American Born Chinese

1. Title: American Born Chinese

2. Author: Gene Luen Yang

3. Illustrator: Gene Luen Yang

4. Publisher and Publishing Date: First Second Books, 2006

5. Genre: Multi-Cultural, Graphic Novel

6. Age range for which the book is appropriate: 8-12

7. Students would like this book because it has an interesting plot line and it has well developed characters. Also, they would like this book because it deals with immigration issues and issues of fitting in and the cost one must pay to do so. Also, students like graphic novels.

8. A summary:

The story starts with three seemingly different stories that become one in the end. The Monkey King story is about a monkey king that wants to get into heaven and become a god like being of success. He is very selfish. The Jin Wang story, the actual story, is about a boy who moves to America at a young age and struggles to fit into the identity of an American without also losing himself. The third tale is of Danny, a white boy, whose Chinese cousin comes to visit him every year and embarrasses him so he has to leave to a new school every year. Danny and Jin turn out to be the same kid and represents that he must maintain both identities to be himself.

9. Personal Response:

I loved the book and intend to teach it as soon as I can afford to do so. I noticed how the book does an excellent job of using literary themes and ideals to tell an interesting story of an immigrant boy struggling with his identity. This book relates too many of the young adult novels I have read in that it gives a true story of struggle that many teens face.

10. Teaching ideas:

I would definitely teach this book because my students would love it. I intend to use it within my English II class to support the state curriculum on multicultural studies. As a multigenre/technological approach to teaching this novel, I would have students create a PowerPoint with slides of their own graphic novel depicting their own memoir of teenage life as they experience it.

T4 by Ann Clare LeZotte

1. Title: T4

2. Author: Ann Clare LeZotte

3. Illustrator: N/A

4. Publisher and Publishing Date: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008

5. Genre: Historical Fiction, WWIII Nazis

6. Age range for which the book is appropriate: 6-onward

7. A brief statement of what students you believe may like the book:

I think all types of students would like this book because it is an emotionally powerful book. However, I would also think that many of the lower students that struggle would like the book because they could find success with its simple plot line and direct application to history and a larger literature unit.

8. A summary:

This book is written as a poetic memoir from a young girl named Paula. She is deaf and the Nazis have passed the T4 law that will allow doctors to put all disabled children and adults to death, much like they did with the Jewish people. Paula has to leave her home and stay with a friend of father Joseph who protects her until someone tells the Nazi’s that she is staying there because they think she is a Jew. She hides in the pig trough and then goes to live in a homeless shelter where she meets Poor Kurt who we soon find out is a Gypsy in hiding and his real name is Walthar. They go out to the city on an ill-advised trip and end up staying with poor Jews. They come back and finally the law is repealed and they go to her home. They fall in love.

9. Personal Response:

I think this book would be a great book for younger children and high school students studying WWII. I personally liked the book because it was on one of my favorite topics as well as eloquently written. The book brought out many emotions in me as I remembered and lived through the author the events of WWII. This book reminds me of Night by Elie Wesiel and other WWII works.

10. Teaching ideas:

I would teach this book with Night by Elie Wesiel and other WWII works, within a unit in English II. I think this book would be perfect for an inclusion class as well as for an overall understanding of the atrocities of the time period.

I would use this book as a launching board for an Ipoem research project that is centered around research through many genres of writing. I would also have the students create a memoiric poem of their lives like in the novel.

Blues Journey by Walter Dean Myers

1. Title: Blues Journey

2. Author: Walter Dean Myers

3. Illustrator: Christopher A. Myers

4. Publisher and Publishing Date: Holiday House, 2007

5. Genre: Children’s Literature, Blues Renaissance, Black History

6. Age range for which the book is appropriate: 5-onward

7. A brief statement (2-3 sentences) of what students you believe may like the book.

I think students will really enjoy this book because it is very beautiful and written with even more beautiful poetic language. I also think students will like it because it represents an art form that they love: Blues.

8. A summary:

Blues Journey is a historical fiction book about the lives of African Americans from 1865 to the late 1960’s through the art form that characterizes this group of people up into modern times: the Blues. The book’s central plot looks at the specific events that effected the lives of African Americans, such as the abolishment of slavery and the adjustments made there after by these people; the racial segregation that they felt and often still feel; and political marches that eventually broke them free from the shackles of segregation; into a modern look at the lives of modern Black Americans that still reflect on their cultural heritage through listening to old blues songs. One of the best portions of this book is its focus on how blues was created from a hodgepodge of cultural identities that they were forced to come from and how blues lives on in art and literature through poetry and paintings

9. Personal Response:

I selected this book because it is written by one of my favorite young adult authors, Walter Dean Myers, and his artistic son. It was a very enjoyable read and reminded me of my obsession with classic blues songs. I thought the book was an excellent example of a historical fiction as it is not true, but utilizes the backdrop of the conflicts of African Americans.

10. Teaching ideas:

As this book is focused on the overall concept of slavery and the blues music that sprung up from a group of people, African Americans, that had and have struggled to make it in a world where they were seen as “less than people,” I would teach this book within Eng II during the study of historical America and the slave trade from Kenya, Niger, and what is now South Africa. I would use this book as a preteaching tool to give students a deep understanding of the trials and tribulations that African Americans experienced, paired with the short story “Going to meet the man” by James Baldwin, a historical fiction story that is told through a white supremacist sheriff during the race riots of the early 1900s, which gives a deep reflection on how this monster was made.

Breaking Up by Aimee Friedman and Illustrated by Chistine Norrie

1. Title: Breaking Up

2. Author: Aimee Friedman

3. Illustrator: Christine Norrie

4. Publisher and Publishing Date: Scholastic 2007

5. Genre: Teen Issues

6. Age range for which the book is appropriate: 10^th grade- onward

7. Students will like this book because it is very easy to read and the illustrations make the story line truly come alive. I also think they will like it because it deals with relationships both sexual and on a friendship level.

8. A summary:

Chloe, the main character, is going into her junior year of high school with her three best friends in the world. They all go to an arts school and they have been friends for years. Mackenzie, one of those friends, has become obsessed with becoming the most popular girl in the school and dating the most popular boy, except the most popular boy is dating the truly most popular girl, Nicola. She does sleep with the boy, but when Nicola finds out she takes her diary and makes copies of it and posts it throughout the school. During all of this the three other girls are dealing with a boyfriend who demands sex when she’s not ready, dealing with controlling parents, and Chloe is dealing with failing in love with a loser that she hides from everyone else. All of this comes together in one big fight that breaks the girls a part, which in the end they settle their differences and come back together again.

9. Personal Response.

Oddly, for a male, I really liked this book and read it cover to cover 191 pages in one sitting. It is interesting because the author does a great job of getting the reader to buy into the drama that is each girl’s life. Also, the antidotal pictures are hilarious because they are what we all feel when going through these types of events. I also enjoyed the book because it was a new format for me and I could see myself writing a novel like this someday.

10. Teaching ideas.

I would use this book to teach to my composition class because it fits the curriculum in that it shows a different form of writing and because it is simply a good book. I would teach this book as a back drop to our own small comic book that we would be writing during class. I would use sections of the book to point out ideas that they could use in their own writing. The final multimedia project would be a comic book and even a film of the students acting it out together.

Terrible Things by Eve Bunting and Illustrated by Stephen Gammell

1. Title: Terrible Things

2. Author: Eve Bunting

3. Illustrator: Stephen Gammell

4. Publisher and Publishing Date: The Jewish Publication Society, 1989

5. Genre: WWII, Nazism, Racism, Multi-Cultural

6. Age range for which the book is appropriate: 5th grade- onward

7. I think students will like this book because it is very easy to read and has excellent pictures that represent the internal theme and symbolism. Also, they will like it because its deceivingly simple story line will allow them to think on a deeper level.

8. A summary:

This book is an allegory of the atrocities of World War II, specifically how so many people allowed the Jewish people to be killed only because it was not them that had a gun held to their heads. It begins with the narrator telling the readers that everyone in the forest were all different but lived together in peace. Then the terrible things come and say that everything that has feathers must “go with them,” which indicates that that group will be killed. All the other animals do nothing to prevent this happing and only show that they do not have any feathers. The narrator tells the reader that the smallest white bunny wanted to help, but was told, by an older bunny that it did not matter as it was not them who was to die. As the story progresses, each group of animals is taken. Finally, the bunnies are taken and they wish that others were there to protect them but they are all dead. The only bunny that survives is the bunny that wanted to help in the first place. That bunny says he is going out into the world to tell everyone so this does not happen again, which is the central tenet of the book as a whole.

9. Personal Response:

I really enjoyed this book as it brought hope to my mind in that all those that try to stop these atrocities should keep trying. Also, I liked the book because the allegory, while simple, is on a very deep level, and made me think about even the simplest choices I have made in my life when considering that it did not matter because I was different than those being persecuted. For example, kids getting bullied.

10. Teaching ideas:

I would definitely teach this book with the novel Night by Elie Wesiel in English II. This book shows the poor choices and the outright evilness of the people who did nothing and allowed these things to happen. I would use this to illuminate the fact that not only Jews were taken, but also other groups that stood by and did nothing to help them such as homosexuals, blacks, and gypsies. For a multimedia project, I would have students find cartoons in modern culture that depict racist and stereotypical ideas, which will not be hard to find. I would then have them combine those with actual quotes from both texts inside of a PowerPoint that would illuminate the similarities and differences therein.

The Lotus Seed by Sherry Garland and Illustrated by Tatsuro Kiuchi

1. Title: The Lotus Seed

2. Author: Sherry Garland

3. Illustrator: Tatsuro Kiuchi

4. Publisher and Publishing Date: Harcourt, INC 1993

5. Genre: Vietnam Reflection, Multi-Cultural

6. Age range for which the book is appropriate: 5^th grade-onward

7. I think students would like this book because it deals with a complex theme in such a way that they are able to access it. I think they would also like the book because it is beautiful.

8. This book starts off with the narrator explaining how her grandmother watched the last emperor of Vietnam become nothing more than a name piece after the French invasion. She is given a lotus seed that she takes with her to America when her family flees Vietnam when the war between the south and north begins. Finally, the grandmother’s grandson plants the seed in mud and it grows into a beautiful flower that she shares the seeds with her own family. This is symbolic that Vietnam, their place of origin and a muddy desolate place, created beauty from its people.

9. Personal Response: I very much enjoyed this book because it was very symbolic of a people who was taken advantage of and eventually cast to the side and forced to move to America to reinvent themselves. This book reminds me a lot of the movie “The Golden Dragon” where there is an evil force that is over taking a beautiful peaceful land and peoples out of simple greed. I also connected this work to The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien.

10. Teaching ideas: This book would work excellently as an introduction to The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, which is a work on the Vietnam War that is taught as a part of the curriculum in English III. I think this work brings out the subtle nature of the overarching themes of love and the relationship between killing insurgent soldiers, while at the same time watching a group of truly great people be killed when combined with the novel. The multimedia text I would use with this would be the movie Apocalypse Now Redux, and I would have students create a long term project board with a comic strip that combines the novel and the picture book together.

Deadline by Chris Crutcher

1. Title: Deadline

2. Author: Chris Crutcher

3. Illustrator: N/A

4. Publisher and Publishing Date: Green Willow Books 2009

5. Genre: Teen fiction, YAL, Death and loss

6. Age range for which the book is appropriate: 10^th-onward

7. Students will like this book because it deals with many of the issues that they go through in their own lives. The book deals with death and dying, which is something everyone can relate to and might help students who have recently lost someone. The book also deals with sports so that would interest many of the young male teens.

8. A summary: Deadlines is about a boy named Ben that finds out he is dying from an incurable form of cancer. He chooses not to inform his parents or friends until much later in the book, and one of the main premises of the book is finding the right way and time to tell his family. His doctor agrees to with hold the information and not to treat him if he agrees to go to a psychologist that eventually leaves him because she cannot deal with the pain of watching such a great kid die. Ben decides to find out as much about life as he can in the year he has to live, so he reads and questions his teachers until a point of annoyance trying to find out the subtleties of every piece of knowledge. He also starts dating and has sex with his ideal woman Dallas who also leaves him because she can’t deal with the thought of losing him. He begins playing football and is a star on the team with his brother. Even though he receives a scholarship to go to school, he becomes ill and dies before he can.

9. Personal Response: I did not particularly like the novel because I felt like it was unrealistic. I do not think that he would keep the secret from his family for as long as he did and I think that a normal person would do anything they could to save their own lives, yet I do know of cases where some might choose to follow his path. I connected this book to – because the main character in that book is helping people commit suicide and I truly feel that, in a way, he is making the same choice. Also, the writing style is very similar with a similar main character.

10. Teaching ideas.

I probably wouldn’t teach this book, but if I did I would teach it within my Composition class because of the writing style. It is also a very easy read. I would probably show a media clip on homecoming and focus on the themes of death, loss, and relationships within the novel itself.

Feed by MT Anderson

1. Title: Feed, National Book Award Finalist

2. Author: M.T. Anderson

3. Illustrator: N/A

4. Publisher and Publishing Date: Candlewick Books, 2004

5. Genre: Young adult, multi-media, post cyberpunk

6. Age range for which the book is appropriate: 9^th grade onward

7. Students will like this book because it represents modern ideas about past notions on the fear of excess. Also, they will like this book because the central themes of this book deal with love, technology, and a world that has moved one. Too, they will like it because it has a recycling theme.

8. A summary: Titus, the main character, is like everyone else in the society of his times, obsessed with consumerism and the feed. The feed is basically like the internet, but it is in a chip that is implanted into the persons brain. They use these chips for all experiences, they don’t even experience school, they just feed it. Until Titus meets Violet, who shares her love of real experiences with him. Because her family was too poor and because her father feared the feed, she did not have the feed injected into her brain, so she has a basic headset, which allows her to take off the feed at anytime. She takes him to watch meat grow, to party in a real sense, and experience life instead of just shopping online. Titus also teaches her the benefits of the feed and gets her to go to a club with him where a virus is sent out that messes up her chip, which leads to her death at the end of the novel, which is also symbolic since WWIII begins then as well.

9. Personal Response: I personally love the book. I think it gives a true look into the minds of teenagers in a future that is all too probable. Even now, it is impossible to pull children away from their media devices long enough to have a decent conversation, let alone teach them something. This book also broke my heart as Violet dies at the end with Titus by her side. The book represents to me, something of a warning and gives me an opportunity to teach a work that might also give some hesitation to the overwhelming masses in my school.

10. Teaching ideas:

If I were going to teach this book, and I do, I would first give students a dictionary of terms to help them become more comfortable with the language. Also, I apply that language change to the evolution of language through the website: www.urbandictionary.com. Then I would apply it to language change throughout the history of English language, with a specific focus on the evolution of Creole slave language in the south to modern African American Vernacular English. Additionally, I would teach this book with or before Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.

Finally, I would make a multimedia connection through the video clip http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/kidsonline/view/ talking about the effects of the internet.

Looking For Alaska By John Green

1. Title: Looking for Alaska, awarded the Michaell Printz Award

2. Author: John Green

3. Illustrator: N/A

4. Publisher and Publishing Date: Dutton Books, 2005

5. Genre: Young Adult, Realism Fiction

6. Age range for which the book is appropriate: 16-death

7. Teenagers will love this book for many reasons. For one, it has a sex scene where a young boy gets oral pleasure. Also, it deals with real life teen issues that teens experience every day of their lives such as smoking, drinking, cussing, and many more; however, teenagers will love this book because it authentic to life and holds nothing back, which is a truly rare thing in literature and even in people in general.

8. A summary:

This book cannot be summarized, it cannot be read, it must be absorbed by its audience because it is truly the best book written in the last fifty years. The first section of the book is titled Before. It begins with a boy named Miles Halter who decides that he will go to a private school to search for “the great perhaps.” This is his notion to live by because he is obsessed with people’s last words, which encourages him to live through his great perhaps. I think that the majority of his time is spent throughout the novel trying to find something in his life, no, to create something in his life that would be worth saying on his own death bed. When he arrives at Culver Creek Preparatory School he meets his roommate Chip, who is a poor but very intelligent student. He then meets Alaska, who is beautiful in her difference. It becomes obvious as they smoke, buy wine/beer from the local store, and party like crazy that Alaska has had a truly rough go of life and yet still manages to survive, for a while. One night, Miles is taped/tied up and thrown into the lake where he could’ve drowned as an initiation and payback from the “popular boys.” One night they plan a legendary stunt/prank, something Alaska is famous for, they all begin drinking. They then run the grounds of the school setting off fireworks and scaring the dean named “The Eagle” by the students. This gives a drunken Alaska the chance to escape without The Eagles knowledge. She drives drunk into a tractor trailer and dies. This sets up the After section of the book where Chip and Miles must confront their guilt and their sadness at the loss of their friend.

9. Personal Response:

I love this book and it is by far one of my favorites. The book at first made me feel happy and helped me reflect on my own wild younger days, but in the second section after the death or possible suicide, it made me feel very sad to the point of tears. This just made me love it even more. The book relates to my own experiences as I was once a party boy and did a lot of the same stupid things Miles and the group did. Also, I have had great loss in my life and felt the pain and guilt of it. This book reminds me a lot of Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, which shares many of the same themes. I connected the book in a way to the movie Breakfast Club as many of them suffer great hardships and bad choices.

10. Teaching ideas:

I would teach this book as a separate section of English III, American Literature. I would teach it as a book about growing up and the importance of decision making. I would also teach the archetypical and themeatical modes of writing through this book.

The multi-media connection I would make would be thorough showing the movie The Breakfast Club.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

1. Title: The Hunger Games

2. Author: Suzanne Collins

3. Illustrator: N/A

4. Publisher and Publishing Date: Scholastic Press, 2008

5. Genre: Young Adult, Violence, Anti-Government, Critical of Media

6. Age range for which the book is appropriate: 7-12

7. I think many students would love to read this book because it has many themes of interest and the plot is addictive. For example, many teen boys would love the book because it is at times very violent and it gives the views of life through the main female character, which would intrigue teenage boys because they could begin to see how a teenage girl thinks. Also, the book would appeal to teenage girls because it deals with the themes of love and also represents a strong female character that makes good decisions.

8. A summary:

The book takes place in a post apocalyptical war society called Panem where some people starve to death, while those in power, at the capitol, reap the benefits of the working class and indulge themselves in every way. The book begins with the narrator and central character, Katniss, illegally hunting in the forest for food to take care of her starving family. We learn as the book progresses that Katniss’s mother basically abandoned them for death after their father died in a collapsed coal mine. Katniss takes over the role of mother and father to her sister, Prim, and even saves Prim from the Hunger Games by volunteering to go in her place. The Hunger Games are games where two teens from each of the 12 districts are forced to fight to the death after being paraded through the capitol city as if they are rock stars. The games were invented as a yearly punishment for the uprising against the government many years before. After leaving her family and boyfriend/hunting partner, Gale, to go to the games, Katniss finds herself in the Capitol City where she and the boy who fed her when her mother was out of her mind, Peeta, are dressed in flames by their stylist Cinna and are paraded as a couple through towns square to loud applause. Katniss begins to fall in love with Peeta as the games begin, and he protects her throughout the beginning portions of the games even professing his love for her during their interviews to make her seem more “Tragic.” Once the games begin many meet their end in bloody death between all those that fight, and even the woods are set ablaze to encourage Katniss to “play.” This entire event is televised to entertain all of the rich people in the Capitol, and Katniss does kill many; in one incident, she drops killer mutated bees on those that are trying to kill her!

9. Personal Response:

I absolutely loved this book. The reading was long, but very addictive as I couldn’t wait to find out if she survived. The book made me feel like I was on a rollercoaster of emotions pulling for Katniss the entire time. The book is very different from any personal experiences that I have had except it did make me feel bad for watching such torturous and violent movies such as Hostel. I found the overall concept of this book to be similar to Lord of the Flies and 1984 at the same time. I also made many connections with other Medias from this book to TV shows like survivor that is based off the same basic principles and many movies that I have seen in the past.

10. Teaching ideas:

I would teach this book to Composition and English I classes as the literature is easy enough for them to read and be interested in. Also, The Lord of the Flies and 1984 are taught in those classes so this would be a great book to pair with them as a form of curricula integration.

An example of a multi-media application I would use with this lesson would be the advertisement for the movie Death Race: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxKYvaIEkIU

The Gift Moves by Steve Lyon

1. Title: The Gift Moves, no awards

2. Author: Steve Lyon

3. Illustrator: N/A

4. Publisher and Publishing Date: Laurel Leaf Books2004

5. Genre: Young Adult, Multi-Cultural, Post Apocalyptic

6. Age range for which the book is appropriate: 7^th grade onward

7. Will it engage teens?

Teenagers of today’s era will genuinely want to read this book, not only because of the perceptions and various themes, but also because the book takes place in a post apocalyptic society that has “moved on” from the extraordinarily technological world back to an almost Native American background, where people fear holding onto possessions and give everything away while everything is given to them, bartering without the barter portion, which is very different from our society and will entertain them with these differentness. Also, there are a lot of unique things in this book which will gain most teen boys attention without being too sci-fi for teen girls to be turned off by it. For example, trees grow batteries, cats talk, and spiders have emotions. Teenagers would also be interested in this book because it discusses thinking about suicide, mild sexual suggestions, and it is a very “green” novel as everything is recycled and reused with no waste.

8. A summary:

The entire book takes place in North Carolina, beginning at the South Fork of The New River, in “Boon,” short for Boone. This change in name and others like it is a representation of the fact that roughly two thousand years has passed from our current time. In Boon we, as the readers, meet the main character Path Down The Mountain or Path for short. She lives with her family farming and herding sheep, and has been given the opportunity to become an apprentice to Heron, who lives on the coastal beaches of NC. This opportunity allows her to follow her dream of becoming a weaver and allowing the cloth to “own her,” which really symbolizes that by doing this she can develop and utilize her creative gift of color and abstract art. Path’s mother, a former dancer in the city of Rollydee, Raleigh, had came to Boon to share her gift of dancing and met Path’s father, which lead to Path’s birth. Towards the end of the book, we find out that she took Path to Rollydee after living in Boon for the first few years of her life, but the responsibilities of being a mother interferes with her creative dancing so she gives Path back to her father with only a passing phrase, “’The gift moves” said my mother… “It moves” said my father” (174). This event and line are important because it demonstrates her mother’s loss of love towards her and Path’s own decent into depression and abandonment issues. While living with Heron, Path meets Bird and they instantly fall in love as Path paints herself with beautiful colors for him and he states, “No one had ever looked at me like that before. I felt she could look right through me and see the inside of me” (20).This book is also written through the narrative voices of Path and Bird in alternating chapters so the reader has an opportunity to see both the male and female perspectives on many different teen issues such as: a teen boy’s conflict with his mother and bonding with his father; teen girls resistance to authority through her interactions with Heron; and a teen girls vs. a teen boys perceptions of early love.

9. Personal Response.

I find the book to be one of the greatest young adult books that I have had the opportunity to read because it covers many issues that some teens go through and at the same time, I, as an adult can relate to the books interesting themes and suggestions. One thing that stuck out to me in the book was that it takes place in a post apocalyptic world that is actually happy and in most ways better than our own society. I think that the book relates to my experiences in that the beginning of the book takes place five miles from where I grew up. I associate this book as a book of its own and does not really relate to any other book I have read, which is why I love it so very much. I also made a multi-media connection to that of tribal peoples throughout the world.

10. Teaching ideas:

I would teach this book as a world literature piece in English II or an American literature piece in English III. I would us the multi-media approach to teach this to English II students through showing videos of tribal cultures to demonstrate the culmination of those beliefs and practices within the novel itself. An example of this would be through the media videos at http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/places.

The Sledding Hill by Chris Crutcher

1. The Sledding Hill

2. Chris Crutcher

3. None

4. Published by Greenwillow Books a Harper Tempest book, 2005

5. Genre: Young Adult Literature, focus is on censorship, homosexuality, religious indoctrination concerns, ADD, death, and more.

6. 15 and older

7. Students that struggle focusing their attention to soley academia or on any topic for that matter would get a lot out of this book as the main character suffers from some form of ADD. Also, students that are dealing with a loss of a loved one, specifically those that are struggling with coping through traditional means would love this book as it focuses on the issues, both personally and socitally, dealing with these issues. Students that are interested in anything that has to do with censorship, public realtions, and/or issues with the prevailing religious body of their community would also get a lot of this book.

8. Summary:

This book begins with the main character, Eddie, finding his father dead due to a mistake, not deflating a tire before working on it, that Eddie’s father has warned him numerous times to avoid doing. This story, we later find out, is told in narroration by Eddie’s now dead best friend Billy Bartholomew who has choosen to stay with Eddie after his own tragic death from kicking a stack of sheet rock that then falls on top of him. Eddie has some form of ADD that makes it impossible to stay on task unless he is running or riding a bike, which leads many in the educational community to believe that he is dumb which he is far from. We meet Rev. Tater, pastor of the Red Brick Church on into the novel. Rev. Tater is a very conservative Christian who makes his beliefs a part of the church he leads and the school he teaches English in. Tater is portrayed as the central “evil” figure, but the author later tells us that childhood abuse has created him and his subsequent actions. Rev. Tater takes special interest in Eddie after the atrousities that has been laid on him by the universe. His main goal is to get Eddie, who has stopped talking, to talk. This becomes very important later in the story as Rev. Tater tries to manipulate Eddie into helping him remove the book, Warren Peece written by the same author, from the public schools. The concluding action of the novel evolves Eddie, who has teamed up with Billy’s dad after his death, standing up in the church giving his testimony on how the book should not be banned, utilizing notecards from his dead friend. At the end of the novel, after being nearly locked up in an insane asslym, Eddie has the author Chris Crutcher come give a speech in which he only says, “What she said!” after a student has given her own speech about the immorality of taking the book out of schools.

9. Personal Response:

I enjoyed the book in many ways and I hated it in many ways as well, which makes this one of the better novels that I have read in the last few years. Most books are simply read, directly applied to the classroom, and then forgotten as a “good book.” This book breaks that mold, forcing its readers to look within themselves and ask the question “Are you a censor of ideas or a teacher of ideas?” This notion haunted me through the entirety of the novel because I often felt offended by the authors vast generalizations of the Christian South, while at the same time loving his other ideas and finding some of the same questions that I have asked others before. For example, I had the SAME experience as Eddie once in my own family when my mother explained to me that the mark that Cain received was in fact the mark of the “Blacks.” I felt the same emotions that Eddie felt, however I find one particular portion of greatest significance to me personally because I had no idea what to say while Eddie knows the exact wording, “I’ll bet that’s how white people let themselves have slaves…I’ll bet that’s why they wouldn’t let black people eat at lunch counters with them or pee in the same restrooms…People can make excuses for anthing, he thinks. Anything” (Crutcher p72). I would also like to point out that the book does go too far in that it never, except one small time, gives the viewpoints of others, which made me a little uncomfortable since all ideas are beautiful and by only giving his side, while it is his book, tends to take away something from the novel. As a whole, it is a good book to have read and I am thankful for the experience of it, especially the end, “What she said!”

10. Teaching ideas:

If I were to ever teach this book and I think I shall teach a portion of it, I would probably teach the “Black Like Cain” chapter through a multi-media presentation on misinformation and how some use that to create an environment of acceptable racism in modern cultures.

This would probably be in the middle of a slavery unit in American Literature, 11^th grade, or during the Nazi propaganda unit in World Literature, 10^th grade.

Let’s do a 10^th grade example:

I would show Nazi propaganda posters through a multi-media (Pictures of posters and propaganda videos) PowerPoint because that is the easiest to make, and have students reflect on this issue. Also, I would ask that students think about a time in their lives they might have encountered propaganda and then read the chapter in the book. Then I would have students discuss the parallels there.

Websites I Would Use:

Posters: http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/posters2.htm

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19X0qaChKx8