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Today’s students are not taught to think for themselves, to question things or even to think outside of the box to solve problems.  I won’t go into my rant against the American educational system here because, well, it makes me angry and when I’m angry I tend not to be particularly P.C. and have been known to say things that offend.  What I will say is that it’s a shame that we are raising sheep.

I’ve been reading a lot of dystopian fiction lately (see some of my older posts).  There’s some really great stuff out there!  I have noticed that they all have 2 main things in common. They all have divided societies…one is strict and controlling and the other is against those controls.  They all have young characters who are either a part of the strict society who realize how bad it is or who are from the outside fighting the strict society.  What I find interesting about these two points is that the two societies mirror our own American culture and it’s not difficult at all to imagine that any of these stories could ACTUALLY happen.

Now back to my gripe about our students not thinking…I was talking with a colleague and she was saying that her 8th grade students merely parrot their parents’ political and social views without thinking about what they actually mean.  Even many of our high school students do this.  They don’t seem to be the least bit interested in finding out what other opinions or viewpoints might be.  What this means is that they will be sheep when they grow up…following whatever party line along which they were raised.  They don’t question the news or what the “journalists” say.  They aren’t curious about whether what someone says is true or not.  They are basically like me before my curiosity was awakened.

I woke up rather suddenly a few years ago when my very wise mother challenged my thinking about the presidential candidates.  I began watching different news shows and learning, for myself, how politics worked.  I began to question everything that any politician said (they occasionally all lie, by the way).  Anyway, when I read Hunger Games,(I’m RIDICULOUSLY EXCITED about the movie coming out this week!!!) my curiosity exploded.  I read voraciously and began seeing the patterns I mentioned earlier.  I also began to recognize people…well, perhaps not actual people but certainly personality types and specific group dynamics.  That really made me watch what was going on around me even more closely.  While I’m reading, I’m actively asking questions. Sometimes I even go online to look something up to check against something I’ve just read.  Of course, I’m a librarian and do this with most every kind of book I read but my point is that our students are much less likely to do so.

So basically, I highly recommend the reading of dystopian novels or any book that will wake up our students and make them begin to think about the world outside of their home or school.

Students: Question everything!  If you come across something you don’t understand or don’t agree with, find out about it, look it up, learn something new that will help your argument or, perhaps, (GASP!!!) change your mind.  Education is NOT elitist.  It should focus on teaching the basics, certainly, but also teach our children to look around and not swallow every idea that comes around without a second glance. If we don’t do this then the we might just wake up in a world along side Katniss or Cassia (Matched) or Ember Miller (Article 5) .  I can promise you that it won’t be a pleasant place!

DOWN WITH SHEEP (except for making those luscious sweaters, blankets and coats that keep us warm).

BAAAAAAH!

Okay so I’ve gone and read yet another adult book.  Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay was powerful and poignant and a must read!

She was ten when they came.  The pounding at the door, the fear written on her mother’s face, the terror and determination of her little brother not to be taken.  He hides in their secret place, the cupboard in his room.  It was a cleverly disguised place, looking like part of the wall.  You couldn’t even see where the key hole was.  She tells him to hide there and she will come back for him, keeping the key in her little pocket.  They are taken first on a bus ride to a large stadium where they stay for days, the yellow stars on their clothes labeling them.  Next, separation from the men– her father– then a train ride.  Soon, they are in a terrible place with barbed wire all around, little or no food, no way to clean themselves.  Then the worst thing of all, their mothers are taken away, leaving the children alone with the policemen.  She becomes hardened, scrabbling for food, trying to care for the littlest ones.  The little girl plans, schemes and one day, she escapes, determined to get back to Paris and her brother in the cupboard.  But what will she find there and what will she do then?  Her name is Sarah.

American Julia Jarmond married into a French family and works for a small magazine that caters to American ex pats.  She is assigned to do a story on the Vel’ de Hiv’.  As an American, she knew nothing about the incident that occurred more than 60 years earlier but, as she researches, she is amazed and appalled to find that very few of the French know of it either.  It seemed a great conspiracy had played out so that the French could forget the part they played.  Julia’s research uncovers a secret connection to the horrible round-up of Jewish families. As she digs deeper, shocking truths are uncovered.  Truths that might just cost her everything.

De Rosnay writes the stories of Sarah and Julia in alternating chapters.  Julia tells her story in first person narrative.  Sara’s is told in third person and with a different font.  As the stories get closer and closer, Sarah’s voice is silenced and Julia continues the telling.  Amazingly, for such a sad story, it ends on a hopeful note.

I, like many Americans, had never heard of the Vel’ de Hiv’.  It’s been a very long time since I studied history and most of that focused on America’s part in WW II, as the heroes who discovered and rescued thousands of Jews from concentration camps.  I had no idea of the French complicity in the deaths of so many Jewish families and children…Children!  Tears of frustration and sadness were fought back on nearly every page, as is often the case when I read stories like this.  If you’ve not read the book, it should be on the top of your list.  I have put the movie in my Netflix queue but am not sure I’ll be able to actually watch it unless I have an entire box of tissues handy.

I rarely read non-young adult fiction because I have too many other books to read for my middle school students but sometimes, a book or an author comes along that I just can’t pass up.  The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman is one such book.  Alice Hoffman is the author of one of my favorite books ever…Green Angel a book about loss and survival.  The Dovekeepers has a similar theme.  It takes place just after the fall of Jerusalem more than 2,000 years ago and is told from the point of view of the women caught up in the battles of men. The story is brutal and graphic so, unsuitable for my young readers but highly recommended to all others!

Yael was born from death.  She was cut from her mother’s lifeless body and cast aside as a murderer by her father.  In those days, there were assassins who were invisible until they dealt their death blow to those outside of or who denied the Jewish faith.  He taught his son the art of killing and the son soon surpassed his father.  When the Romans conquered their village, they made a stealthy escape into the desert under the care of a kinsman, a man marked by a narrow escape from a lion.  Their journey was long and difficult but when they reached the desert fortress where her brother was hiding, Yael was carrying a secret.  Revka is the wife of an acclaimed baker whose husband was cut down in a Roman raid.  She, daughter and her son-in-law gathered their young boys and fled to the desert where they found what they thought was a safe haven.  However, it was soon discovered by a small garrison of Roman soldiers who brutally raped and murdered Revka’s daughter in full view of the children.  Bitter and scarred within, they too, found their way to the mighty citadel built by a Roman king.  Shirah found her way to the stronghold with her children because her beloved called to her in her dreams to come to him.  She who knew the secrets of woman passed down from mother to daughter – spells and cures for fever and chills, love and hate – sees the fates of all who are gathered against the ever encroaching army of Rome.  Daily, these women prove their strength, courage and determination to survive and even thrive in the forbidding landscape of the desert fortress called Masada.

Based upon accounts recorded by Josephus and other historians, Alice Hoffman weaves a magical, brutal tale of those who claimed Masada as their own.  They fought the elements and, eventually, the Romans but were so unwilling to be defeated and taken into slavery that they wrought their own destruction.  The Romans found only dead and charred bodies when they finally breached the walls that were unbreakable.  The people had burned their stores, killed their livestock and themselves as a symbol of strength to their people and a symbol of determination to their enemy.  Only five people, 2 women and 3 children, survived the massacre.  This is their story.

While I’m not a great fan of those stories where animals are the characters (Redwall, The Tale of Despereaux, etc.), I just read the latest offering from the consummate storyteller, Carmen Agra Deedy, called The Cheshire Cheese Cat: A Dickens of a Tale and it was wonderful! She and fellow author Randall Wright, with tongue firmly planted in cheek, begin, “He was the best of Toms. He was the worst of toms.”

Skilly lead the rough and tumble life of a street cat.  With ears scarred and tail permanently bent from a lost battle with a door, he stalks the streets of London in search of his favorite fare and it’s not what you might think!  On that fateful afternoon, he finds himself faced with Pinch, truly the worst street cat around.  Pinch warns him off of his new haunt, the Cheshire Cheese Inn, a place sure to be run over with mice.  Skilly saunters off, feigning disinterest but circles back around and finds a way into the inn and into heaven!  It’s warm, it’s cozy, it’s full to overflowing with mice…and CHEESE!  This is Skilly’s dreadful secret.  He is not at all interested in mice.  His true love is cheese. Upon meeting a most unusual mouse, Pip, the two strike a rather odd bargain.  Skilly will make like a great mouser and seem to clear the inn of mice but really, he’ll catch and release them.  In return, the mice will keep him fed in cheese, glorious cheese!  It all works out swimmingly until the day the Adele, the cook’s assistant and notorious mouse-hater, brings in a cruel looking ginger cat named Pinch!  Now, Skilly’s comfy arrangement is in dire jeopardy and he will do almost anything to protect it, even the unthinkable.

What a delightful romp through Dickensian England with occasional appearances of the man himself, as he is a regular at the Cheshire Cheese Inn with many of his writing contemporaries who also make cameo appearances.  In fact, you will be most surprised to find out from where Dickens’ most famous opening lines came.  The animals in this book are extraordinary and there’s a lot going on.  You will learn about the 6 ravens of The Tower of London and how they came to be there as well as many words in the English language that befuddle the average cat but are good words to know.  The authors have included a glossary, in case some of the human readers are also befuddled.  Barry Moser’s lovely ink drawings appear at just the right moment and are so expressive! An interesting aside, The Cheshire Cheese Inn is an actual place and is known far and wide for its exceptional cheeses. Anthropomorphism fans and non-fans alike will enjoy this delightful animal story! And…If you ever get the chance to hear Carmen Agra Deedy do her storytelling thing, I highly recommend that you make haste!  She’s one of the best out there!!!

I read lots of novels with dystopian themes, as you can see by many of my recent posts.  A dystopian novel is a story in which society, as we know it, has been destroyed by war or other cataclysmic event.  As the survivors work to put things back together, they automatically organize themselves into groups of like-minded people.  For humans, it seems, categorizing equals order and control, which is good.  The opposite of order is chaos which, therefore, must be bad, right?  I’m not so sure about that.  The problem with categories is that there are things, people, even books that defy categorization.  They are put in a separate group because they don’t fit in the traditional ones and, more often than not, they are derided for their difference. The Variant or Divergent group (both titles of dystopian novels I’ve read, by the way) are seen as chaotic or they cause chaos in the newly formed society, whether they actually do or not. Their very existence just doesn’t fit the “natural” order of things.  BUT, if you look into any like-minded group, you are going to find variants or those who diverge from that group’s norm in some small way.

I look at the new fiction books, when they come into the library so that I can label them with genre stickers.  It’s my way of  helping my middle school students separate their books from those intended for older readers.  There are not many books that only have one genre sticker on them.  Most have more than one because they just don’t fit into one genre or category.  I propose that the “natural order” of things is to be divergent or variant…to defy a single category. So, why do we constantly try to mold people into the shape of a particular group and not allow any diversity within that group?  You know the old saying “Two heads are better than one”?  The reason that is so often quoted is because it’s true…the two heads think differently or see the problem differently and can come up with a solution because of that difference!  We were created in different sizes, colors, and shapes with various ideas, thoughts and beliefs.  I believe that we were created to be who we are not who others think we should be.  That’s not to say that there aren’t wrong people or ideas…a serial killer or a rapist are wrong, their ideas are sick and twisted but they are also a very, very small (thankfully) group of people.  Our job here on earth is not to judge, that job belongs to Someone else.  Our job is to accept who we are, who other people are, regardless of the possibility that their way of thinking or living is opposite ours.  Why can’t we all just get along?  Okay, perhaps that a bit naive of me but a litte tolerance will go a long way toward averting the wars and other cataclysmic events that will eventually destroy society as we know it and we’ll have to start all over again…

I just finished Kristen Simmons’ Article 5 and it was one of the most terrifying books ever because the possibility of it is just a little too, well, possible!  There are people out there, right now, who would support some of the Moral Statutes that govern this not too distant future.  The quote from Edmond Burke comes to mind…“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

War has destroyed America, as we know it.  All of the major cities have been abandoned, even Washington, D.C.!  There is no more Constitution or Bill of Rights.  They’ve been replaced by the Moral Statutes.  Noncompliance means arrest, detention and, possibly, worse…  Ember Miller does everything she can think of to make sure that her free spirited mother does not get caught with contraband like the romance novels she loves so much.  One perfectly normal afternoon, Ember arrives home from school and settles in with her friends to do homework when there’s a knock at the door.  Standing there are the soldiers that serve as police, enforcing the Moral Statues.  They arrest her and her mother for being in violation of Article 5, which states that having a child out of wedlock is illegal.  The two of them are being taken to a detention facility, from which no one has ever returned.  The worst thing of all is that one of the soldiers is Chase, the boy next door and her first true love.

This novel will appeal to fans of The Hunger Games and the Maze Runner.  The formula is similar and the characters are both flawed but with a strong moral center that does not allow them to follow the pack.  As with many of these dystopian novels, the fate of their people lies in the hands of the young.  Perhaps because their filters still tend to see things in black and white, right and wrong, with few grey areas to cloud their judgement.  Whatever the reason, the young people in this book are true heroes!

I’M SO EXCITED I CAN’T STAND IT!!! Okay, I know I’m yelling but this is really, really cool!  I have been a fan of Chris Can Allsburg for so many years and, particularly his book, The Mysteries of Harris Burdick.  When I was an elementary school librarian, I did the sacrilegious…I cut his book apart!  But it’s destruction was for a good cause.  I laminated them and used them with my 5th graders when they were studying the elements of a short story.  They each chose a picture and were to write a story about it…the only catch was that they had to use the caption somewhere in the story.  Once we were finished and the stories edited, I typed them into the computer (this was before the days of mass digitization) and had them bound and cataloged in our library.  It was great fun and some of the stories were really good!  Now, Harris Burdick has made a reappearance and my library’s edition just arrived!  Some of my favorite young adult authors have contributed stories…M.T. Anderson (love, love, love!!!), Sherman Alexie, Cory Doctorow, Walter Dean Myers and there’s a really wonderful forward by Lemony Snicket!  I’ve already read 2 stories and am going to read the rest today.  I will come back later and let you know about the rest of them!  And may I say again…I’M SO EXCITED!!!

We’ve gone through several phases in YA lit.  Here are just a few: years ago there was the fairy tale to novel (Beauty/McKinley, Zel/Napoli, etc.), then there was the mythology to novel (Percy Jackson,  Nobody’s Princess/Friesner, Sirena/Napoli), next came the divine and the demonic (Demon’s Lexicon/Brennan, Hush, Hush/Fitzpatrick, Beautiful Creatures/Garcia, etc.) and most recently, the vampiric (do I really need to list these?).  Now, all the rage is the dystopian, post-apocalyptic fiction that has it’s grip on YAs.  The most recent entry is Divergent by Veronica Roth.  It has all the earmarks of a good dystopian novel…the world as we know it has been destroyed; society has had to reorganize itself to survive but that organization is now in peril.  You also have a boy and a girl hero, though the focus is on the girl. This one, however, is just a little different and a lot disturbing!

In a Chicago of the distant future, Beatrice lives with her family and the rest of her faction in peace and harmony.  Society has split into 5 distinct factions, all based on a particular personality trait.  Those who live in Candor tell the truth, always and know when someone else is lying.  Those who are Abnegation are the selfless helpers.  They put others’ needs before their own.  The Dauntless are the brave fighters.  Nothing frightens them because they have conquered their fear. The Amity are the peace keepers, striving to create accord between the factions.  The Erudite are the thinkers.  They value scholarship above all else.  When you turn 16, you go through an aptitude test which will help you choose to which of these factions you will spend the rest of your life.  Beatrice is unsure of what her test results will tell her.  She’s never felt selfless enough to stay with Abnegation and has always admired the audacity of Dauntless.  Her test results, it turns out, don’t help.  She is told that her results were inconclusive but, in reality, her tester explains that she is Divergent that that is very, very dangerous.  Like, it could get you killed kind of dangerous!  Now Beatrice must make her choice…and that is just the beginning of her troubles!  Things are changing.  There is an undercurrent that she doesn’t understand and when she finally figures out what’s going on, it’s nearly too late. Now she will have to fight friends and enemies alike to save herself and both of her factions!

Roth is an excellent storyteller and her dystopian world is an interesting, unique one.  The characters are flawed but likeable and you will find yourself rooting for the underdogs and shocked at the actions of one of them.  It’s a riveting tale with a mostly satisfying ending ( okay, I’d like to know more about what happens next).  Don’t miss this one!!!

Chris Priestley is a master storyteller.  His books about Tom Marlow and his mysterious adventures are some of the most popular books, especially with my boy readers.  With Mister Creecher, he takes on the Frankenstein monster story and tells it very well and in the spirit of Mary Shelley’s original tale.

Billy is a street urchin eking out a living as a pick-pocket.  It’s not a lucrative venture and comes with many, many dangers.  One of them is a fellow pick-pocket named Fletcher.  One  fateful day, he Billy comes across what seems to be an enormous, grotesque dead body in the alley.  He is about to search it for any trinkets that he could sell when Fletcher comes upon the scene.  He threatens to call the constable, and claim that Billy killed the man when suddenly that hulking form moves!  It grabs hold of one of Fletcher’s boys, instantly shattering the bones.  The others turn tail and flee leaving Billy alone with the giant…at which point he passes out.  When he wakes, he is warm and sheltered from London’s nasty weather but his savior turns out to be none other than the giant who calls himself Mr. Creecher.  So begins a dubious relationship.  As the boy and the giant travel together, a bond begins to grow between them but there are secrets that the giant holds, secrets that could destroy them.  How much is friendship worth and to what lengths will Billy and Creecher go for each other?

This is the Frankenstein story from the monster’s point of view.  The story is woven together in such a way that Billy and Creecher’s relationship is wholly believable.  Creecher is an intriguing character.  At once a hideous monster, capable of great violence and a deeply moral person.  Billy delights in thievery but does not understand the wrongness of his actions.  As with his other novels, there are many exciting fight scenes and dangerous circumstances.  But there are also tender moments as Billy and Creecher become friends or when Billy finally understands Creecher’s deep need for the female creature that Frankenstein is building for him.  The ending is very difficult to read and is very sad but, somehow, fitting.  Frankenstein is not a happy story with a happily ever after ending.