LS 5623 Mod 5

barnesandnoble.com

War is…by Marc Aronson


Module 5 History, Biography and Nonfiction

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aronson, Marc, and Patricia J. Campbell. War is--: soldiers, survivors, and storytellers talk about war. Cambridge, Mass.: Candlewick Press, 2008. ISBN 9780763636258

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Editors Marc Aronson and Patty Campbell do not pretend to have unbiased feelings toward America’s participation in wars. This compilation of interviews, plays, poetry and memoirs provides a varied look at the horrors of war. It does not however, offer an impartial debate with various perspectives represented. This book’s sole intent is to expose readers a specific component of military service-war.

Readers will hear firsthand from soldiers, civilians and parents of military members how savage war is. Accounts of what life is like after a war has been waged are also included and are even more difficult to contemplate.

This resource presents authentic and accurate narrative opinions from the distinct perspective of service men and women who signed up for military service with no intention of fighting in battles. However, it may prove to be more effective in its intended purpose-to persuade readers not to support war- if it included accounts from military personnel and their families who felt compelled and honored to serve their country at times of war. I feel the stories of their sacrifice alongside the stories of those who served only because they had no other choice, would lend more credibility to the editors’ argument that war is horrid. When readers learn of the tragedies the military face on and off the battle field they may begin to feel gratitude for the ransoms paid for their freedom. Perhaps they would then be more apt to support the men and women who gave of themselves and look for ways to avoid war in the future.

BOOK HOOK/EXPLEMPLARY OR FAVORITE LINES/STUDENT REVIEWS

“WAR IS…

         Crazy, History, Deception, Unbearable, Delusion, Male, Linked with religion, Worse for Civilians, Impossible to Win, Inevitable?” (Aronson 3-6)

STUDENT REVIEWAllison's review


Jul 09, 11


bookshelves: ya-lit


Read in July, 2011


This book was interesting. I like the different perspectives they gave from different wars, but it still felt kind of biased. I thought that this book was more about showing both sides of the war debate, and less about discouraging future generations from making was in the first place. I agree that war is a terrible thing, but I also think it's currently a necessary thing. It seemed like the book was kind of pacifist. It was not what I expected, and a little disappointing, but not bad overall.
Warnings: There's some cursing (up to the f-bomb), some yucky descriptions of dead people, and mentions of sexual harassment, but this is about soldiers and war, so it shouldn't be too unexpected.



EXTERNAL ASSESSMENTS

School Library Journal

Aronson and Campbell have collected an outstanding array of essays, interviews, blog posts, articles, song lyrics, short stories, and letters from people directly involved in war. The book is broken into sections called "Deciding About War," "Experiencing War," and "The Aftermath of War." A former soldier writes an open letter to young enlistees, hoping they will scrutinize their reasons for joining up. The U.S. military recruitment contract is minutely examined by a high school social studies teacher. World War II reporter Ernie Pyle's articles on D-Day are reprinted. An essay about women soldiers who served in Iraq is excerpted from Helen Benedict's forthcoming book, The Lonely Soldier. And a memoir by poet Fumiko Miura, survivor of the atomic bomb at Nagasaki, is included. The volume closes with a short play and a short story about the aftereffects of war. The editors make it plain that they are antiwar, but they have made an effort to convey a variety of experiences. Overall, however, war is shown to be brutal, life-changing (not for the better), and ongoing. Aronson notes that humans have gone to war for all of recorded history and show no signs of stopping now. Many books about war for young people make it seem glamorous, exciting, and noble. This powerful collection shows its inglorious, perhaps more realistic side.

Booklist

In his provocatively titled introduction, “People Like War,” Aronson writes: “If we ask people to fight for us—as we always have and always will—we owe them the respect of listening to them.” Though differing (passionately) about war’s inevitability, his coeditor, Campbell, feels likewise, and joins him in presenting a gathering of reminiscences, interviews, letters, published articles, and literary works that brilliantly convey war’s terrible appeal as well as its realities and lasting effects on those whose lives are personally touched by armed conflict. Contributions include Ernie Pyle’s eloquent account of wreckage on a D-Day beach, a Vietnam vet’s nightmarish memories of combat, jokey letters home by Campbell’s naive doughboy father, scathing accounts of sexual harassment in Iraq and elsewhere from several female ex-GIs, and a disturbing indictment of recruiting practices in today’s high schools. Anyone considering enlistment will find these pieces (not to mention the many titles provided in the ample but not indigestible lists of war fiction and nonfiction at the end) to be mesmerizing reading. With this collection, Aronson and Campbell have provided an uncommonly valuable source of hard information and perceptive insight.

LS 5623 Mod 5

educationworld.com

cincinnatilibrary.org

33 Things Every Girl Should Know About Women’s Historyby Tanya Bolden


Module 5 History, Biography and Nonfiction



BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bolden, Tonya. 33 things every girl should know about women's history: from suffragettes to skirt lengths to the ERA. New York: Crown Publishers, 2002. ISBN 0375911227



CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Bolden has skillfully selected articles, poetry and entries to be included in this album of important history. Readers are taken through the toughest and most merciless trials of women in America as they struggled to ensure a fair and equally valued life for all future women in this country. We meet the female athletes, artists, politicians, astronauts and soldiers that pressed through unimaginable obstacles to secure their own dreams and to provide a way for others to follow their dream as well.

After gleaning the knowledge one does from reading this book, empowered readers may also be awakened to a sense of responsibility and duty to all who will come after them. A common message throughout the anthology is that it is imperative that the freedoms enjoyed today are not taken for granted tomorrow.

Readers cannot read this collection and not feel indebted to the women who dared to fight for our future. Some of these warriors gave up their dignity, physical health and lives for girls and women they would never meet but believed would have a more fulfilling life due to their sacrifices.

Bolden has provided an important resource for all Americans; one that should be studied by every young woman and the men who care for them.

BOOK HOOK/EXPLEMPLARY OR FAVORITE LINES

“Some leaders are born women.” Geraldine Ferraro, politician (Bolden 66)

“I am not belittling the brave pioneer men, but the sunbonnet as well as the sombrero has helped to settle this glorious land of ours.” Edna Ferber, novelist (Bolden 66)

“She (First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt) called weekly press conferences restricted to women reporters (as a way of forcing newspapers to hire some)…” (Bolden 106)

“History is full of women who stuck their neck out, heroic women who braved isolation or ridicule to be the first females in their fields.” (Bolden 141)



EXTERNAL ASSESSMENTS



School Library Journal

In an impressive collection of articles, poems, diary entries, and fiction, Bolden builds a strong historical foundation about women's history. The opening poem, "Past Is Prologue," sets the tone: "You can't go anywhere in this world really without knowing where you as a woman have been." Abigail Adams's remarkable 1775 correspondence with her husband, in which she asserts the need for equality, follows: "-I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors." Thoughtful selections about the suffrage movement, the 1848 Women's Convention at Seneca Falls, men who are feminists, women's firsts, fashion trends, and rebels are also included. Wise quotations by women will find their way onto many bulletin boards and mirrors: "What we call failure is not the falling down, but the staying down" (Mary Pickford) and "I think the reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself" (Rita Mae Brown). The tone throughout is positive and informative, empowering teens with neglected facts about and contributions of women to the history of the United States. With plentiful black-and-white illustrations and photos and an appealing format, this is a valuable book.

Booklist

Bolden, the compiler of 33 Things Every Girl Should Know (1998), focuses on women's history this time, providing a cornucopia of information, some of which will surprise readers. Drawing from a number of sources and authors, she covers a wide range of topics, arranging her material mostly chronologically. There's the famous letter from Abigail Adams reminding her husband to "remember the ladies," essays about the suffrage movement, and information on women of the West and women in war, Eleanor Roosevelt, beauty, and girl singing groups of the 1960s. A chart shows the ways women's fashions have changed and a time line follows the progress (and lack thereof) of the women's rights movement. There are also bibliographies, biographical profiles, and poetry, with everything set down in a format that cleverly uses typeface and photographs to draw readers in. This is a very strong, highly readable offering that gives context to the feminist movement--and demystifies that controversial term.

LS 5623 Mod 5



barnesandnoble.com



barnesandnoble.com












A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly


Module 5 History, Biography and Nonfiction

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Donnelly, Jennifer. A northern light. San Diego: Harcourt, 2003. ISBN 0152167056

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Set in the early 1900’s in the mountains of New York, Donnelly introduces readers to sixteen year old Mattie Gokey. Via flashbacks, readers discover that she is a gifted writer, the oldest of four daughters and is struggling to fill the shoes of her recently deceased mother. Although she is missing her mother and older brother (who ran away after a terrible fight with her father), Mattie is also battling her feelings of guilt as she secretly prepares to attend college and escape her harsh, meager, farm life. We meet her at this critical time and immediately learn that she is intelligent and strong yet compassionate and honest, too. Finally, her father allows her to go to work at the Glenmore. Mattie trades the overwhelming responsibilities of helping to run her family's failing farm for a job as a serving girl at the fancy hotel in the Adirondacks, and begins saving as much of her salary as she can. She finds she has a tough decision to make when the summer comes to an end.

Along with encouragement from brilliant, fearless, young black man, Weaver and her controversial teacher, Ms. Wilcox, Mattie's gift for writing affords her getting accepted to Barnard College in New York City. She’ll need to borrow from their strength, too as her sense of duty to her family and a budding romance with handsome Royal Loomis threatens to trap her in a life of service to others and suffocation of her talents and dreams.

While working that summer at the hotel, Mattie gets pulled into a mysterious young couple’s tangle of deceit. It is the mysterious death of the young woman, Grace Brown that ultimately pushes Mattie to find the courage to leave the mountains for the city and fight for a life for which she yearns. Just before Grace drowned in the lake, she gave Mattie a packet of love letters and frantically asked her to promise to burn them. Instead, Mattie reads the letters and discovers that Grace’s death was a murderous act committed against her by someone she trusted-the father of her unborn child. Donnelly masterfully weaves the true story of Grace Brown into her fiction tale as Mattie is the perfect person to understand the impact of Grace’s tragic situation.



Mattie's voice is authentic and reveals interesting nuances regarding poverty, racism, and feminism in the early1900’s. Her unpretentious accounts of illness, death, birth, dating and marriage will dispel any romantic illusions readers might have concerning these events in life.



BOOK HOOK/EXPLEMPLARY OR FAVORITE LINES

“I know that it is a bad thing to break a promise, but I think now that it is a worse thing to let a promise break you.” (Donnelly 374)

Author’s website: http://www.jenniferdonnelly.com/

Biography:

“My first childhood memories are of dad trying to get me to eat lima beans, and my mom telling me stories. I still won't eat lima beans, but the stories have stuck with me, and these days, I'm telling a few of my own.

I've written three novels so far: A Northern Light, The Tea Rose, The Winter Rose, and Humble Pie, a picture book for children.

My first novel, The Tea Rose, an epic set in London and New York in the late 19th century, was called 'exquisite' by Booklist, 'so much fun' by the Washington Post, a 'guilty pleasure' by People and was named a Top Pick by the Romantic Times.

My second novel, A Northern Light, set in the Adirondack Mountains of 1906, against the backdrop of an infamous murder, won the Carnegie Medal, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Borders Original Voices Award, and was named a Printz Honor book. Described as 'rich and true' by The New York Times, the book was named to the Best Book lists of The Times (London), The Irish Times, The Financial Times, Publishers Weekly, Booklist and the School Library Journal.

The Winter Rose, my third novel and the second book in the The Tea Rose trilogy, is out now in the United Kingdom and will be published in the United States in January 2008.

Humble Pie, illustrated by Caldecott Medalist Stephen Gammell, tells the story of a selfish little boy named Theo who ultimately gets his just desserts.

I live in New York's Hudson Valley with my husband, our daughter, and Hannibal Lecter, our snapping turtle, whom we love dearly, but from a distance.”



EXTERNAL ASSESSMENTS


From School Library Journal

Mattie Gokey, 16, a talented writer, promised her dying mother that she would always take care of her father and younger siblings. She is stuck on a farm, living in near poverty, with no way of escaping, even though she has been accepted at Barnard College. She promises to marry handsome Royal Loomis even though he doesn't appear to love her. Now, Mattie has promised Grace Brown, a guest at the Adirondack summer resort where she works, to burn two bundles of letters. Then, before she can comply, Grace's body is found in the lake, and the young man who was with her disappears, also presumably drowned. This is a breathtaking tale, complex and often earthy, wrapped around a true story. In 1906, Grace Brown was killed by Chester Gillette because she was poor and pregnant, and he hoped to make his fortune by marrying a rich, society girl. Grace's story weaves its way through Mattie's, staying in the background but providing impetus. The protagonist tells her tale through flashback and time shifts from past to present. Readers feel her fears for her friend Weaver-the first freeborn child in his family-when he is beaten for being black and his college savings are stolen, and enjoy their love of words as they engage in language duels. Finally, they'll experience her awakening when she realizes that she cannot live her life for others. Donnelly's characters ring true to life, and the meticulously described setting forms a vivid backdrop to this finely crafted story. An outstanding choice for historical-fiction fans, particularly those who have read Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy.



From Booklist

Donnelly's first YA novel begins with high drama drawn straight from history: Grace Brown's body is discovered, and her murder, which also inspired Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy, is the framework for this ambitious, beautifully written coming-of-age story set in upstate New York in 1906. Sixteen-year-old Mattie Gokey is a waitress at the Glenmore Hotel when Brown is murdered. As she learns Brown's story, her narrative shifts between the goings-on at the hotel and her previous year at home: her toil at the farm; her relationship with her harsh, remote father; her pain at being forbidden to accept a college scholarship. "Plain and bookish," Mattie is thrilled about, but wary of, a handsome neighbor's attentions, and she wonders if she must give up her dream of writing if she marries. In an intelligent, colloquial voice that speaks with a writer's love of language and an observant eye, Mattie details the physical particulars of people's lives as well as deeper issues of race, class, and gender as she strains against family and societal limitations. Donnelly adds a crowd of intriguing, well-drawn secondary characters whose stories help Mattie define her own desires and sense of self. Many teens will connect with Mattie's deep yearning for independence and for stories, like her own, that are frank, messy, complicated, and inspiring.

LS 5623 Mod 4



barnesandnoble.com



us.macmillan.com











Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin


Module 4 Fantasy and Science Fiction


BIBLIOGRAPHY

Zevin, Gabrielle. Elsewhere. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005. ISBN 9780312367466

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

When 15 year old Lizzie is killed by a hit and run driver she finds herself in Elsewhere. It takes her a while to realize she is dead and quite a bit longer to accept that she cannot ever return to her old life. Her grandmother, Betsy, tries to encourage Liz to enjoy all that Elsewhere has to offer but she is too bitter about everything she won’t get to experience (driving, college, marriage) and becomes obsessed with the Observation Deck and even plots a way to communicate with the living before finally accepting her new life after death. Once Liz decides to stop being a moody teenager, she realizes that Elsewhere looks and feels like Earth. There are gardens, beaches, museums and parks to appreciate. She begins to look for ways to get to know her grandmother (Betsy died before Liz was born) and learn what she can from her new neighbors. Although she will miss out on some very important milestones as she ages in reverse (and will eventually return to Earth as a newborn), Liz decides to embrace life in Elsewhere and accepts a position to help newly deceased pets acclimate to their new life.

Zevin’s tone is upbeat and hopeful not dark or intense as she offers an explanation of what happens when we-and our pets-die. She creates such a believable character that young adults will easily identify with the struggles Liz endures. When Lizzie thinks she is dreaming, she calls out to her mother and waits for her mother to come wake her with a glass of water like a typical adolescent that is not as ready to leave the care of her parents as she’d like to think she is. As she remembers being hit by a car and tracks down the driver she battles with her feelings of anger and sympathy. Then when the realization sets in that she'll never fall in love, never get her driver's license, and never see her family again, readers will surely understand her self-pity and loneliness.

BOOK HOOK/EXPLEMPLARY OR FAVORITE LINES

Welcome to Elsewhere. It is warm, with a breeze, and the beaches are marvelous. It’s quiet and peaceful. You can’t get sick or any older. Curious to see new paintings by Picasso? Swing by one of Elsewhere’s museums. Need to talk to someone about your problems? Stop by Marilyn Monroe’s psychiatric practice.

Elsewhere is where fifteen-year-old Liz Hall ends up, after she has died. It is a place so like Earth, yet completely different. Here Liz will age backward from the day of her death until she becomes a baby again and returns to Earth. But Liz wants to turn sixteen, not fourteen again. She wants to get her driver’s license. She wants to graduate from high school and go to college. And now that she’s dead, Liz is being forced to live a life she doesn’t want with a grandmother she has only just met. And it is not going well. How can Liz let go of the only life she has ever known and embrace a new one? Is it possible that a life lived in reverse is no different from a life lived forward? (Description from publisher)


“Speak up”, says Myrna who has a fuzzy white caterpillar of a mustache. “My hearing’s not so good.” “I WAS SHOT IN THE HEAD.” Liz turns to Thandi. “I thought you said you didn’t remember how you got the hole in your head.” Thandi apologizes, “I just remembered.” (Zevin 16)



Awards:

American Library Association Notable Children's Books

American Library Association Popular Paperbacks for Young Readers

Amazon.com Top 10 Editor’s Picks: Teens

Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year

Books for the Teen Age, New York Public Library

Booklist Editors' Choice

Horn Book Magazine Fanfare List

Kirkus Reviews Editor's Choice

School Library Journal Best Books of the Year

Connecticut Nutmeg Children's Book Award

Tennessee Intermediate Volunteer State Book Award Master List

Texas TAYSHAS High School Reading List



EXTERNAL ASSESSMENTS

School Library Journal

What happens when you die? Where do you go? What do you do? Zevin provides answers to these questions in this intriguing novel, centering on the death of Liz Hall, almost 16 years old and looking forward to all that lies ahead: learning to drive, helping her best friend prepare for the prom, going to college, falling in love. Killed in a hit-and-run accident, Liz struggles to understand what has happened to her, grief-stricken at all she has lost, and incapable of seeing the benefits of the Elsewhere in which she finds herself. Refusing to participate in this new life, Liz spends her time looking longingly down at the family and friends back on Earth who go on without her. But the new environment pulls her into its own rhythms. Liz meets the grandmother she never knew, makes friends, takes a job, and falls in love as she and the other inhabitants of Elsewhere age backward one year for each year that they are there. Zevin's third-person narrative calmly, but surely guides readers through the bumpy landscape of strongly delineated characters dealing with the most difficult issue that faces all of us. A quiet book that provides much to think about and discuss.



Booklist

Narration from beyond the grave has been cropping up with some frequency in YA novels this year, including Chris Crutcher's The Sledding Hill and Adele Griffin's Where I Want to Be (both 2005). But this example, Zevin's second novel and her first for the YA audience, is a work of powerful beauty that merits judgment independent of any larger trend.

The setting is an elaborately conceived afterlife called Elsewhere, a distinctly secular island realm of surprising physical solidity (no cottony clouds or pearly gates here), where the dead exist much as they once did--except that no one dies or is born, and aging occurs in reverse, culminating when the departed are returned to Earth as infants to start the life cycle again.

Having sailed into Elsewhere's port aboard a cruise ship populated by mostly elderly passengers, 15-year-old head-trauma victim Liz Hall does not go gently into Elsewhere's endless summer. She is despairing, intractable, sullen, and understandably furious: "You mean I'll never go to college or get married or get big boobs or live on my own or get my driver's license or fall in love?" She rejects her new existence, spending endless hours keeping tabs on surviving family and friends through magical coin-operated telescopes, and refusing to take the suggestions offered by a well-meaning Office of Acclimation. Eventually, though, she begins to listen. She takes a job counseling deceased pets, forges an unexpected romance with a young man struggling with heartbreaks, and finds simple joy in the awareness that "a life is a good story . . . even a crazy, backward life like hers." Periodic visits with an increasingly youthful Liz, concluding with her journey down the "River" to be reborn, bring the novel to a graceful, seamless close.

Although the book may prove too philosophical for some, Zevin offers readers more than a gimmick-driven novel of ideas: the world of Elsewhere is too tangible for that. "A human's life is a beautiful mess," reflects Liz, and the observation is reinforced with strikingly conceived examples: a newly dead thirtysomething falls in love with Liz's grandmother, who is biologically similar in age but experientially generations older; fresh arrivals reunite with spouses long since departed, creating incongruous May-December marriages and awkward love triangles (as Liz experiences when her boyfriend's wife suddenly appears). At one poignant moment, four-year-old Liz loses the ability to read. The passage she attempts to decipher, which comes from Natalie Babbitt's Tuck Everlasting, is another meditation on the march of time and change.

Although Zevin's conception of the afterlife will inevitably ruffle many theological feathers, the comfort it offers readers grieving for lost loved ones, as well as the simple, thrilling satisfaction derived from its bold engagement with basic, provocative questions of human existence, will far outweigh any offense its metaphysical perspective might give. Far more than just a vehicle for a cosmology, this inventive novel slices right to the bone of human yearning, offering up an indelible vision of life and death as equally rich sides of the same coin.

LS 5623 Mod 4



amazon.com



mt-anderson.com


Feed by M.T. Anderson

Module 4 Fantasy and Science Fiction



BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anderson, M. T.. Feed. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press, 2002. ISBN 0763622591

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Today people and computers are separate. We need to use our hands to operate our electronic devices. We carry them in our pockets, backpacks or special cases. In Feed, a futuristic tale of a society with computer brain implants, Titus thinks things have gotten a lot better since the feeds. But the reality is that no one thinks for oneself and there is never any silence.

Titus is a teenage boy who, like everyone around him, is almost completely inarticulate. He's dimly aware that something is missing in his head. Yet he knows exactly where to get the latest clothes and where to go when he gets bored. He and his friends don’t read because they stopped going to School™ when they were about seven. Why would they need to go to School™ when everything they want to know is on the feed? Their spring break trip to the Moon changes everything Titus ever thought he knew about the world. He meets Violet who once lived without the feed. She has experienced silence and learning and reading. She can use a pen with her hand! Violet is not content with the feed and fights it as it destroys her body. She begins to draws Titus into her rebellion against government control but he proves to be too weak in character to offer any value to her cause or what is left of her life.

Anderson has done an incredible job of describing a way life that mankind has not yet experienced. Titus and his friends move about in flying vehicles operated by their minds. Medicines are delivered by way of floating orbs and all communication is delivered electronically from brain to brain. Enticing descriptions of parties on the Moon, skin lesions that enable ones internal workings to be seen, going “mal” (futuristic drug abuse), group kissing and foul language intensify the lure of this novel to young activists as well as those who enjoy thought provoking, science fiction writing. As technology continues to bring us into a new age of communication, this novel explores the possibility of a future of morally and intellectually bankrupt citizens as consumerism rules the planet.



BOOK HOOK/EXPLEMPLARY OR FAVORITE LINES

She said, "Look around you." I did. It was the mall. She said, "Listen to me." I listened. She said, "I was sitting at the feed doctor's a few days ago, and I started to think about things. Okay. All right. Everything we do gets thrown into a big calculation. Like they're watching us right now. They can tell where you're looking. They want to know what you want”. "It's a mall," I said. "They're also waiting to make you want things. Everything we've grown up with - the stories on the feed, the games, all of that - it's all streamlining our personalities so we're easier to sell to. I mean, they do these demographic studies that divide everyone up into a few personality types, and then you get ads based on what you're supposedly like. They try to figure out who you are, and to make you conform to one of their types for easy marketing. It's like a spiral: They keep making everything more basic so it will appeal to everyone. And gradually, everyone gets used to everything being basic, so we get less and less varied as people, more simple.” (Anderson 97)



M. T. Anderson is on the faculty of Vermont College’s MFA Program in Writing for Children. He is the author of the novels THIRSTY and BURGER WUSS and the picture-book biography HANDEL, WHO KNEW WHAT HE LIKED. He says of FEED, "To write this novel, I read a huge number of magazines like SEVENTEEN, MAXIM, and STUFF. I eavesdropped on conversations in malls, especially when people were shouting into cell phones. Where else could you get lines like, ‘Dude, I think the truffle is totally undervalued’?" http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/feed-m-t-anderson/1100305951



EXTERNAL ASSESSMENTS



Publishers Weekly

In this chilling novel, Anderson imagines a society dominated by the feed-a next-generation Internet/television hybrid that is directly hardwired into the brain. In a starred review, PW called this a "thought-provoking and scathing indictment of corporate-and media-dominated culture."



School Library Journal

Taking a nap on the way to the moon for spring break might be boring, so Titus does his best to stay alert and have fun with his friends. The "feed" in his brain is continuously spewing advertisements, music, game shows, hairstyle alerts and many other necessary bits of information. Hundreds of years ago, people actually had to use their eyes and fingers to get information by computer, but now, in M.T. Anderson's future world (Candlewick, 2002), the computer chips are built right in, and bombard everyone with exactly what the corporate world wants them to know. In the midst of this overwhelming flow of information, Titus becomes friends with Violet, a girl who cares about what's happening in the world, is not afraid to question things, and is opposed to the "feed." What will happen when their feeds are damaged and they decide to go against the feed? Anderson's book is written to be read aloud. Titus's stream of words and the rhythm of the "teenspeak" are read to perfection by actor David Baker. The intermittent feed commercials give listeners a taste of this society and help them understand the media attack the teens here are forced to endure. Baker's presentation will make this satiric cautionary tale very real for listeners.

LS 5623 Mod 4

fictiondb.com



amazon.com












The Dead & the Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer


Module 4 Fantasy and Science Fiction


BIBLIOGRAPHY

Pfeffer, Susan Beth. The dead and the gone. Orlando, Fla.: Harcourt, 2008. ISBN 9780152063115

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Seventeen year old, Alex Morales and his sisters, Briana and Julie, are left on their own in New York City to survive after an asteroid collides with the moon and positions it closer to Earth. The world is now plagued with volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, tidal waves, earthquakes, famine caused by food shortages and disease. Alex must take care of his sisters in the absence of his mother and father. He is forced to raid dead bodies for valuables he can trade for food. The siblings struggle with their religious convictions and faith while trying desperately to survive. They fight desperate thoughts and hopelessness as conditions worsen and they begin to come to grips with a reality that is too dreadful for their adolescent psyches to completely accept. Gradually they concede that there will be no “getting back to normal” and that their parents will never return. Although Alex believes that it is his role to protect what is left of their family, his sisters prove their own strength and value as they sacrifice and care for one another.

Alex blames himself for all of the things happening to his sisters and feels that they are not mentally or physically tough enough to survive without him. However, when he becomes sick with the flu, he lives through it due to his youngest sister’s (Julie) determination and attention. Julie is a typical thirteen year old girl who is forced to mature very quickly in order to aid in the family’s survival. Briana is a gentle, sensitive fourteen year old girl who develops asthma when she goes away to an abbey in the country. Throughout the entire book, she holds within her a strong, overwhelming belief that her parents are still alive and will come back to save them. Ultimately, her unwillingness to accept the truth is what leads to her death.

This novel is a very realistic look at how difficult it would be for survivors of a catastrophic event to endure a live without any of the necessities and luxuries our society takes for granted. It causes readers to consider their dependence on the most basic needs for safety, nourishment and companionship and how valuable these essentials would be to their perseverance.

BOOK HOOK/EXPLEMPLARY OR FAVORITE LINES

Inside cover: Susan Beth Pfeffer’s Life as We Knew It enthralled and devastated readers with its brutal but hopeful look at an apocalyptic event--an asteroid hitting the moon, setting off a tailspin of horrific climate changes. Now this harrowing companion novel examines the same events as they unfold in New York City, revealed through the eyes of seventeen-year-old Puerto Rican Alex Morales. When Alex's parents disappear in the aftermath of tidal waves, he must care for his two younger sisters, even as Manhattan becomes a deadly wasteland, and food and aid dwindle. With haunting themes of family, faith, personal change, and courage, this powerful new novel explores how a young man takes on unimaginable responsibilities.



Author’s Blog: http://susanbethpfeffer.blogspot.com/



EXTERNAL ASSESSMENTS



From School Library Journal

An asteroid knocks the moon closer to Earth, and every conceivable natural disaster occurs. Seventeen-year-old Alex Morales's parents are missing and presumed drowned by tsunamis. Left alone, he struggles to care for his sisters Bri, 14, and Julie, 12. Things look up as Central Park is turned into farmland and food begins to grow. Then worldwide volcanic eruptions coat the sky with ash and the land freezes permanently. People starve, freeze, or die of the flu. Only the poor are left in New York—a doomed island—while the rich light out for safe towns inland and south. The wooden, expository dialogue and obvious setup of the first pages quickly give way to the well-wrought action of the snowballing tragedy. The mood of the narrative is appropriately frenetic, somber, and hopeful by turns. Pfeffer's writing grows legs as the terrifying plot picks up speed, and conversations among the siblings are realistically fluid and sharp-edged. The Moraleses are devout Catholics, and though the church represents the moral center of the novel, Pfeffer doesn't proselytize. The characters evolve as the city decomposes, and the author succeeds in showing their heroism without making them caricatures of virtue. She accurately and knowingly depicts New York City from bodegas to boardrooms, and even the far-fetched science upon which the novel hinges seems well researched. This fast-paced, thoughtful story is a good pick for melodrama fiends and reluctant readers alike.—Johanna Lewis, New York Public Library

From Booklist

In Life as We Knew It (2005), veteran writer Pfeffer painted a terrifying picture of what happened in a rural Pennsylvania town after an asteroid hit the moon and cataclysmic changes on land and sea caused familiar life to grind to a halt. For readers who wondered if things were any better in a bustling city, here is the horrifying answer. On the night the moon tilts, 17-year-old Alex and his younger sisters are alone; their mother is at work, and their father is visiting Puerto Rico. No matter how the kids wish, hope, and pray, their parents don’t return. It’s up to Alex to do what’s best. At first that means bartering for food and batteries and avoiding fighting with the rambunctious Julie—especially after sickly Bri is sent to live at a rural convent. Later it means rescuing Julie from rapists and steering her away from the corpses that litter the street, providing food for rats. Religion is one of the strong threads running through the novel. It would have been interesting to see Alex wrestle more with his staunch Catholicism, but in many ways, the Church anchors the plot. The story’s power, as in the companion book, comes from readers’ ability to picture themselves in a similar situation; everything Pfeffer writes about seems wrenchingly plausible.