That smile could end wars and cure cancer.

I expressed in the previous blog post that I was quite a fan of John Green's Looking for Alaska; my reading circle in the adolescent in American literature did as well, so we decided to split his other two books, An Abundance of Katherines and Paper Towns, between ourselves. As you may have guessed, the title of the former intrigued me, and I read it.

Katherines is about a recent high school graduate, Colin, and the over-abundance of Katherines in his life. His girlfriend (Katherine XIX, as he affectionately refers to her) breaks up with him, and Colin falls apart. His best friend sprints to the rescue with the idea of a roadtrip to nowhere lasting forever, and the two embark on this journey to rid Colin of his curse--the dumpee of all Katherines.

The writing here differs significantly from that of Green's first book. Katherines is in third person, which makes connecting to the main character (who is a little distant in the first place) more difficult. After a bit of consideration, I think that Green may have done this on purpose. Though I have no evidence other than my own personal knowledge and opinion of the following claim, I think it's an interesting one; perhaps Colin has (very mild) autisim. He has a lot of classic signs I've observed in classes before--he's obsessive (the Katherines, anagrams), he was reading at a young age, he tries to make love into an equation, his best friend has to teach him social cues--and Green's third-person narrative exascerbates the distance between the reader and the protagonist. I think there are a lot of interesting, intelligent ideas presented in this novel, but the way they are presented lacks something. I can't quite put my finger on it, but this book is not nearly as engaging as Alaska.

Because Colin is so interested in math and anagrams, the book does contain some interesting content in subjects other than English, but as a future English teacher, I don't think I would teach this book to the general classroom. I would certainly suggest it to any student whom I thought would be interested; though there is a little bit of language and a few awkwardly inappropriate comments (particularly surrounding religion), there is no material objectionable enough to question its audience.

I love you, Alaska Young.

Our first "assigned" book for the semester in The Adolescent in American Literature was "Looking for Alaska" by John Green, and I must admit, the man has style.

The narrator, Miles Halter, begins boarding at Culver Creek his junior year, on a search for the "Great Perhaps." He finds friends for the first time in his life--particularly his roommate, the Colonel, and his love interest, Alaska--who bestow upon him the ironic nickname "Pudge." These three teenagers, with varying backgrounds and histories, spend the "Before" sharing secrets, falling in love and misbehaving; they spend the "After" theorizing, feeling guilty and mourning as best they know how.

Green's use of repetition is powerful and beautiful and emotionally thrilling--at the end of the "Before" Pudge repeats "We did not say," followed by the what-ifs that weigh on all of our hearts at one point or another. Throughout the novel he uses the device in similar ways, but never quite as striking. I also liked the general style of the book; the "teenager" language doesn't feel forced or fake, rather pulsing slowly, with an appropriate crescendo and decrescendo, lyrical, but harsh.

The story, though somewhat unique, has elements to which everyone can relate. The simultaneous (or loosely separated) feelings of elation and bottomless despair are familiar to anyone who has ever experienced growing up.

Though students will be very interested in this book, I doubt that it could be taught (due to the sexuality and expletives). It's worth having around the classroom and worth recommendation, particularly to students struggling with a significant loss.

A bit for fellow procrastinators to consider

I found this on a site that I'm loving called Good Reads. You can connect it with your Facebook account, and they have a system of book reviews, quotes, authors, other book-nerdy stuff. I highly recommend that you check it out!

"Who has never killed an hour? Not casually or without thought, but carefully: a premeditated murder of minutes. The violence comes from a combination of giving up, not caring, and a resignation that getting past it is all you can hope to accomplish. So you kill the hour. You do not work, you do not read, you do not daydream. If you sleep it is not because you need to sleep. And when at last it is over, there is no evidence: no weapon, no blood, and no body. The only clue might be the shadows beneath your eyes or a terribly thin line near the corner of your mouth indicating something has been suffered, that in the privacy of your life you have lost something and the loss is too empty to share." --Mark Z. Danielewski, Author of House of Leaves

Harry Potter was a highly unusual boy.

I grew up with the Harry Potter series. It was an interesting relationship; I literally grew up with Harry and his friends. From the minute I started reading the first book, I couldn't put them down, and I'm not sure why. I was very young when the first one(s) came out, and I think that I quickly gained an emotional connection with the characters, so I always wanted to know what was next. The last book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, came out just before I started college, and I still loved it.

Reading the third one, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, out of context as a junior in college, I'm not sure if it will ever have that same appeal again. I have fought for these books continuously, telling people that they will be classics, that they will be books our children read and their children read and on and on. I don't think I feel the same way anymore. Once, again, there's something to be said for literally growing up with Harry.

At the time, we had defined a YA novel as a novel in which an adolescent has a realization or a moment of epiphany relating to a past struggle (I am, of course, paraphrasing). I think that one could easily make an arguement for any of the Harry Potter novels being considered YA under that definition (some fit better than others). I chose this one because I think there are a lot of epiphany moments, the most prominent being when Harry "sees" his dad across the pond, and the realization that follows that moment (trying to explain without a spoiler).

I remember having a discussion (though I don't recall if it was in or outside of class) about the way that YA novels aren't easy to identify because they basically just have that "YA tone." I think that's the only thing, logistically, the Harry Potter series is missing; it's essentially an epic saga of a boy dealing with whatever life throws at him. Do I think it's teaching material? Not at all, but I do think that it would be worth having in a classroom as an option.

The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

I've heard good things about The Chocolate War, so, when I saw it on the list of classic YA novels we could choose to read for "The Adolescent in American Lit," I decided to give it a try.

The story is that of Trinity High School, particularly a freshman named Jerry Renault. The school has a "gang" called The Vigils; these boys give "homework assignments" to younger boys as a form of psychological torture. Jerry's first assignment is to refuse to sell chocolates for the school fundraiser, lighting the short fuse of Brother Leon, the assistant headmaster. After ten days, when Jerry is allowed to start selling chocolates, he doesn't--inspired by a poster reading "Do I dare disturb the universe?" Jerry dares, and the rest of the book lays out the consequences of his split-second decision to challenge authority.

I'll begin by saying that this book is indeed intelligent. It is well-written with complex grammar and vocabulary. It gets quite violent at times, vividly so. The first chapter describes a football tryout, but it sounds more like a gang war. The violence escalates, but I don't want to ruin the novel.

Here's a quote that I rather liked from that first chapter: "His body seemed to telescope into itself but all the parts didn't fit, and he was stunned by the knowledge that pain isn't just one thing--it is cunning and various, sharp here and sickening there, burning here and crawling there"(2). Even here, on the second page, it's clear that Cormier has talent and knowledge; I think that this was the "problem novel" before it was a meaningless term. I think that want-to-be authors saw this compelling story and these multidimensional characters and thought, 'Hey, I could do that,' not considering the parts of the novel that take it from good to great.

Personally, I wasn't a huge fan of the writing style or the ending, but I appreciate the novel for what it is--a quality piece of literature for students.

Young Adult Literature and My Opinion of Its Place in the World

I am, always have been and always will be an "English person."

I love words; the complexities of the English language allow a writer to perfectly define an emotion and give readers that empathy, that connection with a character or characters, inspiring passion. As I grow as a reader, writer and person, I begin to understand how much of that passion is in each word a writer chooses. The only way I think I'll ever be able to comprehend the love an author has for his or her work, his or her child, his or her creation is by creating something myself, feeling the nerves as I wait for an acceptance or rejection letter.

I had to preface this entry with that sentiment because I want you to understand that, at the least, I appreciate how difficult writing is, regardless of audience or subject matter or style or genre or plot line or any of the other hundreds of aspects of writing.

All of that having been said, I must say this--I am really not a fan of young adult literature.

First of all, I was not a fan of young adult literature as a young adult; most of the award-winning young adult books we've discussed in my "Adolescent in American Literature" class were books I read and enjoyed at a much younger age. The content was, for a 10, 11, 12 year old, very provocative, and I thought it was cool that my mother would not have approved of my reading them.

That being said, I am not the god of books. I know that I am a very picky reader--for me to like a book, it has to have many different elements, some of which aren't visible until halfway through the book or even until the end. Also, I am a very critical reader. I read quite quickly, but I like to stop and take notes in the margins, underline the sentences that speak to me or that use a word in a beautiful context, so it takes a long time for me to read. For this reason, I can be pretty bitter about reading a book that I don't like. When I realize halfway through or ten pages into it or as I read the last sentence that I did not enjoy the time I just spent on this book, I get frustrated. It's a waste of my time to read something that isn't enjoyable or that isn't going to help me learn anything new.

My primary concern is that I'm going to go through this class, through all of these books, through all of this time and not find what I'm looking for. I'm looking for something meaningful, challenging and appropriate to my classroom. I understand that this isn't an education class, as we've discussed many times before, but if I can't get something out of this class, why am I taking it?

I'm trying to read these books from perspectives other than my own. It's hard. If nothing else, I hope this class will teach me how to deal with things I don't like.

The field of YA lit is still somewhat of a mystery to me--we are constantly changing the definition as we discuss this issue in class. Is "young adult" synonymous with "teenager"? If not, how far up or down the age spectrum do we go?