Posts
According to the introduction, the author began collecting poems she liked in a shoebox. She saved poems that gave her "the special kind of pleasure that good poetry gives when it celebrates the ordinary in an unordinary way."
The collection follows a dawn to dark theme, beginning with Emily
Dickinson's "Will There Really be a Morning?" and finishing with Dickinson's "Who is the East?", a poem about sunset. In between are poems about animals, people, and nature, most quite ordinary settings and situations but illuminated with the beauty that poetry can invoke. The poets include William Shakespeare, W.B. Yeats, Denise
Levertov, Lucille Clifton and Wallace Stevens. I was especially charmed by a poem by Pablo Neruda, "Ode to a Pair of Socks." Several of the poems are translations from other languages, too, which adds some multicultural flavor.
The fifty-six poems featured in Step Lightly are not necessarily easy
reading - I found myself rereading several of them, trying to figure out their meaning. I would recommend this collection for high school students.
Haven Kimmel was born in 1965 in Mooreland, Indiana, a town of about 300 people. Originally a series of essays only intended to be shared with her mother and sister, they have been compiled into a touching, witty, and thoroughly enjoyable memoir.
Nicknamed Zippy for the way she raced around as a small child, she is a character in a town of characters. She is a scruffy tomboy who idolizes her father, and has one harrowing adventure after another - sometimes it seems a miracle that she survived childhood!
Each chapter is prefaced by a photograph, and I really enjoyed putting faces to names as I was reading. Kimmel's descriptions really provide a sense of place, and of the inhabitants of this tiny town. The voice of the book is both childlike and wise, and I found it to be an easy and enjoyable read. I believe teens and adults will both appreciate the book's real life situations, filled with both humor and occasional sadness.
I'm not generally a memoir reader, yet I found myself overjoyed when I discovered that she had written a follow-up. This is one memoir that really captured my interest!
Written in diary format, this book details the trials and tribulations of 14 year old Georgia Nicolson in hilarious fashion. Plagued by clueless parents, a vicious cat, and an adorable if messy younger sister, Georgia is trying to muddle her way through the usual teen concerns of fashion, school and finding a boyfriend. The humor helps make the book a quick and fun read, and there is a handy glossary in the back for those of us not up on British slang.
The situations seem true to life, if perhaps a wee bit exaggerated, so the average teen girl will probably find much to identify with. Georgia is convinced that she is ugly, which definitely brought back memories of my own teenage years. Despite this, she manages to find several love interests, which should be encouraging to those with similar fears.
This book is definitely entertaining, and does not delve too deeply into any huge problems. I recommend it heartily to those wanting a laugh, especially if you appreciate British humor.
This book is a practical and fun guide to redesigning or creating spaces for teens in libraries, both school and public. With vast personal experience, the author emphasizes that in order to be successful, the library must involve teens in the design process. She gives pReal life examples are given throughout, and there are handy charts at the end of the book that provide guidance for the complete makeover process.
While this book is great for those libraries that can dedicate space to teens, I wish it had touched on what libraries with limited space could do, as I work for a library with a Teen Lounge that is only set up once a week. Also, there was not much discussion of library policy and how it can be made to meet the needs of our teen populations, or how that would then affect library staff and other patrons. Serving diverse populations, especiallyin public libraries, can be a delicate juggling act, and choosing to dedicate a portion of your library to teens could have political ramifications.
Still, if your library is able and willing to set up a space for teens, this book is definitely essential reading!
Kerr, M. E. (1994) Deliver us from Evie. New York : HarperCollins.
Review: This book, told from the point of view of Parr, youngest son of the Burrman family, touches on the ideas of freedom and prejudice. Parr wants desperately to go to college and leave the farm behind, and is counting on his older brother and sister to come back and run the farm with his parents.
Parr says that Evie, his sister, has always been different - she prefers men's clothing, keeps her hair short, and walks in a "masculine" way. In short, Evie is butch, despite her mother's many attempts to change her. When Evie becomes involved with the banker's daughter, Evie's mom predicts that Evie will be blamed, as she is more obviously lesbian than the other girl. The issue of butch/femme is one that doesn't often come up in YA literature about lesbians, and the way it is presented is very interesting. Evie's mom thinks that she will have a harder time, presenting as butch, than those lesbians that can "pass".
This book is set in a small town, and shows small town prejudices, but Evie's family is not portrayed as a bunch of ignorant rednecks. While not pleased that their daughter is gay, they wrestle with the issue realistically, and ultimately come to accept Evie and even her girlfriend.
While I was somewhat disappointed that the story is not narrated from Evie's point of view, Parr was a realistic and thoughtful narrator, and I found the story engaging and ultimately enjoyable.
Teens & Libraries: Getting it Right
Virginia A. Walter, Elaine Meyers
American Library Association, Chicago, IL, 2003
139 pp., $32.00
ISBN: 0-8389-0857-8
Annotation: Youth librarians Virginia Walter and Elaine Meyers critique the history and present condition of library services to teens and young adults in light of youth development premises. The authors recommend several key strategies for improving YA service.
Review: With a few notable exceptions, the authors argue, library services to young adults has historically ignored the needs of teens or has viewed them only as an obnoxious subset of youth services in general, the favor going overwhelmingly to the needs of infants, toddlers and school age children. Librarians have viewed teens as a "problem" to be solved, a nuisance to be suborned, and a chaos to be contained, if not excluded.
Walter and Meyers argue for a different approach. Based on the findings of the Public Libraries as Partners in Youth Development Initiative (PLPYD) in 1999, and in the recent literature on YA services, the authors advocate engagement with teens. Librarians should invite their perspective and participation in designing programs and Teen Spaces, developing collections and providing access to technology. Most of all, librarians should listen.
Citing the PLPYD report, plus several case studies and experiences from libraries that have worked closely with teens to develop successful programs and services, Walter and Meyers build their case on youth development premises. To successfully navigate the challenges adolescence throws at them on their way to adulthood, teens need the support, the guidance, and engagement of the adults in their lives, from parents to educators to the libraries that (should) serve them. The authors challenge even the best-intentioned adult professionals to set aside their biases (especially the "I know what's good for you" presumption) while working with teens in achieving long term developmental outcomes and reconnecting them as active participants in their communities.
These are lofty goals, so it is fortunate that Walter and Meyers have provided a toolkit at the back of the book to get us started.
John Lennon: All I Want is the Truth: a Biography
Elizabeth Partridge
Viking, New York, 2005
232 pp., $24.99
ISBN: 0-6700-5954-4
Annotation: Biographer Partridge follows John Lennon, founder of The Beatles, from his childhood in Liverpool, England through his rise to fame as a rock musician and controversy as a social activist.
Review: Through this excellent introduction to one of rock and pop music's seminal songwriters, many young adults will find reflections of their own lives in Lennon's troubles in school, conflicts with authority and parents, and search for his true identity. Abandoned by his parents into the care of his aunt and uncle, Lennon struggles to overcome the emotional traumas of his youth through his art, his writing and his evolving political consciousness.
Fortunately, Partridge does not romanticize Lennon. He is here, warts and all. At several turns vain, arrogant, cruel to his family and friends (and even strangers, especially those he terms "cripples") and otherwise self-centered, Lennon self-medicates his pain with hard drugs and extramarital affairs. Sadly, he neglects his son Julian in ways that echo similar treatment by his own self-indulgent parents.
Partridge writes in clear, straightforward prose that explains Lennon's more erratic behavior without attempting to justify it. The unfortunate effect of Partridge's style, as well as her unrelenting coverage of Lennon's abuses of self and others, is a flattening of Lennon's brilliant wit and remarkable artistic achievements. Nevertheless, young readers unfamiliar with the cultural and political changes of the 1960s and '70s will receive a rich and by no means boring historical lesson. Partridge portrays Lennon's self-redemption toward the end of his life, abruptly ended by his murder, with appropriate notes of sympathy and of tragedy.
You Hear Me? Poems and Writing by Teenage Boys
Betsy Franco, ed.
Candlewick Press, Cambridge, MA, 2000
107 pp., $6.99
ISBN: 0-7636-1159-x
Annotation: An anthology of poems and short essays written by teen boys, ages 11 through 19, written between 1998 and 2000.
Review: This short collection teems with emotion. Here the urgency, the passion and the complexity of adolescence are in full force through the original voices of teen boys becoming men. These are thoughtful young men, using sophisticated poetic forms and evocative imagery - and just as often, plain spoken free verse - to express their observations and emotions with remarkable candor.
Indeed, the emotions and thoughts expressed here may be too much for adults to handle, as if peeling away an old scab. Young readers of either sex, but especially boys, will have a finer appreciation of the raw, painful, sometimes funny truths their talented peers have set to print. These young men are angry, they are confused, they feel injustice acutely. Race, sexuality and class complicate their lives. Politics and religion tax their patience. They resist the pigeon holes of modern marketing, openly distrusting the prefabricated identities, preferring to sort out who they are on their own terms. Meanwhile, there is music, there is sex to be had, and there are drugs to take.
Or to avoid. I had to set the book aside for a moment to recover from learning that one brilliant voice in this collection had been silenced by overdose. Librarians and educators seeking to inculcate youth with a love of poetry should consider setting aside the Frost and the Longfellow. This collection has much to say to young readers in a voice - several voices - they will listen to and learn from.
Son of the Mob
Gordon Korman
Hyperion, New York, 2002
262 pp., $5.99 (paperback)
Annotation: Vince Luca, the son of a notorious mob boss, becomes romantically involved with Kendra Bightly, the daughter of an FBI agent leading a criminal investigation against Vince's father.
Review: When Vince discovered that his father's vending machine business had little to do with vending machines and a lot to do with organized crime, he made a deal with his father. Vince would not follow his brother, Tommy into the business and his father's business would not complicate Vince's life. Easier said than done, as Vince quickly discovers. One night out on a hot date he finds a live body in the trunk of his car. Further complications ensue as Vince starts dating Kendra and tries to keep the relationship secret from both of their fathers — as well as his father's criminal activities from Kendra herself. Meanwhile, in his attempts to save the lives of two men heavily indebted to his father's loan-sharking business, Vince becomes part of the life he had previously foresworn.
Korman gives Vince a wry, ironic voice well suited to his adolescent protagonist's perspective. Vince is a young man attempting to put right much that is wrong in his world. His frustrations, his disappointments and his compassion reflect a growing moral consciousness of how his life has benefited from his father's criminal activities and his father's love for him, a life of luxury borne of the suffering of others. Certainly teen boys will identify with Vince's difficulties in getting a date, his uneasy relationship with his sex-minded best friend, Alex, and the great lengths Vince goes to for the sake of impressing a girl. Yet it is the moral conflict at the center of the story, the engine that drives Vince toward a more sophisticated view of moral ambiguity, that will speak to teen boys and girls coming to grips with the privileges social status confers upon them at the expense of the poor and the historically oppressed. Give Korman credit for mining this material for smart, character-driven humor.
Sara Ryan
Viking: New York, 2007
222 pp., $16.99 (hardcover)
ISBN: 978-0-670-05906-5
Annotation: Battle Hall Davies leaves home to spend the summer before attending Reed College to live with her estranged brother, Nick and his theater troupe house mates in Portland, Oregon.
Review: In this quasi-sequel to Ryan's award-winning debut, Empress of the World, Battle contends with several emotionally challenging issues at once. She leaves home to live on her own for the first time, attempts to re-establish a relationship with the unreliable Nick, gets involved with another young woman while still getting over her relationship from the previous novel, and tests her confidence as an actor among a troupe of eccentric and demanding theater people — while living with them in the same house!
This may seem like a lot, but a lot can happen in the few months between high school and college. Ryan puts the pieces together with Battle's humorous, observant voice, and sticks closely to Battle's perspective, especially her limitations, allowing her room to grow. As with the previous novel, Ryan shows bisexual and gay relationships as exciting, confusing, loving events in the lives of young people, yet without "out of the closet" melodrama or "story of the week" moralizing. Straight and LBGT teens alike will appreciate Ryan's sympathetic, yet realistic handling of her characters, their foibles, contradictions and ultimately human virtues. Also, teen readers still in high school will get the vicarious thrill of the sort of life that awaits them after graduation.
