Sisters, Raina Telgemeier

Title:  Sisters
Author: Raina Telgemeier
Publisher: Graphix
Year: 2014
Pages: 200
Genre: Memoir, Graphic Novel
Themes:  Sisters, Divorce
Age Range: 4th-8th Grade

Summary:
Raina begged her parents for a sister.  She couldn't wait to have someone to share her favorite activities and deepest secrets with.  But when her sister Amara is born, Raina doesn't exactly get what she was hoping for.  Amara is a grouchy, cranky baby, and her mood doesn't really improve the older she gets.  When her mother announces that she and the girls will be driving cross-country for a family reunion, Raina is less than enthused.  Being stuck in a car with her siblings for days at a time doesn't seem to improve their relationship, and there is something strange going on between her mom and dad.  But when a roadside emergency causes both girls to put aside their petty concerns, they find that while they might not always get along, they always have each other's back.

Review:
This third book in the series of graphic novel memoirs by Raina Telgemeier lacks some of the scope and emotional impact of her other books, but it is still a story that many children can relate to.  I think most of us with siblings have had moments when we wonder if being an only child might not be preferable to living in a house with someone who seems to know how to push every last one of our buttons.

A lot of this book is about Raina coming to terms with the fact that the reality of her sister does not match her expectations.  Raina gets a taste of what it must be like to be the younger sibling when her older cousin, who she was looking forward to spending lots of time with at the reunion, suddenly doesn't have time for her.  Raina is in that awkward 'tween phase in this book, and as someone who successfully passed through it myself many years ago, I could easily put myself back in that place of uncomfortable uncertainty, holding on to the things from your childhood that you love, while trying to be more grown-up than you really were.  I think students who are in that stage themselves, or are soon to be, will feel a strong connection to Raina's character.  Some may see themselves in Amara's character as well, though since she is not the narrator we don't get quite as much insight into her own feelings about her place in the family.

The fact that Raina's parents are having problems becomes more clear as the story progresses, and I know that this is an experience that many children will experience sometime in their childhood.  While the parents' relationship issues are not resolved within the scope of the story, the subplot adds a layer of tension that increases the emotional intensity of the story, if only slightly.  And if all of this sounds like pretty heavy stuff, have no fear.  Telgemeier uses her rather dry sense of humor to lighten it up.

This book as seen heavy rotation among my 5th grade students, along with Telgemeier's first memoir, Smile. Boys and girls alike have enjoyed following Raina's story, and I look forward to using this book next year as part of a school-wide reading initiative.

Brown Girl Dreaming, Jacqueline Woodson

Title:  Brown Girl Dreaming
Author:  Jacqueline Woodson
Publisher:  Nancy Paulsen Books
Year: 2014
Pages: 336
Genre:  Memoir, Told in Verse
Themes:  Black History, Family, Racism, Civil Rights
Age Range:  5th Grade and Above

Summary:  from Goodreads

Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. 

Review:
I have loved all of Woodson's books, and this one is no exception.  Her prose always read more like poetry to me, so I was glad to see this book is told in verse.  Growing up in both the Jim Crow south and the Civil Rights era north, Woodson was in a unique position to witness racism and discrimination in both its over and covert incarnations.

While her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement and its affect on her daily life is central to the novel, at its heart this book is about a young girl with a complicated family, trying to figure out where she fits in the world.  Being of two worlds often made her feel like she never really belonged to either, being too country for the urban northerners and too city for her rural family.  Woodson points out the many ways she felt like the "other", and the subtle and not-so-subtle signifiers of her "otherness"-her speech patterns, her family configuration, her desire to write stories, despite not always being the best student in school.  Woodson speaks lovingly of her grandparents, who symbolize stability and permanence.  Her feelings about her mother and father are just as loving, but less grounded.  Her father is not a part of her life, her mother leaves to find work in the city, eventually pulling her and her siblings away from their grandparents' home.  And, of course, with aging grandparents come the sad reality of declining health and death, which deal a blow to the fragile ground upon which Woodson builds her sense of self.

I think that only the most mature, sophisticated fifth graders would be ready for this book, not because there is anything objectionable in it, but because I think the narrative structure and the sometimes oblique references to the events that shaped the Civil Rights movement would be lost on someone without sufficient experience to understand.  But this book, which won the National Book Award for Young Adult Fiction for 2014, is certainly accessible and appropriate for use in middle or high school, and is gorgeous and moving enough to speak to adult readers as well.

El Deafo, Cece Bell

Title:  El Deafo
Author:  Cece Bell
Publisher:  Harry N. Abrams
Year:  2014
Pages: 233
Genre:  Memoir, Graphic Novel
Theme:  Disability, Perseverance, Friendship, Self-Esteem
Age Range:  4th-7th Grade

Summary:  from Goodreads

Starting at a new school is scary, even more so with a giant hearing aid strapped to your chest! At her old school, everyone in Cece's class was deaf. Here she is different. She is sure the kids are staring at the Phonic Ear, the powerful aid that will help her hear her teacher. Too bad it also seems certain to repel potential friends. 

Then Cece makes a startling discovery. With the Phonic Ear she can hear her teacher not just in the classroom, but anywhere her teacher is in school--in the hallway...in the teacher's lounge...in the bathroom! This is power. Maybe even superpower! Cece is on her way to becoming El Deafo, Listener for All. But the funny thing about being a superhero is that it's just another way of feeling different... and lonely. Can Cece channel her powers into finding the thing she wants most, a true friend?

Review:
Charming is the first word that comes to mind when I try to describe this graphic novel about a girl (rabbit?!?) with a hearing impairment.  Cece Bell tells her own story in this engaging memoir, which details her bout with meningitis as a toddler, her struggle to learn to lip read, her ambivalence with her hearing aids, and her eventual acceptance of herself exactly the way she is.

Bell grew up in the 1970s, and there are quite a few pop culture references that today's student readers may not get right away.  But I grew up during the same period as Bell, and I found myself fondly remembering times and places from my own childhood.  The setting also highlights the difference in treatment options for children with hearing impairments today, when technology has allowed doctors to return normal or almost normal hearing to many people who would not have been able to hear as well in the past.

What hasn't changed, as far as I can tell, though, is the way that the deaf and hard of hearing are perceived and treated by some in society.  Cece's experiences demonstrate the things that people do, with good intentions or bad, that make people with hearing impairments (or physical or cognitive disabilities) feel like the "other".  Cece was afraid to stand out, didn't want to be noticed for her hearing aids or her awkward speech. She pretended to understand things that she didn't really hear in an effort to "fit in".  She desperately wanted a friend who just treated her like the normal person she really is inside, but the various other children she met during her elementary school years never seemed to be able to totally forget the hearing impairment.  She was the "deaf" friend, the friend who sometimes made unfortunate, laughable mistakes because of her difficulty understanding speech,  and some of the girls who befriended her seemed to be motivated by their own desire to be noticed for their kindness to the "deaf" girl.

There are a few things in this book that might be problematic in a school setting.  It was the 70s, and people smoked in the 70s (including her teacher, which is mentioned one time in one panel).  There is also some bathroom humor involving Cece's ability to hear her teacher while peeing.  I didn't find anything really objectionable, but if you are a teacher, you know your population and what would be acceptable or not.  There are definitely plenty of opportunities for discussion with the themes in this book, and the fact that this is a memoir makes the message even more powerful.

Teacher Resources:
Cece Bell Talking About El Deafo
Cece Bell's Website
Abrams Teaching Guides

Breaking Stalin's Nose, by Eugene Yelchin

Title:  Breaking Stalin's Nose
Author and Illustrator:  Eugene Yelchin
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Year: 2011
Pages: 160
Genre:  Historical Fiction/Memoir
Theme:  Conformity, Right vs. Wrong, Freedom
Age Range: 3rd-5th Grade

Summary: 
Ten year old Sasha is the son of an intelligence officer in the Soviet Union.  He strives in all things to be a good communist so that he can join the Young Pioneers and make his father proud.  On the night before he is to join the Pioneers, his father is taken away by the Soviet secret police.  Convinced that there has been a mistake, Sasha goes to school the next day, sure that Stalin himself will hear of his father's arrest and release him.  But when he gets to school, it becomes clear that Sasha, who has always been the star pupil, is now blacklisted along with the children of other "traitors" to communism.  How can he become a Young Pioneer now?

Review:
This semi-autobiographical account of Yelchin's childhood in Soviet Russia brings to light for elementary age students a time period that they probably know little about.  As a child of the 70s and 80s, I was very aware that the Soviet Union was the "boogeyman under the bed" the enemy that the brave and free United States had to fight in order to save the world from their tyranny.  Children growing up today have a very different context-now it is the Islamic terrorist who is the nightmare in the closet, ready to jump out at us freedom-loving Americans whenever they can.  While the political landscape has changed, both the Soviet era and our present situation have one thing in common-fear of an "other" who wants to destroy our very way of life.

The book-longer than a short story, shorter than a novel-is fast paced, taking place over a day and a half in the life of Sasha and his classmates.  Yelchin describes the crowded living conditions, and the constant state of fear and paranoia that the Russian citizens lived in.  Jealousy over their larger rooms in the communal apartment leads one resident to turn-in Sasha's father for being a capitalist sympathizer.  Sasha's school resembles a brainwashing camp more than a place to learn reading, writing, and 'rithmetic.  The fear, jealousy, and paranoia have bled down to the children, who are quick to turn on each other whenever a student is chastised by the teacher, who is a caricature of a rabidly conforming communist.

Children will need to be given some background knowledge to completely understand the book, as there is very little exposition given for what the Soviet Union was, or for its role in global politics and the Cold War.  But regardless of the historical knowledge that students may be lacking, the feeling of being betrayed, of fearing for a parent's safety, and the inherent unfairness of Sasha's situation is palpable.  I think this book provides teachers a rich way to introduce concepts of conformity and freedom to elementary school students.

Teacher Resources:
Bookrags Summary and Study Guide
Breaking Stalin's Nose Discussion Guide
Kids' Wings Activities for Breaking Stalin's Nose

I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced

Title:  I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced\
Publisher:  Broadway
Year:  2010
Pages: 188
Genre:  Memoir
Themes:  Survival, Social Justice, Feminism
Age Range:  8th Grade and Up

Summary:  (from publisher)
Forced by her father to marry a man three times her age, young Nujood Ali was sent away from her parents and beloved sisters and made to live with her husband and his family in an isolated village in rural Yemen. There she suffered daily from physical and emotional abuse by her mother-in-law and nightly at the rough hands of her spouse. Flouting his oath to wait to have sexual relations with Nujood until she was no longer a child, he took her virginity on their wedding night. She was only ten years old.

Unable to endure the pain and distress any longer, Nujood fled—not for home, but to the courthouse of the capital, paying for a taxi ride with a few precious coins of bread money. When a renowned Yemeni lawyer heard about the young victim, she took on Nujood’s case and fought the archaic system in a country where almost half the girls are married while still under the legal age. Since their unprecedented victory in April 2008, Nujood’s courageous defiance of both Yemeni customs and her own family has attracted a storm of international attention. Her story even incited change in Yemen and other Middle Eastern countries, where underage marriage laws are being increasingly enforced and other child brides have been granted divorces.


Review:
Nujood's story is simply but powerfully written.  Detailing a loss of innocence that was made all the more brutal for coming from the betrayal of her parents, I Am Nujood is both an easy and a difficult read.  While the sexual assaults that she endured daily are only described in much detail once, the effect of it on her is both tragic and ultimately redemptive.  Despite all teachings to the contrary, Nujood refuses to accept that her fate as a woman is to be beaten and raped by her "husband", showing a bravery that not many adult women in repressive societies do.  Her determination to move forward and help other girls is an example to any survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, whether from countries where the practice is societally supported or from more "enlightened" countries like America, where supposedly we value women more.


But this book is much more than one personal story of survival and redemption.  This book can be used to highlight the very real problem of forced child marriage that exists in parts of the developing world.  Unicef estimates that in Africa, there the practice is prevalent, 42% of girls will be married before the age of 18, many without their consent.  This means that a lack of formal schooling and a separation from the rest of society will only lead to a perpetuation of the cycle for their daughters.  Child marriage is most often the result of poverty combined with a  rigid sense of honor.  This sense of having to "honor" the family by putting up with abuse is pervasive and makes girls in this situation feel ashamed of their desire not to be married.  There is much work to be done to help women world-wide gain the education and rights necessary for them to have true self-determination, not to have to choose between the equally unacceptable alternatives of staying with their family and starving or being forced into a marriage with an older man and enduring whatever abuse he chooses to throw her way.  


While the reading level for this book is quite low, the content is mature, and should it should be read with guidance by younger teens.  I believe that it could be a very powerful book to use in the classroom, however, not necessarily for its literary merit as much as for the issues it raises about human rights.  While the description of Nujood's rape on the first night of her marriage is disturbing, it is not graphic in nature in terms of language.  I believe that it would make an excellent addition to any high school literature or social sciences curriculum, and that it could be used as a jumping-off point for a unit on the status of girl children throughout the world.


Teacher Resources:
Random House Reader's Guide
Human Rights Watch Article About Child Marriage in Yemen

The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien

Title:  The Things They Carried
Author:  Tim O'Brien
Publisher:  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Year:  1990
Pages:  273
Genre:  Historical/Realistic Fiction, Memoir
Themes:  War, Survival, Courage
Age Level:  10th Grade and Up

While I sometimes share reviews I've written of young adult novels on my adult book review blog (Book Addict Reviews), I have never posted the other way.  But when my daughter recommended I read The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien after reading it in her junior level English class (my daughter, whose last recommendation to me was Twilight when she was 13), I figured I'd better read it.  And she was right-this book says things that need to be said about war and courage, and I think that those things should be said to our youth.  So, you'll find my review below, not in the usual format, but here all the same.

Summary and Review:
I was born in 1970.  So while my life overlaps briefly with the Viet Nam War, I have no real memory of it.  What I do remember is going to downtown Chicago with my granny, and later with my parents, and seeing the faces of the homeless vets that were begging on the streets.  Wild-eyed, or blank-stared, the memories of their faces color everything that I have heard, read, or seen about the war since.  And I have heard, read, and seen a lot.  Stories from the fathers of friends who fought in the war, lessons from school, movies like Full Metal Jacket and Platoon-from these sources I have cobbled together a picture of that hot, wet, chaotic, horrific place and time.

But I am not sure that I have truly felt that I had even the faintest understanding of what it might actually have been like.  Not, that is, until I read Tim O'Brien's stunning book The Things They Carried.  Neither entirely fact nor entirely fiction, O'Brien uses a series of short stories and vignettes to tell the tale of Alpha Company, a group of soldiers based, in part, on the real men that O'Brien served with during the war.  The stories meander from stateside to the jungles of Viet Nam, from childhood to middle age, detailing how each experience prepares or informs or explains the person that Tim was or is or may yet become.

I will admit to having some difficulty at first with the non-linear narrative, and with the fact that I was never sure what was true and what was made-up.  But the genius of this work is that you soon realize that it doesn't matter.  In fact, the way that the book is put together and the inability to tell fact from fiction ends up doing a better job describing what living through that experience was like than any straight forward telling could.  O'Brien and his fellow soldiers lived a reality that most of us will never experience, and can never truly comprehend, where time was skewed, day and night traded places, where extraordinary circumstances became ordinary, and where the ordinary world as most of us know it became a dream that you couldn't let yourself believe in.

My favorite section of the book (if favorite is even the right word) is the story of how O'Brien almost ran away to Canada rather than go to war.  Part of O'Brien's extreme talent is an ability to use words to paint not just a visual but an emotional picture for the reader, and I was able to feel how deeply terrified he was at the prospect of war.  I felt his ambivalence about running away, about choosing the possibility of death over the certainty of shame and embarrassment.  But the thing I found most stunning, and the line I would consider the most "controversial" of the whole piece, is this, "I passed through towns with familiar names, through the pine forests and down to the prairie, and then to Viet Nam, where I was a soldier, and then home again.  I survived, but it's not a happy ending.  I was a coward. I went to war."
Given the hyper-patriotism of the US since 9-11, and our unquestioning assumption that every soldier is brave and heroic,  this simple statement stopped me dead in my tracks.  It felt almost sacrilegious.  Are we allowed to say that not going to war is more courageous than going?  What does that say about us as a society, that we are find ourselves so often in armed conflicts?  Is it bravery and strength, or is it because we don't want to be judged as wanting by the rest of the world?  What would happen if our young men and women, en masse, simply refused to go the next time we try to send them into harm's way?  Would it be courageous or cowardly?  Regardless of where any one of us comes down on that particular idea, what O'Brien's work has done is illustrate for those of us that weren't there that nothing is as simple and straightforward in war as those of us sitting at home watching it on our televisions thinks it is.

Teaching Resources:  
National Endowment for the Arts Teaching Guide 
ReadWriteThink Lesson Plans 
Web English Teacher Lesson Plans