end of summer semester...

In the past couple of weeks I have completed the summer semester and moved. I have not been able to get as much reading done as I would like but I have read a couple of books. Below I give some brief intros to two young adult books.

Destroy All Cars by Blake Nelson (2009, 224 pages, hardcover)

Diatribe by a teen boy on the wastefulness of American consumer culture mixed with the angst of first love and its loss. This book is a fun and quick read for male readers especially reluctant readers and any teens into environmentalism or with leanings to activism. It is in diary/manifesto-style and interspersed with the protagonist’s AP English essays.

Tags: environmentalism, Pacific Northwest, Portland, Oregon, books for boys, consumerism, suburbia, first love, first person.

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson (2006, 368 pages, hardcover)

Historical fiction of Revolutionary America mainly told from the diary of Octavian, a black youth raised in Boston and given a classical education. Octavian is a research subject studied by the radical philosophers of the The Novanglian College of Lucidity. As he matures and uses the observational skills he has been taught, he begins to decipher his purpose within the College and in America as a man’s property. This book is not for the causal teen reader. The historical nature of the language may take some readers more than a few chapters to acclimate to however, the reader is greatly rewarded with a moving and exciting tale. Winner of the National Book Award and Michael L. Printz Honor Book.

Tags: historical fiction, slavery, American Revolution, diary, African American, survival

Copper Sun

Title: Copper Sun

Author: Sharon Draper
Publication date: 2006
Number of pages: 302
Genre: Young Adult Historical Fiction
Geographical Setting: Ashanti village in Africa, Cape Coast, Carolinas (America)
Time Period: 1738 (Colonial America)
Series: N/A

Plot Summary: Fifteen year old Amari watches as her parents and younger brother are murdered by the men who take her away to her fate to travel the Middle Passage to be auctioned on the American shores. Amari is purchased as a gift for a rice plantation owner’s son on his 16^th birthday. Newly-purchased indentured servant, Polly, becomes an unlikely friend as they both learn to survive their new fates.

Subject Headings: slavery, rape, racism, African American, historical fiction, Middle Passage, murder, Colonial America, plantations

Appeal: narrative switches focus back and forth from Amari to Polly, author did extensive research for this book, Little-known Florida’s Fort Mose sanctuary for runaway slaves is introduced, the incidents of rape, violence and murder may be too graphic and emotional for readers under 12.

If you like Copper Sun, you might enjoy: Octavia Butler's Kindred, Yuval Taylor's Growing Up in Slavery: Stories of Young Slaves Told By Themselves, Don Jordan and Michael Walsh's White Cargo: The Forgotten History of Britain's White Slaves in America

The Secret Life of Bees

Title: The Secret Life of Bees

Author: Sue Monk Kidd

Publication Date: 2002

Number of Pages: 302

Genre: Fiction with Young Adult appeal

Geographical Setting: South Carolina

Time Period: 1964

Series: N/A

Plot: Fourteen year old Lily flees her isolated home on a peach farm with her nanny Rosaleen. They are fleeing the police because Rosaleen defended her right to register to vote. But Lily is also fleeing from her abusive father and trying to escape the memory of the accidental shooting of her mother by her hands. Amongst her mother’s few remaining possessions is a picture of a Black Madonna with “Tiburon, SC” written on it. Lily follows her hope that she will find out more about her mother in this town. There Lily and Rosaleen find the Black Madonna—a honey farm run by three middle-aged black sisters and they stay to help harvest the honey crop.

Subject Headings: African American, Civil Rights, racism, abuse, 1960s South, beekeeping, depression

Appeal: in the tradition of Southern Gothic, strong African American female characters, glimpses in to the era of Civil Rights in the South, successful film adaptation in 2008, female friendship, escape from abusive parent, an era that did not recognize depression as a treatable illness

If you liked The Secret Life of Bees, you might enjoy: Nancy Kincaid’s As Hot as It Was You Ought to Thank Me, Monica Wood’s Any Bitter Thing, Dori Sander’s Clover, Jennifer Chiaverini’s Quilter’s Apprentice

the first part last

Title: the first part last
Author: Angela Johnson
Publication Date: 2003
Number of Pages: 131
Genre: Young Adult fiction
Geographical Setting: New York City, Brooklyn
Time Period: early 2000s
Series: N/A

Plot: Bobby is enjoying his teenage life of friends, parties and his girlfriend, Nia. On his sixteenth birthday, Nia tells him that she is pregnant. Now everything is changing and Bobby has to grow up fast. Both their parents and the social worker try to convince the two teens that the only way they will have a normal life again is to give the baby up for adoption.

Subject Headings: teen parents, teen father, teen pregnancy, African-American

Appeal: ALA Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature, Coretta Scott King Award Winner, the story unfolds by going back and forth between “then” and “now,” empowering story of young African-American male taking responsibility for his baby daughter, grandparents experience of helping to raise grandchild, teens making decisions about their reproductive options including adoption

If you liked the first part last, you might enjoy: Sharon G. Flake’s Who Am I Without Him? Sharon M. Draper’s November Blues.

Monster

Title: Monster
Author: Walter Dean Myers
Publication date: 1999
Number of pages: 281
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
Geographical Setting: Harlem, Manhattan Detention Center
Time Period: late 1990s
Series: N/A

Plot Summary: Steve Harmon is an amateur filmmaker on trial for murder. He is accused of being a lookout for a drugstore robbery where the owner of the store was killed. Steve tells his story of his incarceration and trial and some of his life before being arrested through the medium of a screenplay he is writing. Was he the lookout or just in the wrong place at the wrong time? Throughout his screenplay and diary entries, Steve reveals the frightening conditions of a prison and the nightmare of spending most of his life behind bars.

Subject Headings: racism, prejudice, African American experience, jail, prison, violence, American legal system, teens in jail, screenplay

Appeal: use of illustrations, diary-like entries in handwriting typeface combined with protagonist’s screenplay, literature for young men, teens surviving in an adult world, challenging and thought-provoking subject and dilemmas to open up discussion and dialogue by readers, African American inner city lives and realities, Coretta Scott King Honor, ALA Best Book for Young Adults and Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers

If you liked Monster, you might enjoy: Walter Dean Myer’s Shooter. Virginia Walter's Making Up Megaboy.