The Wave

      The Wave by Todd Strasser is an awesome book for reluctant adolescent readers, if they have enough background knowledge on The Holocaust and Germany in WWII. 
      This book is based on a true story of a high school history teacher in California in 1969.  He is teaching his class about WWII and the Holocaust.  His students have mixed reactions to the lesson.  Some students are horrified at what they saw in the video.  Other students felt it was a sad event, but it had no bearing on life today.   Still others question how the German people could allow this to happen.
      Their teacher decides to set up a simulation to show his students how people could fall into this type of thinking.  His simulation is a shocking success and is soon spreading around the school.  The teacher and the students begin to lose themselves in The Wave.  The Wave gets out of control fast and shocking parallels to Nazi Germany occur.
     My students love this book and it has led to amazing discussions and connections in class.  We have learned about WWII, the Holocaust, and Hitler's Youth.  We have looked at the editorial cartoons from Dr. Seuss during WWII and learned to evaluate propaganda posters from all the countries involved in the war.  They have made intriguing connections with current events in the middle east and with bullying in our school.
     I highly recommend this book to all teachers.  It is scary to see the power we weild in our students' lives.  I also recommend this book to anyone with an interest in WWII or for teachers teaching a unit on The Holocaust.     

Daniel X Watch the Skies

      Daniel X Watch the Skies by James Patterson and Ned Rust is the second book in the Daniel X series.  My son Nick and I read it together because we both loved Daniel X so much in the first book.
      This time Daniel X is fighting a new alien from The List, Number 5.  This alien is filming a reality tv show on Earth to entertain his home planet.  His minions are torturing humans by making them do silly stunts and then killing them for the tv show.  The aliens in the audience love the tv show, and Alien 5 is sure they will get incredible ratings back home.  The aliens are spreading the love by impregnating the women of the town who ate the free sardine samples they found in their mailboxes.  Daniel X has to figure out how to help the pregnant women in his town and stop Alien #5 before he becomes the headline act of the new reality show.   
      I liked this book almost as much as the first one, but Nick was disappointed in the new alien.  He felt that Alien Number 5 wasn't as developed as Seth was in the first book.  He also felt that Daniel wasn't as funny as he had been in the original novel.  Although he didn't like it as much as the original book, he still liked it a lot. 
     This book has short chapters which added to the excitement of the book.  You feel like you are rushing headlong into every experience Daniel experiences.  Daniel has a sarcastic sense of humor that had both of us giggling nearly every night we read.  It is a quick read and one that you don't want to stop reading.  I recommend this book for reluctant readers, especially boys.
    

The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963

     The Watsons Go to Birmingham is historical fiction about the church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama 1963. 
     Byron is a fun character because he does things that I would never do.  This boy oozes confidence.  He is so in love with himself he freezes his lips to the side mirror of the car.  He sets things on fire, bleaches his hair, steals, sluffs school and picks on his little brother. 
     Even though he is the "bad" kid, he has a heart of gold.  He saves his brother, cries over a dead bird, and beats up anyone who dares to pick on his younger brother, Kenny. 
     Byron's bad behavior causes momma and dad to ship him off to grandma's house in Alabama.  Alabama is very different from Michigan.  The Watsons find a very segregated city in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement.  The church in Birmingham is bombed, killing four little girls.  Kenny is forced to grow up quickly and brutally at the church.
     The only thing I did not like about the book is the limited time we look at the Civil Rights issue in Alabama.  The story builds up to it throughout the book, but it seemed anticlimactic once we got there. 
     It is a Newberry Award finalist and a great book set in the Civil Rights Movement.  My students and I loved the humor and the information we learned about Birmingham "Bombingham" in 1963. 

Gone

     You know it's going to be a great book when 8th graders are stealing each other's books to read it.  It took me a while to get into Gone, but if I were 15, I would have loved it. 
     Gone had an interesting plot line, but I was bored through the first half of the book.  The non-stop action wasn't enough to make me care about any of the characters.  I couldn't even keep track of most of them because they were only superficially developed.  Since I didn't feel invested in the characters, the epic battle seemed contrived.  Stephen King did a much better job of portraying the same battle in The Stand because I cared intensely about the characters.  Several characters died in Gone, and Michael Grant tried to make their deaths seem noble, but I just felt indifferent. 
     The evil controlling the book is an unknown force in the pit.  Since we do not truly understand this force, I didn't feel scared or intrigued or disgusted.  Instead it made everything seem hopeless.  If fate controls us and evil is unavoidable, why continue to fight? 
     Throwing man-eating coyotes into a day care with babies was cruel and did nothing to lead the plot forward.  It was a sad commentary on our society.  We have taught our children well.  Left alone they revert into us and willingly kill one another to survive. 
     The only character with a conscience for killing a girl becomes half asphalt and nearly unable to move by the end of the novel.  The character with the guiltiest conscience has the coolest weapon at the end.  He has been rewarded with nearly unlimited power.  It's not hard to see which character the kids will identify with in the novel.
      Okay, so that is my adult take on Gone.  As a kid, it is fast-paced, violent, and gritty.  Many of the characters develop superhero powers and use them to battle one another in huge battles that tear the town apart.  I would love it - especially if I had recently read other dystopian literature lately - like The Hunger Games.  As an adult, read The Stand. 

The Maze in the Heart of the Castle

     My friend Catherine gave me the book The Maze in the Heart of the Castle by Dorthy Gilman.  It ended up in my pile of books and finally resurfaced this week.  I am so glad it did.  This small book has become one of my all-time favorites.
   This book can be read on two levels - the story of a boy on a quest for a far-off land - or as an allegory, much like The Little Prince. 
     Colin is sixteen when he loses both his parents and finds himself alone in the world.  Battling his grief, he begs Brother John to explain the age old question we all eventually ask - why?
     Brother John sends him to a castle with a magical maze.  By facing the maze, Colin will find his answer.  Through Colin's adventures, he learns lessons about the human condition.

• Sometimes the endless maze is self-imposed and we may need to climb over the obstacles to find our way out.   
• Truth cannot be silenced. 
• Sometimes we must fight for what is right.
• Our mind can take us to dark places that incubate us, but we can not stay there without going mad. 
• Love is worth having, even if the person we love betrays us. 
• Magic and miracles come to us in our darkest moments.
• We become what our thougts allow us to be.   

     A beautiful book that is easy to read.  Like Colin, I am a better person for taking the journey.

Matched and The Giver

     I absolutely love both of these books.  I happened to be reading The Giver with my students at the same time I read Matched.  They were interesting books to pair together because they had many of the same themes and questions to ponder.
     Cassia is the heroine in Matched.  She is the perfect daughter, student and citizen.  She knows who she will marry, what her job will be, and that she will die on her 80th birthday.  It all seems so organized and perfect for society.  Cassie never thinks to question the society or her place in it.  Jonas is the hero in The Giver.  Though younger than Cassia, Jonas is also a perfect son, student, and citizen.  He is told what job he will hold, who he will marry and when he will die.  They are both given pills to suppress their desires and emotions.  Both societies are very controlling, but tell everyone it is for their own good.

     Throughout both books, Cassia and Jonas learn of the horrors behind their perfect societies.  Cassia learns the society is not as ideal as it pretends to be - beginning with her grandfather's death.  Cassie learns about the flaws of her society slowly, so it is harder to feel her rage.  Jonas is forced to learn quickly and brutally as he discovers memories and emotions that he must take on for the good of the society.  I will never forget the scene in The Giver when Jonas watched his father "release" the twin baby.  It was horrifying and made me unerstand the horrors of this ideal society.  Cassia didn't experience any horrific moments like Jonas, so it was more difficult for me to see her society as "dangerous."
     Both of the books made me think in new ways.  Matched made me wonder about why we choose the people we love.  Is there one love for all of us that is our perfect match or is there always another person?  By choosing one, do we set a new set of choices in motion or is fate still set because someone knew what we would choose?  What about my job?  Why did teaching always seem like such a certainty?  In our rush to make everything less offensive to everyone, how much do we lose?  Which songs or poems or paintings or books would make the cut?  How much of ourselves would we lose in the choosing or later in the limitations that remain?
     The Giver made me wonder about the euphemisms we use to hide the brutal truth of our lives.  What happens if we lose our memories?  What is wisdom?  When we turn over the hard parts of our lives: war and death and suffering and loss, do we lose our best parts?  Without suffering, can we understand joy?  Without loss, can we understand love?  What makes us human?  In giving up our wisdom, do we lose our capacity to make life-changing decisions humanely?  Is this worth the cost of the hard parts of our lives?  What are we willing to sacrifice for the greater good?  What are we unwilling to sacrifice of ourselves?
     Both of these books are thought-provoking and poignant.  Although both books are easy to read, to enjoy the deeper meanings and questions, I recommend both books to advanced readers.

The Roar

     I chose this book because my 8th graders were excited about reading it.  It wasn't one of my favorite books, but I liked it. 
     The Roar by Emma Clayton is a dystopian novel set in the Earth's future.  The animals have gone crazy and attacked humans, causing terrible diseases.  Humans used nuclear bombs to destroy the rabid animals, destroying much of the land.  Now the humans have retreated behind huge walls in foldable houses.  Their lives are miserable.  There is little sun or food or space or fresh air.  In fact, there weren't any children born for years.  Now that there are children again, evil forces are at work to use the children.  Mika is doing his best to find his sister and stop the evil forces around him.
     Like other dystopian novels, this book holds up a mirror to society.  One of my favorite parts of the book was also the hardest part of the book for me to read.  This is a quote from that section.
_____________________________________________________
--Boom. Boom

"What's that?" he asked as his feet hit the pavement. It sounded like the heartbeat of an enormous beast, as if a dragon were sleeping beneath its treasure, instead of on top of it.

Boom. Boom.

"The Shadows," the chauffeur replied. "haven't you heard?"

"No," Mika said. "what's happening?"

"The mold is getting worse," the chauffeur replied grimly. "And hundreds are dying every day. And they say the government won't help them because it's cheaper to let them die."

"But the people in The Shadows won't be ignored," the chauffeur said. "So they're banging on the pillars holding up the Golden Turrets with huge steel balls on chains. All day and all night they swing them - one time for every person who's died. It was driving people crazy up here when it started on Friday night, but apparently you get used to it."

Boom. Boom.

"I don't think I'll get used to it," Mika said. He gazed at the pavement and tried to imagine what was below, all that darkness and water and millions of people trying to stay alive and balls on chains swinging against the pillars.
____________________________________________________

     This book reminded me of Ender's Game, but I didn't like The Roar as much as Ender's Game.  Mostly because I never really fell in love with the characters or cared what happened to them.  I absolutely loved Ender and felt like I was with him every step of the way.  Although I didn't care for the characters, I liked the ideas in the book. 
     I recommend this book for advanced readers.  It is also a good match for people who enjoy dystopian novels like The Hunger Games or Maze Runner.  At 481 pages, it isn't a good match for reluctant readers.