Module 3 LS 5623: Dairy Queen

Book cover image from Amazon.com

DAIRY QUEEN
1. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Murdock, Catherine. 2006. DAIRY QUEEN. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN9780618683079.

2. PLOT SUMMARY
DJ Schwenk is not your typical fifteen year old girl. She has been the driving force behind her family’s dairy; keeping it going after her father is hurt and can’t work. Her future as a basketball star is put on hold due to the increase of work she must commit to at home. She trains her school’s rival quarterback, Brian Nelson, and makes him starting material, and then she, herself tries out for the Hawley football team because, ”I was so unhappy I tried to find something that made me happy, and I had this idea of playing football..And that made me happy so I thought I’d try.”

All of the things that have caused her unhappiness: her father’s injury, the fight that caused her two older brothers to leave, trying to discover why her younger brother won’t speak, why her mom is working two jobs isn’t coming home very much, her best friend’s avoidance of her after revealing her “big secret”, failing sophomore English, and, worst of all…knowing that she is in love with a boy she doesn’t think she is worthy of, have kept her from truly expressing herself. DJ’s football career begins, and so does her new voice.

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Murdock uses the likable D.J. Schwenk to narrate this story. D.J.’s inner dialogue uses a talk show format as Oprah asks questions about the people in D.J.’s life and D.J. tries to figure them out. Brian Nelson, the spoiled, lazy rich boy becomes likable as he spends the summer being trained by D.J. While D.J.’s change is subtle, Brian’s is dramatic as he goes from spoiled little rich boy to respected leader of his football team. His prodding and questioning of D.J. brings her to the point where she can express herself to those around her, try out for the football team, stand up to her father, encourage her younger brother and mother, and get the help she needs to pass English so her transcript can be F free. “Murdock’s cast of characters, from major to minor, show depth and credibility, never relying on stereotype” (CCBC -Cooperative Children’s Book Center Choices).

Wisconsin is the perfect setting for this story where dairy farms are numerous, small towns plentiful, and football teams are glorious. The rivalry between D.J.’s and Brian’s school is realistic and helps explain the betrayal Brian feels when he realizes that D.J. knows all about his abilities and can use this against him when she plays against him. The biggest betrayal for him is the fact that she didn’t tell him herself, “When you don’t talk, you know, there’s a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said.”


4. AWARDS AND HONORS
2006 Kirkus Best Children's Books
2007 YALSA Best Books for Young Adults

5. REVIEW EXCERPTS
From School Library Journal: "Wry narration and brisk sports scenes bolster the pacing, and D.J.'s tongue-tied nature and self-deprecating inner monologues contribute to the novel's many belly laughs. At the end, though, it is the protagonist's heart that will win readers over. Dairy Queen will appeal to girls who, like D.J., aren't girly-girls but just girls, learning to be comfortable in their own skins."
From Booklist:"This humorous, romantic romp excels at revealing a situation seldom explored in YA novels, and it will quickly find its place alongside equally well-written stories set in rural areas."

Module 3 LS 5623: Whale Talk

Book Cover image from Amazon.com
WHALE TALK
1. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Crutcher, Chris. 2001. WHALE TALK. New York, NY: Greenwillow Books. ISBN 0688180191.

2. PLOT SUMMARY
T.J. Jones is a rarity in his high school. Not only is he the only multiracial student in his Spokane, Washington high school, he is one of the few true athletes who has no desire to be part of a traditional athletic team or to earn a letter jacket. As he watches some of the school jocks belittle those less fortunate, he is asked to help build a school swim team at Cutter High School. The Merman team is formed complete with its own unusual Magnificent seven: T.J., “the adopted athlete”, Chris Laughlin, a Special Ed student trying to come to terms with the death of his older brother, Daniel Hole, “the genius”, Tay-Roy, “the body”, Simon Deloy, the “fat “kid, Jackie Cray, the invisible one, and Andy Mott, the one-legged swimmer whose true injuries are even worse. Although they have no swimming pool on campus, this band of misfits works together at the all night swim pool with the help of a homeless man to bring pride, and letter jackets, to their team.

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
This story is set in Spokane, Washington, and this is imperative to the story because of the racism in the area. Without this, WHALE SONG would not be as powerful.

The story begins at the ending…TJ has graduated and it is at the end of the summer. He is looking back to the year before and the events of his life that led up to a most traumatic event in his life. While this story is about a misfit swim team overcoming prejudice, it is also a redemption story…one life lost so another can be saved. An unlikely hero, burdened with a horrific secret from his past, losing his own life to save another, and finally being able to forgive himself.

Crutcher’s characterization of TJ’s adopted father is one of a gentle giant who accidentally killed an eighteen month old child in a freak trucking incident. This caused much pain for Mr. Jones since the mother of the child he killed was a woman who he had fallen in love with, and guilt-ridden, they part, never to see each other again. Mr. Jones becomes an advocate for all children, and the abused TJ becomes his son. He has married a lawyer, who mostly works on child abuse cases, and the two of them raise T.J.

Into their lives comes Heidi, a mixed race child who is so hated by her adopted, white father that she tries to scrub the color off of herself so that she will be accepted by him. Heidi comes to live with the Jones family after her father abuses her, her mother, and twin baby brothers one too many times. Rich Marshall is the former athlete who has graduated and makes life miserable for the Jones, his wife, and children. His hatred causes the most explosive moment in the book, in which the theme of forgiveness rings true. “Not one moment for revenge”. This book shows that by using “well-constructed characters and quick pacing to examine how the sometimes cruel and abusive circumstances of life affect every link in the human chain, and a heartwrenching series of plot twists leads to an end in which goodness at least partially prevails” (Booklist).



4. AWARDS AND HONORS
2002 YALSA Best Books for Young Adults
2001 Publishers Weekly Best Children's Books

5. REVIEW EXCERPTS
From Publisher's Weekly: "Crutcher's gripping tale of small-town prejudice delivers a frank, powerful message about social issues and ills. Representing one-third of his community's minority population ("I'm black. And Japanese. And white"), narrator T.J. Jones voices a darkly ironic appraisal of the high school sports arena."
From VOYA: "We have met the enemy and he is us" chillingly describe Crutcher's latest book in which hatred simmers, boils, and burns its characters. Narrator-protagonist T. J. is multiracial--black/Japanese/white--intellectually and athletically gifted, and sarcastic, his words both hilarious and insightful."

Module 3 LS 5623: Inside Out

Book cover image from Amazon.com

INSIDE OUT
1. BIBLOGRAPHY
Trueman, Terry. 2003. INSIDE OUT. New York, NY: HarperTempest. ISBN 0329389084.

2. PLOT SUMMARY
All Zachary Wahhsted wanted when he went into the coffee shop to wait for his mom to pick him up was a maple bar. Instead he has walked into a robbery situation gone wrong. “I mean, I guess I’m scared, but this all seems so normal to me. The thing is, I’m used to seeing and hearing really weird stuff, so this doesn’t feel that strange to me at all. It feels familiar.” Due to his schizophrenia, Zack hears and sees things that aren’t really there. While the two young robbers began to panic, Zack begins to float in and out of reality. Each chapter begins with a doctor’s report on Zack’s condition and by the end of the botched robbery; you realize that the true prisoner will be Zack. As one young robber says to his partner, “We’re in trouble here, I know that, but we’ll get out of it sooner or later-Zach is never going to get out of what’s happening to him. Man, I’d rather be us any day.”

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
While the story is taking place in the present, we learn about Zach’s schizophrenia through the clinical notes Dr. Curtis has taken after Zach attempts suicide. The book itself is narrated by Zack. As he frustrates the two young robbers, we understand even more about him. Although Booklist wrote, “the narrative blend isn't entirely successful; the facts often feel clumsily inserted, and Zach's unreliable voice doesn't allow his story to develop fully”, I liked the way I learned about Zach’s condition. His voice remained true to who he was, and in his simplicity, one can truly relate to what schizophrenia is. Most schizophrenics are void of emotions, Zach’s narration is true to form.

The story takes place in Spokane, but it has the feel of anywhere America. Trueman creates characters that are believable, and he even manages to help the reader develop sympathy for the two young robbers. As things are falling down around them, one tells the other, “I don’t want them to tell Mom…she’ll blame herself...she’s too sick.” Later in the book it is discovered that the guns the young men have used don’t even have bullets in them. The two teenagers are trying to get money to help their uninsured mom with her cancer treatment.

Although for some “the shocking ending also feels tacked on” (Booklist), the ending is very realistic for someone experiencing this disease. During the book we find out through Dr. Curtis’s notes that he has explained to Zach’s mother there is not a cure for schizophrenia. “INSIDE OUT is tense and gripping and it does not have a fairy-tale ending" (The Lorgnette-Heart of Texas Reviews) just like this mental illness.

4. AWARDS AND HONORS
2004 YALSA Best Books for Young
2004 ALA Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers
2005 International Reading Association's Young Adults' Choices

5. REVEIW EXCERPTS
From School Library Journal: "Trueman uses Zach's narration to challenge readers to feel the confusion and dark struggle of schizophrenia. The effect is disturbing, if somewhat didactic. Both the grim topic and strong language in this edgy novel suggest a mature audience."
From Booklist:"Sixteen-year-old Zach isn't frightened when two armed teenagers hold up the coffee shop where he's waiting for his mother. "The thing is," Zach says, "I'm used to seeing and hearing really weird stuff." In his second novel, the author of Stuck in Neutral (2000) takes readers inside the mind of a schizophrenic teenager. Excerpts from Zach's psychiatric records interweave with his first-person account of the dramatic robbery, offering readers the medical facts as well as Zach's personal story, especially the terror and confusion he feels when he can't distinguish between the real and the imagined."

Module 2 LS 5623: Between Mom and Jo

Book cover image from Amazon.com.

BETWEEN MOM AND JO
1. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Peters, Julie Ann. 2006. BETWEEN MOM AND JO. New York, NY: Little, Brown, and Company. ISBN 0316739065.

2. PLOT SUMMARY
Nick is a fourteen year old boy who has faced many of the challenges teenagers face: losing a pet, a workaholic mother, an alcoholic parent, a mother fighting breast cancer, questions about his sexuality, his parents splitting up, and his parents fighting over custodial rights. The difference is that Nick lives with his two moms, and he has endured a completely different set of problems being the only child in his class who has parents who are gay. As Nick is pulled between his two moms, he discovers how to voice what he truly needs.

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
This story is told from the view point of Nick, and the author helps us to know him by having him flashback to the events of his youth that bring us to where he and his moms are today. In a flashback from when he was three and had been taken to the hospital by Jo, his “other” mom, “That was my first memory of being alive…Where was Mom? At work probably. Or home…I don’t know why I kept a reminder of that day...Some things leave permanent scars.”

The lesbian relationship was important to the story, but it wasn’t what drove the story. This line from the School Library Journal review of the book explains it better, “This novel is a timely exploration of the struggles faced by same-sex couples and their children, and while the issues are significant, the story is never overwhelmed by them.
Even though Nick has issues involving his classmates and teachers due to the sexuality of his moms; cancer, alcohol, and infidelity are the bigger problems for Nick’s family.
As Nick faces the loss of Jo, who has no custodial rights since she didn’t adopt him, one of the true themes of the book comes to light…”a child in a family facing divorce hurts-no matter what genders comprise the parent couple” (VOYA). Nick explains, “When Jo moved out, she took more than her stuff. She stripped the soul from this house.”

It is imperative that the issues facing our young people today be addressed, and that what occurred at Rutgers University last week becomes a thing of the past. I realize the need for books such as this and I might have been guilty of the self censoring described in the following review excerpt from VOYA, but not now! “Because of this family makeup, many librarians will self-censor the book, doing what Nick's elementary teacher did with his drawings. But the novel needs to be read. Doing so takes one step toward helping this kind of family feel less invisible; doing so represents one step closer to recognizing and supporting their very real existence.”

4. AWARDS AND HONORS
2008 American Library Association’s Rainbow List

5. REVIEW EXCERPTS
From the School Library Journal: “This coming-of-age novel powerfully portrays the universal pain of a family breakup. It also portrays what is still a weird situation to many people (as reflected in the behavior of Nick's babysitter) as totally normal from one young man's point of view.”
From Booklist: “ Fourteen-year-old Nick has two moms who couldn't be more different. His biological mother, Mom, is dependable and careful; Jo, Mom's partner, is irresponsible and impulsive. Nick tells their story in vignettes, including little things, such as the teasing he gets at school, as well as big things, such as Mom's cancer and Jo's alcoholism. Eventually these vignettes turn into a divorce story: Mom finds a new partner; Jo, who has no rights to Nick, struggles on her own; and Nick breaks down after Mom refuses to allow him to see Jo, with whom he wants to live. Nick's incapacitating depression and Mom's refusal to acknowledge it drag on far too long, turning into turgid melodrama. Yet Peters deftly depicts Nick's relationship with his moms and theirs with each other, and the story stays rooted in Nick's sensitive but limited perspective. A novel that will spark discussion.”

Module 2 LS 5623: Before I Die

Book cover image from Amazon.com.

BEFORE I DIE
1. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Downham, Jenny. 2007. BEFORE I DIE. Great Britain: David Fickling Books. ISBN 9780385751551.

2. PLOT SUMMARY
"I want to die in my own way. It’s my illness, my death, my choice.” Tessa Scott creates her own “bucket list”…ten things she wants to accomplish before the cancer that she has fought for four years takes her life. At sixteen, and knowing that she has but a few months to live, Tessa doesn’t worry about the consequences of the actions on her list. She begins with having sex (and with a stranger), using drugs, shoplifting, taking her father’s car, saying yes to everything in a single day, being interviewed on the radio (to become famous), and falling in love. Completing the list isn’t possible: holding her pregnant friend’s baby, finishing school, travelling the world, and …growing up. By working on the items on the list, she has a reason to live. It is in the living that she begins to be able to accept the inevitable end of her life.

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
So much comes together to make this book work. The book is written in the first person. Every part of the story is seen through Tessa’s eyes from discovering that her cancer has progressed to having such a bloody nose she must go to the hospital.
The characters are written realistically and their emotions are understandable. Tessa’s dad is compassionate and lonely since he quit his job in order to care for his ill daughter. Her mother has left the family, but is tentatively coming back to help Tessa as her illness progresses. There is even a bit of pity for her when she takes Tessa to the hospital because of her bloody nose but can’t tell when Tessa’s last blood transfusion was because she wasn’t there. Just when it seems as if her maternal side will not kick in, she keeps Tessa’s attention away from what is going on during a procedure by telling her about the family all trying oysters for the first time. Cal, Tessa’s little brother, goes through a range of emotions from crying because he doesn’t want his sister to die to being mad at her and telling her, “I hope you die while I am at school!..And I hope it bloody hurts! And I hope they bury you somewhere horrible like the fish shop or the dentist’s!”

Reading about duvets being pulled up over someone in bed, living in a flat, having a Mum, falling on your “arse”, calling a sexual experience a “shag”, and retrieving a “fag from a box” to smoke all lead to the revelation that the story is taking place in England. The setting allows for a richness of language and , according to Kirkus reviews, “Lucid language makes a painful journey bearable, beautiful, and transcendent.”

“Most memorably, listeners hear Tessa's unspoken words-snippets of inner monologues, dreams and flashes of memories that drift into her fading consciousness as she lays dying (Publisher’s Weekly).” The pages of the last chapter show more and more space, and as Tessa’s thoughts begin to muddle with the words she hears spoken around her, she leaves this Earth. Having the character die makes this novel even more realistic to all who read it, and keeps its message about the frailty of life going on long after the reader finishes the book.

4. AWARDS AND HONORS
2007 Booklist Editors' Choice: Books for Youth
2007 Kirkus Best Young Adult Books
2007 Publishers Weekly Best Children's Books
2008 YALSA Best Books for Young Adults
2009 Tayshas High School Reading List

5. REVIEW EXCERPTS
From Kirkus Reviews, labeled a starred review: "Lucid language makes a painful journey bearable, beautiful and transcendent."

From the New York Times Book Review’s John Burnham Schwartz, "This may sound too depressing for words, but it is only one indication of the inspired originality of Before I Die, by Jenny Downham, that the reader can finish its last pages feeling thrillingly alive ... I don't care how old you are. This book will not leave you."

Module 2 LS 5623: Sweethearts

Cover image from Amazon.com.

SWEETHEARTS
1. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Zarr, Sara. 2008. SWEETHEARTS. New York, NY: Little, Brown, and Company. ISBN 9780316014557.

2. PLOT SUMMARY
Jennifer Harris and Cameron Quick were social outcasts and best friends. “How us being together all the time made us a bigger target, the whole of our exile being greater than the sum of our outcast parts. How we didn’t care because we had each other.” One day Cameron disappears without telling Jennifer good-bye. Now the lisping, overweight, binge eating Jennifer has no one to call friend.

The summer before Jennifer begins seventh grade, her mother marries Alan Vaughn.
Jennifer becomes Jenna Vaughn and she starts life over in a new school district. She has lost weight, no longer lisps, and becomes part of the “in” crowd. On her seventeenth birthday she receives a package in the mail from Cameron, telling her he is back in town. Cameron comes back into Jenna’s life and has transformed as she has.

Jenna has never forgotten her first friend nor has Cameron forgotten her. As she laments about how horrible their childhood was together he tells her, “We had each other. I never needed anyone else.” As Jenna grows closer to Cameron, she discovers why he left without explanation (he and his family were victims of domestic violence and left his abusive father). Cameron again leaves, but this time he is able to contact Jenna and tell her why. Jenna is left wondering if her love for Cameron was the true love of forever.

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
As I began this book, I thought I would be reading a sweet little romance. The cover had a heart cookie on it with a bite taken out of it and the title was Sweethearts. I was pleasantly surprised. This story is written in the first person narrative. Jenna Vaughn aka Jennifer Harris tells us the story from her point of view. In flashbacks we meet the overweight, unclean, lisping Jennifer who steals food in order to fill a hunger within that has nothing to do with food, but acceptance. Her elementary years are tolerable due to her friend, Cameron, who lives in a home where domestic abuse is the norm. After escaping a terrifying incident concerning Cameron’s father, the two children are even closer than ever. That makes Cameron’s abrupt departure from Jennifer’s life even harder for her to accept.

The voice of Jenna Vaughn, the now slim, clean, clear spoken seventeen year old is one of confidence until her seventeenth birthday arrives and she is confronted with the memories of her young self, as Cameron reenters her life. We are given a first hand account of Jenna’s struggle with herself as she begins to feel the need for food and binging. “Jenna struggles to see the child she was more clearly, to find a way to integrate her past into her present and to work toward self-acceptance” (School Library Journal).

The author brings to light many tough issues that young people go through from binging to homelessness, in a way that is realistic. According to the School Library Journal, “Sweethearts is not saccharine; it is substantial.”


4. AWARDS AND HONORS
2009 Booklist Best Books for Young Adults
2009 YALSA Best Books for Young Adults

5. REVIEW EXCERPTS
A starred review from VOYA: "[Zarr is a] master of show-not-tell....[a] subtle, beautifully-written novel."
From Kirkus Reviews: "Haunting and ultimately hopeful....A convincing, fire person narrative voice....Zarr transfixes teen readers with enticing explorations of identity and enduring love."