Jane Yolen- A Must-Read for ALL

“The woman in the blue dress was speaking again.

‘Quiet! Quiet!’ she shouted, putting up her hands.

‘Now, since you are all filthy from your trip, you must take a shower. You will undress here. Help the children. It must be done quickly. Quickly.’

‘What, here?’ Gitl asked. ‘In front of each other?’

The woman looked disgusted. ‘You have not learned the first lesson yet. You will not last here.’

Gitl stared at her. ‘I will last,’ she said, her voice low.

‘Now, all of you, undress. Schnell! Pretend you are in one of your ritual baths. Oh yes, I am not a Jew, but even I have heard of it. What do you call it?’

“Mikvah,’ murmured Esther’s mother.

‘Yes, mikvah,” the woman said. ‘Then this is your mikvah in preparation for your new life in the camp.’ She smiled and left.

Some of the women sat on the wooden benches and began slowly to take off their shoes and stockings. But Hannah stood in the center of the room, staring around.

‘Don’t you understand?’ she cried. ‘There are no showers. There are only the gas ovens. They will burn us all up.’

Two benches away, Esther was crying softly as she took off her right show. ‘There are no ovens, Chaya. Do not try to frighten us. We are frightened enough.’

Hannah started to answer but Gitl pulled her down to the bend. ‘She is right, child. What is here is bad enough. Let us live moment by moment. There is no harm in dreaming about a shower. God know we could all use one.’

Hannah was furious. They had to listen. She would have to make them. What use was her special foreknowledge if no one would listen? Maybe they thought her strange or sick of even crazy, but she was none of that. She was from the future, somehow. She could summon up those memories by trying really hard. She knew she could help them all if only they would let her.”

For Hannah, every teenager’s dream has come true: she’s traveled through time! But not to a place of happiness and freedom; she’s traveled back to a concentration camp run by the Nazi’s during World War II. Hannah, a young Jewish girl who never took her own ancestry seriously, is now thrown into the frightening situation of being a Jew during the Nazi regime. She knows what really happens in the concentration camps, but struggles to make the people around her listen and believe.

As an author, Jane Yolen effectively takes her readers on a historical journey, weaving fact and fiction into her stories. Yolen takes serious events and makes them approachable, affording the reader the chance to delve into a serious subject without the judgment of others looming about. She simultaneously touches your heart with realistic and moving characters, such as Hannah in The Devil’s Arithmetic. Hannah’s journey through time combines the true events with the Holocaust and the experience of a young girl during those times, creating a powerful and moving story. Yolen also has a gift for combining historical events with fairy tales. In Briar Rose, she weaves the Holocaust, into the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty. The combination of the two creates an unforgettable and moving story. Yolen’s works are incredible, heart warming stories about the real struggles everyday teenagers have faces. She is a must-read for all ages.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“Dear friend,

I am writing to you because she said you listen and understand and didn’t try to sleep with that person at that party even though you could have. Please don’t try to figure out who she is because then you might figure out who I am, and I really don’t want you to do that. I will call people by different names or generic names because I don’t want you to find me. I didn’t enclose a return address for the same reason. I mean nothing bad by this. Honest.

I just need to know that someone out there listens and understands and doesn’t try to sleep with people even if they could have. I need to know that these people exist.”

Everyone, no matter what their age, needs to know that these people exist. People who listen and understand. For Charlie, it’s that he needs someone to listen as he tries to make sense of his new beginning in high school. Charlie’s days are spent noticing the details of the world around him. He sees what most people are too busy to see, too busy rushing through life.

Charlie’s story is a modern coming-of-age tale, similar to The Catcher in the Rye. The Catcher in the Rye’s main character, Holden Caulfield, is similar to Charlie, but much harder to connect with. Holden comes from an old-fashioned era, so his language and actions are somewhat foreign to today’s teens. He comes across brash at times, and even outspoken. Charlie, on the other hand, is soft and likeable, and easy to relate to. He goes through the typical teenage crises of drugs, the intrigue of older, more experienced friends, and self discovery. Holden is a rebel of all sorts whereas Charlie is a quiet rebel, searching and discovering his way through his freshman year of high school. His encounters with new older friends, drugs, sex and young love all bond together to shape this young wallflower as his high school career takes off.

“Sam tapped her hand on the steering wheel. Patrick held his hand outside the car and made air waves. And I just sat between them. After the song finished, I said something.

‘I feel infinite.’

And Sam and Patrick looked at me like I said the greatest thing they ever heard. Because the song was that great and because we all really paid attention to it. Five minutes of a lifetime were truly spent, and we felt young in a good way.”

Read Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower and I guarantee those minutes of your lifetime will be truly well spent.

"Under the Wolf, Under the Dog" by Adam Rapp

Have you lost a loved one or know anyone who has? If so, you know that everyone deals with loss differently. Steve Nugent from Under The Wolf, Under the Dog, can only find solace in drugs, detachment, and the subsequent insanity that controls his actions when a deadly cancer eats his mother into her grave.

But how is one to deal effectively after witnessing a loved one in an incurable state? Nearing the end of her life, Steve describes his mother as “[. . .] totally bald [. . .] and the whites of her eyes had dulled to this weird brownish gray. She only weighed eighty-something pounds and her lips had sort of disappeared. [. . .] I could see a new growth pressing through her forehead. There were things emerging all over her lately. At first they were calling it breast cancer, but now it was everywhere. A few weeks before, the oncologist had discovered a tumor in her abdomen that was the size of a baseball” (p. 48).

Steve, the main character, reminds me of J.D. Salinger’s Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye. Both characters are the same age, have similar physical features, are easily unnerved, preoccupied by women, and are ultimately torn up inside by their experiences in life. Holden generally has depression and is sad about the loss of innocence in the world, whereas Steve has to cope with the death of his mother. In my opinion, Steve’s issue is the most troubling, causing him to transform from being a normal guy with an above-average academic standing to a deviant teenager that wanders the streets. Like Holden, he winds up in an institution for troubled adolescents. There, he finds himself surrounded by kids with suicide scars and a talented ex-junkie who can insert $1.87 in change up his nose.

Today’s generation might not be able to identify with Holden’s world in the coming of age novel, The Catcher in the Rye and may appreciate and connect to Steve’s struggles in Under the Wolf, Under the Dog’s more modern version of a distraught adolescent ineffectively dealing with life’s hardships. I found Steve to be a more interesting character than Holden because of his daring nature. Unlike Holden for instance, he doesn’t just think about calling the girl he has a crush on, he becomes a genuine stalker: Steve breaks into her house, calls her several times, and ends up meeting her for a date. He also experiments with drugs, which gets him into more trouble than a passive Holden Caulfield ever could have made for himself.

As a modern-age, drug-induced Catcher in the Rye with a bolder Holden Caulfield who carries heavier baggage, Adam Rapp’s Under the Wolf, Under the Dog takes the reader to the brink of insanity and then drops them at the mental health institute.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Charlie is the youngest of three children. He lives in the shadow of his athlete older brother and his activist older sister. While trying to fit in at school, he befriends a pair of older siblings and soon becomes part of their group. He lucks out too, because before this he didn't really have any friends, and he struggled with the grief of having his close friend commit suicide. These new friends completely take him in, and help him grow and become more comfortable with himself. Have you ever felt like no one in the world understood you? And then out on a whim, you make a connection with someone who completely knows you inside and out? And then, you get a crush on her? Life is hard for Charlie, but somehow, he tries to pull through, by making mistakes, and trying his best to recover from them. For Charlie, the course of one school year completely changes his life, and he will never be the same again. Can you imagine becoming an entirely different person in nine short months?

Guys Write for Guys Read

Have you ever thought that because you were a boy, you couldn't write or read as well as the other people in your class? Since you were a boy you were automatically doomed to be a bad speller, and to never know when to use a comma? There are lots of boys who feel this way, but the authors of the stories in Guys Write for Guys Read don't listen to what people tell them about not being good writers. The men who wrote the stories talk about all the other problems they had growing up, like asking out girls and being the last picked kid in gym class, things that most boys have suffered through. They don't worry about spelling and commas, because after a lot of practice, these just come naturally, something that will also happen to you. They write because they want others to hear about their stories, to let other young men know that they aren't alone in the world, and other people are going through the same struggles. A couple of the stories might be about topics you don't know anything about, but the man writing it is letting you know about his experience so you can be ready if it happens to you. How often will you connect with a story and feel like it was written specifically for you? How often will you see a new solution to an old problem. How many times will you read this book in order to help you cope with the hard times of being a young boy?

Queen Bees and Wannabes

What should I wear today? Does he like me? Why is she mad at me? I’m alone. Those are just four thoughts that go through the head of a teenager everyday. It seems like most teens have nothing to say to their parents, but a million things to say to their peers. Your teen may seem happy one day and depressed another, and as a parent you have absolutely no clue as to why. Rosalind Wiseman’s Queen Bees and Wannabes puts you inside the head of your teenaged child, and into the harsh reality of high school. An age most parents think is the most fun for their child can turn into hell for some kids. And all because they wore the wrong clothes, sat at the wrong lunch table, or failed to be an athlete. Queen Bees and Wannabes breaks down the social hierarchy of cliques and explains why your child is either at the top or why she is at the bottom.

The input in every section of the book from real life teenagers may be what puts the book over the top. To read a powerful message, and a real thought on popularity from teens at the top of their crowd and those way down below make for an eye opening experience to what your teen may be feeling. From the tender age of eleven your daughter is faced with making decisions that will impact the rest of her social career. Who she invites to her birthday party, and who she doesn’t will shape lives. What she wears, or doesn’t wear will brand her a label as a preppy or a slut. Who she dates, where she goes, and what she does will establish an unbreakable reputation.

If you’re struggling to understand your teen and the decision he or she is making, Queen Bees and Wannabes will answer all your questions and allow you a backstage pass into what school and social life are like for your teen. For once you can begin to understand the underlying effect peers and cliques have on your child and how they shape their everyday lives. You will finally be able to decode the mind and life of your teenager.

"Guys Write for Guys Read" by Jon Scieszka (Ed.)

“Guys burp,” “Guys scratch,” “Guys always eat with their mouths open,” “Guys bite their toenails [and] chew [them] into little pieces and swallow them!" If you’re one of those guys, this book is for you! Darren Shan, and other well-known male authors like Avi, Gary Paulsen, Stephen King, Brian Jacques, Jon Scieszka, and Dav Pilkey make bold proclamations such as these in Guys Write for Guys Read, a collection of short stories, cartoons, and illustrations for young adults, edited by Jon Scieszka. These authors share their most embarrassing and humorous tales about growing up and being a boy. They cover subjects that all young guys can relate to, such as sports, girls, puberty, being different, embarrassing moments, dealing with bullies, and family.

Are you artistic? There’s something in here for you too. Illustrators and cartoonists have added color to the book with artwork dating back to their early childhood and adolescence. Jarrett J. Krosoczka shows his perpetual dedication to his childhood creation “Lightning Man,” a comic strip he created at the age of nine and revised seventeen years later after becoming a professional illustrator.

Even the Simpsons creator, Matt Groening also includes a comic strip about how much of an unnecessary pain school can be, and Jon Scieszka writes an ironically humorous memoir about the ups and downs of brotherhood and owning a cat.

Guys Write for Guys Read will appeal to and keep the attention of all sorts of male readers with its humorous, serious, witty, informative, and visually appealing short stories.