Off the Shelf – February 16, 2015

Posted on February 16, 2015 by Christie

First of all, I don’t really believe in putting books into categories. I don’t believe in book shaming – that is – judging someone for reading something they enjoy just because it doesn’t fit into someone’s preconceived notion of what a person should be reading. So, for example, adults reading Young Adult lit. I read it because I teach teenagers and in order to do that well, I think I have to be on the same page as them (pun intended.) But I also read it because a lot of it is really good. I guess categorization is useful for finding books – but I always tell students it’s important to read outside their comfort zones every once and a while.

When I think back to my days as a young reader, it was really before such a thing as “Young Adult” literature. You read kids’ books like Trixie Beldon and Nancy Drew and then you just graduated to the rest of the books. So, when I stopped buying books from the Scholastic book flyer I graduated to Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. I can also remember reading my mom’s bodice rippers, books by Rosemary Rogers and Kathleen Woodiwiss. Now, of course, young readers have a lot more choice and one of those choices is New Adult.

New Adult (NA) fiction is a developing genre of fiction with protagonists in the 18–25 age bracket. St. Martin’s Press first coined the term in 2009, when they held a special call for “…fiction similar to YA that can be published and marketed as adult—a sort of an ‘older YA’ or ‘new adult‘.”

So – it’s sort of like the protagonists have graduated high school and gone off to college.

Remember being age 18-25? It is a tricky time in the people’s lives – sometimes juggling new responsibilities and freedom is harder than it looks so some of the tropes in new adult fiction include personal issues like anger-management, family difficulties and expectations, abuse, alcohol and drugs and sometimes the plots are soap-opera-esque. Often the narrative is told in the first person. The other thing people will likely notice in NA fiction is that the romantic scenes are just a tad racier than in YA fic – not of course 50 Shades racier, but still.

OK – I am not a book snob and I read 50 Shades of Grey and laughed hysterically at all the hype it got as the book that revved up the libido of women all over the planet – 100 million copies, people. But that book has a very peculiar pedigree, right – started as fanfiction based on Twilight. So Anastasia is Bella and Christian is Edward. E.L.James wrote as Snowdragonprincess and posted the story in installments on Twilight fansites. Her fans (yep, fanfiction writers have hoards of fans) encouraged her to change the names and publish it as original fiction. My issue isn’t with the content or even that it started as fanfic – my issue is that it’s just BADLY WRITTEN. Here’s my review of the book.

But I digress

If you are interested in checking out some New Adult fiction, here are a couple titles in the genre.

Easy – By Tammara Webber

So Easy is the story of Jacqueline Wallace, a second-year university student who is leaving a frat party and attacked by someone. She’s rescued in the nick of time by Lucas. He’s a Harley driving, pierced and tattooed artist-type who is also smart and awesome. Although their relationship is not without its problems, these are characters readers will fall in love with and root for. There’s a sequel of sorts for Easy, it’s called Breakable and it’s Lucas’s story. I really liked this book.

Ten Tiny Breaths – by K.A. Tucker

I didn’t like this one as much as I liked Easy. Kacey and her kid sister leave Michigan where they’d been living with their aunt and uncle after the death of their parents in a drunk driving accident. Kacey decided it was time to go after her uncle was getting a little too hands n with her little sister. They arrive in Florida where Kacey gets a job and meets Trent, the hot guy next door who has his own dark past. This one was just sort of ‘meh’ for me.

If you are interested in checking out other NA writers here are some of the names to know: Cora Carmack, Colleen Hoover and Jamie McGuire.

Off the Shelf – January 26, 2015

Posted on January 26, 2015 by Christie

Listen to Off the Shelf here.

I was recently invited to submit a column to The Nerdy Book Club, a well-known book blog moderated by four teachers, so I thought it would be a great opportunity to talk about classics – because that’s sort of what I wrote about.

The impetus for the discussion was actually a discussion I had with my tenth grade English class after we finished reading Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. I love the book, of course, and while the majority of my students could see its merits they also wondered why we were reading something so – as they put it – old. So that lead us to a great discussion of what makes a book a classic.

What makes a book a classic?

First off we had to decide on the criteria we’d use to determine whether or not a book is a classic. In the end, we liked the list of qualities Laura Miller listed in her Salon article “What makes a book a classic?” She actually compiled her list from a Goodreads discussion. So, according to Miller via Goodreads a classic

Must have stood the test of time
Be filled with eternal verities
Capture the essence and flavor of its own age
Have had a significant effect on that age
Have something important to say
Achieve some form of aesthetic near-perfection
Be challenging or innovative in some respect
Scholars and other experts must endorse it and study it (I guess that leave out 50 Shades of Grey)
It has been included in some prestigious series like Penguin Classics or Modern Library
It appears on lists of great books

Ultimately, though, our idea of a classic is probably defined by our own personal and highly subjective criteria…meaning, I guess, 50 Shades is back on the list.

So what happened to To Kill a Mockingbird based on this criteria. Well, of course, TKaM totally meets most of that criteria and my students could see that, for sure. Will this list make the book any more palatable for students who don’t necessarily want to read it? Like, is there anything worse than someone telling you you MUST read a book and write an essay? Unless you’re totally geeky like me, probably not, right?

My students wanted a crack at compiling their own list of classics. So, they had to pick a book – any book they’d read – and pitch it to the class. These are books that they really felt should be available for them to read in the classroom. Studied even. I’ve got 25 students in that class, so I’m not going to share all their titles, and truthfully I didn’t agree with all of them, but I will share three.

The Book of Lost Things – John Connolly

So some people might know John Connolly as the author of Charlie Parker mysteries. If you’re already a fan, you can’t go wrong with this book. It’s the story of 12-year-old David who goes on a magical quest to save his mother after she dies. And that’s the simple version. I read this book a couple years ago and I heartily recommend it.

The Art of Racing in the Rain – Garth Stein

Now this is a book I haven’t read, but the student who pitched it, Chloie, totally sold it. Kirkus says the novel “uses a dog as narrator to clever effect in this tear-jerker about an aspiring race-car driver who suffers more woes than Job but never mistreats his dog.” Chloie said she’s read it several times and never gets sick of it, always sees something new in it. I think a book the bears up under repeat readings is pretty solid.

13 Reasons Why – Jay Asher

Now this one I have read and this one I do have some issues with, but what I like about the selection is that it demonstrated how impactful the book was for this student and there was a lot of agreement in the class about the books merits. Will it stand the test of time – or will other books eclipse it. I think probably, but what Asher did do is find a unique and original way to tackle a really difficult subject – teen suicide.

Other titles the students suggested included:

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone – J.K. Rowling

I Am Malala – Malala Yousafzai, Christina Lamb

Perfect Chemistry – Simone Elkeles

The Book Thief – Marcus Zusak

The Perks of Being a Wallflower – Stephen Chbosky

Freak the Mighty – Rodman Philbrick

The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien

City of Bones – Cassandra Clare

Pawn of Prophecy – David Eddings

Ruby Red – Kerstin Gier

Playing with Fire – Theoren Fleury, Kirstie McLellan Day

I Hunt Killers – Barry Lyga

The Green Mile – Stephen King

The interesting thing was the some of these books, by their advocate’s admission, did not stand up to Miller’s criteria – but they loved the book anyway. And that’s good enough for me.

Speaking of classics, Huffington Post recently posted a list of the 20 new classics every child should own. These are picture books geared for younger readers.

Off the Shelf – So you want to start a book club…

Posted on January 12, 2015 by Christie

Off the Shelf – CBC’s Information Morning

This morning I talked about the benefits of belonging to a book club. If you can’t find one, you can start one of your own. If you are looking for some advice, check out what I had to say about book clubs here.

If you are looking for some reading suggestions, I have a list of the books my book club has read here. Many are linked to my reviews.

The books I specifically mentioned this morning were:

Our Daily Bread – Lauren B. Davis

Eat, Pray, Love – Elizabeth Gilbert

Mister Pip – Lloyd Jones

Small Island – Andrea Levy (predates this blog)

The Book Thief – Marcus Zusak

Fingersmith – Sarah Waters

If you have questions, by all means, I am happy to help out! Ask away.

Off the Shelf – December 8

Posted on December 8, 2014 by Christie

This morning on CBC’s Information Morning I talked about some of my favourite YA novels of 2014. You can listen to that interview here.

At the end of the year, some people reflect on whether or not they made good on their resolutions, I think about my reading year. Book junkies like me start considering the state of their bookshelves.

There are usually a few memes floating around that ask book bloggers to consider what they’ve read this year. It’s always fun to go back through my blog and think about the books I’ve read.

It’s also the time of year when all the major book players start posting best of…lists. That’s good and bad for people like me – because if there’s one thing I don’t need…it’s more books. However, if you’re looking for some new reading material, here are some great lists to get you started:

Kirkus: Best Teen, Best Fiction; Best Nonf iction

Huffington Post

The Guardian

Telegraph’s Best Teen Books

Book Riot’s Must Read Books from Indie Presses

School Library Journal

and the Mother lode of book lists…

Today, I thought I’d talk about three stand-out YA reads for 2014, one of which is geared to 12-14 year olds, so middle school.

Totally Joe – James Howe

So, James Howe is super prolific (he’s written over 80 books) and is probably best known for his Bunnicula series. That’s a vampire rabbit that sucks the juice out of vegetables. Totally Joe is part of the Misfit series, the Misfits being this group of friends who are sort of picked on in school and band together. These books actually inspired ‘no name-calling’ weeks at North American schools.

Totally Joe is the second in the series, but I didn’t read the first book and it didn’t really matter. This is the story of Joe Bunch, a kid in 7^th grade who is given this very cool class project…and alphabiography. He has to come up with something about his life for every letter. Joe is funny and smart and kind and has a great, supportive family. He also happens to be gay and so he takes a lot of grief from some of the meatheads at school. I loved how open and honest Joe was about his sexual orientation – he’s a really positive role model. I think it’s super important to see kids reflected in the books they read, and I think Totally Joe is age-appropriate and important.

The Raft – S. A. Bodeen

This book is fantastic. I’m not really one for survival stories, but this book is a real page-turner. It’s the story of fifteen-year-old Robie who lives with her scientist parents on Midway, an island about 1300 miles from Honolulu which is where Robie is when the book opens. She’s visiting her aunt. Midway’s teeny, about 2.4 square miles so every once and a while, Robie needs a little taste of civilization. Anyway, she’s on Honolulu and her aunt gets called away on business, which is no big deal, Robie’s used to being on her own…but then something happens on the street and it freaks her out and she decides to take the cargo plane back to Midway. Phone and Internet service is spotty, as you can imagine, and she can’t let her parents know what that she’s coming and then – of course – the plane crashes in the middle of the Pacific and of the three people on board, only she and Max, the co-pilot, survive. They’re on this raft with nothing. It’s a real OMG book with a feisty protagonist, lots of interesting things to say about the environment (none of it preachy) and a terrific, propulsive plot. Great book.

More Than This – Patrick Ness

So I’ve talked about Patrick Ness before, he’s the author of the Chaos Walking series. I actually chose this book for my book club this year. We don’t normally read Young Adult books, but this one seemed interesting and because I’m a fan I figured why not. There was mixed reactions in the group, but the students in my classes who’ve read the book have loved it…and that’s really the litmus test.

When the novel opens, a boy is drowning. Then he wakes up and he’s not dead. But he’s also alone and he actually remains alone for about 160 pages. At first he doesn’t have any memory, then he figures out that his name is Seth and he appears to be in the English town he grew up in before he moved to the States. This is a post-apocalyptic town though. There are houses and business, but they’re empty and it’s all just creepy. Then, about half-way in Seth meets Thomasz and Regine and “the driver” this faceless, seemingly indestructible guy whose mission in life seems to be to hunt the three teenagers down.

This is a smart book. It works on a bunch of levels: sort of a crazy hybrid between thriller and speculative fiction and a book that asks BIG questions about that journey between self-centered adolescence and manhood and what Seth discovers is that “whatever is forever certain is that there’s always more.”

Any of these books would make great Christmas gifts for the young readers in your family.

Off the Shelf – CBC November 10, 2014

Posted on November 10, 2014 by Christie

This morning on Information Morning I talked about books…about other books.

Here’s what I prepared in advance.

I am a tsundoku. That’s the Japanese word for a person who buys books and leaves them unread. Some women buy shoes, I wear my Birks and buy books. Apparently it’s hereditary because when I tell my 15-year-old son, Connor, that there’s no point in him buying any more books when he has at least a half dozen that he hasn’t read yet, he just shoots me this incredulous look, You’re kidding, right? I have over 500 books on my ‘to- be- read’ shelf at home, to say nothing of the books on my shelves at school.

Think I’m kidding? This is my TBR shelf at home:

I’m a life-long bibliophile and I do a lot of thinking about what it is about books that I love so much. So today I thought I’d talk about some books that are also about the love of books. These are books in which people talk about their own reading lives.

The Book That Changed My Life – Roxanne J. Cody and Joy Johannessen, editors

This books consists of 71 essays by writers who share with readers the story of the book that cracked open the world of reading for them. For example, Wally Lamb’s (author of She’s Come Undone and I Know this Much is True) wrote about To Kill a Mockingbird, which has been a staple in high school English classes for ever. (I am, in fact, currently sharing it with my grade ten class). Mr. Lamb says that “Until Mockingbird, I’d had no idea literature could exert so stong a power.”

Shelf Discovery – Lizzie Skurnick

This is a reading memoir, where Skurnick, who’s been a columnist for the New York Times and NPR and several other publications, revisits the books that shaped her growing up. Skurnick describes herself as “ravenous toward each book, like a vampire”. Voracious readers will know that exact feeling – like you can’t put the book down and carry it everywhere in case you find yourself with five idle minutes. For some people, Skurnick’s book will be a trip down memory lane; for teens, especially girls, this would be a great primer for all that fiction produced from 1960 on. It also answers that question: why do we re-read a book? Who has time for that? This a great memoir for people who have been profoundly influenced by their adolescent reading lists.

The Ultimate Teen Book Guide – Daniel Hahn & Leonie Flynn, editors

This is a fantastic primer listing over 700 books – there’s something for everyone in this one. Authors and young readers offer up their picks for most amazing books. It offers, among other things, Top Ten lists in a variety of categories, a list of what to read next, so for example if you loved To Kill a Mockingbird it suggests you try John Knowles’ A Separate Peace or In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (Capote was reportedly the inspiration for the character if Dill in Lee’s book.) Terrific resource and really user-friendly.

The Reading Promise – Alice Ozma

I love books where people talk about their own relationship with reading and Ozma’s memoir is very YA friendly. It’s the story of an agreement that she made with her dad that he would read to her every single night for 1000 nights. So that’s a lot of reading. When they hit that goal they decided to extend it – and in the end Alice’s dad read to her every single night for nine years – until she finally went off to college. Clearly books mattered to both of them, her dad was a teacher/librarian, and this book has a lot to say about the power that stories have to create conversation, develop empathy…all that good stuff.
Finally, I want to talk about a book that Connor gave me for my birthday last year: My Ideal Bookshelf by Thessaly LaForce and Jane Mount

This is a beauty of a book and totally appealed to that part of me who makes a beeline for bookshelves no matter where I am – the houses of friends and strangers, no bookshelf is safe from me. These guys asked 100 people (writers, actors, poets, designers, artists) to think back over their reading lives and come up with their ideal bookshelf. What would be on it? Mount then did an artistic interpretation of the books. The paintings are accompanied by conversations in which the bookshelf owner talks about their personal relationship with the books – they might focus in on one or just talk about their reading life in general. It’s fascinating reading – even if you don’t know the people doing the telling.

I actually did this with some grade ten students and it was a terrific activity. It forced the students to think back to books that have made a real difference in their lives. There’s a template at the back of the book (and online) for students to recreate their own ideal bookshelf – although if you’re not at all artistic (which I am not) you could take a picture, too.

Here’s a sample from one of my strudents – her bookshelf and an excerpt of what she had to say about books:

“In the fourth grade I was stuck in a Geronimo Stilton phase and I had a cousin who was bound and determined to see me break out of the 100-page cycle. She began sending me “adult” books. The first was The Giver by Lois Lowry. My mother read it first and then advised me to put it away for a few years until I could better handle it. I read it anyway, mainly out of sheer curiosity. And although it kept me up at night thinking about it, maybe that’s what I liked about it. I’ve read it every year since, and it always feels like I’m reading it for the first time.”

Come on – that’s like hitting the literature lottery for an English teacher.

To see some of my students’ bookshelves and read what they had to say about their reading lives, check out this post

Let’s talk about books – on CBC radio!

Posted on October 7, 2014 by Christie

I had an opportunity to share my thoughts about young adult fiction on CBC radio’s show, Information Morning. I hope it will be a regular gig because it was SO MUCH FUN. I had a whole big thing prepared – but eight minutes goes so fast and I didn’t have a chance to say everything that I wanted to say. You can listen to the segment here.

For the hell of it, I’ll include my prepared notes below:

Want to make an English teacher cringe? Talk about the declining number of teens who read for pleasure.

Sadly the number of young people who read for pleasure has been on the decline and as far as I can tell it’s because they’re reading Tumblr and Facebook and texts – or not reading anything at all. I also think that in school we often expect them to read things they just aren’t interested in. I’m not an expert on the subject, but I do have anecdotal evidence about the lack of interest in books. I sometimes feel like I am on a mission to connect students to books they’ll love. I’m not alone – lots of Language Arts teachers are trying to turn kids on to the love of reading.

The National Reading campaign identifies several benefits of reading including the fact that it is essential to the well-being of society and to our functioning as a democracy; it empowers critical thinking skills, lays the foundation of future learning; it increases individuals’ health and well-being. And those are all awesome reasons to read – but I tell my students that I read to know that I am not alone, to understand what it means to be human, to learn how to be more empathetic. Most importantly I read for pleasure (which is also on the list, by the way).

I’ve been a life-long reader. I’m going to date myself here, but I’m old enough to talk about The Bobbsey Twins…I value reading, partly because my parents valued it. My kids are readers because I am. They’ve been surrounded by books their entire lives. My home is filled with books and so is my classroom and I think one of the most important things I can do as a teacher is to connect students to books because I really believe that all it takes is one good reading experience to reignite that fire that has gone out in so many kids. That sounds totally evangelical, I know.

Okay – so I am going to get off my soapbox.

One of the best parts of my job is talking about books with my students. I LOVE it. I love pulling a book off the shelf and physically putting it in someone’s hand and saying “Read this.” I’ve got about 1000 books in my classroom, so it’s a very immediate thing. I read A LOT of (though not exclusively) YA/teen fic and there’s some great stuff out there…but there’s also some junk…it’s like comparing Stephanie Meyer to Joss Whedon (pop culture reference my students will get!) A quick survey always shows that most kids read when they were younger…and then it starts to drop off as they get older. I just have to remind them of why they used to love it. And I have to find them the right book.

What makes a great teen book? The same thing that makes a good adult novel. (And, by the way, I don’t subscribe to the notion that adults shouldn’t read YA fiction. There are some amazing YA writers that adults should check out and I’m going to talk about just three.)

Character – that’s true for any book, of course, but I think young readers want to see themselves reflected back to them; they want characters to care about and root for

Plot – not overly convoluted – although subplots are great, keep turning those pages; worlds they recognize and worlds they do not

Writing – obviously, although this is subjective…which is why some people love Twilight and others do not. To each his or her own.

A conversation with the student is always the way I start – what’s the last book you read? (Often times they haven’t read anything, but I have built in reading time in my class and so I insist they get back on the reading saddle.) What are you interested in? Are you a confident reader?

So today I thought I’d just talk about three books that invariably come back to me with a student stamp of approval. These aren’t necessarily new releases, but over the past few years they’ve been books that have been borrowed a lot so they’re definitely keepers.

The Book Thief – Marcus Zusak, 2005

He’s an Australian writer and this book was originally intended – I believe – for adult audiences. It’s mostly touted as YA here – and I think teens would enjoy it, although they may find it a little slow to start. So it’s the story of Liesel Meminger. Liesel is almost ten when she ends up in Molching with Hans and Rosa Hubermann, her new foster parents. It is 1939. In Nazi Germany. Death is personified and he’s the book’s narrator. Sometimes events are reported without comment – you forget Death’s there – other times Death weighs in on events. It might take some readers a bit to get used to. John Green – and voracious teen readers will know exactly who this guy is, called The Book Thief “brilliant and hugely ambitious.” Liesel is just a beautiful character; it is impossible not to fall in love with her. She literally steals books, the first one: The Grave Digger’s Handbook is stolen at her brother’s funeral. She doesn’t even know how to read. The Book Thief is about hope and sacrifice and love and family – all big ticket items. It’s also about the power of words and so of course I love it.

The Knife of Never Letting Go – Patrick Ness, 2009 (part of the Chaos Walking trilogy, which also includes The Ask and the Answer and Monsters of Men); American writer who lives in Britain; also author of A Monster Calls and More Than This, both of which I highly recommend

It’s about a kid named Todd who is just about to turn 13 and when he does he’ll be a man. He lives in this place called Prentisstown, which strangely sounds like some town ripped out of a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western…but it’s remarkable for a couple other reasons: there are no women and everyone can hear everyone else’s thoughts. It’s dystopian. Then one day, Todd’s out with his dog Manchee (he can hear the dog’s thoughts, too – which is often pretty comical) and he suddenly hears…nothing. When he reveals that to the men who have been looking after him they tell him to run…and keep on running and, literally, all hell breaks loose. The second and third books are every bit as fantastic as the first and, in fact, I had a grade ten student burn through all three in about a week…and the fact that he loved them and talked about them encouraged a couple more kids to start and one girl to actually go out and purchase the first book. Yay!

The Fault in Our Stars – John Green- sold 6,000,000 worldwide – movie came out a few months ago

There’s probably not a teen out there who hasn’t read this book, but I am going to talk about it because I think all the moms and dads should read it, too. Kelley Armstrong was recently at Harbour View to talk to students. In case you don’t know who she is, she’s a Canadian writer of both adult and teen fiction – a best-selling writer. She was talking about trying to sell her first book, Bitten, which is about werewolves…and it was just sort of by way of explaining how publishing changes. She said that what publishers are looking for now is the next John Green. I love the guy. He’s super smart and super nerdy and The Fault in Our Stars is just one of those books that – yes, it’s a “disease of the month” book, but it not. Hazel Grace is seventeen and she has lung cancer which is being controlled by some drug (not real). She’s addicted to America’s Next Top Model – which tells you the state of her life. Her parents insist that she attend a cancer support group and so she does, reluctantly, and that’s where she meets Augustus. This book is driven by the magic that is Hazel and Augustus and it will make you laugh and cry and curl up in a ball sobbing hysterically at 3 a.m. Possibly all at once. My favourite book in 2012. Not just my favourite teen book…my favourite book.

The Ludic Reader

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