Short Story Collection

Voices in First Person: Reflections on Latino Identity

Lori Marie Carlson (editor)
New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers,
2008
84 pp.
$16.99
Short Story Collection
ISBN: 1416906355

"Wanting to belong, wanting to go home, love, regret, family legends, dreams, revenge, English, Spanish."

This short story collection written by twenty-one Latino authors from the US and various Latin countries runs the gamut of human emotions. From the whimsical "Barrio ABC's" and the bantering between two boys as they compete "for the most original description of their hometown" to "Last Week I Wanted to Die" a monologue filled with teenage angst about "not fitting in," this book has something for everyone.

The reverence for religion, love and respect for family, memories, and prejudice are interwoven themes throughout. In “Darius and the Clouds” a young “girl recounts her friend’s definition of God” as they stare up into the pillow-like cloud filled sky at “that one next to the one that looks like popcorn. That one there. See that? That’s God.” In “The Evil Eye” a girl remembers her grandmother’s advice on how to protect herself from falling victim to the evil eye. In “Poultrymorphosis” and “God Smells Like a Roast Pig” the authors fondly recall familiar smells of roasting meat as they recollect days gone by. In “Reclaim Your Rights as a Citizen of Here. Here,” “I Stand at the Crosswalk,” and “Oh, Beautiful?” the authors explore the prejudice they face on a daily basis. Whether it’s the proverbial “Where are you from?” or the stare they get from being in town long after the tourists have left and their services as domestic help is long gone too, they feel it.

As I wrote this blog I found myself playing the dual role of both Siskel and Ebert. By that I mean that many times I would watch their movie reviews. I would listen to one and think that the movie sounded good. But then I’d listen to the other and realize that it actually doesn’t sound good. That being said, I wasn’t crazy about this book. I did enjoy some of the stories, but many I did not like and I do believe that this was my least favorite of all the books that I have read. Some of the stories were written in a free verse poem format that did not appeal to me. Two stories “Angels’ Monologue,” about a young man in prison, and “Mujeriego” about burning down a packed nightclub as a final act of revenge, glorified violence too much for my taste. In fact I would say that given the religious overtones and violence in some of the stories, I don’t think I would recommend this book for students under 18. I would even go so far as to say this book is for college students. In the college setting this book would be extremely appropriate, especially in light of recent events concerning illegal immigration in Arizona.

For students ages 14 and up you could recommend these books by Matt de la Peña. Although they are fictional and not short stories I think they would be more enjoyable for students.

Science Fiction

Unwind
Neal Shusterman
Hew York: Simon & Schuster,
2007
335 pp.
$8.99
Science Fiction
ISBN: 9781416912057

"Wait till you're the one who's dying and see how you feel about it!"

This story is set somewhere in the future where the conflict between the Pro-life and the Pro-choice camps has reached a settlement or compromise of sorts. “Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, a parent may choose to retroactively “abort” a child” through an irreversible decision and process known as unwinding. Unwinding is the procedure by which ALL usable parts of a human being are removed and transplanted into eagerly awaiting recipients. On the receiving end of this ungodly decision we find the three main characters of the book Connor, Risa, and Lev.

Connor is sixteen years old. He’ll come to be known as the stuff urban legends are made of, the “Akron AWOL.” Sentenced unceremoniously to be unwound on what many would consider to be the ultimate family related holiday of all, Thanksgiving, Connor will fight to the death to continue to live.

Risa is a ward of the state, hence her last name Ward. A brilliant pianist, she is sentenced to be unwound due to “space in state homes being at a premium” and “budget cuts.” But, Risa will not take her civic duty lying down.

Lev, on the other hand is more than willing to do his civic and familial duty, Raised in a religious home to believe he was “chosen” for the honor of unwinding, he will come to lose his religion as his “me” vs. “you” attitude turns to an “us” vs. “them” attitude.

These three teenagers will come to meet a host of characters on their journey through an Orwellesque 1984 society of government surveillance and public mind control. From the Admiral, trying to amend for the sin of being a “father of the Unwind Accord” and the sacrifice of his only son, Harlan, for the cause to the Judas-like Roland and the selling of his soul in “exchange for four hundred Unwinds,” this book is a definite page turner. You will not be able to put it down.

I have to admit that I was apprehensive about this book because I typically don’t like science fiction. Then as I started reading it my entire being was assaulted as I felt my own convictions as a proponent of Pro-choice being attacked. I wondered how I could be Pro-choice but find it so hard to accept this particular choice? Then I started to think, maybe this is Shusterman’s goal. Maybe he’s trying to challenge the readers thinking. And that’s exactly what he did. Before I knew it I was sucked in. I couldn’t put this book down and it’s definitely the best book I’ve read lately. There were so many twists and turns. It reminded me of the movie Crash (2005) as the lives of the characters intertwine and collide. In addition, another movie connection can be drawn between Dirty Pretty Things (2002) and the cost, availability, and quality of organs.

This book would be appropriate for students in grades 9 and up. Themes include: adventure; juvenile flight from justice; society; ethics; and morality. Each scenario in the book can be a jumping off point for lively debate and conversation as students discuss their own feelings about the situations and circumstances. A parallel could even be drawn between the book and the recent health care reform plan. Questions for discussion could include: How much do we want our government involved in our personal health care? Could something like this ever happen if they are involved? Where do we draw the line in the Pro-life vs. Pro-choice war? The list goes on and on.

Neal Shusterman is a prolific and award winning author. To read more about him and his books go to his website.

Other titles students may enjoy about teenagers in similar situations include:

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow



The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins



The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer

Journal Article Review II

Sitomer, A. (2010). Scattering light over the shadow of booklessness. The ALAN Review 37(2),

44-48.

“To be a champion, to be excellent, to be outstanding, notable, or remarkable in any such manner, you must be engaged.”

Alan Sitomer shares his recipe to make students literary champions and he claims it is quite simple. “Engagement leads to motivation. Motivation leads to comprehension. Comprehension leads to performance.”

Sitomer position is clear: the use of textbooks, anthologies, “incredibly dense” great literary works, and “scripted curriculum is buffoonery” at best. And at worst is not in the best interest of kids if we want to live up to the all too familiar slogan that keeps popping up in school mission statements “We will create lifelong readers and critical thinker.” Schools can’t possible live up to those words when according to Sitomer they are boring the kids to death by shoving Pride and Prejudice, and works by Ralph Ellison down their throats and expecting them to be engaged and involved with the text. In other words instead of turning them “on” to reading we are turning them “off”. While he doesn’t deny the literary importance of Pride and Prejudice or the immense talent of Ralph Ellison he feels that “mandating” that students delve into such complicated pieces of literature before they are ready will leave them without “authentic literary skills” because they “don’t get it” or its boring or they can’t figure out why they even have to read “this stuff.” He suggests starting “with books that kids find personally meaningful as a bridge to the “great works” of literature.”

He also points out how the entire textbook industry is doing a great disservice to education by “fleecing American schools.” He goes on to say we need “to stop feeding the corporate gravy train that generates Wall Street-style money for companies that poorly provide for the literacy needs of our kids and start using real books to reach our real students.” He remarks that the textbooks in his classroom are “in a closet” but that doesn’t mean his kids aren’t reading. They’re reading all right and consistently telling him how much they enjoy it.

I couldn’t agree more with the author. I was acquainted with most of the classics students were required to read in high school and I too often wondered “Why do they make kids read this stuff?” Before this class I really wasn’t aware of all the wonderful YA authors and books out there. I have truly enjoyed most of the books I have read. And many of the books my classmates have shared have sounded very interesting. There really is no reason to keep boring the life out of kids when “Diary of a Wimpy Kid…or Twilight… or Speak…or Crank…or Ender’s Game…or The Outsiders…” are out there just waiting to be ravaged by the next reading starved kid.

Realistic Fiction

The Chocolate War

Robert Cormier

New York: Knopf: Random House.,

c1974, 2004

253 pp.

$8.95 Realistic Fiction

ISBN: 0375829873

“Do I dare disturb the universe?”

Jerry Renault isn’t quite sure what it means and by the time he figures it out, he comes to the realization that the answer is ABSOLUTELY NOT!

Jerry is a freshman at Trinity High School, an all boys Catholic high school. The school is run by two corrupt and manipulative forces: a secret society known as the Vigils, run by Archie Costello known as “The Assigner”, the other an underhanded Assistant Headmaster and teacher named Brother Leon.

Like many private schools, Trinity depends on fundraisers to keep afloat. "We have to tap every source of income…” Brother Leon explains to Archie as he asks for the Vigils assistance in selling twice as many chocolates this year at double the price. Brother Leon knows that through fear, intimidation, and ruthlessness Archie can “assign” his crew of underlings to do just about anything. And Brother Leon is counting on it as he has secretly overextended the school budget to purchase the chocolates. Archie agrees to fulfill his request, not out of any loyalty to the school, but realizing that he has Brother Leon right where he wants him, in a position of vulnerability and dependency, and Archie loves it. He is the master manipulator. He relishes the thought of having control over others. Brother Leon has played right into his hand.

After a confrontation with Brother Leon over one of his “assignments” and contrary to his promise, Archie assigns Jerry to refuse to sell the chocolates for the first ten days. Jerry complies with the “assignment” but at the end of the ten days when he is supposed to start selling the chocolates he refuses of his own volition. Jerry is seen as a hero for his continued refusal to sell the chocolates as many students are “so sick of selling the frigging chocolates.” This defiant act and admiration by the other students puts him in direct conflict with Archie who sees it as an attempt to usurp his authority and thereby the order of the universe that exists on campus. Archie sets his sights on teaching Jerry a lesson and he does so through relentless phone calls in the middle of the night, breaking into and destroying his locker, shunning by his classmates, attacking his sexuality, and ultimately hosting a physical pummeling of Jerry. In the end Jerry wants to tell his friend Goober that the rhetoric of “do your own thing” only works if “your own thing” happens to fall within the guidelines “of their own thing” and that it’s best to not “disturb the universe.”

This coming of age story although controversial at the time seems tame by today’s standards. But the universal truths implied by the book still hold true today. We do encourage independent thought in our youths. Teenage angst is seen as a normal course of events. But then we complain about it when it touches the fringes of what we have come to expect as “normal” or “moral” behavior. And all of this occurs when teenagers, with their unsophisticated minds, are least equipped to deal with it. Jerry was certainly unprepared to deal with “disturbing the universe” as he was coming to terms with the death of his mother and the realization that his father’s life was “dull…boring…humdrum.” He “wanted to do something, be somebody.” The thought of ending up like his father was quite frightening to him. This stage of life is a pivotal time as teenagers begin to contemplate a way to break free but still be a part of the collective whole.

This book would be appropriate for ages 14 and up. Its themes include: peer pressure; sexuality; Catholicism; death; and high school. Other books by Cormier include: Beyond the Chocolate War, The Rag and Bone Shop, I Am the Cheese, and Fade.

Journal Article Review

Barack, Lauren (2009). Reading is fundamental, but literacy is key. School Library Journal.

Retrieved from: http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6700578.html

This article is about a report published by the Carnegie Corporation of New York (CCNY) entitled

“Time to Act: An Agenda for Advancing Adolescent Literacy for College and Career Readiness.” In its report CCNY researchers point out that comprehension is a skill that students are struggling with “U.S. students actually lose literacy skills as they go through their schooling

ranking first in the world in the 4^th grade, but among the worst across the globe by the 10^th grade.”

To remedy this situation it proposes that all involved parties from teachers to elected officials “refocus on how they teach literacy…in these key years.” CCNY is suggesting the reallocation of money to support the embedding of literacy instruction across the curriculum and not just for “English teachers.”

In response Linda Braun, president of Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), voiced her disappointment by saying that it was a shame “that libraries and librarians are excluded entirely from your plan” since they have the expertise to help “broaden these skills in students.” Andrés Henríquez, program officer of CCNY’s Advancing Literacy Initiative, responded “it made no sense to call upon those leaders in schools who already have expertise in teaching literacy.” He pointed out that the real need “is to push other educators to develop these skills” regardless of what they teach.

This article is very timely as we are constantly hearing about cities and states throughout the country cutting education budgets. I am in total agreement with Linda Braun and her assertion that we use libraries and librarians and their depth of knowledge to facilitate the ultimate goal of offering our children the best education possible. In addition, it only makes sense to at least start with what we have, namely libraries and librarians, and expand as funding becomes available. Something that I am not so sure will ever happen. We talk the talk, but we don’t walk the walk in this country. We say we care about educating our children, but we never seem to have the money to do it right. You need look no further than NCLB to see that.

I could not end this review without addressing the lack of comprehension skills among my own students. Many times I’ve wondered “Why don’t they get it?” The only conclusion I have been able to come up with is the overemphasis on speed or how many words per minute (wpm) they can read. I have had many heated conversations with people in leadership positions at my school about the use of DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Literacy Skills). I have maintained that the purpose of reading should be thinking, reasoning, and understanding, in other words comprehension, and not speed. I have quite a few students who read slowly and comprehend everything they read. But because their wpm is below a set level they are labeled as needing Intensive intervention. On the other hand I have students who reach and even surpass the set goal but cannot tell me one thing about what they just read, and they are labeled as Benchmark. I understand that speed is an indication of the ability to decode. I have no problem with that. But, it is not the end all, be all and that is reinforced by my students test scores.

Non-Western Setting

Leaving Glorytown: One Boy’s Struggle Under Castro

Eduardo F. Calcines

New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2009

221 pp.

$17.95 Biography

ISBN: 9780374343941

“My world was disappearing fast. Turmoil swirled around me: death, imprisonment, fear, whispered conversations, hunger, and sleeplessness. I was sliding down a dark hole with nothing to hold on to.”

Eduardo Calcines was there in January 1959 when Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba. Although he was only three years old at the time he vividly remembers “a Voice on the radio” droning on and on and his life would never be the same. His family was poor under the Batista dictatorship but nothing could prepare them for the endless waiting in line only to be “handed a chunk of hard bread, some sugar, and a bunch of cans with funny writing on them.” To add insult to injury the cans contained “horse meat.” When they did get fresh meat they were rationed to “one pound per person, per month.” Due to the “11 p.m. blackout imposed by the government” gone was the “clicking of dominoes” from neighbor’s front porches as it was now illegal “to sit and talk” with friends. Gone were the festivities celebrating “Noche Buena, or Holy Night” on December 24, as “talk of God was just as forbidden as talk of dissent.” And due to the nerve of his father to dare request an exit visa for his family, he soon would be gone too.

In August 1966, with great fear and intrepidation, Eduardo’s father Felo “went to see an immigration representative and told him the Calcines family…wanted to leave the country.” From that day on Eduardo was tormented by classmates and teachers alike. “This is what a worm looks like. A traitorous, disgusting worm” his teacher would announce on his first day back to school. Within a couple of weeks his father would be arrested and sent to an “agricultural reform camp” to slave in the sugar cane fields. He would be gone for three years and only permitted to come home once a month for a weekend.

Finally in December 1969 word came via telegram that permission had been granted for the Calcines family to leave Cuba. While great excitement filled the air, there was also an overwhelming sense of loss as they were only given “one week” to say good-bye to their lives and loved ones. On December 30 they left Cuba never to return.

This story is a first person account seen through the eyes of a three year old child who was forced by circumstances to come to terms with a situation that many adults would and did struggle with. For 10 years he lived under the oppression of Castro’s ideology gone awry. The writing is smooth and peppered in his native tongue of Spanish with translations provided. It is a story of faith in God as he “doesn’t give us anything we can’t handle” and the significance of family to help us through trying times. This story would be especially appropriate for ages 12 and up in a Social Studies class as immigration in general and illegal immigration specifically is a highly debated topic in this country. Questions for discussion may include: Why are people so desperate to get to the United States any way possible? Why do they need permission? Why was it so easy for Castro to gain control of Cuba? How and why did he do it?

Other titles about children growing up in similar circumstances include Over a Thousand Hills I Walk With You by Hanna Jansen and Useful Fools by C.A. Schmidt.

Women's History

Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith

Deborah Heiligman
New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2009
268 pp.
$18.95 Historical Nonfiction
ISBN: 9780805087215

Marry or Not Marry? That is the question 29 year-old Charles Darwin finds himself contemplating in the summer of 1838. By the fall of that year he had found the woman who answered that question for him, his cousin, Emma Wedgwood.

This is the love story of Charles and Emma Darwin. A love story built upon mutual respect, compromise, and admiration, which lasted 43 years while he was alive and a love she undoubtedly took to her grave 14 years after him as she “never went anywhere without her “precious packet”-the few letters she had saved that he had written to her over the years.”

As Charles became serious in his quest to find a bride in Victorian England he had many obstacles to overcome. One major hurdle was his “strong and growing” doubts about God and Christianity. He knew that “most women were believers and wanted their husbands to be believers to.” When he went to his father for advice he was told quite simply to “conceal your doubts.”

Emma “had been brought up with few, if any, rules and the encouragement to think freely.” In her home there was “no difference in politics or principles of any kind that makes it treason to speak one’s mind openly.” This bode well for Charles as he needed someone who could and would think independently. And while Emma enjoyed his company she “was not mooning over Charles or plotting for a marriage.” Soon Charles realized “it would take a special man to pry Emma away from home.”

Charles was in love and “couldn’t stop thinking about Emma.” He was nervous and anxious because “he knew what he had to say would be shocking to Emma and others who believed that God was the creator of all species.” The one thing her knew for sure was that “he could not lie.” Finally after much deliberation and feeling “sick” Charles proposed to Emma. And although “shocked”, she said “yes.” Thankfully he discounted his father’s advice. He did not conceal his doubts from Emma and she accepted them.

So begins a happy marriage built on compromise. “She was disorganized, and a slob.” Charles was not. And while “extremely well-read…she wasn’t after intellectual pursuits.” Charles was. She had “a faith in God and eternity…she believed in a heaven and a hell.” Charles did not. Nonetheless, they raised 8 children (they had 10, a daughter died in infancy and another daughter, Annie, died at the age of 10). She supported her husband and his scientific discoveries. She even edited his species draft as he knew she was “the one person he had the most faith in, the person he could trust above all.”

The human condition is wrought and overwrought with love. Charles and Emma Darwin personify this to the highest degree. They both struggle to jump over the “ugly great ditch” that Lessing himself repeatedly tried to no avail. But Charles and Emma do make that triumphant leap out of faith and into love. Through diaries, journals, personal letters, and first person accounts from family and friends the author accurately portrays a complete picture of Charles and Emma Darwin. The book offers a glimpse into Victorian England and its religious values, family structure, role of women, and the toll of death and disease. The author thankfully provides a family tree, as many family members share names and marriage between cousins was an accepted practice. I came away with a fuller understanding of Charles as a faithful husband and devoted father in addition to one of the most controversial figures in human history. More importantly, I came away with complete reverence for Emma Darwin. To think that with the loving support and undying devotion of this one woman, this one man would find the courage to offer a theory that would affect human history is awe inspiring.

This book would be enjoyed by both boys and girls ages 12 and up. Themes: Victorian England, religion, science, marriage, death, and family. Other stories students may enjoy include:

Girls Think of Everything: Stories of Ingenious Inventions by Women by Catherine Timmesh and Something Out of Nothing: Marie Curie and Radium by Carla Killough McClafferty.