The People Could Fly

I have not had a lot of experience with Black folk tales. To be honest, Virginia Hamilton's The People Could Fly was my first exposure to these tales. As I was reading them I was upset that I hadn't had more exposure to these kinds of tales. They are full of great lessons and stories: stories of trickery, honesty, life lessons and freedom. There is so much to be learned from these tales. They could easily be paired with Native American trickster tales, and I don't understand why these Black folk tales aren't regularly implemented into primary and secondary language arts classes.

It is exactly this type of literature that can be used to send a powerful message to students of color that their background and their heritage is valuable. By excluding them from the classroom, it's like saying that they have nothing to offer. These kinds of stories don't have to be saved for Black History Month, either. They can be used in a short story unit, a folk tale unit, a history class, an American literature class or unit and more. Students of any race, ethnicity, heritage, religious background, sexual orientation, and so on can connect with or learn something from these texts. They can compare them with tales they know, and discuss the similarities and differences. They can talk about how freedom is a universal desire. They can discover how magic and talking animals are symbols for deeper expressions.

Because this was my first experience with "Gullah" and other Black vernacular tales, I did have a bit of a difficult time understanding a few of them; I had to read them out loud to get the message. That being said, I thoroughly appreciated the blurbs at the end of the stories that gave a little history and context to them. It helped me to connect with them, it helped me to understand them, and overall it helped me to appreciate them more. I also enjoyed the chronology. I do not know if that was intentional, or if it just happened that way, but I liked seeing the tales move from folky, mythic trickster-like "Gullah" tales to tales of freedom, all of which were incredibly powerful.

Sold

Sold is a fantastic piece of literature. It illustrates, in an almost episodic way, the world of child sex trafficking. We all know it exists, but generally turn a blind eye to it. Perhaps it is out of guilt, or maybe it is because we feel helpless. Either way, Sold does not let you turn a blind eye. It stares you in the face and you must tackle the topic, and your feelings, head on. Most surprisingly, Sold manages to utilize a variety of techniques that seem to be saved for novel writing. Maybe it is not uncommon for verse novels to use literary elements such as foreshadowing, rising action, climax or falling action but it was a first for me and I appreciated the depth that the inclusion of these literary elements provided to the story.

On a lighthearted note, Sold seems to illustrate two seemingly universal truths. One being that all adolescent girls will develop a crush on someone at some point in their life, as seen in the poems about Krishna, and another being that all adolescent girls love sweets, as illustrated by the many poems that include candy and sweet cakes. Just by including these two elements into the text, I found myself better able to connect with Lakshmi's character. These smaller elements also seemed to invoke the message that girls who are sold into the sex trade are more than victims - they are girls with families, crushes, likes and dislikes, and lives that shaped them prior to their misfortunes. In some way it offers a sense of hope that, if these girls can be rescued, that things might be okay.

Because of the complex nature of this verse novel, I think it has a lot to offer both adults and adolescents. More specifically, in a classroom setting this text could be used in a variety of ways. The poems can be looked at on an individual level, without a back story, and still provide a meaning. Or, the poems can be read as they are intended to be read - as a collection - and the discussion can be had about how poetry employs literary elements to portray a message, make a collection more interesting and so on. A text like this also provides a great segue into discussing topics such as social justice and other inequalities in the world that we seem to turn a blind eye to. Ultimately, this text can be used in a variety of valuable ways because of its complexity; it would be a shame to not take advantage of all this text affords.

JoyFul Noise

As a great lover of nature, I really appreciated the insect theme of this poetry book. Each poem was a surprisingly emotional journey through the life of the insect at hand. It is obvious that Fleischman put a lot of thought into each poem. I often forgot that I was reading the words of an insect that couldn't speak. These poems made it seem natural that a bee or a preying mantis would be able to tell me about their life. I found it entertaining, educational and believable.

Several of the poems really "spoke" to me. One of these was "Mayflies". It reminded me of a time when my fiance had purchased a new car, and decided to drive it up north to show to his friends. It was Mayfly mating season, and he ended up driving through a thick cloud of mating flies. They caked his windshield, the hood of his car and anything else they could adhere to. While I was reading this poem, I couldn't help but be a little perturbed with my fiance that he would kill these little mayflies when they only had a short time to live anyway. After reading this poem, I took a step back and laughed. I'd been empathizing with an insect! I think the poem certainly did its job in getting the reader (me) to see the world of insects from a totally different perspective.

What makes Joyful Noise so memorable is that it is, as it says on the cover, a book of "poems for two voices". The message and playfulness and joyful, sometimes serious nature of the poetry come across easily while reading it. The only flaw is that, as a piece of text, it is somewhat hard to gauge what the full "out-loud" effect would be. I can't help but wonder, would the message come across to me in the same way? Would hearing the poem make it mean something different to me than what I feel when reading it?

I think this book has a lot to offer adolescents. Joyful Noise is full of poems that are sure to spark an interest in their minds about the poetry genre. I think it is a great alternative to offer students so that they know that poetry isn't all sonnets and haikus. I think it is also important to point out that these poems offer an opportunity for students to participate in the taking of a different perspective, which seems to be a common struggle in secondary education. They could even do an exercise where they work in groups to come up with a poem to "add" to the collection. There is personal, group, literary and educational value in Fleischman's work and it would be a shame not to take advantage of all it has to offer.

Looking For Alaska

In reading Looking for Alaska, I was impressed by how multi-faceted each of the characters were. It didn't seem as though there were any one dimensional characters. Everyone had a backstory: Pudge and his life in Florida, the Colonel and his mom and his dreams, Alaska and her traumatic past, Takumi and his secretive nature, etc. Most importantly, the characters serve as perfect examples of the impassioned, impulsive and melodramatic nature of teenagers.

The realness and complexity of these characters, as well as other elements, make this story very credible. For example, there are multiple instances of adolescent deviant behavior: drinking, having sex, swearing, smoking, bending rules. However, at no time are any of these things condoned or made out to be acceptable forms of adolescent behavior. Engaging in this behavior eventually results in the very worst of consequences.

This novel is relevant to all adolescents, regardless of whether or not they've engaged in "risky" behaviors. Even the 'sex' scene plays a valuable role: it exposes the vast differences in value between purely carnal relationships and deeper, emotional relationships. Another reason this novel is so valuable can be summed up nicely in the words of Michael Cart: "Another value of young adult literature is its capacity for fostering understanding, empathy, and compassion by offering vividly realized portraits of the lives - exterior and interior - of individuals who are unlike the reader, In this way, young adult literature invites its readership to embrace the humanity it shares with those who - if not for the encounter in reading - might forever remain strangers or - worse - irredeemably 'other'" (Cart 3).

Looking for Alaska exemplifies all of the aforementioned qualities of valuable adolescent literature with themes of hope, life, death, finding oneself, finding the truth and, ultimately, forgiveness.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part - Time Indian, Sherman Alexie

In this novel, the major theme that resonates with me is the theme of leaving the world you know for a world which will, hopefully, be able to help you succeed in the long run. On some level, I think all readers (so long as they have been an adolescent at one point or another) can relate to this theme; all young people have that moment when they say “I'm ready to leave. I'm ready to move beyond this place.” But, like is also expressed in the novel, not all people get that opportunity, and so it needs to be seized when it presents itself.
Although the story revolves around and the narrator is a young man, I still was able to connect his experiences to my life. Several times I felt as though I knew exactly what he was feeling. [large excerpt removed for privacy reasons - but the teacher knows what's there!]
I appreciate this novel because it isn't often that narrators (or authors, I should say) are so comfortable with their writing. For example, Junior talks about uncomfortable topics quite frequently: breasts, masturbation, alcoholism, abuse, death. In most young adult novels I've read, albeit written by white authors, the narrator implies an uncomfortable situation but never delves into it. Even though it made me a little uncomfortable at times, probably just because I'm predisposed to be a little uncomfortable, I really enjoyed that Sherman Alexie didn't dawdle. He laid it out there. It seemed to say to me: These things are REAL! These things are what happen in the world. Like Michael Cart says in his article, “That period of passage called 'young adulthood' is a unique part of life, distinguished by unique needs that are – at minimum — physical, intellectual, emotional, and societal in nature” (Cart 2). I think it is safe to say that authors like Sherman Alexie are helping meet these needs by writing novels to which adolescents can fully relate to. Through his writing, he seems to know that the real and uncomfortable things are what students relate to, and it is so important that we bring it up.
I think the only issue that could arise with this book is that because it is a male author and a male main character, it may be a slight turn-off to younger female audiences. Nevertheless, this book has a lot of offer adolescents, male or female. Everyone can learn something from or relate to Junior's trials in some way. He is raw and real and makes you laugh and cry all at once. Even if there had been no lesson to learn or message to relate to in this novel, at the very least the reader would get to experience the height of different emotions. Just being allowed to feel in that way should make the story valuable to all who read it.

Cart, Michael. "The Value of Young Adult Literature." 1-3.