Review: A Path Appears by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

A Path Appears--Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

September 2014 by Knopf

400 pages--Goodreads

An essential, galvanizing narrative about making a difference here and abroad—a road map to becoming the most effective global citizens we can be.

In their number one New York Times best seller Half the Sky, husband-and-wife team Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn brought to light struggles faced by women and girls around the globe, and showcased individuals and institu­tions working to address oppression and expand opportunity. A Path Appears is even more ambi­tious in scale: nothing less than a sweeping tap­estry of people who are making the world a better place and a guide to the ways that we can do the same—whether with a donation of $5 or $5 mil­lion, with our time, by capitalizing on our skills as individuals, or by using the resources of our businesses.

With scrupulous research and on-the-ground reporting, the authors assay the art and science of giving, identify successful local and global initia­tives, and share astonishing stories from the front lines of social progress. We see the compelling, in­spiring truth of how real people have changed the world, upending the idea that one person can’t make a difference.

We meet people like Dr. Gary Slutkin, who devel­oped his landmark Cure Violence program to combat inner-city conflicts in the United States by applying principles of epidemiology; Lester Strong, who left a career as a high-powered television anchor to run an organization bringing in older Americans to tu­tor students in public schools across the country; MIT development economist Esther Duflo, whose pioneering studies of aid effectiveness have revealed new truths about, among other things, the power of hope; and Jessica Posner and Kennedy Odede, who are transforming Kenya’s most notorious slum by ex­panding educational opportunities for girls.

A Path Appears offers practical, results-driven advice on how best each of us can give and reveals the lasting benefits we gain in return. Kristof and WuDunn know better than most how many urgent challenges communities around the world face to­day. Here they offer a timely beacon of hope for our collective future.

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This book is ambitious.  I don't know that I've seen such a wide scope in a single book before.  In general, A Path Appears is about increasing opportunity, both domestically and internationally.  More specifically, it covers education, crime, poverty, malnutrition, gang violence, addiction, sex trafficking, early childhood intervention, prenatal care, family planning, agriculture, mentoring, literacy, charity, business, advocacy, human psychology, metrics, investments, marketing, and pretty much everything else under the sun that can be linked to aid work.  Kristof and WuDunn take a strategic, research based approach to determining the efficacy of aid groups and evaluating which groups make the most impact per dollar.

The book is peppered with suggestions for how you can get involved in making a difference.  If you take anything from this book it is the idea that ordinary people, not just millionaires, can make a significant difference in the world by making smart aid decisions.  Pick a cause, and the book probably describes a group that addresses that cause.

I was disappointed that the book didn't spend more time on sex trafficking or domestic violence. The accompanying PBS documentary dedicated an episode each to those two issues, and they are super important.  Sex trafficking in particular doesn't get the kind of attention it needs.  Looking at that decision from further back however, it makes a bit of sense.  A documentary on sex trafficking will pull in more attention and funding than one on micro nutrients and efficacy metrics.  And a chunk of people who watch the documentary will go off and immediately start reading the book (me), so I suppose it was an effective marketing strategy.

This book is important, yes, but it is also compelling.  Kristof and WuDunn are excellent story tellers.  They make you care about each and every one of the people they highlight and the many dozens of causes those people support.  They manage to capture the magnitude of these problems without making you feel helpless.  Rather leaving you drowning in a sea of unfillable need, they empower you with tools to do good.  A Path Appears is a must read for anyone who wants to make a positive difference in the world, whether in your own neighborhood or on the other side of the world.  And if you haven't read their earlier book, Half the Sky, do that right now.

Review: Wonder by R.J. Palacio

Wonder--R.J. Palacio
February 2012 by Knopf
315 pages--Goodreads

August (Auggie) Pullman was born with a facial deformity that prevented him from going to a mainstream school—until now. He's about to start 5th grade at Beecher Prep, and if you've ever been the new kid then you know how hard that can be. The thing is Auggie's just an ordinary kid, with an extraordinary face. But can he convince his new classmates that he's just like them, despite appearances?

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Wonder is a beautiful story.  I stayed up way to late in order to finish it.  I'm really not sure how late I was up.  It is both funny and tear jerking.

Palacio makes excellent use of multiple points of view, highlighting the different experiences of each of the characters.  The multiple POVs make it very clear that there are always more than two sides to every story.  The transitions between POVs is well paced, never so frequent that the different voices become confusing or overwhelming.  POV switches are generally 70 or so pages apart and always at the right place plot-wise.

Side note, I know this book focus on the kids' experiences, but I would have loved a few chapters from Mom or Dad's perspective.  

The characters and their interactions with each other are authentic.  Middle school kids saying stupid things (both the dorky-awkward-dumb stuff and the varying degrees of intentionally hurtful stuff).  Friendships change because people change and life moves on.  I love that every character has the potential for good and bad.  The kids at school are jerks who alienate August because he's different.  But the same kids come to his rescue later on and become his friends.  Jack reacts authentically to August's unignorable differences.  He didn't want to be friends with the freak, then got to know him and became friends, but then wanted to separate himself from August to preserve his reputation.

I especially loved Via and her conflicting feelings about wanting to be there to support her brother and not wanting to always and only be known as August's sister and wanting to get attention from her parents but feeling selfish for doing so because that would take attention away from August.  Via's narrative would pair well with Rules.  

One of the best but most heartbreaking parts of the novel were the little comments from August that prove how much he was hurt by other people's reactions despite being "used" to them.  He notices when people don't look him in the eye or start even just a tiny bit when they first see him.  He's so matter of fact about it because he tries to hide the hurt, even to himself.  

The only problem I had with the novel was the ending.  I watched this TED talk the same day I read the book, and that definitely colored my reading of the novel.  (Spoilers ahead.  Ye be warned).  I wanted August's victory to be complete in just becoming an accepted and normal part of the community.  Instead, he became the exact sort of inspiration porn Stella Young talks about (seriously, go watch the TED talk).  I can see both sides of the issue.  We don't want to objectify or pedestalize people, but we also should be inspired by the people around us.  Wonder wasn't written in a vacuum.  I'm curious how I would feel about the ending in a reread of the book, and I'd love to have a class discussion tying the book and TED talk together.

Wonder is a great middle grade story, but it very enjoyable for older readers too.  It has surprising depth.  I feel like Wonder is a story that would grow well with rereading, like all the best books.  

P.S. for my own teachery notes--The book has really short chapters (generally 1-3 pages), making super accessible for even reluctant readers.

Review: The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate--Jacqueline Kelly
May 2009 by Henry Holt
338 pages--Goodreads

Calpurnia Virginia Tate is eleven years old in 1899 when she wonders why the yellow grasshoppers in her Texas backyard are so much bigger than the green ones.With a little help from her notoriously cantankerous grandfather, an avid naturalist, she figures out that the green grasshoppers are easier to see against the yellow grass, so they are eaten before they can get any larger.

As Callie explores the natural world around her, she develops a close relationship with her grandfather, navigates the dangers of living with six brothers, and comes up against just what it means to be a girl at the turn of the century.

Debut author Jacqueline Kelly deftly brings Callie and her family to life, capturing a year of growing up with unique sensitivity and a wry wit.

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The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate is a highly enjoyable read with a gorgeous cover (I love silhouettes and scroll-work; this cover has both).  Made up of vignettes about one summer and fall, Callie's story is reminiscent of Anne of Green Gables and Little House on the Prairie with some Darwinian science thrown in.  I love Callie's adventures as a young naturalist, roaming the riverbed, collecting bugs and other scientific samples.  I especially love the relationship between her and her grandfather.

Callie's voice is distinct from the very start.  The writing in general is strong, but particularly in Callie's narrative voice.  She's a memorable character, and I love her spunk and determination.  Her observations about the world and people are hilarious, especially when three of her brothers have crushes on the same friend at the same time and Callie gets sick of being the middleman.  The brothers themselves are great.  I love Travis and his kittens and his unfortunate attachment to the family turkeys.

This novel presents a great coming of age story.  I completely understand Callie's desire to do something more than the life that was chosen for her, how she feels trapped by the societal and familial expectations that don't match up with her dreams.  This conflict is left mostly unresolved, and while I can understand why (time constraints--it would take years for Callie to work this out and this story only covers six months.) the ending feels just a bit incomplete.  I want some sort of reconciliation between Callie and her mother.

I wish this book had been around when I was younger.  Callie, Anne, Laura, and I would have been the best of friends despite differences in time, location, and fictionality.  There's just a bit of mild language (which I note only so I remember not to recommend the book to my ultra-ultra-sensitive students).  The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate is a well-written and thoroughly enjoyable book.  

Review: Palace of Stone by Shannon Hale

Palace of Stone--Shannon Hale
August 2012 by Bloomsbury USA
323 pages--Goodreads

Coming down from the mountain to a new life in the city is a thrill to Miri. She and her princess academy friends have been brought to Asland to help the future princess Britta prepare for her wedding.There, Miri also has a chance to attend school-at the Queen's Castle. But as Miri befriends students who seem sophisticated and exciting she also learns that they have some frightening plans. Torn between loyalty to the princess and her new friends' ideas, between an old love and a new crush, and between her small mountain home and the bustling city, Miri looks to find her own way in this new place.

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When I heard that Shannon Hale was publishing Palace of Stone, my first thought was "No; Princess Academy's story is complete.  It does not need a sequel.  A sequel would diminish the story that already exists."  I still hold that position, but Palace of Stone isn't a sequel, weird as that sounds.  Yes, it takes place in the same world with the same characters, but it's not a sequel.  Rather than stretching the Mount Eskel story beyond what it has material for, Palace of Stone is its own story.  Hale explores new situations and new locations while holding onto the characters and spirit we love from the first book.

The political situation is excellently crafted.  Hale poses complicated situations that I think her younger readers will miss the nuances of, but I love them.  We Americans tend to be a overly gung-ho in support of revolutions, but Hale asks the hard questions.  Is it better to support the stability of a bad ruler while some people starve, or to incite rebellion which may improve things or may lead to complete anarchy and widespread starvation and violence?  This part of the plot is wrapped up a bit too easily and neatly, but Miri faces the issue's complexity enough that I'll take it.

Hale even makes a love triangle work!  This is no "Team Edward/Team Jacob" clone thrown in to garner sales from angsty teenage girls or to cover up lack of substance elsewhere in the plot. The triangle is used more as an external representation of Miri's torn allegiance between the familiarity of home and the excitement of new experiences in Asland, which is a much more interesting tension than a romantic one.

I love the characters; I love the world; I love the plot;  I love Hale's writing style.  Palace of Stone was exactly what I needed after a massive disappointment from a different book.

Review: Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson

Steelheart--Brandon Sanderson
September 2013 by Delecorte
384 pages--Goodreads

There are no heroes.

Ten years ago, Calamity came. It was a burst in the sky that gave ordinary men and women extraordinary powers. The awed public started calling them Epics.

But Epics are no friend of man. With incredible gifts came the desire to rule. And to rule man you must crush his wills.

Nobody fights the Epics... nobody but the Reckoners. A shadowy group of ordinary humans, they spend their lives studying Epics, finding their weaknesses, and then assassinating them.

And David wants in. He wants Steelheart—the Epic who is said to be invincible. The Epic who killed David's father. For years, like the Reckoners, David's been studying, and planning—and he has something they need. Not an object, but an experience.

He's seen Steelheart bleed. And he wants revenge.

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Steelheart is another book to add to Sanderson's already long list of great novels. I never thought I'd enjoy a superhero comic book in novel form so much.  Some of the twists are predictable, but over all the story is still very good.  Dan and I spent a long while after finishing the novel discussing how everything might work out in the next books.  Steelheart is a very visual story, almost begging to be a movie.  You can totally tell when during the action sequences we're supposed to switch to slow motion.  And that was part of the fun of it.

The premise is intriguing:  a world of super villains and a renegade bunch of humans trying to fight back.  But these villains aren't as complex as Sanderson's usually are.  It's too simplistic for all Epics to be inherently and completely evil from using their powers.  There has to be at least one good Epic.  But I trust he will develop the magic system later in the series.  And hopefully he'll explain the physics-defying powers, like never ending bullets, somewhere along the way.

Character development is usually where Sanderson shines, but he had a couple of misses in this book.  Cody is hilarious, David's horrible metaphors and similes are funny, and I really want to know more of Prof's back story.  However, Megan is not very fleshed out.  She's mostly a love interest.  She has potential hidden in her history and the end plot twist, which Sanderson could explore in later books.  But so far, she's kind of flat, just the hot fighter chick that the hero/audience to ogles at but who has no real personality.  Hopefully, that will change.

Steelheart is an great beginning to a new series.  My biggest complaint, beyond Megan, is the long wait until the sequel.  And Nightweilder is SUCH a good name for a bad guy.

Review: Mississippi Trial, 1955 by Chris Crowe

Mississippi Trial, 1955--Chris Crowe
May 2002 by Dial
240 pages--Goodreads

At first Hiram is excited to visit his hometown in Mississippi. But soon after he arrives, he crosses paths with Emmett Till, a black teenager from Chicago who is also visiting for the summer, and Hiram sees firsthand how the local whites mistreat blacks who refuse to "know their place." When Emmett's tortured dead body is found floating in a river, Hiram is determined to find out who could do such a thing. But what will it cost him to know?

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I learned about the Emmett Till trial just a couple of years ago and it surprises me that this isn't included in our general education about the Civil Rights Movement.  I think it's something that needs to be discussed in our conversations about race and equality and injustice.  I think Mississippi Trial, 1955 does a good job of framing the trial and the events leading up to it, but it misses the mark on a couple of other things.

What bugged me most was that Hirum pulls a 180 about halfway through the book for no apparent reason.  First he hates his dad and can't see eye to eye with him on anything.  Then, poof.  He sees his dad's side of things and becomes too forward thinking for his time period and his previous actions.  This turn around should have been preceded by a number of small things that made Hirum question his belief system before he made his full transition rather than happening in one fell swoop.  

As the title indicates, this book focuses on the trial rather than on Emmett Till himself.  I'm not sure if I liked that or not.  It did highlight the fact that while most Mississippians did not kill Emmett, they did support the system that promoted the behavior and thinking that allowed the murder to happen.  But I would have liked to know Emmett more as a person.

I really like that this book confronts the fact that good, normal people are capable of doing horrible things.  Not many of us are willing to face that fact.  We like to think of evil as something that exists outside of us.  But I firmly believe that there are very few full-on monsters out there, just a lot of partial ones.  Mississippi Trial makes us face the partial monsters within all of us.

Review: Okay for Now

Okay for Now--Gary D. Schmidt

August 2011 by Clarion Books

360 pages--Goodreads

As a fourteen-year-old who just moved to a new town, with no friends and a louse for an older brother, Doug Swieteck has all the stats stacked against him. So begins a coming-of-age masterwork full of equal parts comedy and tragedy from Newbery Honor winner Gary D. Schmidt. 

As Doug struggles to be more than the "skinny thug" that his teachers and the police think him to be, he finds an unlikely ally in Lil Spicer--a fiery young lady who "smelled like daisies would smell if they were growing in a big field under a clearing sky after a rain." In Lil, Doug finds the strength to endure an abusive father, the suspicions of a whole town, and the return of his oldest brother, forever scarred, from Vietnam. Together, they find a safe haven in the local library, inspiration in learning about the plates of John James Audubon's birds, and a hilarious adventure on a Broadway stage. 

In this stunning novel, Schmidt expertly weaves multiple themes of loss and recovery in a story teeming with distinctive, unusual characters and invaluable lessons about love, creativity, and survival.

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It's rare that a book can make me cry and laugh on the same page.  I can't tell you how many times I gasped aloud or giggled or teared up (which was bad because I was driving and listening to the audiobook) while reading the book.  And there were actual tears coming down my face as I finished the book.  I put off lesson planning, I put off sleep just so I could finish this book.  It is beautiful.  Just as The Wednesday Wars ties in Shakespeare plays to Holling's life, Okay for Now weaves Audobon's bird paintings into Doug's.  The noble pelican, the terrified eye, the mother bird looking into the distance.  

As a character, Doug is real.  Doug's reactions are genuine, even annoying when he lashes out like a jerk or a thug.  That's how Doug would react.  He has parts of his father in him, mostly sayings and phrases that he has internalized.  Even if he breaks the cycle of abuse, he is still partly his father.  All the other characters are multidimensional too.  Schmidt humanizes almost every single one of them.  Even the bully brother and the bully gym teacher became real people with both light and dark inside them.

The abuse was handled, well, I can't say beautifully because it is not a beautiful thing, but artfully maybe.  It is never stated directly that Doug's father is abusive, is alcoholic, beats his family.  Everything is implied.  And I loved that.  When it happens in real life, abuse is never talked about, even though everyone knows.  Schmidt conveys that through his writing style.  

The title fits the book perfectly.  Will things get better for Doug?  Maybe not.  Maybe they will get much worse.  But for now he is okay.

Part adorkable (the puffins!), part heartbreaking, Okay for Now is a beautiful book that I will definitely come back to again.  Congratulations, Mr. Schmidt.  You have been added to my "I will read anything you publish" list.

Review: Sold by Patricia McCormick

Sold--Patricia McCormick
September 2006 by Disney Hyperion
263 pages--Goodreads

Lakshmi is a thirteen-year-old girl who lives with her family in a small hut on a mountain in Nepal. Though she is desperately poor, her life is full of simple pleasures, like playing hopscotch with her best friend from school, and having her mother brush her hair by the light of an oil lamp. But when the harsh Himalayan monsoons wash away all that remains of the family’s crops, Lakshmi’s stepfather says she must leave home and take a job to support her family.

He introduces her to a glamorous stranger who tells her she will find her a job as a maid in the city. Glad to be able to help, Lakshmi journeys to India and arrives at “Happiness House” full of hope. But she soon learns the unthinkable truth: she has been sold into prostitution.

An old woman named Mumtaz rules the brothel with cruelty and cunning. She tells Lakshmi that she is trapped there until she can pay off her family’s debt—then cheats Lakshmi of her meager earnings so that she can never leave.

Lakshmi’s life becomes a nightmare from which she cannot escape. Still, she lives by her mother’s words— Simply to endure is to triumph—and gradually, she forms friendships with the other girls that enable her to survive in this terrifying new world. Then the day comes when she must make a decision—will she risk everything for a chance to reclaim her life?

Written in spare and evocative vignettes, this powerful novel renders a world that is as unimaginable as it is real, and a girl who not only survives but triumphs.

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Sold is an unexpected gem.  Kudos to McCormick for managing to take on such a difficult subject as sex trafficking in a realistic way without making me feel uber depressed.  We see everything that happens to Lakshmi without it becoming gratuitous.  We see the victimization, the drugging, the violence, the disease, the crushing social stigmas, the hopelessness, and the hope.  This book is real.  I come away from this book feeling like I know Laksmi's home life.  I know her life in Calcutta.  I know the other girls in the brothel.  The whole book just feels real.

I couldn't even bring myself to hate Mumtaz.  She's definitely the villain, but she's not demonized.  I wish McCormick had given her a back story.  I imagine she herself was sold when she was young and is just as trapped in this life as the other girls.

I cannot express how much I love the scenes with Monica.  I love her character.  I love how sharp she is on the outside to protect the teddy-bear-holding child on the inside.  I love her conversation with Lakshmi about their reasons for staying at the brothel.  Ignoring the fact that they cannot leave, they cling to the last shred of dignity this life leaves them.  Monica proclaims she is paying her daughter's school fees and Lakshmi tells of the tin roof she will buy for her family.  This life has torn everything from them, but they hold some small pride in order to survive.  I hate but recognize the reality that Monica is forced to return to the brothel when her family casts her out.  Prostitution is the only life society has left for her.  And when she leaves the brothel because she has contracted AIDS, we never hear about her again because we can never know what happened to this girl who slipped through the cracks of an unjust world.

Even though Sold is a short novel, it is just the right length for the story it tells.  The audio book is excellent, but now that I realize the book is written in verse, I wish I had read it in print. This is a beautiful novel.  It is a realistic portrayal of a horrible life that is still hopeful and appropriate for young adult readers.  Though, it's probably too much for most middle graders.

Review: Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

Between Shades of Gray--Ruta Sepetys
March 2011 by Philomel Books
344 pages--Goodreads

Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they've known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia. Here they are forced, under Stalin's orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions.

Lina finds solace in her art, meticulously--and at great risk--documenting events by drawing, hoping these messages will make their way to her father's prison camp to let him know they are still alive. It is a long and harrowing journey, spanning years and covering 6,500 miles, but it is through incredible strength, love, and hope that Lina ultimately survives.Between Shades of Gray is a novel that will steal your breath and capture your heart.

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Excellent.  Just excellent.  Between Shades of Gray is not an "Oh my gosh; this is so awesome!!!" book  It's a slow burning, sticks with you, love it the more you think about it type of book.  It has a lingering beauty in the tone, subject matter, and writing style.  It is honest about the horrors Lina faces without being depressing.  It is a story of suffering and a story of hope.

The Holocaust features prominently in WWII novels, but I had never heard of these Soviet prison camps and the deported Baltic citizens.  Seriously, how do people not know about this?  I guess it shows the emptiness of our "never again" attitude toward the Holocaust and genocides in general.  I would love to use this book in connection with a unit on Anne Frank (too bad I'm not teaching 8th grade this year) and then connect it to other, more modern genocides.

Sepetys is very honest in her portrayal of the characters; they are not demons and martyrs, but flawed people just trying to survive their very harsh circumstances.  They are very real.  In that light, I like Kretzsky's character.  We like to demonize our antagonists, but really no one is just black or white in this book or in real life.  Kretzsky and Lina and everyone else is made of spectrum of goods and bads.  I wish we could have seen more from his character, but this book is Lina's story, not his. 

There is some mature content in the descriptions of the NKVD's brutality.  It is accurate without being gratuitous, and I appreciate that. 

Between Shades of Gray is an excellent, excellent historical fiction.  I will be sure to read it again.  And the cover is just so pretty.  This cover, not the eyelash one.

Mini Review: The Lions of Little Rock by Kristin Levine

The Lions of Little Rock--Kristin Levine
January 2012 by Puffin
320 pages--Goodreads

As twelve-year-old Marlee starts middle school in 1958 Little Rock, it feels like her whole world is falling apart. Until she meets Liz, the new girl at school. Liz is everything Marlee wishes she could be: she's brave, brash and always knows the right thing to say. But when Liz leaves school without even a good-bye, the rumor is that Liz was caught passing for white. Marlee decides that doesn't matter. She just wants her friend back. And to stay friends, Marlee and Liz are even willing to take on segregation and the dangers their friendship could bring to both their families.

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I liked the book.  We don't like to face the reality that narrow-minded racist attitudes are held by perfectly normal people.  Klan members were well standing members of society.  The South was not populated by monsters, but by normal people who did horrible things.  The Lions of Little Rock makes us face that reality.  And it goes even further than that by having Marlee's mom be a bit racist.  She's not shouting racial epithets or anything like that, but she's not comfortable with her daughters going to an integrated school.  So often, all the "good" characters in these historical novels are enlightened and see clearly through racism and bigotry.  This book is more real than that.  Life is complicated and people are made up of spectrums of grays.  

I also appreciated that the conflict was resolved realistically.  Levine didn't just wave a magic wand and make everything better.  Things end better than they started, but it's still messy, as it really would have been in history.  There are a couple uses of the N word throughout the book, which I was not expecting in a middle-grade novel, but I feel they are contextually justified.

All and all a good read, not terribly momentous.

Review: The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis

The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963--
Christopher Paul Curtis
1995 by Laurel-Leaf
210 pages

Enter the hilarious world of ten-year-old Kenny and his family, the Weird Watsons of Flint, Michigan. There's Momma, Dad, little sister Joetta, Kenny, and Byron, Kenny's older brother, who, at thirteen, is an "official juvenile delinquent."

When Momma and Dad decide it's time for a visit to Grandma, Dad comes home with the amazing Ultra-Glide, and the Watsons set out on a trip like no other. Heading South, they're going to Birmingham, Alabama, and toward one of the darkest moments in America's history.

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In fourth grade teacher, my teacher read Bud Not Buddy aloud to our class, and I did not like it.  I was in my fantasy-only phase, and a story about a boy searching for his father during the depression didn't interest me at all.  Reading The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963 makes me realize I should probably go back and give Bud a second chance.   

The Watsons is excellent.  It doesn't have an overarching plot; it's more a series of vignettes about Kenny and his family.  Most Civil Rights Movement books are entirely about racism and persecution and the need for equality and the injustices, but this book didn't go into all that until the very end.  It was kind of nice to just see what life was like in the 60's for an average family.  Kenny's antics prove that it wasn't all that much different from life today.

I like Kenny's voice.  He habitually exaggerates his adventures and his descriptions, making an entertaining read.  He reuses phrases like "talking a mile a minute" or "you might as well have him up to a tree and said ready, aim fire."  This could be seen as annoying, but coming from Kenny,I liked it.  His repetitions are a sort of familiar refrain throughout the novel.

The audiobook is excellent.  It's narrated by LeVar Burton, so the whole book is basicaly an extended episode of Reading Rainbow.  Nostalgia!  And Burton's narration matches well with Kenny's exuberant storytelling.

The last couple of episodes are unexpected heavy, given the light tone of the rest of the book, but they make up my favorite part of the novel.  I love Curtis's exploration of something like post traumatic stress disorder as Kenny tries to make sense of the horrible things he saw.  Kenny's not quite a naive narrator, but because of his youth or his shock, he can't comprehend what happened.  It's a really interesting last couple of chapters.  But fear not; we don't end on a despairing note.  We even sort of almost actually like Byron by the end.

The Watson's Go to Birmingham--1963 is a satisfying and thought provoking read that I liked much more than I expected.

Review: Rules by Cynthia Lord

Rules--Cynthia Lord
April 2006 by Scholastic Press
208 pages--Goodreads

A heartfelt and witty debut about feeling different and finding acceptance--beyond the rules.

Twelve-year-old Catherine just wants a normal life. Which is near impossible when you have a brother with autism and a family that revolves around his disability. She's spent years trying to teach David the rules-from "a peach is not a funny-looking apple" to "keep your pants on in public"-in order to stop his embarrassing behaviors. But the summer Catherine meets Jason, a paraplegic boy, and Kristi, the next-door friend she's always wished for, it's her own shocking behavior that turns everything upside down and forces her to ask: What is normal?

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Rules is a poignant (Who decided that word should have a g?  It should be poinient) read that draws you in.  I LOVE the relationship between Catherine and David.  It is touching and sweet, and it is the most accurate representation of that feeling of they're messing things up for me and everyone's staring at me and I hate this but I can't be mad at you because it's not your fault and I know you're trying, but still...  The representation of Catherine's relationship with her parents is great too.  

Lord has an autistic child, so I'm going to assume the representation of autism is accurate to at least her own experience.  And Rules won the Schneider Family Book Award, which is kind of the Newbery for books describing the experience of a child or adolescent with disabilities.  It also won a Newbery Honor.

The book is a little bit dated with details like the VCR tapes that Catherine has to keep winding when the tape pulls out of the cassette.  I remember that, but readers more than five years younger than me probably won't.

Wanting to be accepted is a universal desire, not just limited to those with a disability or those who have a family member with a disability.  Rules captures that longing excellently It is short.  It is sweet.  It is a tearjerker.  I read it in a single day.  It is a great read.

Review: Monster by Walter Dean Myers

Monster--Walter Dean Myers
April 1999 by Amistad
288 pages--Goodreads

FADE IN: INTERIOR: Early morning in CELL BLOCK D, MANHATTAN DETENTION CENTER.

Steve (Voice-Over)Sometimes I feel like I have walked into the middle of a movie. Maybe I can make my own movie. The film will be the story of my life. No, not my life, but of this experience. I'll call it what the lady prosecutor called me ... Monster.

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This is one of those novels that has won so many awards and is a staple in so many Adolescent lit classes that you wonder if the actual book can live up to its reputation.  Monster does.  I sped through the book in just a couple of days and had only three pages to go when one of my classes began and I had to spend the whole class dying to know what happened.  

Steve is on trial for murder.  Witnesses say he was the lookout for some other guys who robbed a convenience store and shot the owner.  The book is a screenplay, written by Steve, about the trial.  I liked the screenplay format.  It makes the book a quick read, and all that white space makes the book look accessible.  Some readers see this as a ploy or gimmick, but I don't.  I see it as a way for Steve to work through what was happening to him.

However, partly because of the format, we don't get to know Steven well.  The novel only centers around the actual trial, not his life before.  And despite being in his head the whole time, Steven is still a mystery to us at the end of the novel.  He is an interesting character and I would have liked more background information about him and his family.  I realize that this kind of goes against the point of the book (to determine Steve's guilt or innocence just with the limited evidence we get), but still.

I like how the book addresses the criminal justice system and the preconceived notions we have about the accused.  We forget that in the eyes of the law, a defendant is innocent until the prosecution proves otherwise.  This book also made me realize the difference between "innocent" and "not guilty."  Maybe a particular person did commit a crime, but if there is no evidence to prove guilt, the law cannot touch them.  In that light, I love how Myers leaves Steve's innocence or guilt ambiguous.  I won't spoil the court verdict, but we really don't know whether Steve participated in the theft.  Is he evading responsibility for his actions or being rightly served by justice?  

This book also forces us to look at, in a very small degree, the violence that goes on in prisons.  We tend to ignore the fate of inmates because we don't have to see them and subconsciously we think, "They broke the law, so they deserve what they get."  But even criminals don't deserve to be assaulted and beat up on a regular basis.  The novel deals with some heavy, mature subjects, but it is actually pretty light on swearing, which surprised me.

This book made me think about a lot of things. I liked it, and I think it is a book that would resonate with a lot of teens.

Review: Want to Go Private? by Sarah Darer Littman

Want to Go Private?--Sarah Darer Littma
August 2011 by Scholastic Press
330 pages--Goodreads

Abby and Luke chat online. They've never met. But they are going to. Soon.

Abby is starting high school--it should be exciting, so why doesn't she care? Everyone tells her to "make an effort," but why can't she just be herself? Abby quickly feels like she's losing a grip on her once-happy life. The only thing she cares about anymore is talking to Luke, a guy she met online, who understands. It feels dangerous and yet good to chat with Luke--he is her secret, and she's his. Then Luke asks her to meet him, and she does. But Luke isn't who he says he is. When Abby goes missing, everyone is left to put together the pieces. If they don't, they'll never see Abby again.

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This was a difficult book to wrap my mind around.  Reading it was very similar to reading Crank by Ellen Hopkins; I couldn't put it down until I finished it, and once I did I spent an hour or two researching meth addiction, or in this case internet predators.  While reading the novel, you want to put it down because what you're reading about is so horrible, but the story is so compelling that you can't look away; you have to know how it ends.  Want to Go Private? drew me in from the start.  I just started flipping through it to see what it was about and couldn't put the thing down until I finished it, skimming through parts just to finish faster.  

I don't know if it was because I was an adult reader or because the premise is laid out on the jacket cover (we know from the start that Abby will be kidnapped), but Luke comes off as super creepy from the get go.  No 27 year old anywhere is seriously interested in a 14 year old.  Darer wrote the novel to explore why a teen who has been through all the internet safety talks would still fall for a predator, because teens do continue to fall for the act.  But Luke's blatant creepiness undermines that purpose.  I wish his creepiness had been more subtle.  If he's an obvious creep, readers won't be dumb enough to fall for him, so he needs to be sneakier.

Abby's defining characteristic is vulnerability.  Beyond that, she's not very developed.  This makes Abby easily replaced by any teen reading the book.  She falls for Luke because she want to be noticed and accepted and liked.  She feels like she isn't good enough and that her parents are too hard on her.  Change the pronouns as necessary, and that description fits every teen ever.  While that doesn't make for the most interesting character study ever, it does fit with the purpose of the novel.

I loved the last third of the novel.  Once Abby is safe and home (sorry, spoiler) her family tries to put together the pieces, tries to understand why and how this all happened.  They blame the Abby because how should she be so stupid   Abbey blames herself.  Kids at school stick her with a less than favorable reputation.  However, while the characters victim blame, the book does not.  Through Abby's counselor, the book explains that the blame entirely lies with the perpetrator, who is very, very skilled at grooming potential victims.  Yes, Abby made some very poor choices, but she was up against an adult and it is not her fault.  She doesn't deserve what happened to her.  

The book does get a bit preachy in places, but since Darer wrote it to prove a point, I guess that was unavoidable.

Now content.  This is a story about how a girl falls for an online predator.  It's not going to be pretty.  The language is what you would hear in any high school, strong,  and as usual, I felt it was unnecessary.  The sexual language coming from Luke was also unpleasant.  The descriptions of what he made her do and what he did to her after kidnapping her are graphic and a bit disturbing.  But that is the nature of this subject.  You can't tell a story about sexual predation and have it all be sunshine and roses.  This book is meant to be a wake up call.  This stuff is real.  It happens every day and teens need to know about it in order to protect themselves.  I'm not saying this is a book for everyone, but while it is a disturbing read, it is also an important one.  Ignoring online predation will not make it go away.

Will I read it again?  Probably not?  Am I glad I read it?  Yes with a caveat.  I think it's a very important and under addressed (or at least not addressed as powerfully and effectively addressed as it needs to be) topic, but it wasn't a pleasant read. Compelling, emotionally draining, and memorable.

Review: Matched by Ally Condie

Matched--Ally Condie
November 2010 by Dutton Juvenile
369 pages--Goodreads

Cassia has always trusted the Society to make the right choices for her: what to read, what to watch, what to believe. So when Xander's face appears on-screen at her Matching ceremony, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is her ideal mate... until she sees Ky Markham's face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black.

The Society tells her it's a glitch, a rare malfunction, and that she should focus on the happy life she's destined to lead with Xander. But Cassia can't stop thinking about Ky, and as they slowly fall in love, Cassia begins to doubt the Society's infallibility and is faced with an impossible choice: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she's known and a path that no one else has dared to follow.

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Wow, that was good.  I had kind of low expectations going in, but it was a hard book to put down.  The synopsis above makes the book sound shallow, but I liked it, and I saw the the love triangle stuff as the impetus for Cassia to question the perfection of the Society.  I am a bit annoyed, though, that a love triangle is the basis of the plot.  Thankfully, it isn't as big of a trip up as I expected it to be.  I don't like love triangles, especially when the girl waffles between two boys and she just can't decide who she likes better.  Cassia spends the whole time being drawn to Ky and feeling guilty about hurting Xander, but she doesn't really waffle.  So points there.  By the way, no I will not pick a team.  Teams are not the point; the Society and its absolute control is.  I will not allow romance to get in the way of my dystopia.  And since we all know how this is going to end, there is no point in bickering.  Xander is the representation of the status quo; Ky represents choice.  She can never choose Xander because that would prove that the Society is right, and we can't have that.

Condie does a good job of the building and describing a credible dystopia.  We start out seeing the micromanaging control as strange but justified.  Everything is safe this way.  But then Condie leads us through a gradual reveal of the darker side of the Society.  There's not much in the way of action, so don't expect a thrilling Hunger Games read-alike.  But it is engaging through the interpersonal relationships and government induced issues.  

I love Cassia's parents.  So many YAs kill off the parents to get them out of the way.  It is so nice to see good parents who love and support each other and care about their kids.  I also like how their choices are flip sides of the same coin.  Mother keeps the rules to protect the ones she loves; Father bends the rules to protect the ones he loves.  They are an interesting and unexpected pair.  I wish we could have seen more of Grandpa, but it is kind of important to get rid of him early on as his death is part of what spurs the change in Cassia.

I like the role "Do Not Go Gentle" and other poems play in Cassia's emerging rebellion.  Yes, literature can change the world!  I know it would be terribly boring to include in the book, but I'd be interested to see a list of the 100 songs, poems, history lessons, ect.  Maybe as bonus material online or at the end of the book?  I'm curious.

I will definitely read the next book.  I hope Crossed includes more about the outer provinces and the countries the Society is fighting against as well as more turmoil within the Society.  I also hope we learn why and how the Society came to be.  The scary part of dystopias is not that such a world could exist; it's seeing our own society's potential to go down the same path.  

Is it formulaic?  A bit.  There's definitely a lot of carry over from The Giver, but I don't think that kills the novel.  Condie makes her world original enough to satisfy me.  Besides, what's wrong with a deeper exploration of that type of world?

P.S.  Google Chrome thinks "dystopia" should be "topiary".

Review: And Still We Rise by Miles Corwin

And Still We Rise:  The Trials and Triumphs of Twelve Gifted Inner-City Students--Miles Corwin
April 2000 by William Morrow
418 pages--Goodreads

Bestselling author of The Killing Season and veteran Los Angeles Times reporter Miles Corwin spent a school year with twelve high school seniors -- South-Central kids who qualified for a gifted program because of their exceptional IQs and test scores. Sitting alongside them in classrooms where bullets were known to rip through windows, Corwin chronicled their amazing odyssey as they faced the greatest challenges of their academic lives. And Still We Rise is an unforgettable story of transcending obstacles that would dash the hopes of any but the most exceptional spirits.

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Many books and movies about education are meant to be warm fuzzy feel good stories.  And Still We Rise is not one of those stories.  Corwin doesn't sugar coat anything.  He is realistic.  Some of these students don't make it.  The teachers are not saviors.  I actually really disliked the main teacher.  Granted, she's teaching in a harsh environment, but she lets her own issues with the administration and parents bleed out into her classroom at the expense of her teaching.  The book covers the course of an entire school year, focusing on one student at a time.  Each student is distinct and their story engaging.  We get involved with their stories and it kills us when one of them doesn't make it. 

This book gave me a lot of things to think about as a teacher:  expansion of the canon, ways to teach, understanding where my students are coming from, not making assumptions based on a student's appearance, keeping my personal life personal, and continuing on even after making mistakes.

I appreciate that Corwin explores the complexity of the affirmative action.  He is in no way unbiased, but he does back up his position with a lot of evidence.  Is it fair and will it serve America as a whole if we exclude a chunk of the population from college because they didn't have the opportunity for a top-notch K-12 education, or because they had to work 40+ hours a week to make ends meet in addition to going to school so they never had time to study for the SAT when going to college could give them the chance to pull themselves and their families out of poverty?  At the same time, the kid with a better SAT score legitimately knows more, and has better skills, (I'll ignore for now the issue of how accurate SAT is at measuring college readiness).  Should we punish that kid for being dealt a better hand?  Affirmative action is a imperfect solution to a very unbalanced set of starting circumstances.  I don't have an answer, but I appreciate the exploration.

The narrative is occasionally scattered, as if Corwin couldn't remember what he had already said and so went back and repeated himself.  This may have been done to clarify, but as the same wordage is used again and again, it just feels repetitive.  There is also some strong language.  I feel like it is authentic to the inner city kids Corwin writes about, but it will bother some readers.

And Still We Rise is not a boring read, though it is at times a downer.  It presents complicated issues that don't have any clear, much less easy solutions while keeping readers engaged with the human side of those issues.

Review: Unwind by Neal Shusterman

Unwind--Neal Shusterman
November 2007 by Simon & Schuster
335 pages--Goodreads

Connor, Risa, and Lev are running for their lives.

The Second Civil War was fought over reproductive rights. The chilling resolution: Life is inviolable from the moment of conception until age thirteen. Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, however, parents can have their child "unwound," whereby all of the child's organs are transplanted into different donors, so life doesn't technically end. Connor is too difficult for his parents to control. Risa, a ward of the state is not enough to be kept alive. And Lev is a tithe, a child conceived and raised to be unwound. Together, they may have a chance to escape and to survive.

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I have heard a ridiculous number of good things about Neal Shusterman and this series in particular.  A friend was awesome enough to let me borrow it, so I finally got to read it.  I may have built the book up too much in my mind, but I still liked it.  

Unwind is written in first-person in present tense.  I think this is the first book I've ever read in present tense.  It was a little weird at first and took a while to get used to, but it gave an immediacy to the plot: we're right there with the characters instead of watching from the sidelines looking back like we usually do.  And the unusual tense makes Shusterman's book stand apart.

The book is split between the point of view of three main characters.  With as short as the book is, we don't have enough time to explore any of them as deeply as I would have liked since our attention is so split.  Lev's story in particular needs more time and more development so we can understand why he changed; it's there, I just want more time to let it soak in.  However, the multiple perspectives give us a wider view of the situation as a whole.  We focus on the stories of individuals rather than the all of society, but we still get the big picture.  I especially like that Shusterman doesn't turn any of his characters into monsters or saints.  Each is complex, and even if we don't agree with their choices, we see where they're coming from.  

I loved the Humphrey Dunfee urban legend that came up again and again throughout the novel.  It tied things together in an unexpected but satisfying way.  I'm still a bit annoyed at myself for not making the connection to Humpty Dumpty until now.  How did I miss that?

The premise is not terribly plausible, but Shusterman makes it work, and by the end, we can see why society may have chosen to go down such a callous road.  This book deals with some hard issues that can springboard into great discussions.  What is the soul?  Are you still alive if all your physical parts are?  What does the sanctity of human life really mean?  How much choice should an individual have over their own life?  What should society do with with the people it doesn't want?  Shusterman doesn't preach, doesn't tell you what to think.  He just presents the story and lets us think it out for ourselves.  There are no clear answers, but it is the thinking that matters.  We cannot, as the novel's society does, just evade the responsibility of an unexpected baby or a troublesome teenager.

The book does contain some content that will be disturbing to some readers.  It's not graphic, but Shusterman writes in such a way that your imagination fills in the blanks in a heebee jeebees kind of way.  Aside from that, and perhaps because of it, it is a very compelling novel and a satisfying read.

P.S. Register to be an organ donor if you haven't done so already.  You won't need your liver if you're dead, and someone else does.

Review: The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson

The Adoration of Jenna Fox--Mary E. Pearson
April 2008 by Henry Holt and Co.
266 pages--Goodreads

Who is Jenna Fox? Seventeen-year-old Jenna has been told that is her name. She has just awoken from a coma, they tell her, and she is still recovering from a terrible accident in which she was involved a year ago. But what happened before that? Jenna doesn't remember her life. Or does she? And are the memories really hers?

This fascinating novel represents a stunning new direction for acclaimed author Mary Pearson. Set in a near future America, it takes readers on an unforgettable journey through questions of bio-medical ethics and the nature of humanity. Mary Pearson's vividly drawn characters and masterful writing soar to a new level of sophistication.

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I really enjoyed this book.  From the intriguing beginning all through the book it was well paced.  I was engrossed by Jenna's story and could not put the book down.  It was compelling in the same way as the episode of Stark Trek: Next Generation in which there is a trial to determine whether or not Data is alive.  Some plot elements were easy to guess, but I was reasonably able to put aside my guesses and just go with the flow of Jenna's slow re-discovery of her life and her world.  The book is in first person and Jenna's voice is distinct, but not something every reader will like.  She spends a lot of time musing semi-poetically about things. I think that quality is appropriate for this book, but it will bug some readers and it took me a while to get used to.

Adoration is set in the near future.  The science is foreign enough to be futuristic, but plausible enough to be believable for a story set 50ish years from now.  While the book has some science fiction elements, it doesn't rely too heavily on them, making it great for readers who don't normally go for hard sci-fi (like me).

There is so much room for discussion with this book.  I would love to use it in a classroom of 9th or 10th graders.  What does it mean to be human?  What does it mean to be alive?  What is thought or consciousness?  How far will parents go to save their child?  How far should science be allowed to go?  Should it be limited at all?  Can you ethically save someone when there is hardly enough to be considered human?  Can you ethically not save them if you have the power to do so?  These questions don't have clear right or wrong answers, but they are important to consider.  Pearson writes in such a way that she brings these topics up for discussion without trying to force the "right" answer down on your throat.

Jenna's character is erratic at times.  She is perfectly fine one minute and the next she is angry and yelling at people with no transition in between.  It feels at times as if she has two separate personalities.  This may be Pearson's attempt to show Jenna straining against the restraints of her parents, but it feels unnatural.  Also, Jenna's relationship with Ethan is too rushed.  Total and complete trust comes into play after they have known each other for just a couple of weeks.

There is a sequel, for those who are interested, but for me the story is complete as a stand-alone.  Even the epilogue doesn't need to be there; it throws off the flavor of the rest of the book.  Adoration is definitely a slower, more ponderous book, but it makes you confront difficult issues in a satisfying way.  

There is some strongish language in a few places.

Review: Half the Sky by Nicholas D Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

Half the Sky--Nicholas D Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
2008 by Knopf
294 pages--Goodreads

From two of our most fiercely moral voices, a passionate call to arms against our era’s most pervasive human rights violation: the oppression of women and girls in the developing world.

With Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn as our guides, we undertake an odyssey through Africa and Asia to meet the extraordinary women struggling there, among them a Cambodian teenager sold into sex slavery and an Ethiopian woman who suffered devastating injuries in childbirth. Drawing on the breadth of their combined reporting experience, Kristof and WuDunn depict our world with anger, sadness, clarity, and, ultimately, hope.

They show how a little help can transform the lives of women and girls abroad. That Cambodian girl eventually escaped from her brothel and, with assistance from an aid group, built a thriving retail business that supports her family. The Ethiopian woman had her injuries repaired and in time became a surgeon. A Zimbabwean mother of five, counseled to return to school, earned her doctorate and became an expert on AIDS.

Through these stories, Kristof and WuDunn help us see that the key to economic progress lies in unleashing women’s potential. They make clear how so many people have helped to do just that, and how we can each do our part. Throughout much of the world, the greatest unexploited economic resource is the female half of the population. Countries such as China have prospered precisely because they emancipated women and brought them into the formal economy. Unleashing that process globally is not only the right thing to do; it’s also the best strategy for fighting poverty.

Deeply felt, pragmatic, and inspirational, Half the Sky is essential reading for every global citizen.

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I read Half the Sky after watching the documentary of the same title on PBS a month or two ago.  It was a surprisingly compelling read.  The oppression of and violence toward women and the huge problems in the world are not subjects I really want to read about, but the Kristof and WuDunn spend the majority of the book on the stories of individual women.  I wanted to know how these stories resolved, so I rarely wanted to put the book down.  Half the Sky was a good mix of stories about individuals and information about organizations you can support financially or volunteer with.  The book definitely has an agenda and a bias, but I felt like they did a good job of addressing the issues with a decent amount of objectivity.   They represented the complexity of each issue, frankly acknowledging that there is no easy fix for any of these problems, but still make you feel able to help.  The book focused on sex slavery, education, maternal health, and violence against women.

The book was very effective in its progression.  We learn about a teenaged girl who is raped with a stick and develops a fistula (a hole in her vaginal canal into her rectum or bladder).  We dwell on that horribleness for a little while.  Then we learn that those kinds of injuries are sustained all the time in childbirth because mother's don't get the proper medical attention or even help from a trained midwife.  The injustice is heightened and we want to do something to change the situation.

In any book like this, we run into the conundrum of respecting other cultures' beliefs and practices while at the same time standing up for what is right.  They did a good job of, for the most part, describing things that most people would agree are not cultural things but universal human rights violation, such as the lack of prenatal care and medical services to lessen maternal mortality.  The  spent a small amount of time on female genital cutting and mentioned head scarves (head scarves are not inherently oppressive, but a matter of modesty), which are more culturally loaded.  Though one of authors is Chinese American, both authors are American, so the book is written from a Western perspective.   I don't think that discredits or invalidates the book.  Half the Sky is still draws awareness to the issues, even if the stories are told by someone outside the problem.

My main criticism of the book is that it ignores violence discrimination against women in the United States, where we are far more likely to be able to have an impact.  I understand that they wanted to focus on the developing world, but ignoring the domestic abuse that happens in our own neighborhoods felt like a gross oversight.  

Overall, it was a very good read.  I didn't expect to like it as much as I did.  Though the subject matter is disturbing, they did a good job of presenting it tastefully.

Review: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry--Mildred D. Taylor
1976 by Puffin
276 pages--Goodreads

Ever since it won the 1977 Newbery Medal, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry has engaged and affected millions of readers everywhere. Set in a small town in Mississippi at the height of the Depression, this powerful, moving novel deals with issues of prejudice, courage, and self-respect. It is the story of one family's struggle to maintain their integrity, pride, and independence in the face of racism and social injustice. It is also the story of Cassie Logan, an independent girl who discovers over the course of an important year why having land of their own is so crucial to her family. The racial tension and harrowing events experienced by young Cassie, her family, and her neighbors cause Cassie to grow up and discover the reality of her environment.

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I first read Roll of Thunder in 7th grade and I despised it.  I hated it with the fiery passion of a thousand suns.  Okay, maybe that's an overstatement, but I thought it was dead boring.  I liked reading fantasy and that was about it.  I knew little about the Depression or segregation.  I didn't like historical fiction much and the story of a black family in the South didn't interest me at all.  I just didn't have the context to appreciate it.  I may not be giving my 7th grade teacher enough credit.  He may well have contextualized the novel, but I don't remember anything other than just reading the book.  Reading it now knowing much more about the Jim Crow era and what it meant to be black in the South during the depression, knowing about not just Martin Luther King Jr but Emmett Till and lynch mobs, having more context I appreciated the story much more.  It's still a slow moving novel, but it is very good.

I got a lot of To Kill a Mockingbird vibes while reading this, but Roll of Thunder is a more immediate story.  As much as I like Scout and Atticus, they are not part of the black community.  All they risk is scorn; the Logans risk losing everything.  Their danger is ever-present and real.  Mockingbird has a wider focus and as such, loses some intensity while Roll of Thunder is tightly focused.

The characterization is great.  The lines of good and bad are not drawn down racial lines.  It's not super in-depth since it is a children's book, but there is some complexity in the characters.  Mr. Jamison is an honest, decent white lawyer.  Jeremy likes the Logans despite the racism in his family.  Many of the black families want to support the Logan's boycott, but they also need to survive.  TJ has been wronged by the system but is not absolved of personal responsibility in his bad choices.  Uncle Hammer's anger is justified, but his violent reactions are not.

I really appreciated the relationship between Mama and Cassie.  How do you raise a black child and teach her to have self respect, but also teach her that white folk won't see her as worth anything and she'll have to act a certain way to survive?  How do you decide how much to tell your child about the brutality going on around her when you know she sees some of it but may not understand everything?  How do you balance the need to protect your child with the need to let her grow up?

The book did a wonderful job of portraying racism through the eyes of a child.  How does a nine year old even process that she is despised because of the color of her skin?  Does she really understand what it means that the night men are riding?  Does she understand that her family could not just lose the land, but her father could be beaten or tarred or lynched?

The novel uses n word occasionally, and I can see this bothering some readers.  I don't particularly like the word's use, but I think it is justified in this story.  Taylor says in the introduction to the novel that history is not politically correct, that racism it is not polite; it is full of pain.  She does not sugar coat things or shy away from the truth.  She is tasteful about her use of the word, but you will want to take that into consideration in recommending the book to young readers.

The book loses points because while it is excellent now, it didn't appeal to me at all as a kid and I think many of my classmates agreed with me.  I feel like some Newbery winners are amazingly written from the perspective of adults, but kids don't like or appreciate them.  And if kids don't like the book, what's the point?