You Hear Me?

Poems and writing by teenage boys

Edited by Betsy Franco

This book is a collection of writings (poetry and prose) in the voice of the adolescent male. The topics of the writings include a wide range of topics: school, dads, children, drugs, love, and more.  The writings in this collection are true and honest and they, at times, typify the voice of the young adolescent male. At other times they are the voice of a much wiser, more mature and experienced person, as in the poem “Carabao Dreams” by Timoth Arevalo, “sadness is not the absence of happiness/but your incapacity to witness its presence”. Another example of adolescent wisdom from “I Refuse” by Steven Hill, “When I see the word ‘father’, the first person that comes to mind is myself…I refuse to be a deadbeat dad because no excuse is a good enough excuse to abandon your own creation.” I found most of the writings insightful and valuable.

Twilight The Graphic Novel Volume II

Volume II is the graphic novel for the second half of the Twilight novel. I liked the beautiful artwork in Volume I and the artwork in Volume II is equally beautiful.  I like the cover design of both books and the way that they join together to form one picture. The books are that way too. Both books joined together tell the whole Twilight story. The artwork develops the characterization and setting throughout the novel. The action scenes are especially interesting and the use of color gave scenes a very nice touch. 

Twilight The Graphic Novel Vol I

I was not a big fan of Twilight and only recently have have become a fan of graphic novels, but the combination of the two in Twilight The Graphic Novel really worked well. The drawings in this book are of high quality and the composition is beautiful and detailed. The drawings gave me plenty of information to help develop the setting and the characters throughout the story, with help from the dialogue bubbles of course. I think one of the reasons I liked the graphic novel is because the drawings add to the mystique of the characters and I did not have a particular image in my mind about the characters when I read the novel and I haven’t seen the movie so I the images were fresh for me.  The drawings featured lots of gorgeous, whispy hair, freakishly large, but perfect eyes, sepia coloring, and several extreme close ups. All of it worked for me.

I would recommend the book to students, especially reluctant readers who have not yet read the novel.  Volume I feels like the first half of a novel so the story feels incomplete and I think it would need to be quickly followed by Volume II. 

Tales From Outer Suburbia

by Shaun Tan

This book is written as several different vignettes written in different styles, some of which I liked better than others. I liked “Distant Rain” the poem that appears to be pieced together and goes over several pages. The artwork, drawings, and varied handwriting throughout that poem made it visually interesting and fun to read. I especially liked “Undertow” and “Grandpa’s Story”. In the story “Broken Toys”, there is a beautiful two-page spread drawing of one of the characters but turn the page and there are two pages of solid text with no pictures. I found myself wanting pictures, wanting to find something in those pages other than words.

I don’t know if I would call this book a graphic novel because the stories have a common theme, but the characters and plot are not the same throughout. Even so, the book is interesting and fun to read. 

American Born Chinese

By Gene Luen Yang

In this graphic novel, the Monkey King studies the four major heavenly disciplines to achieve immortality; a young Chinese boy, Jin Wang, starts at a new school and wants to fit in; Chin Kee, Chinese cousin of a boy named Danny, makes it his personal responsibility to humiliate Danny as much as possible. These three seemingly unrelated stories converge to deliver a really important message in a very entertaining way.

I loved the way the stories were brought together in this book. I found the characters very interesting and funny and found myself laughing out loud at several parts of the book. The comic book/super hero component in the Monkey King’s story worked well with the more realistic story of Jin Wang and the outlandish story of Chin Kee. When the stories converge, as I knew they would, it’s a little contrived but still funny with a powerful punch.

     

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

By Sherman Alexie

Art by Ellen Forney

Arnold Spirit lives on a reservation but decides to transfer to the white school in town because a teacher tells him he has a future but only if he gets out of the reservation, forever. Though Arnold, also known as Junior, is confused, he looks around at the people on the rez and decides he needs to leave. The novel is Junior telling the story of how it all happened.

One of the most outstanding qualities of the book is the voice of Arnold. He is honest, confused, adolescent, and funny.  He is honest and open about all the beautiful and ugly things about his family and the reservation. The story is peppered with drawings that Arnold is supposed to have drawn and they add to Arnold’s character development and, sometimes, to the books humor. His raw commentary about the tragedies that surround him makes the reader sympathize with his plight without feeling sorry for him. When he recounts events in their ironic truth, it helps the reader understand how Arnold is making decisions and choices that will impact the rest of his life.  I really enjoyed this book and I think adolescents will appreciate its wit and honesty.

Stuck in Neutral

by Terry Trueman

Shawn McDaniel is fourteen years old, has a gift of remembering every conversation he has ever heard, and has what you might call out of body experiences. Unfortunately, Shawn has Cerebral Palsy, has several seizures daily, and has no control over any muscles in his body: not his legs, arms, eyes, tongue, neck…nothing. He can’t speak and share his brilliance with the world.  In fact, most people see him as retarded, or even as a vegetable. Shawn thinks his father is trying to kill him to end his suffering. He seems to be suffering, but Shawn is actually not in pain at all. In fact if he could speak he would tell his father that he doesn’t want to die.

The story is told from Shawn’s point of view and it’s interesting to imagine his world from his eyes and mind and then imagine what he looks like to everyone else in the book.  He sounds like a regular teenage boy, he just can’t move a muscle. The novel got me to think about people who are in Shawn’s position, not able to communicate, even by blinking the eyes but who are lucid and otherwise well.  In the Author’s Note at the end of the book Mr. Trueman explains that his son has Cerebral Palsy, like Shawn. If he is trying to raise awareness of the possibilities of there being much more to people like them than meets the eye, he has definitely done it for me.

Monster

by Walter Dean Myers

Steve is sixteen-years old and on trial for felony murder. He is accused to being an accomplice to a robbery of a drug store in which the store owner was killed, but he says he didn’t do it, that he is not guilty.

Steve says he feels like his life is a movie. The novel is written in screenplay format, with Steve’s journal entries in which he explains his thoughts and fears while in jail are inserted throughout the novel. He faces 20 years minimum jail time if convicted.  The screenplay format of the story works well for the story as it allows the reader to easily visualize the plot. 

I felt great empathy for Steve’s parents and ambiguous about Steve throughout the novel. How much he was actually involved in the crime and his guilt or innocence is really meant to be determined by the reader. I found myself wanting a positive outcome for Steve to save his family heartbreak even though I thought he was probably guilty. I would definitely recommend this book to teens because I think it offers a powerful lesson about how fast life could change with one bad choice.

Mockingbird

by Kathryn Erskine

Caitlin is a 5^th grader with Asperger’s syndrome. She likes things in black and white, has trouble making friends and coping with things in her every day life, like recess and group work, but she is also a very talented artist and an excellent reader. Her brother Devon was killed in a school shooting and Caitlin and her father are forced to move on without him. Caitlin’s mother had died of cancer several years before. Caitlin’s pursuit of closure for her and for her father becomes a love project.

I completely loved this book.  Caitlin’s voice is consistent throughout the story (“I Look At The Person”) and she was funny and sweet and brilliant.  Her family’s loss is completely unfathomable and suffering the loss of a child while continuing to raise a child like Caitlin made her father a special hero to me. I loved the parallels with To Kill a Mockingbird, one of my all-time favorite books. I also loved how the message of empathy was carried throughout the book and how it applied to many characters in many situations throughout the story, not just to Caitlin.