05. Multicultural Work

Sons By  Alphonso Morgan

Annotation:

Aaron is an African American teenager living in Brooklyn NY. While attempting to come to terms with his secret homosexuality, he must come to terms with survival in a world where people routinely disappear, or go to prison, or turn up dead.

Recommendation:

As is the case with every fine work of young adult literature, Sons by Alphonso Morgan, captures the intensity of adolescence -- but his novel is unique in many ways. Minnesota-born Morgan uses unique plot, language, structure and character development to evoke a seldom examined type of coming of age intensity: urban, Black and gay.

Sons introduces us to the hidden humanity of the bold, Black and gold, larger-than-life thugs that run the streets of New York. Running among them is Aaron, the sensible, secretive 16-year-old at the heart of this story.

Aaron's tightly-held policy of ignoring his emotions has successfully concealed his homosexuality, from  himself and everybody else. However, it has left him unprepared to handle a confrontation with the toughest brother on the block -- Sha -- and the exquisite mix of emotions in the romantic relationship that develops.

Rarely explored, the language of urban gay-only-for-pay hustlers, Black drag queens and boys "on the down low" is raw and cryptic, electric and dazzling. Morgan's manipulation of the obscure street code to reveal emotion is astonishing. Even more amazing is the supremely complex, spoken-wordiness of the book. Although the hyper-hetero Brooklyn badboys rarely and reluctantly articulate their feelings, words fight for a space in their lives, and in Morgan's novel.

There are times when the landscape of language in Sons places you at a decided distance. Particular plot developments, poetic motifs and points of social commentary rise up to dominate the story’s skyline, providing definition and dimension. But there are moments in Morgan’s novel when the language becomes so thick and dense, it closes in like a bank of behemoth buildings encircling you in mid-town. Images appear and disappear, and come back to vie for your attention, echoing the effect of graffiti, billboards and store-front ads on a city block, each determined to assert its own message and meaning.

Structurally, the narrative feels like an impulsive improvisation. Without warning, the setting changes, or the perspective shifts. To turn a page of Morgan’s book is to blindly turn the corner in a big city. You never know what funny, or pitiful, or lucky thing you'll encounter.

While reading the book, you realize you’re in a motel, or a drug store, or a stairwell, but don’t remember how you got there. This sort of disorientation would be easy to accomplish with murky shadows and moonlight, but Morgan’s mystery takes place in the sun. Aaron's vulnerability, youth and energy control the overall tone of the piece.  Whatever slick transitions or structural foreshadowing there is to be done -- by Morgan or his characters -- will have to be done in the bright, dawning light of day.

Characterizing and contextualizing the complexity, in what initially seems to be a completely different book, is Aaron’s little sister, Anise. Smart, funny, impetuous, resentful and capable, Anise is so well dramatized, and so delightful, she nearly overtakes the novel. Anise contends with her own secret joys and horrors, quite separate and apart from Aaron’s journey. The parallel plots eventually merge -- but only through theme and feeling. The developing emotional inner-life of the people in Morgan's novel is beautifully crafted and strikingly original. I know of no sub-plot that works so well to highlight emotion and extend meaning in the main storyline without direct involvement in it.

The mystery and misery of the metropolis make the City, not just a setting, but another central player. The City empowers and protects its children -- hugging them, hiding them, guiding them, shining on them "the glitter of history, the certain gleam of a future."

In the end, this is Aaron’s story. It is not a story so young and vulnerable a boy should have to negotiate. And it is not a story just anyone can read. There is strong language. There are sexual episodes. There is sudden violence. How could there not be in a coming of age saga set in the streets of Brooklyn? At no point is the book salacious or sinister. It is, in fact, lyrical -- not sweet -- but literate and gracious.

The adolescent sons and daughters in Morgan’s manifesto grow up too fast and die too soon. It isn’t light, but it is enlightening. The author accurately renders the real world and real lives of millions of urban young adults. Their complex stories do not make for easy reading.  After I finished this book, however, I knew I would read it again and again.

I have never encountered a book quite like Sons. Alphonso Morgan’s work is electrifying from start to finish. The rhythm, the poetry, the ideas, the pacing – all of it working together in a way that brilliantly brings the action to life.

Morgan’s book feels more like a movie – a movie of words, starring teenagers that most of America does not know. They are the big city's fast, explosive, fatherless Black sons. They shine so brightly, these Brooklyn sons – that we cannot see them for the glare. In this rare opportunity, when we can finally get a good look, we see that they are just children. Just young boys. Nervous. Goofy. Rough. Optimistic. Normal. Morgan has allowed us to recognize that these are our brothers. These are our sons.

---

Nomination: Yes!

Genre Classification: Multicultural Work, Coming of Age, Realistic / Edgy

Citation: Morgan, Alphonso. Sons. New York: Lane Street Press, 2005. Print.

Alphonso Morgan website:
http://www.alphonsomorgan.com/

Words of a Feather

	Will Grayson, Will Grayson  John Green & David Levithan

Babylon Boyz
Jess Mowry


Annie on My Mind
Nancy Garden

Read more »

06. Supernatural · Horror Title

Queen of the Cold-Blooded Tales
Stories by Roberta Simpson Brown

Annotation:

A collection of stories about scary people, haunted places and creepy things.

Recommendation:

Roberta Simpson Brown has every right to call herself Queen of the Cold-Blooded Tales. The twenty-three chilling stories in her collection are macabre and marvelous. Well-written and well-paced, each yarn is a quick, five to ten pages in length. Though original, they are patterned in a well-known oral literary tradition.

Roberta Simpson Brown's tales are set in familiar, normal places: living rooms, schoolyards, campgrounds, shops, farm houses. The students, housewives, hotel clerks and other characters in Brown’s stories are all familiar people – but that’s where "normal" ends. Brown's plot-lines each have a bizarre, scary twist or unexpected turn toward horror.

Beware! These cold-blooded tales are not like the slinky vampire romances that currently have so many publishers under a spell. Nor are they the dark, ugly, Stephen King-style stories of rabid dogs and killer clowns. The wonderfully warped stories of Roberta Simpson Brown are thoughtfully constructed in classic formats.

These are good, old-fashioned, great American ghost stories!

Individual readers will no doubt like some selections better than others. My personal favorite is Whispers, the disturbing fable of a little girl who, despite her parents’ wishes, is determined to purchase a pair of evil-looking earrings. Stylistically, I found the subtle strangeness of Sleeping Bags to be particularly effective. The story, about a young woman on a camping trip, has a blend of simplicity and supernatural-ness that put me in the mind of Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology.

        "Be sure to bring your sleeping bag," she said.

        Susan looked at the flowers and left them on the seat. She

        took the bag and followed Angie up a path lined with stones.

        "Everyone is sleeping on the hill tonight," explained Angie. 

        "You'll see them later."

All of the horror chronicles included in Queen of the Cold-Blooded Tales have strong themes. What's more, the gore and ghastliness is never gratuitous. Running throughout Brown’s devilish collection is a solid moral sensibility. Fate delivers a fitting justice to gold-digging girlfriends, nosy neighbors and greedy little boys.

Roberta Simpson Brown has delivered a fine collection of spine-tingling fiction that would be wicked fun to tell around a campfire!

---

Nomination: Yes

Genre Classification: Supernatural / Horror Title

Citation: Brown, Roberta Simpson. Queen of the Cold-Blooded Tales. Little Rock, AR: August House, 1993. Print.

Roberta Simpson Brown home page
http://www.robertasimpsonbrown.com

Words of a Feather

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
by Ransom Riggs

Spoon River Anthology
Edgar Lee Masters

Website: How to Write Scary Stories

Website: How to Read a Scary Story Aloud

Read more »

07. Science Fiction · Fantasy Work

Black Juice by  Margo Lanagan

Annotation:

Ten glimpses into the darkness of the human condition.

Recommendation:

Black Juice, by Margo Lanagan, is a disturbing and disturbingly difficult read. I have repeatedly forced myself back through the slog and slap of the book’s ten (mercifully) short stories, and yet they still remain foreign to me. I cannot fully determine the meaning or the mission of this phantasmic fiction. That isn’t to say Ms. Lanagan's writing is of low quality – but rather, that I am unable to read it.

The inability to read a text is a stark and humbling kind of horror. Along with feelings of personal inadequacy and shame, there is a sense of futility, and a frustration that prompts anger -- or potentially, hopelessness. If the author intended to evoke these negative emotions in young adults, then the writing proves successful. But then, it would mostly succeed at undermining the teenage reader by aiming at the central vulnerabilities of adolescence.

Assuming Lanagan's Black Juice was not intentionally cooked up as some sort of literary poison -- and further assuming that this wonder-starved fantasy fiction has been crafted to confound -- I'm left to wonder what could account for my own bizarre, emotional, and disturbing reaction to this material.

Margo Lanagan is from Sydney, Australia; I'm from Pittsburgh. So perhaps the disconnect is cultural. The stories are filled with unusual phrases and word usages. Lanagan's language is possibly more familiar to Australian readers, but I have no way to map meanings or negotiate the logistics.

Not only is much of the lingo nearly incomprehensible to me, the general subject matter in Black Juice is sour and grim. The tone is never horrific or overly violent, but the atmosphere is consistently and thoroughly morose. Many of Lanagan's fantasy worlds project a harsh indifference. A number of the pieces have young protagonists, but beyond that, the arabesque opacity in Lanagan's narratives of damage, damnation and negligence simply do not belong to the culture of youth.

The experience of reading Black Juice is akin to walking into a very dark house and figuring out what’s there only when you trip or bump into something. The pleasure of recognition is undercut by the unpleasantness of the encounter. Ms. Lanagan's work frequently hints at an austere, brittle kind of beauty. Appreciating it however, demands an enormous amount of patience. The author is clearly a skilled language technician, so the requirement for patience is also likely a cultural matter.

Of the ten tales included in the book, three stand out: Singing My Sister Down, Red Nose Day and Sweet Pippit.

Singing My Sister Down, is the first story in the collection. It concerns a woman forced to sink into a tar pit and die, presumably as punishment by the people of her town for some crime or community transgression. That is apparently what this story is about, but few details are supplied. The image of the woman sinking lower and lower into the tar is a fitting metaphor – in that it describes the experience of sinking down into a text that is incomprehensibly thick and dense. The story seems to contain some sense of cultural significance, but I lack the necessary cultural literacy.

Red Nose Day is easier to get through, but no less frustrating than Lanagan’s first story. Shy on particulars, Red Nose Day involves two assassins who have set about to kill a cabal of clowns. Why they have become clown serial killers is not examined. Reading between the lines, one can imagine that perhaps the clowns are criminals, though no such statements are directly made. We are given little information about the snipers or the clowns. As a result, we cannot much care. Some fantasy fiction has a "Twilight Zone" - type inner-logic that one can grab onto through careful reflection and receptivity to its symbology, but considering the senseless killings involved, Red Nose Day is not attractive enough to invite that level of contemplation.

Arguably the simplest piece is Sweet Pippit. At some point we grasp that the characters are talking elephants on a mission to find Pippit -- the much loved trainer from their zoo (or maybe circus?). Pippit was removed from the elephants for reasons never fully explained – to them or us. Again, the metaphor of animals searching seems to mock the reader’s hunt for answers. Once rescued, Pippit and the pachyderms continue searching – maybe for a new zoo (circus?). The reader is left searching back through the story for clues as to what any of it might signify.

Based on what was found while stumbling about in the pitiless penumbra of this book, I plainly see only one thing: the humorless atmosphere, enigmatic prose, and harsh themes of the collection would not have wide adolescent appeal. It is not clear to me if Margo Lanagan has purposely used dense writing in order to make Black Juice difficult to comprehend, or if I am simply too dense to understand it. Either way, I found the book exhausting and unpleasant.

---

Nomination: No, as I am unable to read this book at the present time.

Genre Classification: Fantasy, Supernatural, Horror, Edgy, Printz Honor

Citation: Lanagan, Margo. Black Juice. New York: HarperCollins, 2004. Print.

Margo Lanagan interview
http://www.sfsite.com/09a/ml159.htm

Words of a Feather

House of Discarded Dreams
by Ekaterina Sedi

The Harlequin and the Train
by Paul G. Tremblay

Tender Morsels
by Margo Lanagan

White Time
by Margo Lanagan

Yellowcake
by Margo Lanagan

Read more »

08. Challenged · Censored Text

The Bluest Eye By Toni Morrison

Annotation:

Claudia MacTeer recalls Lorain, Ohio in the summer of 1941, and the psychological devastation of a young African American girl, Pecola Breedlove, who believed life would be better if she only had blue eyes.

Recommendation:

Toni Morrison is considered by many to be one of the preeminent novelists of our day. Morrison’s novel, The Bluest Eye, is not a book one is ever finished reading. Like all great works of art, the initial encounter with this text mainly conveys the sense that there is more on the page than meets the eye. Just as a great piece of sculpture cannot be absorbed in a single viewing, the first read of Morrison’s novel is only the beginning of a conversation.

The Bluest Eye is a complex work with multiple narratives and perspectives, including the childhood recollections of Claudia MacTeer. At the heart of the saga is the story of young Pecola Breedlove. Pecola nightly prays to have the blue eyes of America’s sweetheart, Shirley Temple -- convinced blue eyes would make her beautiful, and therefore, lovable. Through Claudia’s memories and other accounts of events in Loraine Ohio, circa 1941, we witness Pecola’s self-destruction in a quest for acceptance, self-worth and identity.

This is Morrison's most exciting novel in many respects and for many reasons -- not the least of which is that it is her first born. The author's sheer brilliance and bravery is evidenced on every page. The Bluest Eye is also special because, of all Toni Morrison's fiction works, it is the only one with structural elements, characters and themes that directly engage with the dynamics and developmental markers of adolescence.

 

"Long hours she sat looking in the mirror, trying to discover the secret of the ugliness, the ugliness that made her ignored or despised at school, by teachers and classmates alike."

Toni Morrison's text is received in the con-text of the purpose-driven pablum found throughout Fun with Dick and Jane and similar children’s primers. This utilitarian kiddie-lit came into prominence in the 1930s, pushed into popularity by publishers who claimed the primers were a pedagogical necessity. Having remained a staple in American schools and homes well beyond World War II, the repeat and reveal pattern (See Spot. See Spot run.) is so well known, the primer must be regarded as a unique literary genre.

The Bluest Eye is also, in a sense, a “primer” The novel’s fractured focus and multiple perspectives teach you how to read the story as you’re reading.

The Dick and Jane basal readers were authored by William S. Gray and Zerna Sharp, but were clearly patterned after other popular products. The idea behind these books was to combine learning to read with learning about other subjects -- family values, friendships, safety, health etc. -- thereby turning the traditional reading tool into what was essentially a cultural primer.

Toni Morrison was certainly not the first U.S. artist to explore the accidental Dada of the Dick and Jane-style novelino. Many writers noted the cultural homogeneity of these primers and the objectionable social and moral messages children were likely getting when reading between the insipid, repetitious lines. Morrison however, was the first to establish the extent of the psychological damage the Fun with Dick and Jane phenomena potentially provoked.

"It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes, those eyes that held the pictures, and knew the sights - if those eyes of hers were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different."

All of the characters in The Bluest Eye are influenced and, to some degree, victimized by the images and implied messages of America’s mass media. But beyond the social struggle of measuring up to idealized notions of family-life and relationships as prescribed by Madison Avenue and Hollywood, The Bluest Eye explores the deeper crisis of personal identity formation.


It’s fascinating to note that Pecola is not a Black child who hates her appearance and simply wishes for the lighter skin and hair that would allow her to pass as a White person. Along with praying to be seen by the world as beautiful and blue-eyed, Pecola desires to view the beautiful world she imagines those with blue eyes must see. She desires to share in the American vision – not just appear to be, but to fully be, an American.

Morrison's unique bildungsroman is experienced through Claudia's look back in time. Morrison's character development strategy prepares us for the devastating sexual violence suffered by Pecola at the hands of her father. What we are not prepared for -- and can never be -- is the shock of recognizing that despite such horror, no one seems to have paid much attention. Pecola drops out of school and out of sight. Seemingly without notice, she disappears into pure imagination. Other than in Claudia’s distant memory, the child, Pecola Breedlove, does not exist.

Morrison's final pages are devastating -- not because of the torment and anguish experienced in the aftermath of the tragedy, but by everyone’s complete and total disconnect with it, including Pecola herself. In our last glimpse of her, Pecola is every bit as chipper and cheerful as a Dick and Jane book. Not unlike the vacuous primers, Pecola’s descent into madness has reduced her to a meaningless, repetitive patter of desire: “Look. Look over there. At that girl. Look at her eyes. Are they bluer than mine? . . . Please. If there is somebody with bluer eyes than mine, then maybe there is somebody with the bluest eyes. The bluest eyes in the whole world.”


"Beauty was not simply something to behold, it was something one could do. The Bluest Eye was my effort to say something about that."

-- Morrison's Afterword, 1993

The Bluest Eye is a brutally honest confrontation with the raw realities of growing up poor and Black in wealthy, White America. Despite dealing with extremely difficult matters of race, gender, familial dysfunction and sociopathy, there is absolutely nothing in this shining work that could be considered harmful to young people or worthy of censorship. Yet, The Bluest Eye has suffered repeated attempts at suppression.

Morrison's novel is exciting precisely because she has found a way around the sensationalism and racialized societal tropes that have confounded America's conversation about race for centuries. Morrison's book was on the vanguard of radical changes in literature. She defied the censors and devised a way to reveal her African American story. It is a uniquely American story, yet it is the kind of story that traditionally, has been outside the scope of mainstream American literature.

While not every young person should or could read The Bluest Eye, one can't help but imagine how differently things would have turned out for 11-year-old Pecola Breedlove had she been given a copy of Toni Morrison's masterpiece.

---

Nomination: Yes

Genre Classification: Challenged/Censored, Multicultural, Realistic/Edgy, Historical Fiction

Citation: Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. New York: Plume, 1994. Print.

Toni Morrison biography

The Toni Morrison Society
http://www.tonimorrisonsociety.org/

Words of a Feather

The Woman Warrior
by Maxine Hong Kingston

The Color Purple
by Alice Walker

Read more »

09. ALEX Award · Adult Book for YA

Tunneling to the Center of the Earth

 By Kevin Wilson

Annotation:

A sorter at a Scrabble factory worries he will spontaneously combust; brothers come to blows over an origami contest; three bored college grads decide to dig a tunnel beneath their town . . .

Recommendation:

Kevin Wilson has created a work of the highest literary quality with his collection of short stories, Tunneling to the Center of the Earth. Mr. Wilson's razor sharp observations capture the broad bizarreness of the human experience. These are the universal and timeless works of a fantastically funny and imaginative literary genius!

Although not directly marketed to teenagers, the fast-paced, free-form fiction in this book will have wide adolescent appeal. All of the stories center on an unusual or unexpected juxtaposition of elements. For this reason, the book is a study in liminality – the bizarre, “between-ness” that is a hallmark of adolescence.

Along with being resonant and relevant, Kevin Wilson's work is wildly original.

Consider Go, Fight, Win! -- the saga of a cheerless high school cheerleader who prefers building model cars to boys. She muses: “sex seemed like chicken pox, inevitable and scarring.”  The coming of age story grows oddly touching when the teen decides to practice kissing with her neighbor – a geeky, 12-year-old pyromaniac.


Then there is, Mortal Kombat which presents a violent, Karate fighting video game and two lonely high school outcasts. The boys fall in love with the game, and though they fight mightily against it, they fall in love with each other.

Wilson’s extraordinary work resonates with the core developmental concerns of young people. Another case in point: The Dead Sister Handbook: A Guide For Sensitive Boys. Here, Wilson’s adolescent angst is delivered as crisp, catalog description:

"The sheaths that protect the upper end of the fingers of the dead sister contain small doses of tricyclic antidepressants (see also Attempts to Medicate). During stressful situations, the ingestion of the nails potentiates the action of catecholamines and creates a low-level sense of well-being and calm . . . In particularly bad moments, the dead sister will chew her nails down to the quick and into the flesh, leaving tiny crescents of blood on the papers of tests, the sleeves of her shirts, the skin of those she touches." 


All of the eleven stories in Tunneling to the Center of the Earth are wonderfully well written, and most are directly relevant to the emotional and social turmoil of the teen experience.
 

In Birds in the House, Wilson juxtaposes a Japanese war bride with her Tennessee farmer husband and three big, brawling boys. Per the instructions left in a will, the violent brothers must create a thousand tiny paper birds to determine who will inherit the ancestral mansion.

Wilson's dialogue is not what his characters say -- it's the conversation his clashing images have with each other. Birds in the House is the brutally honest delivery of delicate truths about culture.  


Surprisingly fresh and original, Tunneling to the Center of the Earth tests the boundaries and pushes the limits of the short story format.


The Baby's Teeth is a tale that desperately wants to be about many things: relationships, art, passion, dreams. Finally though, it's about a baby born with a full set of teeth. At a certain point in the plot -- the two, dueling narrators implicate us in the unfolding strangeness:

"In the coming months, there will be many things. Fights, accusations, declarations of love and hate. It is heartbreaking, but you only want to know of the baby, where it is, what it is doing, is it smiling. We have grown tired. The story is hard to tell. The evaporation of love makes us think of our own lives. We have tried to make you see this, but always the baby."



The tensions between unexpected elements make Wilson’s stories unique and bizarre, but his plots are credible and his characters carefully drawn. Included in the back of the book is an interview with the author. Wilson reveals that one of his greatest challenges in writing is: "Embracing the ridiculous nature of the story without making the concerns of the characters ridiculous." He has met the challenge with these compassionate portrayals.

Regardless of what publisher, Harper Collins designates, this is an outstanding publication for the young adult reader. Making a considerable contribution to literature that will stand the test of time, Kevin Wilson's Tunneling to the Center of the Earth breaks new ground!

---

Nomination: Yes

Genre Classification: ALEX Award winner, Humor

Citation: Wilson, Kevin. Tunneling to the Center of the Earth. New York: HarperCollins, 2009. Print.


Kevin Wilson home page
http://www.wilsonkevin.com/

Words of a Feather

The Family Fang
Kevin Wilson's new novel!

William Faulkner’s Short Stories

Read more »

10. Audio Book

The Absolutely True
Diary of a Part-Time Indian
By Sherman Alexie

Annotation:

Junior Spirit journeys “off the rez,” and going beyond the cycle of impoverished hope and desecrated dreams -- learns to navigate the river of the world.

Recommendation:

Sherman Alexie’s absolutely tremendous, absolutely transcendent, Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a triumph of vision and voice.

Determined to live out his dreams, protagonist, Arnold "Junior" Spirit, leaves his friends and his failed school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend all-white, Reardan High. Through words and drawings, Junior shares the ugly - beautiful lessons learned on his journey “off the rez,” out of the cultural comfort zone, and into manhood.

With Alexie’s audio-book narration, which manifests every moving moment of the mystical text, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian becomes poetry in motion. As Junior Spirit takes flight, the narrative soars.

A unique and absolutely amazing feat of literary magic, Sherman Alexie’s heart-wrenching, painfully funny masterpiece speaks for itself . . .

I think the world 
is a series of broken dams and floods,
and my cartoons are tiny little lifeboats.
 

I draw because words are too unpredictable.

I draw because words are too limited.

 

Poverty doesn’t give you strength 

or teach you lessons about perseverance. 

No, poverty only teaches you how to be poor.

I grabbed my book and opened it up. 

I wanted to smell it. Heck, I wanted to kiss it. 

Yes, kiss it. That's right, I am a book kisser. 

Maybe that's kind of perverted or maybe it's just romantic and highly intelligent. 

If you let people into your life a little bit, they can be pretty damn amazing.

 

 
Do you understand how amazing it is to hear that from an adult? Do you know how amazing it is to hear that from anybody? It's one of the simplest sentences in the world, just four words, but they're the four hugest words in the world when they're put together.

You can do it.
 

---

Nomination: Absolutely!

Genre Classification: [Audio-Book] Coming of Age, Realistic/Edgy, Multicultural

Citation: Alexie, Sherman. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. New York: Recorded Books, 2008. CD.

Alexie, Sherman. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2007. Print.

Sherman Alexi home page:
http://www.fallsapart.com/

Words of a Feather

War Dances
By Sherman Alexie


Ten Little Indians
By Sherman Alexie

Indian Killer
By Sherman Alexie

Read more »

11. Challenged · Censored Text

Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson

Annotation:

Melinda Sordino is outcast. Nobody in her high school has spoken to her since summer when she called police and broke up a neighborhood party. There's more to the story, but nobody will listen -- and Melinda refuses to speak.

Recommendation:

While not original or ground-breaking, Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak is a solid effort. What's lacking in character, pacing and tone is made up for in intention.

Melinda Sordino, the teenaged protagonist of Speak, is alienated from her family and socially isolated from friends. As a result, Melinda is the only flesh and blood character in the book. We only know the other characters through the caustic descriptions and sarcastic names she assigns them (Principal Principal, Hairywoman, IT etc.). Even Melinda's best friend, Heather, seems to be a one-dimensional device -- not a real person -- a foil, stood up to later be knocked down. The end of the story offers some explanation for this, but structurally, the piece is problematic.

In what is essentially the running monologue of one who cannot speak, potential friends and love interests are not given voice. With no one to add tension, Melinda becomes her own subplot. Periodically, the novel shifts to her struggles with a long-term, school art project.

The tone and pacing of Anderson's novel are uneven. There are several sections in the first half of the book that seem to have no other purpose than the setting up of jokes. While much of the writing is indeed funny, it may not properly prepare readers for the serious events in the second part of the story. Pacing in the last third of the novel is excellent. Anderson seems to take over for Melinda and the change in tempo and tone put us on sure footing in the final chapters.

Thematically, Speak has a great deal to offer young adult readers. Beyond a discussion of the value and healing power of art, it addresses difficult issues such as peer pressure, dating, bullying, self-esteem and self-advocacy.

Written in 1999, Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak is dated, and not particularly original, but the novel still has plenty to say.

---

Nomination: No

Genre Classification: Challenged / Censored Title, Realistic/Edgy

Citation: Anderson, Laurie Halse. Speak. New York: Penguin Group, 1999. Print.

Laurie Halse Anderson biography

Words of a Feather

Twisted
by Laurie Halse Anderson

The boyfriend List
by E. Lockhart

The Lovely Bones
by Alice Sebold

Read more »

12. Biography · Memoir · Autobiography

Chinese Cinderella:
The True Story of an Unwanted Daughter 
 By Adeline Yen Mah

Annotation:

Beginning with her tragic childhood identity as "'Wu Mei,' the Fifth Younger Sister and unwanted daughter who caused her mother's death," Adeline Yen Mah recalls coming of age in 1940s China -- detailing the life lessons and literature that have led to transformation and happiness ever after.

Recommendation:

Adeline Yen Mah delivers her emotionally difficult, culturally complex coming of age saga with the beguiling simplicity of a storybook. The title, Chinese Cinderella, carries great significance. The literary and cross-cultural implications make it the perfect name. Also appropriate -- Mah's subtitle: The True Story of an Unwanted Daughter. To be sure, the autobiographical account of isolation, abuse and abandonment is not the wistful stuff of kid's books. Still, the memoir's clarity of theme and intention give it a timeless, mythic quality.

Two weeks after Yen Jun-ling (Adeline) is born, her mother dies -- and the baby is immediately considered by her family to be bad luck. Resented and ridiculed by siblings, she is thereafter referred to as, "'Wu Mei,' the Fifth Younger Sister and unwanted daughter who caused her mother’s death." Her father quickly remarries, having met a haughty young "Eurasian" girl who is half French, half Chinese . . . and half his age. Though none of the family's five children are treated well by their new stepmother, "Wu Mei" is singled out for abuse.

"I couldn’t possibly tell anyone the truth,
how worthless and ugly stepmother
made me feel most of the time. How I was
held responsible for any misfortune, and
was resented for simply being around."

The legend of Cinderella is ancient and universal. There are likely thousands of versions of the tale. Plot particulars vary from story to story, but the themes are consistent and involve variants of these basic elements: humility, imagination, hard work, hope, and magic reversals of fortune. Chinese Cinderella is found to incorporate each of these ideas. Although Adeline Yen Mah's life story does not involve any dancing mice or magic slippers, there is a sense of fate and fortune running through her memoir -- a force which is finally identified in the book as "serendipity."

Set in the mid-1940s, Chinese Cinderella relates the excruciating truth of Jun-ling's experiences growing up in Tianjin and Shanghai. Mah's autobiographical work -- chronicling the emotionally and intellectually significant events of her youth, along with a host of historical details -- is a model of literary integrity and cultural competence.

"I read because I have to.
It drives everything else from my mind.
It lets me escape to find other worlds."

Adeline Yen Mah methodically recounts the emotional upheaval of her entire adolescent years, as she moves through several different cities, schools and living arrangements. She also records her increasingly impactful encounters with literature, most notably A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett, and Shakespeare's King Lear – both of which include the major elements of the Cinderella legend itself.

Eventually becoming popular under the name, A Little Princess, Burnett’s 1905 children's novella first appeared in 1888 as Sara Crewe: or, What happened at Miss Minchin's Boarding School. Whether this lengthy label informed the wordiness of Chinese Cinderella: The True Story of an Unwanted Daughter is anyone's guess. Burnett’s plot, however, has unquestionably influenced Mah's memoir.

Interesting side note: Burnett’s book was inspired by Charlotte Brontë's unfinished novel, Emma.

A Little Princess involves prim and proper protagonist, Sara. She is away from home at school when news arrives that her father has lost his fortune and died. Happy at the chance to put the “little princess” in her place, Headmistress Minchin removes Sara from school and works her as a servant. Despite the harsh conditions, Sara thrives by withdrawing into the imaginative worlds of books and stories. Through a final un-twist of fate, Sara’s fortune is recovered and Miss Minchin’s machinations are exposed.

“This fairy tale . . . gripped my imagination as no other book had ever done before. I read it again and again. Suffered Sara’s humiliation, cried over her despair, mourned the loss of her father, and savored her final triumph," Mah writes. "For the first time I realized that adults could be wrong in their judgment of a child. If I tried hard enough to become a princess inside, like Sara Crewe, perhaps I, too might one day reverse everyone’s poor opinion of me."

"Transcend your abuse
and transform it into a source of
courage, creativity and compassion."

Shakespeare’s young and true, Cordelia -- who was once "most rich" but is made "poor" -- is outcast from King Lear and her two ruthless sisters, Regan and Goneril. Shakespeare’s play provides Mah a platform for memorializing her dear grandfather and contextualizing her stepmother’s seemingly wicked delight at humiliating the helpless old man.

Jun-ling's growing awareness of great books and great truths -- and the gradual acceptance of her own ability to articulate experience through writing -- is reflected in the text’s shifting dimensions. The memoir becomes a chrono-kaleidoscope, recalling personal moments of growth, historical moments in the broad sweep of memory, and literary moments of dramatic action that travel through language across time.

"In August 1945, when I was almost 8 years old, America dropped the atom bomb on Japan. This ended the second World War. America was the new conqueror. At school we were given surplus C rations for our lunch left by China’s new heroes, the U.S. Marines."

 With its explicit connections to works by Wordsworth, Shakespeare, Burnett and others, plus subtle links to an array of world literatures, Chinese Cinderella embodies the very concept of cultural competence. Jun-ling's struggle for self-worth and personal identity, amidst the international collision of World War II, maneuvers the reader through multiple cultural perspectives.


It is from confidence gained through the wisdom of her Buddhist grandfather and the urging of Mother Louisa, a French nun at her Catholic high school, that Jun-ling finds the courage to enter an English playwriting competition. Winning this contest eventually leads to Jun-ling becoming the first female in her family to attend college. Though based on her own experiences, the protagonist of her winning play, she explains, is a young African girl. "Into her lips I injected my loneliness and feeling of being unwanted. To my heroine I gave everything of myself." In the end, she says her African heroine "triumphs over adversity through her own efforts."

"To me, writing was pure pleasure.
It thrilled me to be able to escape the horrors
of my daily life in such a simple way.
When I wrote I forgot that I was an unwanted
daughter who caused her mother’s death.
Instead, I could be anybody I wished to be."

The richness of Adeline Yen Mah’s slim, 240-page book -- achieved through a consistent clarity of language, style and purpose -- gives her story a great deal of weight. Her imaginative thematic structuring provides meaning through a weave of historical facts and personal findings. Deepening and expanding the expectations and possibilities of its genre, this memoir is found to be both metacognitive and metacultural -- that is, of the transcultural foundation that transcends culture.

Adeline Yen Mah has devised a unique, nonfiction fable for the multicultural young adult. Chinese Cinderella is a storybook for real teenagers -- about an adolescent with real problems -- who, through fortitude and faith, finds a way to make her dreams come true.

---

Nomination: Yes

Genre Classification: Autobiography/ Memoir, Coming of Age, Multicultural

Citation: Mah, Adeline Yen. Chinese Cinderella: The True Story of an Unwanted Daughter.  New York:  Delacorte Press, 1999.  Print

Adeline Yen Mah info:
http://adelineyenmah.com 

Words of a Feather

A Little Princess
Frances Hodgson Burnett

Adeline Yen Mah interview

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13. Mystery · Thriller

The Unidentified by Rae Mariz

Annotation:

When geeky Katey "Kid" Dade bucks the social networking trend and goes offline, she plugs into the shocking truth of her hi-tech, corporate sponsored high school.

Recommendation:

Despite its electrifying premise, The Unidentified finally reveals itself to be a thinly plotted, poorly edited turn off. Slow to power up, and plagued by technical glitches, this cyber thriller by Rae Mariz is of limited literary value, but demonstrates a relevance to the teen experience that may make it a worthwhile read for young people interested in speculative fiction.

Mariz's modernistic world of corporate sponsored high schools and target-marketed students is delivered through the first-person narration of Katey "Kid" Dade. Kid is framed as a very average, very ordinary 15-year-old who is not particularly popular at school -- or rather, the education shopping mall and arcade referred to as, "The Game." The novel takes an Orwellian turn when Kid and the misfits in her ragtag group of friends rebel against the consumer culture that consumes their lives.

The storyline, with its hint of a love triangle, is extremely weak. What little plot there is in this futuristic fiction is predictable and, ironically, quite old-fashioned. Pacing, though consistent, is painfully slow.

There are a few fun moments in Mariz's mystery, but they are buried in the book's tedious 300 pages. Clearly, a good editor would have helped. I would point out that the reference to "KidZero" appears out of sequence to the "ZeroNet" plotline. (But who's counting?) The writing is so clumsy in some sections of the novel, it feels like a rough draft. Fully half of the chapters needed to have been fixed or nixed altogether.

Rae Mariz is obviously attempting to use language creatively, but she's often too clever by half.

Mariz has given her characters designer names (Abercrombie, Elle, Ashleah) but failed to give them personalities. The students use clever phrases. "Oh my God" becomes "Oh my Google," and to be popular is to "get branded." Unfortunately, the quirky dialogue seems forced and unmotivated because the characters have very little to actually talk about.

The book raises important issues about personal privacy in a world taken over by technology and certainly has relevance to today's teen experience. The unique setting and ideas in this novel are worth exploring, but The Unidentified fails to do so. Rae Mariz has created the very type of product she sets out to criticize: all style, no substance.

---

Nomination: No

Genre Classification: Mystery / Thriller, Science Fiction

Citation: Mariz, Rae. The Unidentified. New York: Bazer and Bray, 2010. Print.

Rae Mariz home page
http://raemariz.com

Words of a Feather

Feed 
by MT Anderson

Never Let Me Go
by Kazuo Ishiguro

So Yesterday 
by Scott Westerfeld

Pattern Recognition 
by William Gibson

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14. Poetry · Verse Novel

 Street Love  by Walter Dean Myers 

Annotation:

An African American Romeo and Juliet find the courage to fight for love on the tough streets of New York City.

Recommendation:

Street Love is a dazzling jewel in the young adult literary canon. The creativity of Walter Dean Myers' structural craftsmanship, combined with the imaginative power of his poetry make this urban Romeo and Juliet a rare and memorable YA classic.

"In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,

From ancient grudge break to new mutiny"

-- Wm. Shakespeare

Harlem is not an easy place 

To grow old, and so the young 

Are everywhere, 

Pouring from the buses, city dancing 

To the rhythms of the street, 

City dancing to the frantic spin of life 

In the fast lane.

Both of Myers' protagonists live in Harlem, but straight-A, high school basketball hero, Damien Battle, and tough, streetwise, Junice Ambers belong to completely different worlds.

High achiever, Damien has been carefully groomed by his mother for a college career.  Junice’s mother has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for drug dealing. While used to fending for herself, Junice now struggles to protect her younger sister, Melissa, and the grandmother they call, Miss Ruby. When Damien and Junice meet and fall in love, they must reconcile the differences in their lives.

I had become a shining star, 

a burning nova
Exploded with love
Flying through an endlessly
Expanding universe
Away from the me that was
Toward a me that is beyond
Understanding.

The classic cautionary tale of warring families, forbidden love, and tragic misfortune stems from a tradition of love stories dating back -- well before Shakespeare's day -- to antiquity. Of particular note is Pyramus and Thisbe. The morbid plot describes the mishaps of two secret lovers who, in their confusion and passion, both mistakenly believe the other to be dead, and commit suicide. Pyramus and Thisbe is not a tragedy of thwarted love but rather, a pitiful comedy of errors. The innocent young protagonists lack the stature of truly tragic figures. The youths' only "tragic flaw," if you can call it that, is their youth. They act rashly, but their accidental deaths come at their own hand, having been blinded by the righteous light of their own passion.

Shakespeare's poetic version heightens and sublimates the self-destructive nature of the young lovers' relationship: "These violent delights have violent ends / And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, / Which as they kiss consume." Myers manages to re-frame this issue in the contemporary context of intra-cultural prejudice and discrimination. Both Damien and Junice are warned by family not  to "cross the tracks." They are told that committing to the relationship is suicidal. They each give up on their own future if they choose to hold on to each other.

It would be a terrible thing for you to

Surrender your life for some girl that I

Hate and I do hate her if she is going to

Ruin your life and after all you are my
Son and that has meaning. You have a life
And you just can't leave it.

Walter Dean Myers has refashioned this ancient drama into a verse novel that is extraordinary and unforgettable. Stylistically, Street Love is closer to the lyrical variety of A Midsummer Night's Dream than the sturdy, wordy, repetitive iambic pentameter in Romeo and Juliet.

Myers ingeniously manipulates storyline and character through structure and formatting. Each player takes a turn at center stage. Each with a distinct voice. Shifts in style inform shifts in the narrative's perspective. Myers seems to pull from whatever sources are appropriate to the dramatic moment -- hip hop, blues, rhyming slang, rap. As the cascading monologues of mothers, sisters, neighbors, classmates and caseworkers are presented, we are invited to inspect each point of view and construct our own understanding of the story. The book's multi-perspective, multi-dimensional, theatre-in-the-round quality is a unique achievement.

It is not character, plot or structure that link the 134-page novel, Street Love to the grandeur and emotional force of Romeo and Juliet.  It is the imaginative power of poetry that makes Myers’ work a sparkling reflection of Shakespeare’s shining, star-crossed original.

Street Love makes a significant contribution to YA literature. It fulfills the highest expectations of the verse novel genre in that the power of Myers’ poetry -- distilled emotion, pared down to its essence – captures the emotional intensity of adolescence. Myers' word images, associations and metaphors are at once remarkably strange and strangely familiar. The poetry is impeccable: accessible, authentic, evocative and expansive.

"Then I defy you, stars!"

-- Wm. Shakespeare

Can you become

The hope I need? Can you help me be

More than it is written in my future

Or past? Is there another me to find?

Myers' classical update is found to be extremely relevant to the teen experience. Street Love interacts with the following issues: peer pressure, testing boundaries, interest in the opposite sex, money, divorce, single parents, grandparents, younger siblings, race, social identity, neighborhood, and securing a future.

Avoiding the trap of the now outmoded, West Side Story, Myers’ spoken-wordsmithing gives his urban Romeo and Juliet an immediacy as well as a timeless originality.  Damien and Junice obviously start to sense the cosmic echo in their contemporary plight and they strive to express their recognition of the larger forces at work. The events of the story bring them to self-awareness -- both as people and as characters in an ancient, ongoing drama. Thus, they are able to draw on lessons learned from other Romeos and Juliets.

Unlike Pyramus and Thisbe of old, Myers' "young and proud and Black" protagonists possess the literary street smarts to know what it will take to survive. They do not leave the stage as iterations of the Bard's reckless and confused Romeo and Juliet, but as Damien and Junice -- two strong individuals coming into their own as young adults. They have survived the passion of their own play, and as a couple, they are poised to "leap into the darkness of whatever life will bring." The emotional cliff-hanger that concludes the novel, reasserts a critical dynamic in the archetypal tale of forbidden romance: love never dies.

It was the becoming that he loved
The becoming of him and her,
Of Junis and Damien, and what more they
Could be together than he had ever dreamed
Alone.

Creatively conceived, skillfully crafted and impeccably composed -- Street Love is a rare and remarkable young adult literary treasure.

---

Nomination: Yes!

Genre Classification: Poetry/ Verse, Multicultural, Romance

Citation: Myers, Walter Dean. Street Love. New York: Amistad, 2006. Print.

Walter Dean Myers biography
http://www.walterdeanmyers.net/bio.html

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by William Shakespeare

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