bullies – Peaceful Reader

29 days of book love

Happy Saturday everyone. Yoga was cancelled, while a huge disappointment, allowed me to sleep/lay in bed a little longer this morning and sometimes we just need that.

We also had to cancel a day trip to Minneapolis so Groovy Girl can get her groove back. She slept in and is mostly feeling better. I spent most of the day mourning the loss of the trip but I found positive ways to fill my day. #cleaning #walking

Schooled by Gordon Korman is one of my favorite elementary chapter books for its celebration of independent and creative thinking-something we need more of across the board. Capricorn Anderson is a young hippie living on a commune with his grandmother Rain. He leads a happy life until Rail falls out of a tree while picking plums. For the first time Capricorn is sent to school while Rain recovers. School is a strange world to comprehend to a peaceful boy.

He takes it all in stride, spends time confused, experiences his first crush but all throughout he stays true to his positive ideals. Cap is a great character created by Korman; perfect for teaching kids empathy for those different than us. We all need that today.

Two book that have nothing in common

Truthfully you can always make a connection between books though. They can be lumped together as good books, new books, books with strong main characters, books about death, and you get the idea.

Catherine by April Lindner (January, 2013)is an alternate point-of-view story, switching between Chelsea and her mother Catherine. Chelsea’s always thought her mother died of a brief illness until she finds some hidden papers in her father’s closet. Turns out that Catherine left when Chelsea was young to take care of some old business in NYC. All she has is an address, The Underground, a gritty gem of a bar where new and old talent share the stage.

As Chelsea uncovers more about her mother’s story we read in opposite chapters about her mother’s life at about the same age. Each of them meet a mysterious boy through the club and begin that transition of breaking away, transforming into young adult women. Love is tough with rock and roll boys though and it never turns out how they expect. Naturally.

The cover on this ARC was smoky and screamed “dime store romance novel” to me. We play a little game at my house in that if I’m torn between several titles to read my family will help me choose. This title was deemed way too hokey for me by my ever-lovin’husband so I set it aside for a few weeks. Luckily I picked it back up though as I very much enjoyed both Chelsea and Catherine as characters. Catherine’s brother annoyed me so much I started talking back to him…out loud. Hate mean boys. Such terrible crap we, as women, often are forced to endure as Catherine demonstrates. I especially loved the whole Underground bar idea, making the reader feel a part of the hip music crowd. April Lindner has another book Jane and I’m interested in reading it. I liked Lindner’s style.

Quote:

Strange ideas pinged around in my mind like pinballs. I didn’t want to think about my mother with Hence, but I couldn’t help it. Had she really been in love with him? And had he loved her back? I though of what he’d said-if she were still alive, I’d know. I, of all people, would know-and it seemed possible, even likely. Had she run away from me and my dad to go back to him? (59)

Also read this excellent review of Catherine in this Boston Globe article.

The second major book I read in March was 19 Minutes by Jodi Picoult. I’ve had this book on my shelf for oh, 6 years, no lie. A bookie friend passed it on to me while I was teaching in Little Rock but said to me “probably shouldn’t read it until you are done with teaching…” and handed it over. I knew the topic (school shooting) and actually thought waiting to read it was not the worst idea ever.

So I waited thinking I would just know when the time was right…

The book is excellent but really there is no right time because while it is about a school shooting the main issue is bullying, which is such a hot topic now. I’ve heard many say things like kids just need to buck up, bullies have always existed, we had bullies-it’s just part of growing up. I agree with some of those statements as I remember vividly being teased and harassed by students and even by my own brother as Peter is in the story. The difference today is how utterly harsh kids can be. Through reality television, brutal video games, facebook, and any number of other venues kids feel free to share their most vitriolic thoughts. You can hear how horrible you are via text, skype, or facebook post.

Maybe many of you have read this one already and if you haven’t you should. Told through a variety of viewpoints and time frames we get a truly well-rounded look at Peter, his friend Josie and their families. I look forward to reading Picoult’s latest book, The Storyteller. I don’t have it yet but if I did I wouldn’t let it sit on my shelf for 6 years!

As an advocate of peace and justice I firmly believe we need strict gun control laws. I have family members that hunt but I feel like handguns and automatic weapons are far too prevalent in our society. It can be a mental health issue as well, I understand that but if we made it difficult to get guns in the first place it wouldn’t be an issue. The Columbine shooting occurred in 1999, this book was written in 2007, and we have yet to solve this crisis. And in fact the violence has increased ten-fold. Passionate topic for me, yes.

Quote:

On the ride home, Alex stole glances at her daughter in the rearview mirror. Josie had gone to school this morning in a white cardigan and khaki pants; now that cardigan was streaked with dirt. There were twigs in her hair, which had fallen from its ponytail. The elbow of her sweater had a hole in it; her lip was still bleeding. And-here was the amazing thing-apparently, she’d fared better than the little boy she’d gone after. (70)

Read, read, read!
What have you been reading recently?
Snow in the forecast. Crazy, yes.

True…sort of by Katherine Hannigan

Ahhh, what a week it’s been. I can’t get into it too much at this point but suffice it to say the love affair I have with my job has taken a huge hit in the last 10 days. While all that has been happening I’ve been reading this soothing and poetically written gem by Katherine Hannigan.

(2011)

355 pages

It’s not soothing as in everything is all hunky dory-the book has two major conflicts-but Hannigan has a unique style of writing. She’s also created a very quirky cast of characters. Delly (short for Delaware) Pattison has trouble not getting in little bits of trouble. She is picked on by a bully, Novello, who for the sake of loving Delly can’t help but be mean to her at this point in his life. It makes them miserable and includes some fierce wrestling/spitting matches on the playground. She also has run-ins with a local grocery store maven and Officer Verena Tibbetts has Delly on her “list of The Worst Children in River Bluffs.” (4)

Her reputation follows poor Delly wherever she goes even when she’s trying to help caged-in chickens at the county fair or borrowing a boat for a little river adventure. She gets fed up with her own ability to find trouble when she sees her mother cry over a recent incident. Delly vows to change her ways to make her mother proud. I like this thread of Delly’s tale as it shows a child’s thought process in trying to work out how and why her trouble happens.

Delly in her quest to have better days starts allowing her little brother, RB to hang with her more often. He is able to keep her calm in several situations and even teaches Delly about counting to keep calm. While her and RB are off trying for adventure without trouble-making they see a young boy, sad as can be, drive through town in a beat-up old green Impala. On Monday she finds out the boy is actually a girl named Ferris Boyd. Delly’s teacher, the wonderful Mr. Terwilliger, informs her that Ferris does not speak and is not to be touched. Hmm. Delly’s curiosity is peaked. Delly has her own vocabulary throughout, cataloged in a Delly Dictionary by Hannigan, which adds to her charming character:

After school Delly ran to Ferris Boyd. “Hey,” she said softly, and fell in beside her, like they’d been friends forever.
She waited till they were at the bridge to ask, “Ferris Boyd, did you see? I didn’t fight.” Then she told her, without saying a word, I heard you.
Ferris Boyd stopped and turned to Delly. her eyes were still sad, but there was something else in them. Something like a smile.
It was only a second. Her head went down again, and she was shuffling along the road.
It was all Delly needed. Ferris Boyd had heard her, too. “All right then.” She grinned. (168)

This tale gently shares many themes with the reader and would make a wonderful read-aloud to understand more about bullies, abuse, anger management, good teaching and the rough road to friendship. Students will cheer for Delaware Pattison.

“Happy Hallelujah”~ Delly

I was encouraged to pick up True because I loved Ida B, her first book.

Hannigan is an Iowa author!

Both books are green and share similar sentiments inside; “We care about the health of this planet and all of its inhabitants. So the first hardcover printing of this book used 100% postconsumer recycled paper (that means that no trees were cut down to create the paper). And that paper was processed chlorine-free, because when chlorine is used to bleach paper, the process creates toxic by-products called dioxins and furans that can make people and animals sick….”

A book company, Harper Collins, that I can fully support! How come more books aren’t produced in this method? To find out more information go to http://www.papercalculator.org.

Before I fall by Lauren Oliver

I’m doing my best to catch up some YA reading this summer. People talk about these books all year long and I tend to save them for summer. This book was on my to-read mental list and while we were in DC we stopped by my husband’s old neighborhood, Adams Morgan. I went right to the lovely little used bookstore-the name of which escapes me-but a little magic happened and I found Before I Fall on a shelf with a $6 price tag inside. It was a sign.

I pushed back my major beach read, A Summer Affair by Elin Hilderbrand, and started reading, right after we visited the National Zoo, which by the way was missing most of its animals the day we visited. Disappointing. It was hot.

Before I Fall

Lauren Oliver

470 pages

2010

Samantha Kingston has it all; the world’s most crush-worthy boyfriend, three amazing best friends, and first pick of everything at Thomas Jefferson High-from the best table in the cafeteria to the choicest parking spot. Friday, February 12, should be just another day in her charmed life. (inside front cover)

It sounds like quite the life but it took only a few pages into the book to realize Sam leads a crazy life-one that was a little scary for me; a mom of a young girl that will one day soon be a teen. Sam’s a mean girl-she wasn’t always but became one in order to hang with Lindsay and be well, popular. As the reader you know from the beginning of the book that Sam is going to die in a car crash after a party but it gets snagged up in time and she relives that day seven different times, trying to get it right…or at least a little better.

While the characters and their ability to be visciously mean to other people scared me I did enjoy getting to know the characters and the degree to which Sam Kingston is allowed to grow into a more thoughtful person. It’s as if she goes through seven stages of Dante’s Hell in order to get to heaven. While she’s learning we get a peek into what makes the other characters, like Lindsay, mean.

It’s good to know, according to Lauren Oliver, that bullies are basically insecure and choose to lash out due to their own lack of self-esteem. Mentally it is good to know this but it doesn’t help when you are the one made to feel like crap everyday of high school because some other h.s. student has decided to thrash on you. As Sam figures out how to make things better she notices the intricate threads that bind us all together. Beautiful lesson for teens to learn.

The writing is eloquent with lots of gentl emetaphorical comparisons. I loved Kent McFuller-he was a wonderfully written cool-geek! This is a snippet of conversation between Kent and Sam:

…”You remember my old house on Terrace Place, right?” The smile is back. It’s true: his eyes are exactly the color of grass. “You used to hang out in the kitchen and steal all the good cookies. And I chased you around these huge maple trees in the front yard. Remember?”
As soon as he mentions the maple trees a memory rises up, expanding, like something breaking the surface of water and rippling outward. We were sitting in this little space in between two enormous roots that curved out of the ground.like animal spines. (142)

This book should be read by parents as much as its intended young adult audience. There is a ton of drinking, smoking and sex in the book-I know it happens in high school but for this group of friends it was all part of their scene. As a mom all I could think was “please don’t let my child act this way…”

Other thoughts on Before I Fall…

The Brain Lair
Slightly Bookish…she even has a playlist set up for this book.
Fate is Kind Book Review

Lauren Oliver’s website.

Indie Bookstore