Module 6 LS 5623 Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Big Sister Went Crazy

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STOP PRETENDING: WHAT HAPPENED WHEN MY BIG SISTER WENT CRAZY
1. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Sones, Sonya. 1999. STOP PRETENDING: WHAT HAPPENED WHEN MY BIG SISTER WENT CRAZY. New York: Harper Collins Publishers. ISBN 9780060283872.

2. PLOT SUMMARY
Sonya Sones takes a look at mental illness through the eyes of the people left behind. During Christmas Break, Cookie's big sister has a breakdown and is put in a "psycho" ward. Cookie writes in her journal to deal with all the confusion going on in her mind. "When I was lost/you were the one who found me/now you're the one who's lost/and I can't find you anywhere."

As the family comes to terms with Sister's illness, Cookie goes through fear of being crazy too, loss of friends, depression, and first love. At one point, after missing her sister's help on homework, she writes,"I'm sitting here taking the test/but the numbers on the page/keep scrambling in my head/and the only equation/ I really understand is: 4-1=0." By the end of the novel, Cookie and her family have adjusted to their new version of "normal".

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
This book, written as a diary in verse, is most powerful when one reads the author's notes. STOP PRETENDING is based on Sones own experience as her sister has a mental breakdown. After sharing a poem about visiting her sister in the hospital, Sones was encouraged to share even more of her poems because "Poems like this would be helpful to anyone who has a family member with a problem that's throwing the rest of the family off-kilter".

The first person narrative of this book is written so that anyone experiencing this type of situation could relate. Her sister is called "Sister", while Sonya is called "Cookie". This quote from the review in Children's Books in Ireland explains the book best, "It is undoubtedly engaging, in places poignant, and skillful in sketching in the background details of home, family relationships and hospital. But its overall tone is uncertain".

4. HONORS AND AWARDS
California Department of Education's 2002 Recommended Literature List: Kindergarten through Grade Twelve

5. REVIEW EXCERPTS
From School Library Journal: "An unpretentious, accessible book that could provide entry points for a discussion about mental illness-its stigma, its realities, and its affect on family members."

From Amazon.com Review: "In a sequence of short, intense poems based on the author's own experiences, a 13-year-old girl suffers through her shifting feelings about her sibling's mental illness."

Module 6 LS 5623 Tricks

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TRICKS
1. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hopkins, Ellen. 2009. TRICKS. New York: Margaret K. McElderrey Books. ISBN 9781416950073.

2. PLOT SUMMARY
Eden lives the beginning of her life with her evangelical preacher father and mother. When she falls in love with a boy from another religion, she is sent away to "A sizable chunk of desert dubbed Tears of Zion. Oh, it's a very special place where Father and his 'disciples' rehabilitate incorrigible youth." Ginger has been used and abused by her prostitute mother for childcare, housekeeping, and even for a few "tricks" with older men. Ginger escapes with her girlfriend to Las Vegas and begins life as a stripper/escort.

Seth, a farm boy, is disowned when his father discovers that Seth has been involved in a homosexual relationship. Seth begins his life as a kept man, being cared for by older gentlemen until he discovers Vegas and becomes an escort.
Whitney has an absentee father, a "perfect" older sister, and a mother who loves her older sister more. Whitney falls in love with an older man, who takes her away to Las Vegas. He becomes her pimp, and introduces her to heroin.
Cody becomes trapped in financial worries as his gambling addiction grows and his stepfather passes away, leaving Cody with a pile of debt. He is lured into becoming an escort for other males, and uses the money to help his family out.

"Lucky me. I found the right kind of love. With the wrong person." So could be the lament of the five main characters in Tricks. Five different teens with five different stories all wind up in Las Vegas, pulling tricks.

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Hopkins tells the story of each character in their own voice. The book is written as a series of different poems. Just as in Crank and Glass, Tricks tackles tough issues in a straight forward way. There were times that I did not think I would be able to get through the book due to the nature of the subject matter, "Graphic sex, rape, drugs, bitter loneliness, despair—and eventually, blessedly, glimmers of hope"(Kirkus Reviews. The hope at the end of the book makes the rest of it bearable. This book is clearly for older readers.

One of the unique traits of Hopkins writing is when she spaces some of her words out to the side of a poem so that when they are read individually, they create their own mini poem.

Possibilities
As a child, I was wary,
often felt cornered.
To escape, I regularly
stashed myself
in the closet,
comforted by curtains
of cotton. Silk. Velour.
Avoided wool, which
encouraged my
itching
the ever-present rashes
on my arms, legs. My skin
reacted to secret, lies,
and taunts by wanting
to break out.
(The italicized lines are the lines which would appear to the right of the poem and can be read together.)

4. HONORS AND AWARDS
ALA's 2010 Rainbow List

5. REVIEW EXCERPTS
From Booklist:"Teens will queue up for this one—some, admittedly, for the sensational subject matter—and find Hopkins’ trademark empathy for teens in rough situations."

From Kirkus Reviews:"Hopkins sharply portrays extreme adolescent turbulence with her biggest cast yet, as five disparate, desperate teens are sucked into the Las Vegas world of selling sex."

Module 6 LS 5623 The Plain Janes

Book cover image from Amazon.com

THE PLAIN JANES
1. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Castellucci, Cecil and Rugg, Jim. 2007. THE PLAIN JANES. New York: DC Comics. ISBN 9781404211158.

2. PLOT SUMMARY
Jane is moved to suburbia from Metro City after she is injured in a 9/11 type bombing of a cafe. As she reevaluates her life, she begins high school, determined not to be so complacent. Through a series of letters to a comatose John Doe she met at the hospital after the attack, Jane documents her life. She befriends a group of "loners" who all happen to be named Jane, thus her "tribe" begins. There is brainy Jayne, athletic wanna be Polly Jane, and dramatic Jane. This group of misfits begins a group called P.L.A.I.N. (People Loving Art in Neighborhoods), and it is in plotting and carrying out their plans to help people "find something beautiful everyday" that each girl gains the confidence to realize her own dream.

3. CRITICAL ANAYLSIS
This graphic, young adult novel was developed to appeal to teen girls. True to its form, this novel will appeal to reluctant readers, too, "It’s sparsely worded, but the art depicts scenes with a mastery of teen life"(KLIATT Review). This first person narrative is believable and true to teen language "this sucks". Each stereotypical high school cliche is represented by a believable character: the rebel, the jock, the drama queen, the misunderstood loner, the genius, the mean girl, and even the student who has "come out". What isn't stereotypical is that this isn't a cute little novel happening in the typical high school fashion: "Ultimately, the book’s message is about the transformative and healing power of art, and the role outsiders have always played in bringing that message to the masses" (Cooperative Children's Book Choices).

4. REVIEW EXCERPTS
From Library Media Connection: "This book represents an excellent blend of YA fiction and graphic novel, and is destined to be very popular with junior high and high school students."

From Booklist: "Cecil Castellucci’s first graphic novel is both funny and serious in its depiction of our post–9/11 world where conformity is too often equated with security. Much of the humor comes from Jim Rugg’s illustrations, which perfectly capture the sense of adolescent ennui and enthusiasm."

Module 5 LS 5623 Bodies from the Ice: Melting Glaciers and the Recovery of the Past

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BODIES FROM THE ICE: MELTING GLACIERS AND THE RECOVERY OF THE PAST
1. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Deem, James M. 2008. BODIES FROM THE ICE: MELTING GLACIERS AND THE RECOVERY OF THE PAST. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 9780618800452.

2. BOOK SUMMARY
Imagine that you have reached the summit of a glacial mountain and are triumphantly climbing down only to notice what looks like trash from other climbers, but upon closer inspection you discover human remains. The mummified remains are studied and discovered to be thousands of years old.

As the glaciers in the world melt, more and more of the terrain is being exposed along with artifacts and remains of various missing people from long ago. Deem takes the reader through the Alps to a North American glacier, where different human bodies have been found. There is even a chapter on the Andes where may frozen children have been found, used in sacrificial ceremonies to "appease their gods".The final part of this informational book is a plea to save the findings of the past by thinking about the future of our environment.

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Each page is a visual feast for the eyes because “The book is full of colorful photographs and paintings of the various glaciers and the bodies and artifacts buried in them, many of which take up over half a page, letting the reader experience the beauty of glaciers as and the wonders they have entombed”(Children’s Literature). The text is not just fact after fact and glacier after glacier, but the reader is drawn in as each discovery is explained and given the human touch to it. The explanation of how the glaciers form and move: “Deem discusses how glaciers operate like “a giant conveyor belt—essentially a moving river of ice.” With force and power, glaciers churn up, and turn up, mountain debris. This debris sometimes includes human remains that offer amazing insights into the past” (Children’s Literature).

While the some of the visuals could be disturbing “Moving quickly beyond the sensationalism of each gruesome discovery, Deem carefully considers the terrain, ice formations, and glacial movement that variously entrap and preserve, or displace and dismember human remains”( The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books).
While many of the pages contained sidebars of extra information, one of the most significant occurred near the end of the book. The reader is give “Personal Ways to Help the Environment”. The book ends with a list of glaciers to visit, suggested websites, acknowledgements and bibliography, illustration credits, and an index.

The seven chapters divide the book but also make it easy for the reader to choose where he/she would like to start. I began with “Chapter 4: Frozen Children of the Andes”.

4. AWARDS AND HONORS
2008 Kirkus Best children's Books
2009 National Science Teacher Association's Outstanding Trade Books for Students K-12
2009 Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal Honor Book

5. REVIEW EXCERPTS
From Booklist: "There are books about melting glaciers and books about frozen bodies, but this attractive offering combines the topics in a way that will intrigue readers."

From Kirkus Reviews: "An intriguing read ... with a bonus environmental message."

Module 5 LS 5623 We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball

Book cover image from Amazon.com

WE ARE THE SHIP: THE STORY OF NEGRO LEAGUE BASEBALL
1. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Nelson, Kadir. 2008. WE ARE THE SHIP: THE STORY OF NEGRO LEAGUE BASEBALL. New York: Jump at the Sun/Hyperion. ISBN 9780786808328.

2. BOOK SUMMARY
In the late 1800’s Negro baseball players were unable to play on professional baseball teams. This came from a secret meeting in which a “gentleman’s agreement” was made forcing all Negro players off of teams and not hiring any more. On February 20, 1920 Rube Foster met with all of the other owners of black baseball teams in the Midwest, and started the Negro National League. Rube said, “We are the ship, all else the sea.”

Nelson introduces us to many of the famous players in the league and explains the conditions that the players endured, “Try sleeping in a car with your knees to your chest, crammed with eight other guys, only to play a game the next day.” The players were often discriminated against and couldn’t even eat in the restaurants in some of the towns they played. Even during the Depression, there was baseball.
Some of the players would go to Cuba to train, and possibly try to stay since the players weren’t discriminated against in Latin America. The heat and absolute perfection demanded of them sent many of them back to the US to continue to play for the Negro leagues.

The Negro Leagues began to become obsolete when some of their players crossed to play in the Major League. “If a colored boy can make it on Okinawa and Guadalcanal … he can make it in baseball. Jackie Robinson was the first player to cross, and in 1948 the Negro League ended.

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
What caught my attention first with this book were the amazing illustrations. “Each turn of the page provides a visual treat for the reader, whether it is a portrait of a player, or an action shot such as that of Jackie Robinson stealing home “(Children’s Literature). The images were so realistic and were just as powerful as his illustrations in Henry’s Freedom Box.

The book was told from the view point of every man. In Nelson’s Author’s Notes at the end of the book he gives his reasoning for choosing this way to tell the story, “I chose to present the voice of the narrator as a collective voice, the voice of every player, the voice of we…it became clear that hearing the story of Negro League baseball directly from those who experienced it firsthand made it more real, more accessible.”

Another part of this book’s appeal is that the each chapter has its own title, but instead of being given just a number, it is called a certain inning. For example, the first chapter is called “1st Inning: Beginnings”. The last chapter is called “Extra Innings: The End of the Negro Leagues”.

The book ends with a listing of all the members of the Negro Leagues who made it to the Major Leagues and those who are in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. These two lists come before the Bibliography, Filmography, End Notes for each chapter, and Index.

4. AWARDS AND HONORS
2008 Horn Book Fanfare
2008 Kirkus Best Children's Books
2008 Publisher's Weekly Best Children's Books
2008 School Library Journal Best Books
2009 Booklist's Top 10 Black History Books for Youth
2009 Author Winner of the Corretta Scott King Book Award
2008 Winner New York times Best Illustrated Children's Book's of the Year
2009 Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children Honorable Mention
2009 Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal Winner
2008 Society of Illustrators' Award Silver Medal

5. REVIEW EXCERPTS
From Booklist: "The stories and artwork are a tribute to the spirit of the Negro Leaguers, who were much more than also-rans and deserve a more prominent place on baseball’s history shelves. For students and fans (and those even older than the suggested grade level), this is the book to accomplish just that."

From Kirkus Review's: "Along with being absolutely riveted by the art, readers will come away with a good picture of the Negro Leaguers' distinctive style of play, as well as an idea of how their excellence challenged the racial attitudes of both their sport and their times."

Module 5 LS 5623 The Wednesday Wars

Book cover image from Amazon.com

THE WEDNESDAY WARS
1. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Schmidt, Gary D. 2007. THE WEDNESDAY WARS. New York: Clarion Books. ISBN 9780618724833.

2. PLOT SUMMARY
Holling Hoodhood lived in what his father called the perfect house right in the middle of the town. It was not to the north where all the residents went to temple or to the south, were the residents attended mass, but in the middle, where Holling attended the Presbyterian Church and had a pastor who was “old enough to have known Moses” and “could have called Isaiah a personal friend”. Holling is the only student in his seventh grade class who doesn’t have religious instruction on Wednesday afternoon, so he and his teacher spend this time together. Mrs. Baker uses this time to “punish” him by having him learn Shakespeare.

Through the year, the Shakespeare lessons help Holling deal with the turmoil going on around him: the Vietnam War, cream puffs and rats, bullies (especially Doug Swieteck’s brother), first love, racism, track, and these are the issues he contends with at school. While at home, he deals with a father who is more concerned about business contracts and “being a candidate for the Chamber of Commerce Businessman of 1967” than he is about the well being of his twelve year old son and sixteen year old “flower child” daughter. Through it all, Holling begins to grow into his future persona, to “become a man who brought peace and wisdom to his world because he knew about war and folly… he loved greatly because he had seen what lost love is. And …he came to know, too, that he was loved greatly”.


3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Holling Hoodhood narrates THE WEDNESDAY WARS and, as Booklist so eloquently puts it, “Holling’s unwavering, distinctive voice offers a gentle, hopeful, moving story of a boy who, with the right help, learns to stretch beyond the limitations of his family, his violent times, and his fear, as he leaps into his future with his eyes and his heart wide open.” Holling is a believable narrator as he goes through the unrest of the time…the Vietnam War, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, racial protests, and flower children.

One could be overwhelmed by all that is taking place historically, but the character of Holling is so likeable that the reader becomes caught up in his everyday life. “There is a lot going on in this novel not all related to the politics of the turbulent 1960s. The assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, and the unpopular Vietnam War play a part in Holling's seventh grade year but so do two rats, Sycorax and Calliban, with their clacking yellow teeth; a part as Ariel in yellow tights; a track team; bullying and racism; a camping trip; and disappointment in a first love (VOYA).” Schmidt brings 1967 alive, but what truly lingers when the book is over is the characterization of Holling Hoodhood and his remarkable teacher, Mrs. Baker.


4. AWARDS AND HONORS
2008 John Newbery Medal Honnor Book
2007 Washington Post Best Books for Young People
2007 Booklist Editor's Choice Books for Youth
2008 Booklist's Top 10 Historical Fiction for Youth
2008 YALSA Best Books for Young Adults

5. REVIEW EXCERPTS
From Children's Literature: "This story interweaves the issues of the period with grace and power, resulting in historical fiction both entertaining and endearing."

From VOYA: "This novel is funny, warm, sad, and touching all at the same time."

Module 4 LS 5623 The Dead & the Gone

Book cover image from amazon.com

THE DEAD AND THE GONE
1. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Pfeffer, Susan Beth. 2008. THE DEAD & THE GONE. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 9780547258553.

2. PLOT SUMMARY
Alex Morales is an average seventeen year old boy. As he lives in New York City with his Puerto Rican family, he values his faith, his family, and ‘a full scholarship to Georgetown and summer internships with United States senators. He wanted to be the first president of the United States of Puerto Rican descent.” When an asteroid hits the moon and knocks it closer to Earth, Alex’s dreams change...now he wants “to wake to hear Papi cursing him out and Mami defending him. He wanted the moon back where it belonged and pessimistic scientists to crawl under rocks. More than anything, he wanted to know his parents were safe.” During the seven month span of the book, Alex bears witness to tsunamis, floods, rising tides, volcanic ash blocking out the sun, earthquakes, Yankee Stadium becoming a morgue, and much despair. He struggles to keep his sisters alive and to be among the living, not the dead or the gone.

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Susan Pfeffer creates a science fiction novel which soon draws on dystopian aspects. An asteroid hitting the moon and knocking it off course is what causes the action in the novel, but it is how the characters interact with themselves and each other that kept this reader involved and kept this book from being just another sci-fi tale. Because the author labeled each chapter as a date without a year, we know that the story covers seven months. The language and situations used give it a modern day feel.

Seventeen year old Alex Morales is the protagonist. While he struggles with keeping his sisters in line, his biggest problem is what the world has become with the moon being off track. During one portion of the novel, his supplies dealer tries to trade him safe passage for him and his sister, Brie, by using his younger sister as the bartering item.

Booklist declares “Religion is one of the strong threads running through the novel.” This is evident in the way that Alex continues to pray during all that is going on “As long as he prayed, he didn’t have to think. He didn’t have to remember”. He sends his sister, Bri, to a convent in the country, he goes to a private catholic school, and he and his sisters frequently pray to Madre Santisiana.


4. AWARDS AND HONORS
2008 Cybil Award Finalist
2009 Texas Lone Star Reading List

5. REVIEW EXCERPTS
From Booklist:"The story’s power, as in the companion book, comes from readers’ ability to picture themselves in a similiar situation; everything Pfeffer writes about seems wrenchingly plausible."

From Kirkus: "As in the previous novel, Life as We Knew It, realistically bone-chilling despair and death join with the larger question of how the haves and have-nots of a major metropolitan city will ultimately survive in an increasingly lawless, largely deserted urban wasteland. Incredibly engaging."