2 other posts in detail.

 Have fun this week; I did... reading your work.

 

Enjoy.
Pam

[Heather Olson]

What a great cross-curriculum book, from the sounds of it! I think there are definitely ways to make this subject seem intriguing to both male and female students, as well. It sounds interesting and was one of my choices if I didn't get my first pick. Thank you for this thorough and great review of it! I'm adding it to my to-read list right away! :)

[Heather Olson]

Also, when I was just adding it to my Goodreads.com to-read list, I saw this book by the same author: "Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath." As a future English teacher who loves poetry, I am looking forward to reading this, as well! Thanks again.

[Meghann Lothson]

It seems that the Salem Witch Trials are a great subject for girls to read about. Reading 'the Crucible' might seem a bit aged and unrelatable, but this looks like a great way to show them how close the story really is to high school today. This isn't an extreme connection, either. Teens have died because their peers build blame and fictitious stories until it's too much to bare. It's horrible, but it's real--and those of us who are going to be teachers will have to deal with it.

Girls have different motivations for doing the thing they do to one another, and guys too. Pressure is a far greater force than we usually imagine. It causes students to turn on one another out of fear, and in my opinion, it's far worse than the "getting beaten up in the schoolyard" type of bullying we've heard of. It has a psychological component that far surpasses physical violence. Getting inside each others' impressionable minds is something teens do very well. The dynamics in this book reflect the many ways teens fall into the trap of conformity and submission to one another. When I read "the Crucible," I found it hard to really blame any of the girls. A simple lie turned into something so big it was almost uncontrollable. What pressure does not do to persuade students, fear always will.

[Pam Goble]

This does sound very interesting historically

[Rebeka Mirza]

The book I read was The River by: Mary Jane Beaufrand. The main character, Ronnie (Veronica) is depicted as a young girl in high school around the age of seventeen who moves from the city to a rural town in Oregon. She is unhappy about this move, as her mother deemed it important because this is what her father wanted. Ronnie and her parents live and own an inn that many people stay at overnight and come eat at. Her current house is different from in the past because she now lives in the middle of nowhere, with the river in her backyard. Ronnie despises the sound of the river, and finds it torturing, so she personifies consistently it. A day after she baby-sits one of the neighbor’s kids, Karen and her siblings, she finds her body in the river behind her house. The police come and take care of Karen’s body, believing it to be an accident. Ronnie is deeply saddened by Karen’s death, because although she was ten years old, Ronnie had a close relationship with her. Since Ronnie was new to the area, Karen would show her around. Karen was also mature for her age, and knowledgeable about many things. One of the boys that Karen has a crush on, Keith, brings her purple flowers of the same kind that Karen had left on her doorstep as a thank you for baby-sitting the night before. While Ronnie thinks about it some more with one of the police officers, she realizes that it might not have been an accident. It could have been an animal or another person/people involved in Karen’s death. Ronnie is committed to finding out how Karen died, and continuously goes to the river in search for evidence. All she finds one day is a box of cigarettes of a boy in her class who she adores, Keith Spady. One day in class, Keith encourages her friend Gretchen to have a party at her house. Soon enough things go awry as Ronnie’s “brother” Tomas, pushes Keith away for trying to kiss and be aggressive with Ronnie. Furthermore, Gretchen is found in the bathroom passed out, with red arms, and drug residue left on a mirror placed on the sink. She lives, but is sent to the hospital. Gangrene is found in her arm, and it is not sure whether they will have to remove it. As the police come to investigate, connections between this and Karen’s death are made. Undercover agents that Ronnie’s father had hired have been trying to find the people who had a meth lab in the area. Ronnie finally realizes that Karen was killed by the person who was trying to protect the meth lab; Karen had unintentionally found it since she would pick up the purple flowers from their yard. Since Karen was a smart little girl, they killed her because they didn’t want anyone finding out about the meth lab. Ronnie is determined to find this meth lab, and so she does. She finds Keith sitting in front of the house, and he sees Ronnie and brings her inside the house. Keith’s father and a kid from school are also in the house and hope to kill Ronnie. She runs away, while Keith runs after her with a gun, shooting her leg. Soon after, Ronnie drowns Keith. Fortunately enough, Tomas saves Ronnie and all is well. In the end, Ronnie and her family move back to the city where they lived previously. Karen’s father and Ronnie’s family are currently at trial with Keith’s father. Although the results are not given about what happens, readers can only hope that Keith’s father gets the punishment he deserves.

The book is written in Ronnie’s viewpoint. All that happens is the voice and experiences of this seventeen-eighteen year old girl. In this book, the parents are not removed from the story. They are always concerned about Ronnie’s safety and looking after her. Ronnie’s father tells her to carry her cell phone and mace with her. He also drops her and her brother off at Gretchen’s party. Because of her dad’s protectiveness, Ronnie finds ways to sneak out and go to the river to investigate on her own. This book was over 200 pages, more than the other YA books we have read. It was a good read, but was not as fast as many of them. It definitely created suspense, and I wanted to continue reading to find out what really happened with Karen’s murder. This book contained a variety of subjects within the book, since two different plots connected. The book dealt with murder, drugs, and teenage lust, and loneliness. The book also dealt with emotions important to young adults such as revenge, sadness, lust, and hope. The book also contained a cultural group that was different from many of the characters’ in the story. The family that Ronnie’s father had taken in (a mother and her son and daughter because they had an abusive father) was Hispanic. They lived together and also used Spanish words with one another. This book was not very optimistic because of all the negative things that happened. The only optimistic thing about this story is Ronnie’s hope, and that she discovered the meth lab and those who were in charge of Karen’s death.

Here is a link where people wrote reviews about The River: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6411401-the-river

I would definitely utilize this book in the classroom, most likely for 10th or 11th graders. This book reminded me a little of Looking for Alaska, since it dealt with most of the same themes such as drugs and death. This book depicts how drugs are a big deal, and do not affect just the person taking them. It can affect a whole community, like the one in this book. It brings up the issue of meth and what it can do to a person, as shown in Gretchen’s case. High school students need to understand that it is important not to get involved in drugs, and opening their eyes to media such as literature can help them out. Furthermore, it will allow them to see the crazy things that people do when they are dealing drugs, as well as, on them.

[Heather Olson]

Wow...that sounds like a roller-coaster of emotions all wrapped into one book. I can see how this could be amazingly beneficial to young adults to read in dealing with death of those you're close to, drugs/drug addiction & abuse, murder, and even general adolescent feelings of hating moves, being the new kid, etc. Wow! Do you think the drug aspect of the book is presented in any way that would be negative for students to be reading? As in, it is glorified in any way? Thank you for this review! it sounds amazing and like quite a read.

[Samantha Carter]

Riding Invisible
Riding Invisible was a about a boy by the age of 14 who had enough of his older brother. Yancy is the main character in this book and his brother Will is why he had enough. Will has been diagnosed with conduct disorder and he is out of control. Yancy had the last straw when Will cut f his horse’s tail and cut its side. Yancy ran away for a total of 18 days because he refused to go home to his brother who had threatened the life of his horse Shy. On Yancy’s journey he finds work with a man named Tavo and they had developed a good relationship. Tavo had become a mentor to Yancy and even though it was a short time that he was with Tavo, Yancy felt that he had learned a lot from him. Yancy had met two girls on his journey as well. The first girl he met was Christi and she went to the same school as him but they did not talk; the second girl was Grass (name came from smoking a lot) whose father had found that Yancy was a runaway and called his parents. After Yancy had returned home he was promised safety for both him and Shy from Will. Will had again tried to kill Shy and he was sent to have inpatient care. Yancy started a relationship with Christi when he got back to home and by the end of the book they seemed to be headed in a good direction.
This connects to YAL in a. uncommon way. YAL focuses on feelings that YA go through. Yancy had a brother that had conduct disorder this book showed how bad it was. I could see this being a normal part of life for a YA. In this book Yancy experiences his first kiss with Grass and the book goes through some of his hormonal issues as a YA. Christi was the girl that Yancy wanted and got. This book shows how young romance/love started.
http://www.readingrants.org/2010/04/10/riding-invisible-by-sandra-a...
I would definitely recommend this book to others. This book is appropriate to be YAL. There would have to be an age limit on this book but I think that junior high should be a good age group. The book was written like a journal and it had some pictures of characters that Yancy had drawn. I think that junior high students would find this book very interesting and it is an easy read.

[Laura Bychowski]

The Maze Runner by James Dashner is a dystopian thriller about a group of adolescent boys trapped in an experiment by unknown “creators”. The boys have arrived, one a month, for two years by a mysterious elevator, with no memories of their past lives except for their first names. Their home, the Glade, is a plot of land surrounded by four massive stone walls with openings leading out to a maze of equally insurmountable walls. Each night the openings to the maze close, the maze walls shift, and terrifying mechanical monsters search and kill anyone remaining in the maze. The arrival of the lead character, Thomas, begins a chain of events signaling the end of the experiment which will push the boys to their limits of survival as it becomes clear that they must either solve the maze or die within it.

The novel is told from the perspective of Thomas, the newest addition to the collection of boys inside the Glade. A young person can instantly relate to the character who desires both a return to normalcy and a chance at excitement and responsibility. The lack of adults in the Glade forces all of the boys to create their own social order and take on different levels of responsibility. All of the boys have important roles in the community they build for themselves. Their efforts keep them alive and the order keeps them happy enough to go on. In this way the teenage characters are directly given credit for their efforts. The story is close to 400 pages long, but there is action and suspense in every chapter. The absence of a break or lull in the story adds to sense of urgency in the plot. The characters are usually split into optimists and pessimists, but the story reveals that only those with a sense of hope would survive or be useful to the group. The story is focused on emotions ranging between fear and depression to rage and lust. The emotion most relatable to teens would be the sense to belong which Thomas struggles with throughout the book.

Here is a link to a review about the book:
http://www.devourerofbooks.com/2009/10/the-maze-runner-book-review/

This book is a thrilling novel for young adults. The invented language used by the characters masks all the curses in different, yet recognizable, substitutes. The censorship works at a surface level to quiet the fears of parents while still getting the ideas across. The book brings up philosophical questions about mortality, the price of human existence, and the structure of societies. It also questions the ethics of scientific experimentation. The point of view of involuntary test-subjects invokes sympathy for lab rats, pigs, rabbits, etc. It succeeds at capturing the reader’s interest and I would recommend it for leisure reading as well as an example in classrooms for the debates of scientific experimentation. I would recommend it for ages 12-16 and adults looking for a fun, fast read.

[Heather Olson]

I am excited to read this! Now that you have read it, do you plan on reading the 2nd & 3rd books in the series? It sounds like it could have some parallels to the books I'm covering for the next two discussions and I really loved those books so I think this sounds like an interesting trilogy/series, as well.

[Laura Bychowski]

I would really like to read the next ones but don't at the moment plan on it (more of an issue of time than interest). What novels are you covering next?

[Laura Bychowski]

It was a lot like Lord of the Flies! Maze Runner is more sci-fi though and because the teens are there as an experiment the book invokes more of a sense of cynicism and intrigue than pity. The slang reminded me more of A Clockwork Orange because after a while you become immersed in the language and start thinking of the censored, replacement swears as actual swears.

It would be a fair substitute for Lord of the Flies, many of the same concepts are covered, but given that LOTF is a classic I wouldn't want students to miss out on an opportunity to become familiar with it. It's a close call.

[Laura Bychowski]

Also, have you read the Shadow Children Series? Probably the best young adult dystopian series I've read.