A Hip Collection of Young Adult Materials: realistic fiction

Showing posts with label realistic fiction. Show all posts

The The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh [audio book]

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh [audio book]

Random House Audio; New York, 2011
ISBN: 978037878939
Unabridged
9 sound discs (ca. 660 min.) : digital ; 4 3/4 in.
Compact discs, duration: 11:00:00
Read by: Tara Sands

Plot Summary:
Victoria has just turned 18 and is now being turned out of a girl's home in San Francisco. She is rebellious and a loner that has not had good past relationships with people that she has encountered in life. She is reclusive and spends all of her time with flowers and with the language of flowers that was taught to her by a past guardian (the only woman that she was close to). The storyline switches back and forth between her life and the streets, eating off strangers plates and sleeping the wilderness, to her life with the guardian that she became close to. In her past she lived with Elizabeth whom she was difficult with at first and did everything she could to be kicked out, but with whom she finally bonds with and loves in her own way. Elizabeth lives on a farm and attends farmer's markets and lives her life for the plants that she grows; she instills a love for flowers and the meaning (or language) that every flower holds. But Victoria is a misguided young girl that, in the end, feels she will be left behind and on accident sets a fire that consumes almost all of Elizabeth's plants. After many missed connections and hurt feelings Victoria is taken away from Elizabeth and placed in the girl's home that she stays at until she is emancipated at 18.
In the current day story Victoria is hard from all of her disappointments in life and lives off of the street barely making it until she gets a job at a flower shop where she can use her talent and her love of flowers to make people happy and make business boom. She attends a flower market where she meets a boy that can communicate with her through the language because she knew him from her former life with Elizabeth. They end up having a tenuous relationship and eventually she gets pregnant and leaves him attempting to raise the baby alone. She is unsuccessful and leaves the baby with him, while she starts her own flower business and gets her life together. When she meets him again, he has left the child with Elizabeth, they all reconcile and work on trying to be the family that they always should have been.

Critical Evaluation:
Tara Sands did an excellent job reading this book. Her voice was hard at times when it needed to be for the character of Victoria and it was precise and knowing when she studied her language of flowers. The parallel stories in the book between Victoria's past and present life were wonderful to illustrate how she becomes the person that she is. Her character development and the past experiences enable the reader to understand how a young girl would prefer to be alone on the streets rather than doing something else with her life. The story is accented well with the language of flowers being how Victoria copes with talking to people and understanding the world around her. It shows that she had a connection with something that could not hurt her and in the end her dedication to it saves her. The book reads at a good pace and the Victorian language mixed with present day San Francisco give the novel a nostalgic tone.

Reader's Annotation:
When Victoria turned 18 she was put out of a girl's home and ended up on the streets of San Francisco; this book chronicles her love of flowers and how she got the life that she leads and where it will lead her if she wants it to.

Websites to look Into:
http://www.randomhouse.com/rhpg/features/vanessa_diffenbaugh/
https://camellianetwork.org/

http://www.facebook.com/vanessadiffenbaugh

The Author:
Vanessa Diffenbaugh is also the founder of the Camellia Network, and the mission of the Camellia Network is to create a nationwide movement to support youth transitioning from foster care.
Awards:
New York Times Bestseller
Alex Awards nominations, 2011 & 2012

Similar Books:
"Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn
"Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail" by Cheryl Strayed

Booktalking Ideas:
Discussing homelessness
Showing the actual book that describes the language of flowers that is used in the book.

Genre:
Adult Crossovers, Culture, Fiction, Realistic Fiction

Interest Age:
16+

Challenge Issues:
Homelessness
The main challenge of this book is that the main character is homeless and feels no need not to be for the most part. She faces situations that are dangerous to herself and also for a child. To combat this I would say that she makes her life better and attempts to improve herself over time, and in the end she succeeds. But it is also important to understand people that are homeless and that is present through her story that she tells.

Why this Audio Book?
I listened to this audio book on a road trip and I found the reader to be wonderful and the book so engaging and touching. It deals with homelessness and the pressures of family and society when you are on your own in the world. I think that it is a good book for young adults to read (or listen to) in order to get a different perspective on life.

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson [book]

New York, N.Y. : Viking, c2009
278 p. ; 22 cm
ISB: 9780670011100

Plot Summary:
Lia Overbrook is on the verge on death in her quest to be thin. Her estranged best friend Cassie dies at the beginning of the novel due to their dangerous flirtation with being the thinnest. Cassie continues to haunt Lia throughout the book leaving Lia to feel guilt and confusion about losing her friend, not helping her and continuing to lose in her own struggle. After going to the scene of Cassie's death, Lia meets Elijah and forms a loose connection with him.
Her weight plumets in the novel to 85 pounds and in a riveting scene she severly cuts herself and is taken to the hospital. She has her family around her and they are concerned but she lies to them with tricks to hide her weight and eventually she must be sent to a therapist who recoommends that she be sent to a psychiatric hospital. She runs to Elijah in desperation but is left alone once again on the brink of death having a final conversation with Cassie about whether to live or die- she then calls her mother to get help.

Critical Evaluation:
This book is extremely well written and devastating to read. Lia's character is so tragic and the reader is taken through her ongoing themes of rage against the ones that love her, competition with her friend, self hatred, and ongoing depression that leads to her near death experience. The book is written from day to day thoughts and you can see the life in sporadic glimpses of Lia wanting food and loving her family. The book is written honestly and it shows the real story of what teenage girls go through and how being thin can be deemed all important.

Reader's Annotation:
Lia is a wintergirl, she is stuck between living and death with her anorexia and her self destructive habits... can her family or the ghost of her other wintergirl help her or cause her to fall deeper into winter?

Websites to Look Into:
http://madwomanintheforest.com/

The Author:
Anderson is said to read the letters, e-mail messages, and posts sent to her from teens and that is how she crafts some of her important works and responses.

Similar Books:
"Speak" by Laurie Halse Anderson
"Twisted" by Laurie Halse Anderson
"Thin" by Grace Bowman

Booktalking Ideas:
Girls self- esteem and eating disorders discussion

Notes:
A Junior Library Guild selection

Genre:
Realistic Fiction

Interest Age:
13+

Challenge Issues:
Eating Disorders
The book faces that very real issue of dangerous eating disorders for females, and it ends in death for one of the characters so it can seem very intense. I would combat this with the fact that it shows a real aspect of the dangerous ends of eating disorders for females, and encourages them to speak out about them.

Why this Book?
I love this book and the truths that it is able to show about girls and the pressures that they face about their bodies. I think that it is important that women know that they are not alone in the struggle and what the dire consequences can be.

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan [book]

New York : Knopf, 2007, c2006
183 p. ; 21 cm
ISBN: 9780375835339

Plot Summary:
For Nick music is his life... and his ex was his life until she broke up with him. Norah's life is about getting ready for college, handling her best friend, and getting over her ex. Over the course of one night that Nick's band plays at a club Nick and Norah chance meet and spend the entire night together. After Nick's band plays he gets ready to watch the next show when he ex starts to approach him to say hello, in a flurry Nick asks if Norah (a stranger next to him) if she will pretend to be his girlfriend and they kiss. It also turns that Norah is semi- friends with Nick's ex girlfriend and that she has inadvertently already had the pleasure of hearing his mixed tapes that he made for her (she loves them). They leave the club because Norah needs a ride home for her and her friend, but Nick's car won't work at first so Nick's friends, in an attempt to fix Nick and Norah up, take Norah's best friend with them to drop her off. When alone Nick and Norah struggle with their ideas of liking one another and leaving the ghosts of their exes behind. Later in the night Norah encounters her ex, who just returned to the country, and he insults her in front of Nick, letting Nick see a more vulnerable side to Norah that she had hidden previously.
They go from club to club to restaurant to walking the streets of New York until sunrise. Their witty banter, their incorrigible friends and their constant run ins with their exes make for interesting adventures and conversation.

Critical Evaluation:
The entire book takes place over the span of one night, so it is short and sweet. The authors are wonderful in speaking for their similarly gendered characters, and the book has a constant flow from each character and the way that they think. I felt as if this book could give hope to people who were getting over being in love and having it not work out. I thought that the language was easy to read, and that there were a lot of curse words- but it fit the punk rock theme of the book. It was nice to hear both sides of the story in hearing the constant thoughts of Nick and Norah throughout the storyline together; it makes the audience feel as if they understand the whole story better and how different girls and boys may think.

Reader's Annotation:
Nick and Norah meet for a night under the pretense of being in a fake relationship... but as the night continues on it might not prove to be fake for much longer.

Websites to Look Into:
http://www.rachelcohn.com/
http://www.davidlevithan.com/

The Authors:
The authors were friends and Rachel came up with the idea for the novel. David ran with it and they wrote the novel by writing it chapter by chapter and sending it back and forth to each other.

Similar Books:
"Dash and Lily's Book of Dares" by Rachel Cohn
"The Realm of Possibility" by David Levithan
"How they Met and Other Stories" by David Levithan

Booktalking Ideas:
The fact that the book takes place over 1 night- how many things can change in a time span
Gathering a list of other books that take place over a night or day and comparing them

Genre:
Realistic Fiction/ Romance

Interest Age:
15+

Challenge Issues:
Sexuality & Language
The book does contain profane language, but it is befitting of the punk scene that they are in and many of the songs that they listen to, so I think that it is relevant to the book. The sexuality that takes place is all implied and/ or thought of, so there is not any real sex going on the book- just memories and thoughts about doing it, which most young adults have.

Why this Book?
This book can be for either a boy or a girl and I think that the subject matter of attempting to get over an ex is important and relevant to this young generation.

Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes by Chris Crutcher [book]

New York, N.Y. : Greenwillow Books, 1993
216 p. ; 24 cm
ISBN: 0688115527

Plot Summary:
Eric Calhoune was overweight and Sarah Byrnes was burned severely at a younger age. They became best friends early on because they were outsiders in high school, starting an underground publication and hiding behind they words. When Sarah Byrnes was admitted to a mental hospital because she dives into a catatonic state, Eric stays by her side attempting to bring her back through memories and stories. The basis of the title of the story revolves around the fact that Eric joined the swim team and lost weight, but continued to eat more so that he could "stay fat for Sarah Byrnes".
In the process of him trying to help Sarah he finds out about her father's mental illness and the fact that Sarah's scars may not have been accidental. Sarah eventually starts to speak and confide in Eric that she is terrified of her father and what he will do- Eric in turn tells an adult that he trusts and they try to help her. During this time Eric has heavy discussions with classmates about controversial topics. The book culminates in looking to find Sarah's mother, Eric being inured by her father, and her father eventually being caught.

Critical Evaluation:
This book contains themes of friendship, free speech, and doing what is right. This book is very heavy and honest in the way that it relates to teen subjects of controversy. I found it to be very sad, but eye opening to the people that want answers or advice about the same topics. The book skips from diverse conversations about in depth topics to action scenes back to heart warming friendship. The language in the book is understandable

Reader's Annotation:
Sarah Byrnes is in a catatonic state. Her best friend Eric wants to help her come back by retelling stories and waiting her to speak to him; when she does he realizes that she wasn't speaking for a reason and now he has to help her.

Websites to Look Into:
http://www.chriscrutcher.com/

The Author:
Crutcher is one of the most frequently banned authors in America, and he was a family therapist who specialized in abuse and neglect for 25 years, as well as a Child Protection Team leader for 30 years.

Awards:
California Young Reader Medal, 1997: Young Adult
Joan Fassler Memorial Book Award for Best Medical, 1995: Related Children's Book
ALA, 1995: Best Book for Young Adults
South Dakota Library Association Young Adult Reading Program (YARP), 1995: Best Books
School Library Journal, 1996: Best Book

Similar Books:
"Whale Talk" by Chris Crutcher
"Iron Man" by Chris Crutcher

Booktalking Ideas:
At risk teens can use a book to relate to
A bookmark for teens that shows books that have real discussions about controversial topics

Genre:
Realistic Fiction

Interest Age:
13+

Challenge Issues:
Violence & Controversial teen subject matter
The bullying issues and the violence that Sarah endures is strong content but necessary for teens to know that they can speak their mind and overcome these challenges in life. The other issues that are discussed in the book are necessary to talk about because they affect teens lives and reading this book can show them that they are not alone.

Why this Book?
It deals with very real topics for teens such as being uncomfortable with the way that you look, being an outsider, abortion, and bullying. I think that they are important to discuss honestly and the book does well to bring them to light and debate about them.