WIll Grayson, Will Grayson

by John Green & David Levithan. New York: Dutton, c2010, 310 pages. ISBN 9780525421580


Two teens with the same name meet on a fateful night out in Chicago. One Will is straight and one Will is gay but both are major characters in the life and the autobiographical musical by (the quite large) Tiny Cooper.

The story is told by both Will Graysons in alternating chapters. This is a very touching and accurate portrait of the complexities and anxieties of being a teen. It is also a great, hilarious depiction of male teen friendships and falling in love.

tales of the MADMAN underground: an historical romance 1973

by John Barnes. New York: Viking. c. 2009. 532 pages.
ISBN 978-0-670-06081-8

Karl Shoemaker has decided to turn over a new leaf at the start of his senior year, 1973. He is going to be normal. The first step is to avoid therapy. Not so easy when your dad is dead, your mom is a drunk who steals your money (the money you make from working five jobs!), you're in AA and you and all of your friends are self-proclaimed "madmen."

Set in a small, depressed town in Ohio, Barnes' book spans six days in the life of Karl Shoemaker. Told in the first person, this book is so honest, sad and hilarious that teen readers will tear through these 500 plus pages.

2010 Printz Honor Book, 2010 YALSA Best Books for Young Adults

Liked it? Try Benjamin Alire Saenz's Last Night I Sang to the Monster: a novel, Julie Anne Peters' Between Mom and Jo, Jaye Murray's Bottled Up: a novel, Blake Nelson's Paranoid Park.

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

Whale Talk

Title: Whale Talk
Author: Chris Crutcher
Publication Date: 2001
Number of Pages: 220
Genre: Young Adult fiction
Geographical Setting: Pacific Northwest (small town outside of Spokane, Washington)
Time Period: early 2000s
Series: N/A

Plot: Multi-racial teen, T.J. Jones, has quite a bit of athletic ability but he chooses not to participate in high school team sports. You see, he has little problem with being told what to do and has had some problems since his biological mom had to give him up. He has two supportive parents now but the Cutter Athletic Department and the Wolverines Too (a booster club of high school grads who can’t let go of their glory days) don’t make life too easy for him or some of the other “misfits” of the school. So T.J. has a plan to take them all on and it starts with the assembling of the first Cutter swim team—the All-Night Mermen—and the goal of attaining the symbol of what is so screwed up with Cutter High—the varsity letterman’s jacket.

Subject Headings: high school, sports, bullying, abuse, swim team, adoption, multi-racial

Appeal: Protagonist is multi-racial: African American, Japanese and White. Protagonist sticks to his ideals and beliefs in the face of harassment and bullying and is even cocky. Incidents of bullying. Child of adoption, mother abused drugs. Protagonist participates in therapy and also helps with younger children who are in therapy. Literature for boys. Athleticism is important to many of the boys and the sense of being a part of a team is emphasized.

If you liked Whale Talk, you might enjoy: Chris Lynch’s Slot Machine. Rich Wallace’s Wrestling Sturbridge. Terry Davis’s Vision Quest