Go Ask Alice

Reading this book was a total experience for me. I had read it and reread it and read it again when I was much younger, probably 14 or 15, but now, at almost 21, I had a completely different take on it. It's an anonymous diary of a drug-addicted teen in the 70's. It chronicles her roller coaster of a life, her battle with drugs and social pressures as she runs away from home and lands herself in a mental hospital. As soon as I picked the book up I was a little turned off by the author's overly-cheery disposition and outdated language. It took me a minute to realize that this is an OLD BOOK. That hadn't even occurred to me when I read it years ago but I think that's mostly because, back then, I was reading it for the thrill of reading something about mysterious drugs and the secret concept of sex. I was so caught up in feeling devious for reading such mature content that I wasn't even noticing how outdated it all was.

Which isn't to say that I didn't enjoy it at all...because I really did! It was hard to get through because I am so much older but once I did I felt that I was worthwhile. It tells a lot about a world that I certainly don't know much about at all. Like I've said before, I always appreciate any insight into the world of struggling teens because those are the kids I'm aiming to help as a teacher. I think this diary is most successful because it shows a girl who is brought up by a LOVING family in a GOOD home in a SAFE neighborhood. So many of the other journals or books like this that I've read have become cliche in the way they portray the poor, abused kid growing up in a cardboard box getting addicted to drugs. Well- as harsh as I'm sounding- DUH! What seems more pertinent for the kinds of kids I've encountered is for them to see that other privileged suburban kids can fall victim to drugs and promiscuity too. This is a girl who has everything going for her but she still suffers at the hands of peer pressure and addicting drugs.

I would NEVER assign this book. It's just too inappropriate as a school book. However, I think that kids will always be fascinated by book and journals like these. Like "angst", reading books like this is a phase that a lot of kids just have to go through. They have to feel devious and alone for a time in their youth or they'll never learn or grow up. Therefore, I would hope that all my students get exposed to things like this. Yes, it's scary and mature but so is Junior High and High School and the only way I made it through was reading about people who had it worse and seeing how much worse it could be for me.

Shakespeare Bats Cleanup

I read this book in about an hour and a half. If you know me at all, that's about as much as I have to say in order to recommend it to someone else. It caught my attention primarily because it blends a lot of my interests. I'm a big baseball fan, I LOVE writing, I appreciate small novels, and have recently gotten into books written in poetry. It was a really well constructed short novel that accomplished what I think it set out to accomplish; to get kids into writing (while they're reading). It is an incredible accessible read for all sorts of students.

I liked that we weren't given all the details about Kevin's life (his mother's death, his past, etc), but that we were allowed to wonder, to infer, to question. He was an honest, interesting protagonist to follow. I've really started to like teen novels because of how useful they could be to me as a teacher. I want to have books like this to offer my students, books that they can relate to and in which they can find a part of themselves. This is a book that I would absolutely use with my students. There are literary as well as life lessons abundant in this book and I am always excited to find a book short enough that any student in my class could easily finish and enjoy.

you remind me of you

I wasn't planning on reading this book, I just happened upon it one day. I was looking at a website for PUSH. PUSH is a small publishing house that focuses on new writers with something fresh and honest to say. I came across their website when I was researching McCormick's Cut which was also published through PUSH. You Remind Me of You is a true story written in poetry by Eireann Corrigan. It is about her struggle with anorexia/bulimia as well as her obsessive relationship with her boyfriend. It chronicles her obsession with her body and her repeated visits to the hospital.

I am a sucker for a story like this. I am interested in teaching kids with emotional disturbances so, as weird as this sounds, I look at reading experiences like this as a chance to learn more about how these kids think and operate. I was fascinated by her disease and, as disturbing as it naturally is, I couldn't wait to see how she evolved. Having said all of this, I was really confused at times about the timeline of the story. The poems bounce back and forth in time and it would take an extremely close read to distinguish the exact order of things. This makes it really tough to fully engage with the plot because at times it's hard to know what we're supposed to be feeling bad, sad, happy, or angry about as readers.

I'm not sure I could teach a novel like this. I believe it has value and is a very good read, but it is a dark, confusing story that not all students would appreciate. I really think some students would be offended or scared of the content and others wouldn't even be able to follow the poetry. There is just not enough value in it to make it worth all of the work it would take to fully examine it with a class. This is another that I would keep available for students but never require as a read in my class.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

I started reading this book because I was read part of it by Dr. Overstreet in Teaching of Writing. I was instantly hooked. The narrator, Arnold Spirit, has such an honest, distinct voice that it is really hard to put the book down. I was constantly engaged from beginning to end and found myself finishing it in two days. I feel that this would be a great book to offer students. It has the same youthful, honest teenage voice that students love to read, but within the context of a different culture. I never got the chance to read much outside of my own culture and would have benefited from knowing that the themes I was learning about my own world existed in other societies too.

This book was just so good that I haven't even had a chance to process it into classroom worthy material, other than being positive I would use it. Besides relating to other teenage survival stories, it presents new and perhaps unknown problems that only certain people face. Arnold relates his struggles with being a motivated Indian living amongst poor, drunken Indians on a reservation. He fights to make a better life for himself than anybody in his family has had and catches slack from his friends and family for doing so.

I would use this book in a multicultural unit or amongst a variety of other teen novels. It stands out so much to me as the perfect answer to the same old whiny white kid who can't get a date...try being a poor Indian living on a reservation for a day. It is such an important book and I can't wai to share it with my students.