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