The
New York Public Library puts out a good selection of great reads plus
other great information for teens. Our link will take you to the "best"
of 2001, but once you are there you can check out more books under topics
like: 16 From '99, A Dozen Delights, East Meets West, Of Earth and Verse,
Paperbacks for Pool Days, Proud Pages, Strange Orbit, and more. Check them
out!
added 02/15/02
teenreads.com
is the latest site on the Net that we have found that really does a nice
job of recommending books for teen readers. An interesting addition is
the interviews with authors. It's nice to know where the author is coming
from when they write a book.
I
would recommend that you take a look at the booklists prepared by the Young
Adult Division of the American Library Association (It sounds heavier than
it is). I like their lists because they aren't entirely dry or boring.
They also have a healthy respect for diversity, include contemporary books
as well as classics and don't limit themselves to titles by "dead, white
males." They produce recommendations for fiction, nonfiction, biography,
drama, and poetry, as well as recommendations of other booklists. This
is a site worth checking out at: http://www.ala.org/ala/yalsa/booklistsawards/outstandingbooks/outstandingbooks.htm
Blink: The Power of Thinking
Without Thinking
by Malcolm Gladwell
--posted January 26, 2006
Malcolm
Gladwell, author of “The Tipping Point”, explores the idea of snap judgments,
the choices we make while thinking without thinking, and why it is such
a powerful force. Gladwell uses the term to “thin-slice”, our ability to
ignore all but a few clues to make certain judgments. Although we are right
in the majority of situations, sometimes our subconscious betrays us and
we make the wrong decisions, based on our own inner biases. Although if
we are asked as to whether we are biased we will verbally say no, but the
studies presented in the book show otherwise.
Several interesting studies
are presented in the book including a fake Greek statue, who many experts
deemed to be authentic but was recognized as a fake by a couple of experts
in just seconds; a psychologist who can predict whether a marriage will
last; a tennis coach who can immediately recognize when a player will double
fault, even though he doesn’t know why, and an ex-Marine, relying on gut
instinct to outwit the best military minds in a war-game simulation.
Gladwell also presents situations
where snap judgments can go wrong as in the introduction of “New Coke”
and the shooting and killing of Amadou Diallo in New City by a group of
plainclothes police officers.
This is a very readable book
if you are into the psychology of why people react, or do the things they
do. It also made me re-think how I am perceived by others based on my interaction
with them.
The Burn Journals
by Brent Runyon
--posted January 23, 2006
"The
Burn Journals" is not an easy book to read. It is the true story of a 14-year-old
middle school student, who gets into so much trouble at school, that he
sees no way out except to attempt to commit suicide by dousing himself
with gasoline and setting himself on fire. This is the story of Brent Runyon,
who suffered third-degree burns over 85 percent of his body and who spends
the next year of his life in hospitals and rehab centers. Even reading
the book hurts, as he graphically describes the painful treatments he endures.
The book is a literal journal of his return to “normal” life and his eventual
return to school.
What also hurt me as a reader
is that Brent and family seemed to dance around the reasons for his attempted
suicide, and that Brent’s older brother, Craig, had an especially hard
time of dealing with issues. Brent also had an intense distrust of psychologists
and psychiatrists who were trying to help him.
It is only as an adult, recounted
in an epilogue at the end of the book, that Brent talks about his recurring
depression and suicidal thoughts. It is almost ten years before he finally
accepts therapy to help him deal with life. Moreover, it is only then that
he and his family come to terms with his depression and suicide attempts.
This is a chilling and troubling
book, but one that makes you think about family or friends who suffer from
depression or may talk about committing suicide. They have to get help,
and you have to take what they say seriously!
The Secret Life of Bees
by Sue Monk Kidd
--posted April 24, 2003
First,
I have to tell you that "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd is one
of the best books I’ve read lately. Even though there are some very strange
situations, the book rang true, which is always important to me. The story
revolves around fourteen-year-old Lily Owen, who lives on an isolated peach
farm in South Carolina with her emotionally abusive and distant father
and supportive nanny, Rosaleen. Lily’s mother was killed when Lily was
four. Lily may have been the one who accidentally shot her. The only clue
to her mother’s past is an image of a Black Madonna with the words “Tiburon,
South Carolina” written on the back.
Set in 1964 against a background
of the difficult times of the civil rights movement, the story revolves
around Lily’s search for a sense of self and a link with her mother. When
Lily accompanies her nanny, Rosaleen, who is going to register to vote,
they are involved in a confrontation with a group of men which ends up
with Rosaleen in the hospital after being beaten and facing jail time.
Lily and Rosaleen escape, fleeing to the only place Lily can think of--Tiburon,
South Carolina--determined to find out more about her dead mother.
In Tiburon they meet up with
a beekeeper, her sisters, and a community of particularly strong African-American
women. Here, Lily learns about her mother, but more importantly, about
herself, through stories of beekeeping, the legend of the Black Madonna,
and African-American stories and spirituality.
This is one super read!
The Other Side of the
River:
A Story of Two Towns, a Death, and
America’s Dilemma
By Alex Kotlowitz
--posted March 10, 2003
A
sixteen-year-old African American is found dead, floating in the St. Joseph
River, a river that divides the cities of St. Joseph and Benton Harbor,
Michigan. The mysterious death of Eric McGinniss has never been solved.
Did he accidentally fall in the river or was he murdered? Alex Kotlowitz,
a journalist who has written on race issues for The Wall Street Journal,
attempts to review the case and come to some conclusions.
Although focused on the death
of a young man, this book is more about the racial divides that exist among
Americans more than thirty years after the civil rights movement reached
its apogee. St. Joseph is predominantly white; Benton Harbor is black.
People from both sides tend to keep to themselves, looking with suspicion
at the other. “To those in St. Joseph, Eric’s death is proof that race
blinds their neighbors to the obvious. To those in Benton Harbor, it is
proof that because of race even the obvious is never what it seems.”
In an interview with the
online magazine, Bold Type, Kotlowitz had this to say about the
book: “I found for the most part a people who were well-intentioned, who
wanted to do the right thing, but as has been said of the South's politicians
during Jim Crow, race diminishes us. As I write in the book: It incites
us to act in ways we wouldn't act in other arenas: clumsily, cowardly and
sometimes just plain cruelly. We so quickly and easily fall back on one
side or the other; we circle the wagons, watching out for our own. For
there's comfort of course among the familiar.”
This book bothered me because
I think that, as a nation, we are becoming more, not less, segregated.
I would highly recommend this book for anyone interested in relations between
races and why people act the way they do.
TELL NO ONE
by Harlan Coben
--posted 01/06/03
At
our school we take our readers seriously. If they recommend a book, we
read it, then decide if it is appropriate for our collection. Not long
ago a student said we HAD to read “Tell No One” by Harlan Coben. I read
it and she was right! I couldn’t put it down.
Here is the basic plot: David
Beck's wife was murdered eight years ago. He has since become a pediatric
doctor, and managed to go on with his life, but still pining for his one
true love. On the anniversary of their first kiss, however, an E-mail arrives
with a code phrase only two people would know: David Beck, and his dead
wife. It tells him to log on to a web site at a certain time. When he logs
on he sees a webcam scanning an undeterminable city intersection. Suddenly
a face appears—it is his long dead wife. Or is it? The person on the screen
mouths the words: “I’m sorry.”
Is she alive or is this an
elaborate hoax. Who killed who and why? A classic “Who-done-it?”
This one will keep you hopping until the very end. I couldn’t put it down.
There is one clue in the middle of the book that should alert you to what
happened (Sorry, I can’t resist). I missed it, but remembered at the end.
Serious literature? Not!
A fun read? You bet! Harlan Coben has his own web site. Check it out for
more information about his other books at HarlanCoben.com.
You are welcomed to E-mail him with your comments.
CATCH ME IF YOU CAN
by Frank W. Abagnale
--posted 01/06/03
Maybe
you checked out the movie version of “Catch Me If You Can” starring Leonardo
DiCaprio over the holidays. It is based on the true story of Frank Abagnale,
Jr. who, in his teens in the 1960s, conned people into believing he was
a commercial airline pilot, a doctor and a lawyer. With a smiling face
and charismatic aura, he was also able to cash millions of dollars worth
of bogus checks all over the world.
I read the book instead,
and it bothered me. Abagnale is now an apparently successful businessman,
the founder of a secure-documents corporation that provides companies with
methods to defeat the very same crimes Abagnale committed.
I enjoyed the cat-and-mouse
game that Abagnale played with corporations, banks and other authority
figures. It is an astonishing feat to pass yourself off as a co-pilot for
a major airline when you are only sixteen-years-old after all. What bothered
me was a lingering feeling that although he says he is sorry for what he
did, I really didn’t think he meant it. Abagnale was especially boastful
of his ability to use women for his own personal pleasure and then discard
them. I wonder what became of their lives when they actually found out
the truth. Or what about all the bank tellers and hotel clerks whom he
conned into cashing his checks who may have lost their jobs or had their
careers stalled or destroyed?
I wonder what they think
of the movie? Read the book and let me know what you think! Send me an
E-mail at: janowsad@collier.k12.fl.us
THE HOURS
by Michael Cunningham
--posted 01/06/03
It
must be my season for movie tie-ins. First I read “Catch Me If You Can”
and now I’ve finished “The Hours” by Michael Cunningham. Where “Catch Me”
was light and fluff, “Hours” was deep, complicated, and to me, melancholic.
The story revolves around
three women and three time periods. First is a fictionalized Virginia Woolf
in 1923 writing a novel that will be called “Mrs. Dalloway.” Second is
Mrs. Laura Brown, a housewife and mother living in California just after
World War II., who is reading “Mrs. Dalloway.” Third is Clarissa Vaughan,
a book editor living in modern-day Greenwich Village, whose poet and author
and life-long friend Richard, who long ago gave her the nickname "Mrs.
Dalloway," is dying of AIDS.
I have not read “Mrs. Dalloway”
and perhaps I should, as from what I have since learned it was considered
by some to be the first and finest of modernist "day-in-the-life" novels.
“The Hours” is also set in one day-in-the-life of each of the characters.
I loved how the author tied
each of the characters together, even interspersing objects—roses, for
example, in each of the scenes. Death, too, weaves together in all three
of the lives. And family, and how members of families interact and relate
to one another.
Here is a wonderful excerpt
from the book: “There’s just this for consolation: an hour here or there
when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and
give us everything we’ve ever imagined, though everyone but children (and
perhaps even they) knows these hours will inevitably be followed by others,
far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the morning;
we hope, more than anything, for more.”
“The Hours” won the Pulitzer
Prize for Literature in 1999.
This is an outstanding read!
NIGHTFATHER
by Carl Friedman
--posted 01/06/03
This
is a haunting story, perhaps even more so because of its simple style.
Each chapter relates some event in “the camp,” a father’s recollection
of life in a concentration camp during the Holocaust as told to his children
when they asked him for “stories.”
This is not a pretty book.
The descriptions of life (and death) in a concentration camp are intensely
graphic. What grabbed me was the reaction of his sons and daughter to what
their father experienced. Skepticism, fear, anguish, these are what came
through for me. Why wasn’t their father like other fathers? Why didn’t
their family believe in the same things that their neighbors did? How could
they be saved, if they didn’t believe? So much confusion for the children
of a Holocaust survivor. And what about future generations? How will these
stories be handed down? What affect will they have?
This is a novel, but the
afterword leads us to believe that truth is greater than fiction.
I can't say "enjoy" this
book, but read it anyway.
Hot! Hot! Hot!
--posted 04/12/02
We've put together a bibliography
of fiction books by Hispanic and Latin authors. Check it out by clicking
on the graphic above or Hispanic/Latin
Authors for Young Adults. (In Micosoft Word format).
If
your computer does not support Microsoft Word, Hispanic/Latin
Authors for Young Adults is also available in PDF format for easy printing.
(Please note that you will need to have Acrobat Reader installed on your
computer. Click
Here or on the icon below to download Acrobat Reader.)
As always, comments are welcome!
--Mr. J.
Book Hooks!
Encouraging
Reading by Reading Aloud
--posted
09/03
This
list of Book Hooks is for teachers (but students
are welcome to check it out!) looking for suggestions of books which may
have good potential for reading sections aloud.
Got
Books?
If you are reading something
new and terrific, send us a review of the book via E-mail--
we are always looking for
great books to read (and buy for the library media center).
Also, if you have any comments
about this page let us know!
Want to read some of our
past reviews, click here!
