The Sun Is Also a Star
Nicola Yoon, 2016
Random House
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780553496680
Summary
Finalist, 2016 National Book Award
Natasha
I’m a girl who believes in science and facts. Not fate. Not destiny. Or dreams that will never come true.
I’m definitely not the kind of girl who meets a cute boy on a crowded New York City street and falls in love with him. Not when my family is twelve hours away from being deported to Jamaica. Falling in love with him won’t be my story.
Daniel
I’ve always been the good son, the good student, living up to my parents’ high expectations. Never the poet. Or the dreamer.
But when I see her, I forget about all that. Something about Natasha makes me think that fate has something much more extraordinary in store—for both of us.
The Universe
Every moment in our lives has brought us to this single moment. A million futures lie before us. Which one will come true? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1972
• Where—Jamaica
• Raised—Jamaica; Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA
• Education—M.F.A., Emerson College
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California
Nicola Yoon is the New York Times bestselling author of the young adult books Everything, Everything (2015) and The Sun Is Also a Star (2016). She grew up in Jamaica (the island) and Brooklyn (on Long Island).
Yoon's path to writing was a roundabout one. As a child, she loved to write, starting when she was 8 or 9, yet by high school, she'd become a math nerd, and in college she majored in electrical engineering. It wasn't until her senior college year, when she took a creative writing class, that she rediscovered her love of writing.
Nonetheless, Yoon went on to become a financial data programmer for investment firms. She worked in that field for several years and then decided to enroll in a creative writing program at Emerson College, where she earned an M.F.A. Still, she worked for another 20-some years—while writing on the side—before getting her first book deal.
That first book was Everything, Everything—a bestseller, a "best book of the year" on many lists, and a 2017 motion picture. Yoon says her inspiration came with the birth of her daughter after which she worried obsessively about her child's safety. Anything, she said, would make her frantic. Then she began to imagine a child whose life truly was threatened by the world, for ever, simply by being in it. How would an overly protective mother respond to those threats, and what shape would the mother-daughter relationship take?
That germ of an idea grew into Everything Everything, which was released in 2015. Yoon's husband, by the way, provided the artwork for the book. Her debut was followed by The Sun Is Also a Star in 2016, which has also been widely praised.
Yoon lives in Los Angeles, California, with her family. She’s also a hopeless romantic who firmly believes that you can fall in love in an instant and that it can last forever. (Adapted from the publisher and various online sources.)
Book Reviews
The Sun Is Also a Star is an enormous undertaking: an eclectic dictionary mashed up with Romeo and Juliet and the '90s rom-com One Fine Day. But Yoon grounds everything in Daniel and Natasha's instant, vital connection…and the conundrum that follows when they realize the universe has brought them together only to part them. It's a deep dive into love and chance and self-determination—and the many ways humans affect one another, often without even knowing it.
Jen Doll - New York Times Book Review
(Starred review.) [I]mpressively multilayered.... With a keen eye for detail and a deep understanding of every character she introduces, Yoon weaves an intricate web of threads connecting strangers.... A moving and suspenseful portrayal of a fleeting relationship. (12 & up).
Publishers Weekly
[Natasha and Daniel] tell their stories in alternating chapters.... Both relatable and profound, the bittersweet ending conveys a sense of hopefulness that will resonate with teens. (Gr 8 & Up) —Kristin Anderson, Columbus Metropolitan Library System, OH
School Library Journal
(Starred review.) Lyrical and sweeping, full of hope, heartbreak, fate...and the universal beating of the human heart.
Booklist
(Starred review.) Yoon’s lush prose chronicles an authentic romance that’s also a meditation on family, immigration, and fate.... [T]this profound exploration of life and love tempers harsh realities with the beauty of hope in a way that is both deeply moving and satisfying (14 & up).
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
A Torch Against the Night (Embers in the Ashes, #2)
Sabaa Tahir, 2016
Penguin Books
464 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781101998878
Summary
Elias and Laia are running for their lives.
Following the events of the Fourth Trial, an army led by Masks hunts the two fugitives as they escape the city of Serra and journey across the vast lands of the Martial Empire.
Laia is determined to break int o Kauf—the Empire’s most secure and dangerous prison—and save her brother, whose knowledge of Serric steel is the key to the Scholars' future. And Elias is determined to stay by Laia’s side...even if it means giving up his own chance at freedom.
But Elias and Laia will have to fight every step of the way if they’re going to outsmart their enemies: the bloodthirsty Emperor Marcus, the merciless Commandant, the sadistic Warden of Kauf, and, most heartbreaking of all, Helene—Elias’s former friend and the Empire’s newest Blood Shrike.
Helene’s mission is horrifying, unwanted, and clear: find the traitor Elias Veturius and the Scholar slave who helped him escape...and kill them both. (From the publisher.)
This is the second book in the series. The first book is An Ember in the Ashes (2015).
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1981-82
• Raised—London, England (UK)
• Raised—Mojave Desert, California, USA
• Education—B.A., University of California-Los Angeles
• Currently—lives in Bay Area of San Francisco, California
Sabaa Tahir was born in London, England, but raised in a small outpost in California's Mojave Desert. She is the daughter of Pakistani immigrants who own a small 18-room motel at a U.S. military base. Growing up, Tahir was an outcast among her peers—the butt of bullying and taunts that she and her family should "go back to where they came from." That childhood experience of exclusion had a profound affect on Tahir's worldview.
Tahir left the desert at 17 to attend the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA) and after graduation took a job as a copy editor at the Washington Post. It was while working at the Post that she came across a news item that inspired her to write. A group of Pakistani women in the Indian-occupied region of Kashmir had lost all the men in their families. Husbands, sons, and fathers—all were taken away by the occupying forces; they disappeared without a clue as to where they were being held or what was happening to them.
That's the world we live in, Tahir realized. There was nothing she could do. Yet in her imagination, she could do something: she could create a world in which the oppressed could fight back. Out of that kernel, and after years writing and rewriting, came her first book, An Ember in the Ashes. The book is the first in a planned series and is already optioned for film. The second book, released in 2016, is A Torch Against the Night.
During the first book's creation, Tahir left the Washington Post, moved back to California with her husband, gave birth to two children, and continued writing. The family now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. (Adapted from Entertainment Weekly and other sources. Retrieved 9/6/2016.)
Book Reviews
The stakes here are high and the plot runs like a well-oiled machine, ratcheting up the tension with every chapter.
NPR.org
A Torch Against the Night is an unabashed page-turner that scarcely ever pauses for breath.
Christian Science Monitor
Fast-paced, exciting and full of adrenaline, A Torch Against The Night is everything fans of Tahir’s debut could possibly anticipate in a sequel.
Bucks County Courier Times
Delivers in every way.... The stakes have never been higher, and the tension is acutely felt as Elias and Laia run for their lives.
USA Today - Happy Ever After blog
(Starred review.) Tahir’s deft, polished debut alternates between two very different perspectives on the same brutal world, deepening both in the contrast. In a tale brimming with political intrigue and haunted by supernatural forces, the true tension comes from watching Elias and Laia struggle to decide where their loyalties lie.
Publishers Weekly
Told in the alternating voices of Elias, Laia, and Helene, this book is even darker and grimmer than the first, which readers will need to be familiar with in order to follow the twists and turns of the plot. Strong and compelling characters...and a number of action-packed sequences help keep things moving (Grade 9 & up). —Kathleen E. Gruver, Burlington County Library, Westampton, NJ
School Library Journal
(Starred review.) Tahir proves to be a master of suspense and a canny practitioner of the cliffhanger, riveting readers’ attention throughout.…[An] action-packed, breathlessly paced story.
Booklist
Tahir's follow-up to An Ember in the Ashes (2015) picks up right where Volume 1 left off, ratcheting up the tension (military and sexual) as well as the magic, the violence, and the stakes.... An excellent continuation of a series seemingly designed for readers of the political, bloody fantasy style du jour, set apart by an uncommon world (14 & up).
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, consider these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for A Torch Against the Night...then take off on your own:
1. In what ways have Laia and Eilas changed from An Ember in the Ashes?
2. What about Helene—is there a way in which this second book could be considered her story?
3. What does Tahir reveal about the bloodthirsty emperor, Marcus? What hidden depths to his character do we see in this book, which were not revealed in the first?
4. A new villain is added to the series: the Warden of Kauf prison. What do you make of him?
5. Two plot twists in this story: were you surprised?
6. Care to talk about the sexual tension between Elias and Laia?
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
Salt to the Sea
Ruta Sepetys, 2016
Penguin Young Readers
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780399160301
Summary
An epic novel that shines a light on one of the war's most devastating—yet unknown—tragedies.
World War II is drawing to a close in East Prussia and thousands of refugees are on a desperate trek toward freedom, many with something to hide.
Among them are Joana, Emilia, and Florian, whose paths converge en route to the ship that promises salvation, the Wilhelm Gustloff. Forced by circumstance to unite, the three find their strength, courage, and trust in each other tested with each step closer to safety.
Just when it seems freedom is within their grasp, tragedy strikes. Not country, nor culture, nor status matter as all ten thousand people—adults and children alike—aboard must fight for the same thing: survival.
Told in alternating points of view and perfect for fans of Anthony Doerr's Pulitzer Prize-winning All the Light We Cannot See, Erik Larson's Dead Wake, and Elizabeth Wein's Printz Honor Book Code Name Verity, this masterful work of historical fiction is inspired by the real-life tragedy that was the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff—the greatest maritime disaster in history.
As she did in Between Shades of Gray, Ruta Sepetys unearths a shockingly little-known casualty of a gruesome war, and proves that humanity and love can prevail, even in the darkest of hours (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—November 19, 1967
• Where—Detroit, Michigan, USA
• Education—B.S., Hillsdale College
• Currently—lives in Nashville, Tennessee
Ruta Sepetys (Roota Suh-pettys) is the Lithuanian-American author of three novels: Salt to the Sea (2016), a story of refugees on-board the real-life Wilhelm Gustloff; Out of the Easy (2013), set in New Orleans, Louisiana; and Between Shades of Gray (2011), set during the Soviet takeover of Lithuania.
Sepetys was born in Detroit, Michigan, the daughter of a Lithuanian refugee, who escaped from Stalin's Russia. Her father ended up spending nine years in refugee camps before making his way to the U.S.
Ruta's third novel, Salt to the Sea, has personal relevance to her family. Her father's cousin also fled Latvia and landed in East Prussia. From there, like characters in the novel, she hoped to escape by sea. Scheduled to sail on the Wilhelm Gustloff, fate intervened—she was transferred at the last minute to a different ship, and her life was spared. Decades later later, the cousin and her husband encouraged Ruta to tell the story of the thousands of refugees aboard the Wilhelm Gustloff.
Ruta Sepetys holds a B.S. in International Finance from Hillsdale College. While in school Sepetys also studied at the Centre d'etudes Europeennes in Toulon, France and at the ICN in Nancy, France.
Following graduation Sepetys moved to Los Angeles. In 1994 she launched Sepetys Entertainment Group, Inc., an entertainment management firm representing Grammy-award-winning guitarist Steve Vai, Orange County modern rock band Lit, and Emmy-nominated film composer Niels Bye Nielsen. In 2002 Sepetys was featured in Rolling Stone magazine’s "Women in Rock" special issue as a woman driven to make a difference.
Sepetys is on the Board of Advisors for the Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business at Belmont University and is also a director of the Make a Noise Foundation, a national non-profit that raises money for music education. She currently resides in Nashville, Tennessee. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 3/14/2016.)
Book Reviews
The pacing is swift as a thriller…the book's drama comes not simply from the battlefield action—the bombings, the armies on the move—but from the constant wounding fire of lies and revelations, self-deceptions and desperate ententes…It would be near blasphemous to use suffering on this scale as the backdrop to provide the beats of suspense and near escape if it weren't for Sepetys's clear commitment to preserving the memory of the forgotten, the drowned…once again, Ruta Sepetys acts as champion of the interstitial people so often ignored—whole populations lost in the cracks of history.
M.T. Anderson - New York Times Book Review
(Starred review.) [A] knockout historical novel...that offers insight into the ugly realities of WWII and culminates with a forgotten event, the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff.... Sepetys excels in shining light on lost chapters of history, and this visceral novel proves a memorable testament to strength and resilience in the face of war and cruelty (Ages 12 & up)
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Told alternately from the perspective of each of the main characters, the novel also highlights the struggle and sacrifices that ordinary people—children—were forced to make. At once beautiful and heart-wrenching —Elisabeth Clark, West Florida P.L.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) —[L]yrical prose, eye for detail, and...skillfully paced revelations.... Observations of war and loss, human cruelty, and hatred are unflinching.... [T]his little-known piece of history will leave readers weeping (Gr. 8 & up). —Kiera Parrott
School Library Journal
(Starred review.) This haunting gem of a novel begs to be remembered, and in turn, it tries to remember the thousands of real people its fictional characters represent. What it asks of us is that their memories, and their stories, not be abandoned to the sea.
Booklist
This book includes all the reasons why teens read: for knowledge, for romance, for amazing and irritating characters. This novel will break readers’ hearts and then put them back together a little more whole (Ages 12 to Adult). —Elizabeth Mills
VOYA
Sepetys combines research...with well-crafted fiction to bring to life another little-known story: the sinking (from Soviet torpedoes) of the German ship Wilhelm Gustloff.... The inevitability of the ending...doesn't change its poignancy.... Heartbreaking, historical, and a little bit hopeful (Ages 12-16).
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're made available. In the meantime, use these LitLovers talking points to kick off a discussion for Salt to the Sea...then take off on your own:
1. Ruta Sepetys tells her story through four different characters. How do the four differ from one another and, more importantly, what perspectives do they bring to the story? Why might the author have chosen four points of view as opposed to a single narrative?
2. Follow-up to Question 1: Clearly, the least sympathetic character is Alfred—he borders on cartoonish in his villainy. What is his role in the novel—what does he reveal about Germany's role in the last stages of the war, and how does he help set up events on-board the ship?
3. Talk about how the relationships unfold among Joana, Emilia, and Florian.
4. Describe the conditions on the Wilhelm Gustloff. What was the most difficult hardship for you to read about?
5. Even knowing the outcome of the story (it is a real life historical event), did you find yourself turning the pages quickly? If so, how does Sepetys create suspense even when the outcome is known?
6. How might you describe this story, despite its tragedy, as hopeful?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online of off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Sherman Alexie (Illus., Ellen Forney), 2007
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
240 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316013680
Summary
Winner, 2007 National Book Award
The story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation.
Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.
Heartbreaking, funny, and beautifully written, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which is based on the author's own experiences, coupled with poignant drawings by Ellen Forney that reflect the character's art, chronicles the contemporary adolescence of one Native American boy as he attempts to break away from the life he was destined to live.
With a forward by Markus Zusak, interviews with Sherman Alexie and Ellen Forney, and four-color interior art throughout, this edition is perfect for fans and collectors alike. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—October 7, 1966
• Raised—Spokane, Washington, Indian Reservation
• Education—B.A., Washington State University
• Awards—National Book Award; PEN/Faulkner Award
• Currently—lives in Seattle, Washington
Sherman Joseph Alexie, Jr. is an American poet, writer, and filmmaker. Much of his writing draws on his experiences as a Native American with ancestry of several tribes, growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. He lives in Seattle, Washington.
Childhood
Alexie was born in 1966 at Sacred Heart Hospital in Spokane, Washington, and spent his childhood on the Spokane Indian Reservation, located west of Spokane. His father, Sherman Joseph Alexie, was a member of the Coeur d'Alene tribe (though a grandfather was of Russian descent). Alexie's mother, Lillian Agnes Cox, was of Colville, Choctaw, Spokane and European American ancestry.
Alexie was born with hydrocephalus, a condition that occurs when there is an abnormally large amount of cerebral fluid in the cranial cavity. He underwent brain surgery when he was only six months old and was not expected to survive or, if he did, would be at high risk of mental disabilities. Alexie's surgery was successful and he survived with no mental damage but had other effects.
His father was an alcoholic who often left the house for days at a time. To support her six children, Alexie's mother Lillian sewed quilts and worked as a clerk at the Wellpinit Trading Post.
Alexie has described his life at the reservation school as challenging because he was constantly teased by other kids. He was nicknamed "The Globe" because his head was larger than usual due to the hydrocephalus. Until the age of seven, Alexie suffered from seizures and bedwetting and had to take strong drugs to control them. Because of his health problems, he was excluded from many of the activities that are rites of passage for young Indian males. However, he excelled academically, reading everything available, including auto repair manuals.
Education
In order to better his education, Alexie decided to leave the reservation and attend high school in Reardan, Washington, 22 miles off the reservation. The only Native American student, he excelled at his studies, became a star player on the basketball team, and was elected class president. He was also a member of the debate team.
His success in high school won him a scholarship in 1985 to Gonzaga University, a Roman Catholic university in Spokane. Originally enrolling in the pre-med program, he found he was squeamish during dissection in his anatomy classes. He switched to law but found that unsuitable, as well. Feeling pressure to succeed and beset with anxieity, he began drinking.
In 1987 Alexie dropped out of Gonzaga and enrolled at Washington State University. He was at a low point in his life when he enrolled in a creative writing course taught by Alex Kuo, a respected poet of Chinese-American background. Kuo served as a mentor to Alexie and gave him Songs of This Earth on Turtle's Back, an anthology by Joseph Bruchac. It was a book, Alexie later said, that changed his life—teaching him "how to connect to non-Native literature in a new way." He remained similarly inspired, however, by Native American poets.
With his new appreciation of poetry, Alexie started work on his first collection, The Business of Fancydancing: Stories and Viviane Poems, published in 1992. With that success, Alexie stopped drinking and quit school just three credits short of a degree. Three years later, however, in 1995 he finally attained his bachelor's from Washington State University.
Short stories
Some of Alexie's best-known works are The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993), a collection of short stories, and Smoke Signals (1998), a film based on that collection, for which he also wrote the screenplay.
His stories have been included in several anthologies, including The Best American Short Stories 2004, edited by Lorrie Moore; and Pushcart Prize XXIX of the Small Presses. Additionally, a number of his pieces have been published in various literary magazines and journals, as well as online publications.
His 2009 collection of short stories and poems, War Dances, won the 2010 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
Novels
Alexie's first novel, Reservation Blues (1995), revisits some of the characters from The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. Thomas Builds-the-Fire, Victor Joseph, and Junior Polatkin, who have grown up together on the Spokane Indian reservation, were teenagers in the short story collection. In Reservation Blues they are now adult men in their thirties. The novel received one of the fifteen 1996 American Book Awards.
Indian Killer (1996) is a murder mystery set among Native American adults in contemporary Seattle, where the characters struggle with urban life, mental health, and the knowledge there is a serial killer on the loose.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007) is a semi-autobiographical, coming-of-age story that began as a memoir of Alexie's life and family on the Spokane Indian reservation. The novel focuses on a fourteen-year-old Indian named Arnold Spirit and won the 2007 U.S. National Book Award for Young People's Literature. It also won the Odyssey Award as best 2008 audiobook for young people (read by the author himself).
Films
In 1998 Alexie broke barriers by creating the first all-Indian movie, Smoke Signals. Alexie based the screenplay on his short story collection, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, and characters and events from a number of Alexie's works make appearances in the film.
The Business of Fancydancing, written and directed by Alexie in 2002, explores themes of Indian identity, cultural involvement vs. blood quantum, living on the reservation or off it, and other issues around what makes someone a "real Indian." The title refers to the protagonist's choice to leave the reservation and make his living performing for predominantly white audiences. Much of the dialogue was improvised, based on real events in the actors' lives.
Style and themes
Alexie's poetry, short stories and novels explore themes of despair, poverty, violence, and alcoholism in the lives of Native American people living on and off the reservation. Although exploring grim subjects, the works are leavened by wit and humor.
According to Sarah A. Quirk from the Dictionary of Library Biography, Alexie asks three questions across all of his works:
What does it mean to live as an Indian in this time?
What does it mean to be an Indian man?
What does it mean to live on an Indian reservation?
The protagonists in most of his literary works exhibit a constant struggle with themselves and their own sense of powerlessness in white American society.
Alexie’s writings "blends elements of popular culture, Indian spirituality, and the drudgery of poverty-ridden reservation life to create his characters and the world they inhabit," according to Quirk. His work is laced with often startling humor.
Personal
In 2005, Alexie became a founding board member of Longhouse Media, a non-profit organization that teaches filmmaking skills to Native American youth. It holds to the belief that media can be used for both cultural expression and social change.
Alexie is married to Diane Tomhave, who is of Hidatsa, Ho-Chunk and Potawatomi heritage. They live in Seattle with their two sons. (Adapted from Wikipoedia. Retrieved 1/31/2016.)
Book Reviews
This is a gem of a book....may be [Sherman Alexie's] best work yet.
New York Times
Sure to resonate and lift spirits of all ages for years to come.
USA Today
Fierce observations and sharp sense of humor...hilarious language.
Newsday
[Alexie] has created an endearing teen protagonist in his own likeness and placed him in the here and now.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Exceptionally good....Arnold is a wonderful character.
Miami Herald
(Starred review.) Screenwriter, novelist and poet, Alexie bounds into YA with what might be a Native American equivalent of Angela’s Ashes, a coming-of-age story so well observed that its very rootedness in one specific culture is also what lends it universality, and so emotionally honest that the humor almost always proves painful (Ages 14-up).
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Exploring Indian identity, both self and tribal, Alexie's first young adult novel is a semiautobiographical chronicle of Arnold Spirit.... The teen's determination to both improve himself and overcome poverty, despite the handicaps of birth, circumstances, and race, delivers a positive message in a low-key manner (Grade 7–10). —Chris Shoemaker, New York Public Library
School Library Journal
Alexie's humor and prose are easygoing and well suited to his young audience, and he doesn't pull many punches as he levels his eye at stereotypes both warranted and inapt. A few of the plotlines fade to gray by the end, but this ultimately affirms the incredible power of best friends to hurt and heal in equal measure. —Ian Chipman
Booklist
(Starred review.) [S]harp wit with unapologetic emotion.... The reservation’s poverty and desolate alcoholism offer early mortality and broken dreams, but Junior’s knowledge that he must leave is rooted in love and respect for his family and the Spokane tribe.... [His] fluid narration deftly mingles raw feeling with funny, sardonic insight.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian:
1. How would you describe Arnold—both at the beginning of the book and at the end? In what ways does he change? What does he come to realize about being an Indian man?
2. What do you think about Arnold's comment, "I think the world is a series of broken dams and floods, and my cartoons are tiny little lifeboats”? Is his cartooning an escape that distracts him from learning how to face difficulties and disappointments in life? Or is it a necessary life saver? How would you console—or counsel—Arnold?
3. Do Ellen Forney's illustrations enhance the book for you? Did you find them enlightening, funny, endearing, or distracting?
4. Talk about life on the reservation. Consider Arnold's dental care (10 teeth pulled in a single day) and finding his mother's name in his science book. Contrast conditions at the white school off the reservation.
4. What do you think about Mr. P's remark: "The only thing you kids are being taught is how to give up"? Why does he say this to Arnold?
5. What is it about Arnold that eventually earns him the respect of the white kids in Reardon? Is their respect genuine?
6. Why do members of the tribe, even his best friend, feel Arnold is a traitor? Has he betrayed his community? What—or who—is Arnold's community?
7. Talk about Sherman Alexie's use of humor in this book. Why might he have employed it, especially in the face of grinding poverty and the tragedies that take place on the reservation?
8. What have you learned about life on a reservation after having read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian? We you surprised by the conditions on the reservation? Or did the book confirm what you'd known (or suspected) before?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Love That Split the World
Emily Henry, 2016
Penguin Young Readers
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781595148506
Summary
Emily Henry’s stunning debut novel is Friday Night Lights meets The Time Traveler’s Wife, and perfectly captures those bittersweet months after high school, when we dream not only of the future, but of all the roads and paths we’ve left untaken.
Natalie’s last summer in her small Kentucky hometown is off to a magical start…until she starts seeing the “wrong things.”
They’re just momentary glimpses at first—her front door is red instead of its usual green, there’s a pre-school where the garden store should be. But then her whole town disappears for hours, fading away into rolling hills and grazing buffalo, and Nat knows something isn’t right.
That’s when she gets a visit from the kind but mysterious apparition she calls “Grandmother,” who tells her: “You have three months to save him.”
The next night, under the stadium lights of the high school football field, she meets a beautiful boy named Beau, and it’s as if time just stops and nothing exists. Nothing, except Natalie and Beau. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Emily Henry is full-time writer, proofreader, and donut connoisseur. She studied creative writing at Hope College and the New York Center for Art & Media Studies, and now spends most of her time in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the part of Kentucky just beneath it. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
The YA world is buzzing about The Love That Split the World, a high school love story from debut author Emily Henry. It’s got all the ingredients of a riveting read, like time travel and a mythology twist. The book follows Natalie Clearly, eager to leave her Kentucky high school for the hallowed halls of the Ivy League, but the night before graduation, as the school gathers at the football stadium, the stadium lights flash and Natalie sees a vision of a handsome stranger. They flash again and he’s gone — but her life is changed forever.
Entertainment Weekly
[C]aptivates, both as a romance and as an imaginative rethinking of time and space. The relationship between Beau and Natalie sizzles while also reflecting the innocence of first love, and the unfolding mystery of their changing realities is enough to keep readers turning pages…. [A] story with depth, originality, and complexity.
Publishers Weekly
A well-written piece of magic realism about the price we pay for daring to love, and the price we pay if we don’t.
Booklist
Moments of introspection are balanced by fully realized secondary characters and occasional moments of hilarity. The story begins slowly but picks up speed and intensity as the clock runs out, ending in a conclusion of intricate twists.... While the love is so at-first-sight as to be clichéd and the cultural issues problematic, this debut is otherwise sensitive, lyrical, and deftly plotted.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
Nightbird
Alice Hoffman, 2015
Random House Children's Books
208 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385389587
Summary
In her first novel for middle-grade readers, bestselling author Alice Hoffman tells a bewitching story of love and friendship that is truly magical.
Twig lives in Sidwell, where people whisper that fairy tales are real. After all, her town is rumored to hide a monster. And two hundred years ago, a witch placed a curse on Twig’s family that was meant to last forever.
But this summer, everything will change when the red moon rises. It’s time to break the spell. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—March 16, 1952
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Raised—on Long Island, New York
• Education—B.A., Adelphi University; M.A., Stanford University
• Currently—lives in Boston, Massachusetts
Background
Alice Hoffman was born in New York City on March 16, 1952 and grew up on Long Island. After graduating from high school in 1969, she attended Adelphi University, from which she received a BA, and then received a Mirrellees Fellowship to the Stanford University Creative Writing Center, which she attended in 1973 and 74, receiving an MA in creative writing. She currently lives in Boston.
Hoffman’s first novel, Property Of, was written at the age of twenty-one, while she was studying at Stanford, and published shortly thereafter by Farrar Straus and Giroux. She credits her mentor, professor and writer Albert J. Guerard, and his wife, writer Maclin Bocock Guerard, for helping her to publish her first short story in the magazine Fiction. Editor Ted Solotaroff then contacted her to ask if she had a novel, at which point she quickly began to write what was to become Property Of, a section of which was published in Mr. Solotaroff’s magazine, American Review.
Since that remarkable beginning, Alice Hoffman has become one of our most distinguished novelists. She has published more than twenty novels, three books of short fiction, and eight books for children and young adults.
Adult Works
Her novel, At Risk (1988), which concerns a family dealing with AIDS, can be found on the reading lists of many universities, colleges and secondary schools.
Practical Magic (1995) was made into a 1998 Warner film starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman.
Her novel, Here on Earth (1997), an Oprah Book Club choice, was a modern reworking of some of the themes of Emily Bronte’s masterpiece Wuthering Heights.
Hoffman’s advance from Local Girls (1999), a collection of inter-related fictions about love and loss on Long Island, was donated to help create the Hoffman Breast Center at Mt. Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, MA.
Millennial novels include New York Times bestsellers The River King (2000), Blue Diary (2001), The Probable Future (2003) and The Ice Queen (2005). Blackbird House (2004) is a book of stories centering around an old farm on Cape Cod.
Then came The Third Angel (2008) and The Story Sisters (2009)—both bestsellers—and The Red Garden (2011), a collection of linked fictions about a small town in Massachusetts where a garden holds the secrets of many lives.
More recently, Hoffman published The Dovekeepers (2011) and The Museum of Extraordinary Things (2014) to solid acclaim. Both spent weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.
Teen and preteen
Hoffman’s earliest books for young readers are Aquamarine (2001) and Indigo (2002). Green Angel (2003), a post-apocalyptic fairy tale about loss and love, was published by Scholastic, and The Foretelling (2005), about an Amazon girl in the Bronze Age, was published by Little Brown.
Her teen novel Incantation (2006) is a story about hidden Jews during the Spanish Inquisition, which Publishers Weekly has chosen as one of the best books of the year. Hoffman also published Green Witch (2010), is a sequel to her popular post-apocalyptic 2003 fairy tale, Green Angel.
Most recently, Hoffman published Nightbird (2015), the story of an age-long family curse and a boy with wings.
Recognition
Hoffman’s work has been published in more than twenty translations and more than one hundred foreign editions. Her novels have received mention as notable books of the year by The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, Los Angeles Times, Library Journal, and People Magazine.
She has also worked as a screenwriter and is the author of the original screenplay Independence Day, the 1983 film starring Kathleen Quinlan and Diane Wiest.
Her teen novel Aquamarine was made into a 2006 film starring Emma Roberts.
Her short fiction and non-fiction have appeared in The New York Times, Boston Globe Magazine, Kenyon Review, Los Angeles Times, Architectural Digest, Harvard Review, Ploughshares and other magazines.
Toni Morrison called The Dovekeepers "a major contribution to twenty-first century literature" for the past five years. The story of the survivors of Masada is considered by many to be Hoffman’s masterpiece. The New York Times bestselling novel is slated for 2015 miniseries, produced by Roma Downey and Mark Burnett, starring Cote de Pablo of NCIS fame.
Reviewing The Museum of Extraordinary Things (2014) for The New York Times Book Review, Katherine Weber referred to it as "A lavish tale about strange yet sympathetic people, haunted by the past and living in bizarre circumstances… Imaginative." (Bio adapted from the author's website. Retrieved 4/13/2015.)
Book Reviews
Hoffman has a beautiful way of throwing open a door on possibility so that the reader begins to see magic everywhere…Sidwell seems gentler than the settings of Hoffman's works for adults, but still buzzes with charm and mystery…The world of Sidwell is one of quiet sorcery. Power can be found not just in the crackle of summer lightning but in ritualistic and common chores—the planting of a garden, the making of a proper pie crust. Hoffman reminds us that there are secrets everywhere, and in these moments of unexpected discovery, Nightbird soars.
Leigh Bardugo - New York Times Book Review
Once again, Hoffman works her magic to transport readers to a realm where enchantment intermingles with everyday realities.... The book’s evocative setting and distinctive characters will immediately hook readers, and the history of Twig’s family, uncovered bit by bit, will keep them engaged (Ages 10–up).
Publishers Weekly
[A] recipe for a page-turning plot. The conclusion may be too cheerful for sophisticated readers, and... [a]t times, the narrative voice is that of a gifted writer who knows how to work magic with language rather than the voice of an awkward tween. It is, nevertheless, a delight...and satisfying (Ages 11-15). —Donna L. Phillips;
VOYA
A sweet, if somewhat uneven middle grade tale.... Hoffman juggles multiple themes: an environmental thread...; a broken family thread...; a friendship tale...; along with bits of romance, curses, and magic.... Unfortunately, the [overly pat] climax... undercuts an otherwise sophisticated narrative. (Gr 4–6). —Elisabeth Gattullo Marrocolla, Darien Library, CT
School Library Journal
There's a monster in Sidwell, Massachusetts, that can only be seen at night or, as Twig reveals, if passersby are near her house. It's her older brother, James, born with wings just like every male in the Fowler line for the last 200 years.... The mix of romance and magic is irresistible and the tension, compelling.... Enchanting (Ages 9-12).
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also use LitLovers generic Teen Discussion Questions to help get a discussion started for Nightbird:
1. Overall, how did you feel reading this book? Did the book hold your interest? Did it make you angry, sad, laugh?
2. What do you think of the main characters? Do you admire or disapprove of them? What are they like? Think about fairness, honesty, respectfulness, loyalty, bravery, kindness, intelligence, strength or weakness.
3. Can you find a sentence or paragraph that describes a main character really well—or in which a character says or does something that strikes you?
4. What motivates the main characters—makes them do what they do? Do you think their actions are right or wrong, fair or unfair, or what?
5. Who in the book would you most like to meet? What would you say or ask?
6. If you could be a character in the book—or a totally new character—who would you like to be? Would you make changes? What or how?
7. Does a character remind you of someone in your family, or a friend? Have you ever felt the same way as one of the characters?
8. What is the central problem, or conflict, in the story? What is the root cause of the conflict?
9. What is the defining moment in the story—the climax? How did you feel when it happened? Were your frightened? Sad? Relieved? Angry?
10. Has something like this happened to you? How do you think you would react if something like it ever did happen?
11. Do you like the way the story ends? If so, why. If not, what would you change?
12. Did you expect the ending—or were you surprised?
13. Do the characters learn anything by the end of the story? Do they grow or develop a new outlook on life. Are they smarter or wiser?
14. What do you think we can learn from this book? What insights can we gain. What can we take away to make us wiser?
15. Were you sad to see the story end, to say goodbye to the characters? Or were you ready for it to end?
16.. Overall, how do you like the book? Would you tell another friend to read it?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online of off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Last Time We Say Goodbye
Cynthia Hand, 2015
HarperCollins Teen
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062318473
Summary
A gorgeous and heart-wrenching story of love, loss, and letting go.
Since her brother, Tyler, committed suicide, Lex has been trying to keep her grief locked away, and to forget about what happened that night.
But as she starts putting her life, her family, and her friendships back together, Lex is haunted by a secret she hasn't told anyone—a text Tyler sent, that could have changed everything.
In the tradition of Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why, Gayle Forman's If I Stay, and Lauren Oliver's Before I Fall, The Last Time We Say Goodbye is a thoughtful and deeply affecting novel that will change the way you look at life and death. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 30, 1978
• Raised—near Idaho Falls, Idaho, USA
• Education—B.A., College of Idaho; M.F.A., Boise State University; Ph.D., University
of Nebraska-Lincoln
• Currently—lives in Boise, Idaho
Cynthia Hand is the New York Times bestselling author of the Unearthly trilogy. A native of southeastern Idaho, she has graduate degrees in creative writing from Boise State University and the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. For the past seven years she has taught writing at Pepperdine University in Southern California. She and her family have recently moved back to Idaho, where they are enjoying the fresh air. (From the publisher.)
Visit the author's website.
Book Reviews
Even if you think you have a high tolerance for gut-wrenching fiction, the tragedy may knock you flat. Still, reading The Last Time We Say Goodbye feels like exploring a forest after it's been decimated by wildfire. You will see new shoots sprouting where you least expect them…Hand spin[s] heartbreak into [a mystery] that remain[s] realistically, uncomfortably unsolved. Readers requiring total resolution may want to steer clear. But braver souls, teenagers and adults alike, will be rewarded…The payoff may not be particularly sweet…but it is hard-earned and life affirming, which is infinitely more rewarding
Elisabeth Egan - New York Times Book Review
Hand’s writing can be stiff...but she persuasively conveys the aftermath of suicide and the ways those left behind struggle with grief, anger, and guilt. Although Lexie’s movement from paralysis to possibility is a little quick, her range of emotions is believable, and Hand is effective at showing how guilt can impede one’s ability to move through tragedy (Ages 13–up).
Publishers Weekly
For Lex, since her brother committed suicide, questions about their last goodbye have haunted her.... The narrative unravels in perfect pacing, drawing readers into this emotional story.... [A]n excellent and thoughtful exploration of grief (Gr 8 & up). —Stephanie Charlefour, Wixom Public Library, MI
School Library Journal
(Starred review.) A quietly powerful, emotionally complex novel that will echo with readers long after it is finished. Both shatteringly painful and bright with life and hope.
Booklist
After her younger brother's suicide, ordinarily rational Alexis starts seeing her younger brother's ghost.... Details of Ty's last days, Alexis' sense of guilt and the incident itself are revealed slowly and are often unexpected but always believable. Evocative and insightful (Ages 14-18).
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
I Was Here
Gayle Forman, 2015
Penguin Young Readers
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780451471475
Summary
Cody and Meg were inseparable...until they weren’t.
When her best friend, Meg, drinks a bottle of industrial-strength cleaner alone in a motel room, Cody is understandably shocked and devastated. She and Meg shared everything—so how was there no warning?
But when Cody travels to Meg’s college town to pack up the belongings left behind, she discovers that there’s a lot that Meg never told her. About her old roommates, the sort of people Cody never would have met in her dead-end small town in Washington. About Ben McAllister, the boy with a guitar and a sneer, and some secrets of his own.
And about an encrypted computer file that Cody can’t open—until she does, and suddenly everything Cody thought she knew about her best friend’s death gets thrown into question. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 5, 1970
• Raised—Los Angeles, California, USA
• Education—University of Oregon
• Awards—NAIBA Book of the Year Award; Indie Choice Honor Award; British Fantasy Award
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York
Gayle Forman is an American young adult author who began her career writing for Seventeen Magazine where most of her articles focused on young people and social concerns. Later she became a freelance journalist for publications like Details, Jane, Glamour, The Nation, Elle, and Cosmopolitan.
Writing books
In 2002, Forman and her husband Nick took a trip around the world. From her journeys, she garnered a wealth of experiences and information which later served as a basis for her first book a travelogue You Can't Get There From Here: A Year On The Fringes Of A Shrinking World.
In 2007 she published her first young adult novel Sisters in Sanity which she based on an article she had written for Seventeen.
In 2009, Forman released If I Stay, about a 17 year old girl named Mia who has been involved in a tragic car accident. The novel follows Mia's experience as she lies in a coma fully aware of what is going on around her and everything her visitors say and do. Feeling the agony of loss of those closest to her yet aware of the abounding love of those that remain, she must make the choice to hang on or let go. Forman won the 2009 NAIBA Book of the Year Awards and is a 2010 Indie Choice Honor Award winner for If I Stay. The film adaptation of, starring Chloë Grace Moretz, was released in 2014. The sequel, Where She Went, was released in 2011. Told from Adam's point of view, the novel is about Adam and Mia's relationship after the accident.
In 2013, Forman released Just One Day. The novel follows Allyson Healey, who, on the last day of a post-graduation European tour, meets a Dutch vagabond actor named Willem. In an uncharacteristic, spur-of-the moment decision, Allyson goes to Paris with Willem, which leads to "a day of risk and romance, liberation and intimacy: 24 hours that will transform Allyson’s life." The sequel, titled Just One Year, was also released in 2013. That novel follows the same chronological path as Allyson's story, but told from the perspective of Willem. The final installment of Allyson and Willem's story, Just One Night, is a 50-page novella released in ebook format in 2014.
Forman's other notable literary awards include the British Fantasy Award (2010), an ALA/YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers (2010), South Carolina Book Award Nominee for Young Adult Book Award (2011), TAYSHAS High School Reading List (2010), Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Young Adult Fiction (2009), Milwaukee County Teen Book Award Nominee (2010).
Gayle resides in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and two daughters. At the annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, Forman participated in panel discussions. She was on the panel “Young Adult Fiction: Teens and Turmoil” with Jandy Nelson, Cynthia Kadohata and moderator Sonya Sones.
Books
2005 - You Can't Get There from Here: A Year on the Fringes of a Shrinking World
2007 - Sisters in Sanity
2009 - If I Stay
2011 - Where She Went
2013 - Just One Day
2013 - Just One Year
2014 - Just One Night
2015 - I Was Here
(Author bio from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/20/2015.)
Book Reviews
(Starred review.) [A]n introspective examination of the line between life and death... Beyond exploring Cody’s grief, this psychologically incisive book delves into her complex relationships with Tricia, her single mother; Meg’s more conventional family; and, most profoundly, the boy who stole and wounded Meg’s heart shortly before her death (ages 14–up).
Publishers Weekly
Cody struggles to figure out why Meg took her own life.... The distraught but determined teen begins to encrypt files on Meg's laptop.... As she goes further down the rabbit hole, Cody comes to the realization that she needs to forgive Meg, and, more importantly, herself (Gr 9-up). —Suanne B. Roush, formerly at Osceola High School, Seminole, FL
Library Journal
This novel’s strength lies in its depiction of main character Cody, a young woman torn by conflicts but sustained by her own sense of purpose. Another selling point is the novel’s investigation of teen suicide, which even when fictional is a perpetually troubling phenomenon.... [H]ighly psychological and will probably especially appeal to girls (ages 11 to 18.) —Laura Woodruff
VOYA
Part tautly paced mystery, part psychological study of suicide and its aftereffects.... An engrossing and provocative look at the devastating finality of suicide, survivor's guilt, the complicated nature of responsibility and even the role of the Internet in life-and-death decisions (age 14-up).
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
Golden Son (Red Tide Trilogy, 2)
Pierce Brown, 2015
Random House
464 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345539816
Summary
Debut author Pierce Brown’s genre-defying epic Red Rising hit the ground running and wasted no time becoming a sensation. Golden Son continues the stunning saga of Darrow, a rebel forged by tragedy, battling to lead his oppressed people to freedom.
As a Red, Darrow grew up working the mines deep beneath the surface of Mars, enduring backbreaking labor while dreaming of the better future he was building for his descendants.
But the Society he faithfully served was built on lies. Darrow’s kind have been betrayed and denied by their elitist masters, the Golds—and their only path to liberation is revolution. And so Darrow sacrifices himself in the name of the greater good for which Eo, his true love and inspiration, laid down her own life. He becomes a Gold, infiltrating their privileged realm so that he can destroy it from within.
A lamb among wolves in a cruel world, Darrow finds friendship, respect, and even love—but also the wrath of powerful rivals. To wage and win the war that will change humankind’s destiny, Darrow must confront the treachery arrayed against him, overcome his all-too-human desire for retribution—and strive not for violent revolt but a hopeful rebirth.
Though the road ahead is fraught with danger and deceit, Darrow must choose to follow Eo’s principles of love and justice to free his people. He must live for more. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1987
• Raised—Colorado; North Carolina; Arizona; Iowa; Texas; and Seattle, Washington
• Education—B.A., Pepperdine University
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California
Pierce Brown spent his childhood building forts and setting traps for cousins in the woods of six states and the deserts of two. Graduating from Pepperdine University in 2010, he fancied the idea of continuing his studies at Hogwarts. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a magical bone in his body. So while trying to make it as a writer, he worked as a manager of social media at a startup tech company, toiled as a peon on the Disney lot at ABC Studios, did his time as an NBC page, and gave sleep deprivation a new meaning during his stint as an aide on a U.S. Senate campaign.
Now he lives Los Angeles, where he scribbles tales of spaceships, wizards, ghouls, and most things old or bizarre. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Gripping.... Both author and lead character have cranked up the emotional stakes.... With Golden Son, [Pierce] Brown avoids the sophomore slump, charging the novel with the kind of dystopia-toppling action you’d expect in a trilogy ender, not a middle volume. On virtually every level, this is a sequel that hates sequels—a perfect fit for a hero who already defies the tropes (Grade: A).
Entertainment Weekly
Brown shows everything organically.... Dramatic battles with a real sense of loss, and a final chapter that slams into both Darrow and the reader, make this the rare middle book that loses almost no momentum as it sets up the final installment.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) [A]n even better novel than Brown's breakout debut. The scope of the conflict is larger—it's not a child's game anymore but a real battle for the future of the solar system. Darrow remains a fascinating yet tortured martyr, never able to grab any personal happiness when he knows how much rests on his shoulders.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) The stakes are even higher than they were in Red Rising, and the twists and turns of the story are every bit as exciting. The jaw-dropper of an ending will leave readers hungry for the conclusion to Brown’s wholly original, completely thrilling saga.
Booklist
Brown presents the second installment of his epic science-fiction trilogy, and like the first, it’s chock-full of interpersonal tension, class conflict and violence.... Stirring... Comparisons to The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones series are inevitable, for this tale has elements of both.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
All the Bright Places
Jennifer Niven, 2015
Random House
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385755887
Summary
An exhilarating and heart-wrenching love story about a girl who learns to live from a boy who intends to die.
Theodore Finch is fascinated by death, and he constantly thinks of ways he might kill himself. But each time, something good, no matter how small, stops him.
Violet Markey lives for the future, counting the days until graduation, when she can escape her Indiana town and her aching grief in the wake of her sister’s recent death.
When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school, it’s unclear who saves whom. And when they pair up on a project to discover the "natural wonders" of their state, both Finch and Violet make more important discoveries: It’s only with Violet that Finch can be himself—a weird, funny, live-out-loud guy who’s not such a freak after all. And it’s only with Finch that Violet can forget to count away the days and start living them. But as Violet’s world grows, Finch’s begins to shrink.
This is an intense, gripping novel perfect for fans of Gayle Forman, Jay Asher, Rainbow Rowell, John Green, and Jenny Downham from a talented new voice in YA, Jennifer Niven.
Soon to be a major motion picture starring Elle Fanning! (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—May 14, 1969 (?)
• Raised—Richmond, Indiania, USA
• Education—B.A., Drew University; American Film Institute
• Awards—Emmy Award (screenwriting); Gambrinus Giuseppe Mazzotti Prize (Italy)
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California
With the publication of her first book in 2000, The Ice Master, Jennifer became a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writer. A nonfiction account of a deadly Arctic expedition, the book was named one of the top ten nonfiction books of the year by Entertainment Weekly, and translated into multiple languages.
Jennifer and The Ice Master appeared in Newsweek, Entertainment Weekly, Talk, Glamour, The New Yorker, Outside, The New York Times Book Review, London Daily Mail, London Times, and Writer's Digest, among others. Dateline BBC, the Discovery Channel, and the History Channel all featured The Ice Master as hour-long documentaries, and the book was the subject of numerous European television documentaries. The book has been nominated for awards by the American Library Association and Book Sense, and received Italy's esteemed Gambrinus Giuseppe Mazzotti Prize for 2002.
Jennifer's second book, Ada Blackjack—an inspiring true story of the woman the press called "the female Robinson Crusoe"—has also been translated into multiple languages, was a Book Sense Top Ten Pick, and was named by the Wall Street Journal as one of the Top Five Arctic books.
Her memoir, The Aqua-Net Diaries: Big Hair, Big Dreams, Small Town, was published in 2010 and optioned by Warner Bros. as a television series.
Her first novel, Velva Jean Learns to Drive (based on her Emmy Award-winning film of the same name), was released in 2009, becoming an Indie Pick for the August 2009 Indie Next List and also a Costco Book of the Month. The second book in the Velva Jean series, Velva Jean Learns to Fly, was released in 2011, the third book, Becoming Clementine, in September 2012, and the fourth, American Blonde, in 2014.
With her mother, author Penelope Niven, Jennifer has conducted numerous seminars in writing and addressed audiences around the world. She lives in Los Angeles. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
At the heart—a big one—of All the Bright Places lies a charming love story about this unlikely and endearing pair of broken teenagers…it seems inevitable that All the Bright Places will be compared to Rainbow Rowell's Eleanor & Park and John Green's The Fault in Our Stars, and deservedly so, at least in the case of its central characters. Violet and Finch are the archetypal offering in contemporary young adult fiction: a pair of damaged, heart-tugging teenagers who are at once outcasts and isolated, trapped by the dissonant alchemy of their combined fates.
Andrew Smith - New York Times Book Review
This heartbreaking love story about two funny, fragile, and wildly damaged high school kids named Violet and Finch is worth reading. Niven is a skillful storyteller who never patronizes her characters—or her audience.
Entertainment Weekly
(Starred review.) Niven creates a romance so fresh and funny... [and] she also makes something she foreshadows from the first line surprising. The journey...is romantic and heartbreaking, as characters and readers confront darkness, joy, and the possibilities—and limits—of love in the face of mental illness (Ages 14–up).
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) The writing in this heartrending novel is fluid, despite the difficult topics, as Niven relays the complex thought processes of the two teens. Finch and Violet, with their emotional turmoil and insecurities, will ring true to teens (Gr 10 Up). —Heather Miller Cover, Homewood Public Library, AL
School Library Journal
(Starred review.) Two struggling teens develop an unlikely relationship in a moving exploration of grief, suicide and young love.... [A] cast of carefully drawn side characters brings to life both the pain of loss and the possibility of moving forward, though some notes of hope are more believable than others. Many teen novels touch on similar themes, but few do it so memorably (14 & up).
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
I'll Give You the Sun
Jandy Nelson, 2014
Penguin Young Readers
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780142425763
Summary
Winner, 2015 Michael L. Printz Award
A story of first love, family, loss, and betrayal for fans of John Green, David Levithan, and Rainbow Rowell
Jude and her twin brother, Noah, are incredibly close. At thirteen, isolated Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude cliff-dives and wears red-red lipstick and does the talking for both of them.
But three years later, Jude and Noah are barely speaking. Something has happened to wreck the twins in different and dramatic ways . . . until Jude meets a cocky, broken, beautiful boy, as well as someone else—an even more unpredictable new force in her life.
The early years are Noah's story to tell. The later years are Jude's. What the twins don't realize is that they each have only half the story, and if they could just find their way back to one another, they’d have a chance to remake their world.
This radiant novel from the acclaimed, award-winning author of The Sky Is Everywhere will leave you breathless and teary and laughing—often all at once. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 24, 1965
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Education—B.A. Cornell University; M.F.A., Brown University; M.F.A., Vermont College
• Awards—Michael L. Printz Award
• Currently—lives in San Francisco
Jandy Nelson is an American writer for young adults and a literary agent.
She received a BA from Cornell, an MFA from Brown in poetry, and another MFA from Vermont College in writing for children and young adults. The Sky Is Everywhere is her first novel and was noted as one of YALSA's 2011 Best Fiction for Young Adults. Her second novel, I'll Give You The Sun, was published in June 2014 and won the 2015 Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in young adult literature. Nelson lives in San Francisco.
At the annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, Nelson participated in panel discussions. She was on the panel "Young Adult Fiction: Teens and Turmoil" with Gayle Forman, Cynthia Kadohata and moderator Sonya Sones during the 2010 event. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/11/2015.)
Book Reviews
Bold, even breathtaking. You get the sense [the] characters are bursting through the words, breaking free of normal metaphors and constructions, jubilantly trying to rise up from the prison of language.... The book celebrates art’s capacity to heal, but it also shows us how we excavate meaning from the art we cherish, and how we find reflections of ourselves within it.... I’ll Give You The Sun is a dazzling mirror
Lauren Oliver - New York Times Book Review
I'll Give You the Sun is a daydream...otherworldly and mesmerizing.... Nelson's evocative language envelops one's imagination...an exquisite surrender to wonder and possibilities.
Boston Globe
[Nelson] has an electrifying facility with description, especially how her characters feel at a given moment...[Jude], Noah, and the fine cast of subsidiary characters...are most memorable for how they poignantly illustrate the most basic of human emotions—love, grief, shame, remorse, joy.
Chicago Tribune
This book is about many things: grief, sexuality, creativity, bravery, identity, guilt. But mostly it's about love. Be prepared with more tissues than you needed for The Fault in Our Stars, a chunky notebook to scribble down all the quotes and a handful of witty responses when people ask why you're chuckling to yourself in the corner. Because this book will make you realise how beautiful words can be.
Guardian (UK)
[These] viewpoints—Noah’s at 13 and 14, Jude's at 16—intersect in surprising ways, and eventually come together in a satisfying, if bittersweet, conclusion.... Young adults will learn they're not alone in navigating the emotional highs and lows of finding their identity; older readers will have moments of wistful recognition. I, for one, devoured this book.
Montreal Gazette
I'll Give You the Sun gives the word "intense" new meaning...a novel that makes you want to go out and skydive, but if you can read a novel like this now and then, you don't need to.
Newsday
This book is many things at once, all of them engrossing. It's a book where teenagers think in almost indulgently poetic language while still sounding genuinely adolescent. It's two separate but equally intoxicating love stories.... Most of all, it's the mystery of what happened to tear Noah and Jude apart, and what—if anything—can bring them back together again. (Guide to 2014's Great Reads)
NPR
Simply unforgettable.... If you’re looking for a book that’s deep and powerful and beautiful, look no further. You must read I’ll Give You The Sun (Top 12 Young Adult Books of 2014).
Lisa Parkin - Huffington Post
Both structurally virtuosic...and emotionally wrenching. That alone is a rare combination in literature, YA or otherwise. But then add in the characters.... This book is a rebuttal to anyone suggesting YA, because it tells stories of young people, is somehow of lesser stuff. I’ll Give You The Sun is literature. Full stop. In my opinion, it’s not just the best YA book of the year, but one of the best books of the year.
Gayle Forman - Parade
A blazing prismatic explosion of color.... I'll Give You the Sun is that rare, immersive teen novel: To read it is a coming-of-age experience in itself.
Entertainment Weekly
Ingeniously told from the alternating perspectives of its spunky twin protagonists, this (technically) young adult noel jubilantly holds its own against the fall's grown-up offerings, with dead-on insights about surviving youth—and family.
O Magazine
You'd think that we were plugging The Fault in Our Stars, but even that comparison might sell short I'll Give You the Sun.... [It's] planted firmly in the positive, making for a gravity-defying, life-affirming experience.
San Francisco Magazine
(Starred review.) Twins Noah and Jude are inseparable until misunderstandings, jealousies, and a major loss rip them apart.... Nelson’s novel brims with emotion (grief, longing, and love in particular) as Noah, Jude, and the broken individuals in their lives find ways to heal (14–up).
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) (Gr 9 Up) Resplendent.... Readers will forgive convenient coincidences because of the characters' in-depth development and the swoon-worthy romances. The novel's evocative exploration of sexuality, grief, and sibling relationships will ring true with teens. —Shelley Diaz
School Library Journal
An intricate and absorbing work of art emerges from the details of the interlaced sections. Few novels about twins capture so well the rewards and challenges...or the way in which people who have loved us remain in our minds after their deaths.
VOYA
(Starred review.) In an electric style evoking the highly visual imaginations of the young narrators, Nelson captures the fraught, antagonistic, yet deeply loving relationship Jude and Noah share.
Booklist
The novel is structurally brilliant, moving back and forth across timelines to reveal each teen's respective exhilaration and anguish.... Nelson's prose scintillates... dizzyingly visual.... Here's a narrative experience readers won't soon forget.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Why do you think the author tells the story through the two voices of Noah and Jude and at two different ages, i.e. Noah at 13 and Jude at 16? What impact does this have on the development of the plot, our understanding of their characters and on the reader? What are the underpinning messages of the book?
2. "Love is only half the story" is the quote on the front cover of the book. What do you think this means and what do you think the other half of the story is?
3. Jude tells Oscar "I gave up practically the whole world for you. The sun, stars, ocean, trees, everything, I gave it all up for you" (p.365). What was she trying to express to him? What would you give up the sun for and why?
4. The book deals with the big themes in life—grief, sexuality, families, relationships and most of all love, in all its forms. Art is one of the central platforms for the expression of these themes. Discuss how the characters react to it, use it to bring meaning to their lives, make sense of the world around them, harness their creativity and ultimately help in their healing.
5. What did you think about the ending of the book—did it complete the story in a satisfying and believable way for the reader? How might it have ended differently? Write a different ending for the story and let a minor character narrate it.
6. In the book, the sculptor Guillermo Garcia is described as "the kind of man who walks into a room and all the walls fall down" (p.177). What does that mean and what does it tell you about him as a character? Can you think of any real people for whom this description might also fit?
7. When Noah is talking about his father, he says that he draws him "so big I can’t fit all of him on the page, so I leave off his head" (p.15). What does this say about Noah’s relationship with his dad? Does the reader get to know Dad’s character as well as the other characters and what impression does he leave on the reader?
8. At the beginning of the book, every time Jude and Noah played rock, scissors, paper, they always chose the same thing (p.25), whereas at the end of the book they chose differently (p.394). What does this say about their future lives and the relationship between them?
9. After the death of their mother and its aftermath, both twins change dramatically in their outlook, behaviour and personalities, each becoming something they are not. Why do you think this happens?
10. Which is your favourite character in the book and why? How do you feel the main characters deal with their grief and what impact does this have on the other?
11. Ghosts and the supernatural feature prominently throughout the story. How does the book manage to make Grandma Sweetwine, who is dead, such a real, solid character? Do you believe that it is the ghost of her mum that keeps breaking Jude’s sculptures and if so, why do you think she is doing it? What influence does the spirit of Oscar’s mum have?
12. Prophet the parrot and his "Where the hell is Ralph?" refrain is one of the humorous elements of the story. Why do you think the author included him and what part does he play?
Questions from Jandy
13.If you had your own "invisible museum" like Noah, what would some of your own portraits and self-portraits look like? In the same vein, if you had a "bible" of superstitions like Jude, what would some of the entries be?
14. The Michelangelo quote that comes up in the story, "I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free", is also in many ways a theme that runs through the book. I had the feeling when I was writing that the characters were each metaphorically trapped in stone prisons of their own makings. How would you describe the differing and/or similar "stone prisons" of Jude, Noah, Guillermo and Dad? How do each of them finally break free?
15. When Jude is in Oscar’s bedroom, she comes across an essay he wrote for an art history class called "The Ecstatic Impulse of the Artist". What do you think the essay was about? How do you think this idea might connect to the story and the characters, especially Noah? What do you think Guillermo means when he says to Jude, "I think maybe your brother is the ecstatic impulse." Further, what do you think Sandy means when he says artists wish with their hands? Lastly, what do you think Guillermo means when he says (implies) art can remake the world? Do you think it can?
16. This quote by the poet Rumi is one of four that begins the novel: "Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there." Who meets in the field beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing? Do Noah and Jude? Noah and his father? Jude and her mother? Dianna and Benjamin? Discuss this quote as it pertains to the relationships in the novel.
(Questions written by Annie Everall, Authors Aloud UK, www.authorsalouduk.co.uk © 2015 .)
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Fangirl
Rainbow Rowell, 2013
St. Martin's Press
342 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250030955
Summary
A coming-of-age tale of fanfiction, family and first love.
In Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl, Cath is a Simon Snow fan. Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan, but for Cath, being a fan is her life—and she’s really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it’s what got them through their mother leaving.
Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fan fiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere.
Cath’s sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can’t let go. She doesn’t want to.
Now that they’re going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn’t want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She’s got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fan fiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words.... And she can’t stop worrying about her dad, who’s loving and fragile and has never really been alone.
For Cath, the question is: Can she do this? Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1973-74
• Where—Omaha, Nebraska, USA
• Education—University of Nebraska-Lincoln
• Currently—lives in Omaha
Rainbow Rowell is an American author of young adult and adult contemporary novels. Her first novel Attachments, published in 2011, is a contemporary romantic comedy about a company's IT guy who falls in love with a woman whose email he has been monitoring. Kirkus Reviews listed it as one of the outstanding debuts of 2011.
In 2013 Rowell published two young adult novels: Eleanor & Park and Fangirl. Both were chosen by the New York Times as being some of the best young adult fiction of the year. Eleanor & Park was also chosen by Amazon as one of the 10 best books of 2013, and as Goodreads' best young adult fiction of the year. DreamWorks and Carla Hacken are planning a movie, for which Rowell has been asked to write the screenplay.
Rowell completed the first draft of Fangirl for National Novel Writing Month in 2011. It was chosen as the inaugural selection for Tumblr's reblog book club. Landline, Rowell's fourth novel, a contemporary adult novel about a marriage in trouble, was released in 2014.
Controversy
Rowell's work also gained attention in 2013 when a parents' group at a Minnesota high school challenged Eleanor & Park, and Rowell herself was disinvited to a library event; however, a panel ultimately determined that the book could stay on library shelves. Rowell noted in an interview that the material that these parents were calling "profane" was what many kids in difficult situations realistically had to deal with, and that "when these people call Eleanor & Park an obscene story, I feel like they’re saying that rising above your situation isn’t possible."
The book has also come under fire from a multitude of social justice and Korean activist sources because of its fetishization of Korean bodies (particularly "feminine" masculinity), misunderstanding and misrepresentation of Asian diasporic and half-Asian experiences, and overt tones of white saviour complex. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 7/14/2014.)
Visit the author's website.
Book Reviews
Rowell…specializes in young misfits charting their way in the world. She doesn't disappoint here. Though the theme of a young writer finding her voice may be familiar, Rowell brings to it fresh humor, heart and more than a few surprises. Cath's relationships, tender and untidy, ring true.
Jessica Bruder - New York Times Book Review
With an unflinching voice, Cath navigates the lonely road of her freshman year at college.... Rowell...create[s] a funny and tender coming-of-age story that’s also the story of a writer finding her voice. Rowell makes all of Cath’s relationships...touching and utterly real. (Ages 13 & up.)
Publishers Weekly
This charming coming-of-age novel tells the story of a painfully shy teen who prefers the fantasy world of fanfiction to reality.... The plot is multilayered and filled with complex subjects...handled in a realistic manner, and the writing effortlessly and seamlessly weaves these threads together (Gr 9 & up). —Heather E. Miller Cover, Homewood Public Library, AL
School Library Journal
(Starred review.) The novel's brilliance comes from Rowell's reimagining of a coming-of-age story's stock characters as dynamic and temperamental individuals—which adroitly parallels Cath's own fan-fiction writing process. Rowell challenges readers to love characters who are loyal, vulnerable and funny—but also realistically flawed (Fiction 14 & up).
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
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Divergent (Divergent Series 1)
Veronica Roth, 2011
HarperCollins
576 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062024039
Summary
In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue—
♦ Candor (the honest)
♦ Abnegation (the selfless)
♦ Dauntless (the brave)
♦ Amity (the peaceful)
♦ Erudite (the intelligent)
On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is—she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.
During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles to determine who her friends really are. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death.
And as she discovers a growing conflict that threatens to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves… or it might destroy her. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—August 19, 1988
• Where—New York City, New York, USA
• Raised—Barrington, Illinois
• Education—B.A., Northwest University
• Currently—lives in Chicago, Illinois
Veronica Roth (born ) is an American novelist and short story writer known for her debut New York Times bestselling Divergent trilogy.
Roth, the youngest of three children, was born in New York City and raised primarily in Barrington, Illinois. Her parents divorced when she was five years old. Roth's maternal grandparents were Polish concentration camp survivors during World War II. Their religious convictions pushed Roth's mother away from religion, but Veronica attended a Christian Bible study during her high school years, and has remained a Christain.
Roth graduated from Barrington High School. After attending a year of college at Carleton College, she transferred to Northwestern University for its creative writing program and wrote her first book, Divergent, while on winter break in her senior year. She married photographer Nelson Fitch in 2011. They reside in the Chicago area.
Career
Roth is best known for her trilogy of novels: Divergent (2011), Insurgent (2012), and Allegiant (2013).
She is the recipient of the Goodreads 2011 Choice Award and the Best of 2012 in the category Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction and also Best Goodreads Author in 2012. Her career took off rapidly with the success of her first novel, with the movie rights sold before she graduated from college. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 7/5/2014.)
Book Reviews
(Starred review.) [An] edgy debut (definitely not for the fainthearted).... [T]he riveting and complex story of a teenage girl forced to choose, at age 16, between her routinized, selfless family and the adventurous, unrestrained future she longs for.... [A] memorable, unpredictable journey from which it is nearly impossible to turn away (Ages 14 & up).
Publishers Weekly
In a future Chicago, the population is divided into five factions...each of which believes its opposite is the root of human evil. Sixteen-year-olds are tested for aptitude and must choose whether to remain in their birth faction or select another.... The plot, scenes, and characters are different [than Susan Collins' series] but the colors are the same and just as rich (Grades 9 & up). —Eric Norton, McMillan Memorial Library, Wisconsin Rapids, WI
School Library Journal
The plot clips along at an addictive pace, with steady jolts of brutal violence and swoony romance. Despite the constant assurance that Tris is courageous, clever and kind, her own first-person narration displays a blank personality. No matter.... Fans snared by the ratcheting suspense will be unable to resist speculating on their own factional allegiance.... (Ages 14 & up)
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What purpose does each of the five factions serve in society? What personality types are drawn toward each faction? Do you think these factions represent every basic personality type and fulfill all the basic needs of people? If not, what faction(s) would you create to fill in any gaps?
2. What was the reason behind the creation of the factions? Do you think the factions are working “toward a better society and a better world” (p. 44) as they say they are? What about the structure seems to be working for Tris’s society? What doesn’t seem to be working at all?
3. What faction do you think you would have been born into, given your family and its values? Which faction would you select at your Choosing Ceremony? Why? How would you feel about making a decision that would determine your life’s course at the age of sixteen?
4. What choices have you made that have changed you? What future choices will you also make, and how do you think that they will change you?
5. How does the idea of “faction before blood” come into play throughout the book? Do you think this idea has a place in today’s society, or is it contrary to what most people believe? In our society, what ideas and beliefs are people loyal to in the way Tris’s society is loyal to the conceptof the factions?
6. Why is Tris’s government run only by members of Abnegation? Do you think this is a good idea? Do you agree with her father’s statement that “valuing knowledge above all else results in a lust for power, and that leads men into dark and empty places” (p. 35)? Why or why not?
7. What does it mean to be factionless in Tris’s society? How does a person become factionless?
8. Tris says about Candor, “It must require bravery to be honest all the time” (p. 62). Do you agree? Which do you think is a braver faction, Dauntless or Candor? Would you like to live in a society like Candor, where everyone tells the truth no matter how hard it is to hear?
9. During initiation, is it selfish of Tris to crave victory, or is it brave? Do Tris’s friends have a right to be jealous when she’s ranked above them? If you were Tris, would you forgive them for their reactions?
10. How does initiation change and transform Tris? Do you think she made the right faction choice? How do you think she might have changed if she had chosen one of the other factions?
11. What is the difference between being fearless and learning to control your fears? Do you believe anyone can be truly fearless? What does Tris mean when she says that “half of bravery is perspective” (p. 458)?
12. Is Four’s desire to be “brave, and selfless, and smart, and kind, and honest” (p. 405) realistic in the society in which he lives? Think of examples of people in our own world who successfully bridge different cultures, perspectives, or ways of living.
13. Tris’s mom says, “Human beings as a whole cannot be good for long before the bad creeps back in and poisons us again” (p. 441). Do you agree or disagree? Why?
14. At the beginning of the book, Tris does not understand what it means to be Divergent. How do you think she would explain it by the end of the book?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
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Love and Other Foreign Words
Erin McCahan, 2014
Dial Books
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780803740518
Summary
Equal parts comedy and coming of age—a whip-smart, big-hearted, laugh-out-loud love story about sisters, friends, and what it means to love at all.
Can anyone be truly herself—or truly in love—in a language that's not her own?
Sixteen-year-old Josie lives her life in translation. She speaks High School, College, Friends, Boyfriends, Break-ups, and even the language of Beautiful Girls. But none of these is her native tongue—the only people who speak that are her best friend Stu and her sister Kate.
So when Kate gets engaged to an epically insufferable guy, how can Josie see it as anything but the mistake of a lifetime? Kate is determined to bend Josie to her will for the wedding; Josie is determined to break Kate and her fiance up. As battles are waged over secrets and semantics, Josie is forced to examine her feelings for the boyfriend who says he loves her, the sister she loves but doesn't always like, and the best friend who hasn't said a word—at least not in a language Josie understands. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1967-68
• Where—East Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA
• Rasied—Bexley, Ohio
• Education—B.A., Capital University
• Currently—lives near Columbus, Ohio
Erin McCahan is an Ohio-dwelling, unabashedly Styx-loving, full-time writer who enjoys a variety of hobbies, excluding role-playing, sticky things, and karaoke. She lives in New Albany, near Columbus, with her husband. (From the publisher.)
Visit the author's website.
Book Reviews
(Starred review.) Fifteen-year-old Josie Sheridan may have a genius-level IQ, but that doesn’t mean she understands everything. One concept she has trouble grasping is romantic love, especially when it comes to her older sister Kate’s inexplicable attraction to her nerdy librarian fiance, Geoff. Josie is sure that Geoff is completely wrong for Kate.
Publishers Weekly
Josie Sheridan, 15.4 years old, knows a lot about social language. With a schedule that involves both high school and college courses, she has learned to adapt her communication style in order to fit in with both groups. However, Josie can't seem to wrap her head around the language of Love.... [For those] who want a quirky love story (grade 8 up). —Kimberly Castle-Alberts, Hudson Library & Historical Society, OH
Library Journal
Fifteen-year-old Josie....loves languages of all kinds, but has to work hard at understanding the current language of her peers.... Even though Josie is “different,” she has friends and family who accept her without her having to downplay her intelligence, which makes it easy to empathize with her inner struggle to figure out her life (ages 11 to 18). —Jane Van Wiemokly
Voya
Josie's a rarity in teen literature, a genuine original. Being gifted sets her apart. Armored by arch mannerisms, trying to control what can't be controlled, wanting and fearing love, she's one of us. Lively characters and a satisfying plot foil reader expectations in the best possible way (ages 12-18).
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
The Hear and Now
Ann Brashares, 2014
Random House Children's
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385736800
Summary
An unforgettable epic romantic thriller about a girl from the future who might be able to save the world...if she lets go of the one thing she’s found to hold on to.
Follow the rules. Remember what happened. Never fall in love.
This is the story of seventeen-year-old Prenna James, who immigrated to New York when she was twelve. Except Prenna didn’t come from a different country. She came from a different time—a future where a mosquito-borne illness has mutated into a pandemic, killing millions and leaving the world in ruins.
Prenna and the others who escaped to the present day must follow a strict set of rules: never reveal where they’re from, never interfere with history, and never, ever be intimate with anyone outside their community. Prenna does as she’s told, believing she can help prevent the plague that will one day ravage the earth.
But everything changes when Prenna falls for Ethan Jarves.
From Ann Brashares, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, The Here and Now is thrilling, exhilarating, haunting, and heartbreaking—and a must-read novel of the year. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 30, 1967
• Where—Alexandria, Virginia, USA
• Raised—Chevy Chase, Maryland
• Education—Barnard College
• Currently—lives in New York, New York
Ann Brashares is an American writer of young adult fiction, best known as the author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series.
She was born in Alexandria, Virginia, and grew up in Chevy Chase, Maryland. She attended elementary and high school at the Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. After studying philosophy at Barnard College, she worked as an editor for 17th Street Productions. 17th Street was acquired by Alloy Entertainment, and following the acquisition she worked briefly for Alloy.
After leaving Alloy she wrote The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, which became an international best seller. It was followed with three more titles in the "Pants" series, the last of which, Forever in Blue, was released in January 2007. The first book in the series was made into a film in 2005, and a second film based on the other three titles in the series was released in August 2008.
Brashares' first adult novel, The Last Summer (of You and Me) was released in 2007. The first companion book to the Sisterhood series, 3 Willows: The Sisterhood Grows was published in 2009, and the second companion book, Sisterhood Everlasting was published in 2011.
A second novel for adults, My Name is Memory was published in 2010 and has been optioned for film. Her next book, a young-adult time-travel novel, The Here and Now, was published in 2014. She lives in New York with her artist husband, Jacob Collins. They have four children.
Although Brashares writes primarily fiction, she has contributed two 80-page biographies to the nonfiction book series Techies—Linus Torvalds, Software Rebel and Steve Jobs Thinks Different, both issued in 2001. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/27/2014.)
Book Reviews
Contemporary dystopian fiction often forsakes larger issues for an intense focus on individuals, and that's true here. The science behind climate change, sexually-transmitted microbes and environmental disaster is skimmed over, but the narrative's strength remains in the small, observed details of the everyday…While primarily an appealing romantic thriller, The Here and Now also serves as a potent reminder that we inherit the future we buy with our actions today.
Cassandra Clare- New York Times Book Review
From the author who brought us The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants come the gripping page-turner about a girl who’s willing to risk it all for love and the fate of the world.
Teen Vogue
[A] fast-paced, gripping, and romantic novel about a girl from a future that seems eerily possible.... Brashares focuses on Prenna and Ethan’s burgeoning romance, rather than the nitty-gritty details of her time-travel premise, and her fans will be happy to find that her prose is as resonant and realistic as ever (Ages 12–up).
Publishers Weekly
Prenna is smart, self-deprecating, and believably mesmerized by a first love characterized by mutual respect and intimacy. The less detailed female friendship subplot, though, is all the more disappointing.... In terms of sci-fi, Brashares crafts a plausible future and satisfyingly metes out time-travel plotting. Much of the science is foggy, though, and the exposition-heavy denouement feels rushed. —Nicole R. Steeves, Chicago P.L.
School Library Journal
Brashares...builds on her adroit adolescent characterization and ear for teen dialogue and transports them into an exciting time-travel adventure complete with murderers to thwart and mysteries to solve.
Booklist
[A] lightning-paced sci-fi time-travel romp.... Unfortunately, [Brashares] relies too much on dei ex machina.... Those willing to overlook such shortcuts will surely be swept into the whirlwind romance and breathlessly turn pages.... [This] quirky tale of love and time travel demands that readers totally suspend disbelief to enjoy some of the more contrived plot elements (Ages 13-16).
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender
Leslye Walton, 2014
Candlewick
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780763665661
Summary
Magical realism, lyrical prose, and the pain and passion of human love haunt this hypnotic generational saga.
Foolish love appears to be the Roux family birthright, an ominous forecast for its most recent progeny, Ava Lavender. Ava in all other ways a normal girl—is born with the wings of a bird.
In a quest to understand her peculiar disposition and a growing desire to fit in with her peers, sixteen-year old Ava ventures into the wider world, ill-prepared for what she might discover and naive to the twisted motives of others. Others like the pious Nathaniel Sorrows, who mistakes Ava for an angel and whose obsession with her grows until the night of the summer solstice celebration. That night, the skies open up, rain and feathers fill the air, and Ava’s quest and her family’s saga build to a devastating crescendo.
First-time author Leslye Walton has constructed a layered and unforgettable mythology of what it means to be born with hearts that are tragically, exquisitely human. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Tacoma, Washington, USA
• Education—M.F.A., Portland State University
• Currently—lives in Seattle, Washington
Leslye Walton was born in the Pacific Northwest. Perhaps because of this, she has developed a strange kinship with the daffodil. She too can only achieve beauty after a long, cold sulk in the rain. Her novel, The Strange and Beautiful Live of Ava Lavender, was inspired by a particularly long sulk in a particularly cold rainstorm.
Leslye Walton currently lives in Seattle, Washington where she spends most of her time in her own world—which, for the record, is far better than the real one anyway—with her fittingly-named Chihuahua, Mr. Darcy and her spirit guide, a cat named Griff.
When she's not writing, she teaches middle school students how to read and write, and most importantly, how to be kind to each other, even when they really don't feel like it.
About Leslye's Work
Leslye works best under the light of the moon, and will often wake her friends in the middle of the night to ask if they know another word for vivacious or if they remember what the guy sitting behind them at dinner last Tuesday ordered for dessert. Fortunately, Leslye has very forgiving friends.
Extras
- When Leslye was younger, she wanted to be a singer, a writer, a teacher, or a mermaid, in that order. Hey, three outta four ain't bad!
- Oh yeah. Leslye also sings (see above), though these days it's primarily in the shower, or the car or when she can convince talented students to accompany her on the guitar.
- She has a pair of wings tattooed on her left wrist that she got when she learned The Strange and Beautiful Live of Ava Lavender was going to be an actual book. She plans on memorializing each book with a tattoo. So far she has six tattoos…and one published book. Oops. Looks like she has some catching up to do! (From the publisher and author's website.)
Book Reviews
[This novel] should be remembered for the devastatingly beautiful character of Ava Lavender and how she depicts just what it is to be different.
Guardian (UK)
(Starred review.) Walton debuts with an entrancing and sumptuously written multigenerational novel wrapped in the language of fable, magical realism, and local legend. Ostensibly about a 16-year-old born with wings, the novel is also a rich retelling of Ava Lavender's family history.... It's a story that adults and teenagers can appreciate equally, one...less about love than about the way love can be thwarted and denied (Ages 14–up).
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Walton’s novel is both strange and beautiful in the best of ways. ... This multigenerational tale examines love and considers the conflicting facets of loving and being loved — desire, despair, depression, obsession, self-love, and courage. ... It is beautifully crafted and paced, mystical yet grounded by universal themes and sympathetic characters. A unique book, highly recommended for readers looking for something a step away from ordinary. —Jill Heritage Maza, Montclair Kimberley Academy, Montclair, NJ
School Library Journal
(Starred review.) In a sweeping intergenerational story infused with magical realism, debut author Leslye Walton tethers grand themes of love and loss to the earthbound sensibility of Ava Lavender as she recollects one life-altering summer as a teenager.... Walton presents challenges that most teens will hopefully never face. She writes of love, betrayal, birth, murder, affection and rape—and wraps them in prose so radiant that readers feel carried by Ava's narrative. The heroine's humor and wisdom as she looks back at her life let us know that she is a survivor.
Shelf Awareness
[Ava's voice] is a beautiful voice—poetic, witty, and as honest as family mythology will allow. There are many sorrows in Walton’s debut, and most of them are Ava’s through inheritance. Readers should prepare themselves for a tale where myth and reality, lust and love, the corporal and the ghostly, are interchangeable and surprising.
Booklist
The story's language is gorgeous.... Disturbingly, a horrific assault acts as the vehicle of redemption, magically bringing people together for reasons that make sense only in the dreamlike metaphysics of literary device. Gorgeous prose for readers willing to be blindsided (16 & up).
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The three Lavender women, Emilienne, Viviane, and Ava, all face tragedy in their lives. Discuss how each woman responds to these events. What does this say about them? Do you think the responses are fitting for the characters?
2. This novel provides a cast of many memorable characters, most of whom have strong personalities, as well as unusual names. What do the supporting characters—Cardigan Cooper, Wilhelmina Dovewolf, Marigold Pie, Rene Roux, Gabe—bring to the story? What role do they play, both for the main characters and in the plot?
3. Would the people of Pinnacle Lane have accepted Ava had she not been attacked, or was the horror of what happened to her necessary for them to accept her? In other words, is empathy necessary for acceptance?
4. Wilhelmina says, Just because love don’t look the way you think it should, don’t mean you don’t have it (page 243). How does Emilienne interpret this? Do you agree with Wilhelmina?
5. Do you think what happened to Nathaniel at the end was justified? Would you have preferred a more traditional, or perhaps less obtuse, form of punishment?
6. The ending has caused much debate among readers. What do you think happened? Did Ava finally allow herself to fly, or did she succumb to those dark thoughts in the end?
7. Discuss two of the themes in the novel. How do they interact and build upon each other throughout the novel?
8. The novel begins with Emilienne’s story and continues to Viviane’s before leading into Ava’s. What do you think about this format? How does this structure contribute to the reader’s experience, as well as impact the overall plot?
9. The novel is set in a fictitious neighborhood in Seattle, Washington. How does the main setting contribute to the mood of the story? What role does the setting play in the plot?
10. Discuss the use of language throughout the story. What does the French vocabulary add to the story?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
We Were Liars
E. Lockhart, 2014
Random House Children's
240pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385741262
Summary
A beautiful and distinguished family... A private island... A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy... A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive... A revolution. An accident. A secret... Lies upon lies... True love... The truth.
We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from National Book Award finalist and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart. Read it. And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Aka—Emily Jenkins
• Birth—1967
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Rasied—Cambridge, Washington; Seattle, Washington
• Education—B.A., Vassar College; Ph.D., Columbia University
• Currently—lives in New York City area
Emily Jenkins, who also writes under the name E. Lockhart is a writer of children's picture books, young adult novels, and adult fiction.
Her first novel as E. Lockhart, The Boyfriend List, was published in 2005 and has been followed by three sequels, The Boy Book (2006), The Treasure Map of Boys (2009), and Real Live Boyfriends (2010).These four novels are also known as the Ruby Oliver novels, based on their central protagonist.
Lockhart's 2008 novel, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, was a finalist for both the National Book Award for Young People's Literature and the Michael L. Printz Award. Her picture books, written as Emily Jenkins, have won numerous awards, including Boston Globe-Horn Book Award honors and the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum Book Award. Her 2014 novel, We Were Liars, has achieved wide acclaim from reviewers.
Jenkins grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Seattle, Washington. In high school she attended summer drama schools at Northwestern University and the Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis. She attended Lakeside School, a private high school in North Seattle. She went to Vassar College and graduate school at Columbia University. She has a doctorate in English literature. She currently lives in the New York City area. (From Wikipedia and the author's website. Retrieved 2/27/2014.)
Book Reviews
(Starred review.) Cadence Sinclair Eastman, heiress to a fortune her grandfather amassed "doing business I never bothered to understand," is the highly unreliable narrator of this searing story...which begins during her 15th summer when she suffers a head injury on the private island Granddad owns off Cape Cod.... Lockhart has created a mystery with an ending most readers won’t see coming, one so horrific it will prompt some to return immediately to page one to figure out how they missed it. At the center of it is a girl who learns the hardest way of all what family means, and what it means to lose the one that really mattered to you (Ages 12–up).
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) —The story, while lightly touching on issues of class and race, more fully focuses on dysfunctional family drama, a heart-wrenching romance between Cadence and Gat, and, ultimately, the suspense of what happened during that fateful summer. The ending is a stunner that will haunt readers for a long time to come (Gr 9 Up). —Jenny Berggren, formerly at New York Public Library
School Library Journal
(Starred review.) When Lockhart’s mysterious, haunting novel opens, readers learn that Cady, during this summer, has been involved in a mysterious accident.... She doesn’t return to Beechwood until summer 17, when she recovers snippets of memory, and secrets and lies—as well as issues of guilt and blame, love and truth—all come into play.... Surprising, thrilling, and beautifully executed in spare, precise, and lyrical prose, Lockhart spins a tragic family drama (Grades 7-12). —Ann Kelley
Booklist
(Starred review.) [T]his is no sanitized, modern Disney fairy tale; this is Cinderella with her stepsisters' slashed heels in bloody glass slippers. Cady's fairy-tale retellings are dark.... Brilliantly, Lockhart resists simply crucifying the Sinclairs, which might make the family's foreshadowed tragedy predictable or even satisfying.... Riveting, brutal and beautifully told (14 & up).
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Do you trust Cady's narration? Is she lying...or hallucinating?
2. Were the Liars justified in any way to commit the crime they committed?
3. Was the crime successful in any way?
4. Is the Sinclair family acting of their own free will or are they in some way merely moving through patterns established in fairy tales that existed long before them? Consider the author's use of Shakespeare's King Lear and Bronte's Wuthering Heights.
5. Was the ending a surprise...or did you see it coming? Return to earlier passages in the book and locate instances of Lockhart's of foreshadowing of events to come.
6. What does Cady come to learn at the end of the novel—what insights area gained?
(Questions adapted from the author's website.)
Red Rising
Pierce Brown, 2014
Random House
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345539809
Summary
“I live for the dream that my children will be born free,” she says. “That they will be what they like. That they will own the land their father gave them.”
“I live for you,” I say sadly.
Eo kisses my cheek. “Then you must live for more.”
Darrow is a Red, a member of the lowest caste in the color-coded society of the future. Like his fellow Reds, he works all day, believing that he and his people are making the surface of Mars livable for future generations. Yet he spends his life willingly, knowing that his blood and sweat will one day result in a better world for his children.
But Darrow and his kind have been betrayed. Soon he discovers that humanity reached the surface generations ago. Vast cities and sprawling parks spread across the planet. Darrow—and Reds like him—are nothing more than slaves to a decadent ruling class.
Inspired by a longing for justice, and driven by the memory of lost love, Darrow sacrifices everything to infiltrate the legendary Institute, a proving ground for the dominant Gold caste, where the next generation of humanity’s overlords struggle for power. He will be forced to compete for his life and the very future of civilization against the best and most brutal of Society’s ruling class. There, he will stop at nothing to bring down his enemies ...even if it means he has to become one of them to do so. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1987
• Raised—Colorado; North Carolina; Arizona; Iowa; Texas; and Seattle, Washington
• Education—B.A., Pepperdine University
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California
Pierce Brown spent his childhood building forts and setting traps for cousins in the woods of six states and the deserts of two. Graduating from Pepperdine University in 2010, he fancied the idea of continuing his studies at Hogwarts. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a magical bone in his body. So while trying to make it as a writer, he worked as a manager of social media at a startup tech company, toiled as a peon on the Disney lot at ABC Studios, did his time as an NBC page, and gave sleep deprivation a new meaning during his stint as an aide on a U.S. Senate campaign.
Now he lives Los Angeles, where he scribbles tales of spaceships, wizards, ghouls, and most things old or bizarre. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
[A] top-notch debut novel... Red Rising ascends above a crowded dystopian field.
USA Today
Red Rising is a sophisticated vision.... Brown will find a devoted audience.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Compulsively readable and exceedingly entertaining....a must for both fans of classic sci-fi and fervent followers of new school dystopian epics.
Examiner.com
Pierce Brown has done an astounding job at delivering a powerful piece of literature that will definitely make a mark in the minds of readers.
Huffington Post
[A] spectacular adventure...one heart-pounding rid... Pierce Brown’s dizzyingly good debut novel evokes The Hunger Games, Lord of the Flies, and Ender’s Game.... [Red Rising] has everything it needs to become meteoric.
Entertainment Weekly
Debut author Pierce shoots for the next Hunger Games with mixed results in this melodramatic SF series opener. Sixteen-year-old Darrow is a Red miner, the lowest worker caste on Mars.... Determined to lead his people to a better future, Darrow will do anything to win. Pierce offers a Hollywood-ready story with plenty of action and thrills but painfully little originality or plausibility.
Publishers Weekly
Set in the future...this novel dramatizes a story of vengeance, warfare and the quest for power. In the beginning, Darrow, the narrator, works in the mines on Mars, a life of drudgery and subservience. He’s a member of the Reds, an "inferior" class.... As with many similar worlds, the warrior culture depicted here has a primitive, even classical, feel to it, especially since the warriors sport names such as Augustus, Cassius, Apollo and Mercury. A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative world.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
Atom and Eve
Jeff Yager, 2013
Hannacroix Creek Books
255 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781938998348
Summary
In this controversial debut YA science fiction novel, set several years in the future, sixteen-year-old Ricky Romanello, a college freshman, is playing basketball when he collapses and winds up in a coma.
Ricky is suffering from a powerful flu that hits the U.S. population causing deaths and a dramatic economic slowdown. Research scientist Dr. Mandy Fox has been developing an anti-aging drug that she believes might also eradicate the flu. The government rushes approval for the drug before Ricky and the rest of the population can discover there is an unintended side effect that has catastrophic consequences. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 1, 1990
• Where—Stamford, Connecticut, USA
• Education—Westhill High School; studied
professional wrestling in New Jersey and Florida
• Currently—lives in the state of Florida
Book Reviews
[F]or young adult readers and one that is sure to please is Jeff Yager’s Atom & Eve, set several years into the future in which a powerful flu that causes many deaths and a dramatic slowdown of the economy. One of those affected is Ricky Romanello, a college freshman. A research scientist has developed an anti-aging drug that she believes could eradicate the flue and Ricky becomes one of the test subjects. The government approves the drug and the epidemic is soon over. He is cured, but soon he and others discover an unintended side effect that has catastrophic consequences for the entire population. Jeff comes from parents who are writers and, at age 23, his first novel demonstrates that talent can be inherited.
Alan Caruba - Bookviews.com
A destructive strain of flu sweeps America and sixteen-year-old college freshman Ricky Romanello is one of the first to be infected. Presidential candidate Kendra Martin struggles to retain her dignity and power in the face of misogyny in her tour of the red states. And virtuoso young scientist, Dr. Mandy Fox, is beginning to making it big time when discovers a cure for the alarming virus that’s putting America on lock down and crashing world economy. The only problem? It has some very…surprising side-effects. From this point on, you won’t be able to put this book down. A thrilling and innovative piece of sci-fi, Jeff Yager’s debut novel showcases a sharp, intelligent awareness of gender politics and a fresh, lively celebration of feminine achievement – a wholly up-to-date critique of society for modern young adults.
Camilla Laxness Brown - SmackFiction (a mobile app in New Zealand)
An impressive debut novel that will sweep young adults off their feet.
Jeffrey J. Fox, Author
In his wonderful debut novel, Atom and Eve, Jeff Yager has the uncanny ability to look into the female psyche and to open readers to the endless possibilities and creative energy of the divine feminine. A female scientist wanting to play God, female gang members in need of a time-out, a surprisingly effective female presidential candidate, and a 16-year-old male college student whose ominous fate we care about, give Atom and Eve a page-turning richness. Yager has created a fascinating novel where nothing is impossible especially if you are female.
Kim McMillon - KYOS AM, San Joaquin Valley, California
I enjoyed Atom and Eve by Jeff Yager. Started reading and got hooked. It dragged me in and along. This is a book I will be recommending!
Jeff Ganz, Former bookseller
From the suspenseful exposition to the surprise ending with a special twist-- Jeff Yager's debut is a fun and fast read: once you pick it up and get entangled in its fascinating gender-bending storyline, you will not be able to put it down!
Anette Isaacs, International speaker and travel guide
Discussion Questions
1. The very first line in Atom and Eve is this quote by the author: “Men and women will never truly understand each other until they switch roles and view life from the other’s perspective.” This is a primary theme in the novel and leads us to wonder how we would react to such changes. Have you ever thought about what it might be like if you were born as the opposite sex to what you are now?
2. The novel is “set in the near future,” which puts it in the category of “sci-fi.” Why do you think a novelist uses the literary device of setting a novel in the future rather than writing about what’s going on in the present or even in the recent past?
3. Who is your favorite character in Atom and Eve? Why?
4. Who is your least favorite character in Atom and Eve? Why?
5. A key theme in Atom and Eve is how the drug to cure or prevent the pandemic flu starts to have gender-bending consequences. Do you think there is the possibility of someone inventing such a drug? What traits do men have that women might actually benefit from? And what traits do women have that men usually lack that might actually help men?
6. One of the social and political hypotheticals in the novels is that there is a female presidential candidate in the United States, Kendra Martin. Looking ahead to the next presidential election, do you see this as a possibility? Why? Why not? Why do you think there has not yet been a female presidential candidate or president in the United States? Do you see that changing in the near or distant future? Why? Why not?
7. Have you ever thought about how drugs are tested or approved by a government? What did you learn about how that process occurs in the novel that you think mirrors or contradicts what really happens? How long do you think it usually takes to get a new drug or vaccine tested and approved by the federal government?
8. If you were the author of Atom and Eve, are there any characters you would have depicted differently, or plot points that you would have changed? Why?
9. If you could ask the author one question about his novel, what would it be?
10. Find the scene and dialogue you like the most in the novel and pair up with someone else in the Reading Group to act out that scene for the group. Let’s discuss those characters, the scene, and the dialogue. Why did you pick that particular scene and dialogue out from the novel?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Eleanor & Park
Rainbow Rowell, 2013
St. Martin's Griffin
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250012579
Summary
Bono met his wife in high school, Park says.
So did Jerry Lee Lewis, Eleanor answers.
I’m not kidding, he says.
You should be, she says, we’re 16.
What about Romeo and Juliet?
Shallow, confused, then dead.
I love you, Park says.
Wherefore art thou, Eleanor answers.
I’m not kidding, he says.
You should be.
Set over the course of one school year in 1986, this is the story of two star-crossed misfits—smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try. When Eleanor meets Park, you’ll remember your own first love—and just how hard it pulled you under. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1973-74
• Where—Omaha, Nebraska, USA
• Education—University of Nebraska-Lincoln
• Currently—lives in Omaha
Rainbow Rowell is an American author of young adult and adult contemporary novels. Her first novel Attachments, published in 2011, is a contemporary romantic comedy about a company's IT guy who falls in love with a woman whose email he has been monitoring. Kirkus Reviews listed it as one of the outstanding debuts of 2011.
In 2013 Rowell published two young adult novels: Eleanor & Park and Fangirl. Both were chosen by the New York Times as being some of the best young adult fiction of the year. Eleanor & Park was also chosen by Amazon as one of the 10 best books of 2013, and as Goodreads' best young adult fiction of the year. DreamWorks and Carla Hacken are planning a movie, for which Rowell has been asked to write the screenplay.
Rowell completed the first draft of Fangirl for National Novel Writing Month in 2011. It was chosen as the inaugural selection for Tumblr's reblog book club. Landline, Rowell's fourth novel, a contemporary adult novel about a marriage in trouble, was released in 2014.
Controversy
Rowell's work also gained attention in 2013 when a parents' group at a Minnesota high school challenged Eleanor & Park, and Rowell herself was disinvited to a library event; however, a panel ultimately determined that the book could stay on library shelves. Rowell noted in an interview that the material that these parents were calling "profane" was what many kids in difficult situations realistically had to deal with, and that "when these people call Eleanor & Park an obscene story, I feel like they’re saying that rising above your situation isn’t possible."
The book has also come under fire from a multitude of social justice and Korean activist sources because of its fetishization of Korean bodies (particularly "feminine" masculinity), misunderstanding and misrepresentation of Asian diasporic and half-Asian experiences, and overt tones of white saviour complex. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 7/14/2014.)
Visit the author's website.
Book Reviews
I have never seen anything quite like Eleanor & Park. Rainbow Rowell's first novel for young adults is a beautiful, haunting love story…Its observational precision and richness make for very special reading…Evocative sensual descriptions are everywhere in this novel, but they always feel true to the characters…Eleanor & Park reminded me not just what it's like to be young and in love with a girl, but also what it's like to be young and in love with a book.
John Green - New York Times Book Review
(Ages 13–up.) Half-Korean sophomore Park Sheridan is getting through high school by lying low.... Then new girl Eleanor gets on the bus.... Adult author Rowell (Attachments), making her YA debut, has a gift for showing what Eleanor and Park, who tell the story in alternating segments, like and admire about each other. Their love is believable and thrilling, but it isn’t simple.... Rowell keeps things surprising, and the solution—imperfect but believable—maintains the novel’s delicate balance of light and dark.
Publishers Weekly
(Grade 9-up.) In this novel set in the 1980s, teenagers Eleanor and Park are outsiders; Eleanor, because she's new to the neighborhood, and Park, because he's half Asian. Although initially wary of each other, they quickly bond over their love of comics and 1980s alternative music. Eleanor's home life is difficult...[and when her] stepfather's behavior grows even more menacing, Park assists in her escape.... Although the narrative points of view alternate between Eleanor and Park, the transitions are smooth. Crude language is realistic. Purchase for readers who are drawn to quirky love stories or 1980s pop culture. —Jennifer Schultz, Fauquier County Public Library, Warrenton, VA
Library Journal
(Age 14-up.) Awkward, prickly teens find deep first love in 1980s Omaha. Eleanor and Park don't meet cute; they meet vexed on the school bus, trapped into sitting together by a dearth of seats and their low social status.... Despite Eleanor's resolve not to grow attached to anything, and despite their shared hatred for clichés, they fall, by degrees, in love. Through Eleanor and Park's alternating voices, readers glimpse the swoon-inducing, often hilarious aspects of first love, as well as the contrast between Eleanor's survival of grim, abuse-plagued poverty and Park's own imperfect but loving family life. Funny, hopeful, foulmouthed, sexy and tear-jerking, this winning romance will captivate teen and adult readers alike.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Eleanor says she and Park are too young for true love. Do you believe that? Do you think Eleanor believes that?
2. How do Eleanor and Park's parents shape their outlook on relationships and the future?
3. Is Eleanor's mother a good mother? Why does she stay with Richie?
4. Why does Park's mother change her mind about Eleanor?
5. How is Park's relationship with his mother different from his relationship with his father? Who sees Park more clearly, his father or his mother?
6. Why is Park embarrassed by Eleanor? Is his embarrassment a betrayal?
7. Steve says that he's Park's friend—is he a true friend? Are Steve and Tina good guys or bad guys in the story? Do you think Eleanor and Tina could ever be friends?
8. How would Eleanor and Park's relationship be different in 2013? How would cell phones, digital music, and Internet access change their situation?
9. What is the importance of music in Park's life? And how is it different for Eleanor?
10. SPOILER ALERT. Was Eleanor right to run away? Should she have left her brothers and sister behind? Was there more she could have done to help them?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Anne of Green Gables
Lucy Maud Montgomery, 1908
Modern Library
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812979039
Summary
Matthew had taken the scrawny little hand awkwardly in his; then and there he decided what to do. He could not tell this child with the glowing eyes that there had been a mistake. . . .
When eleven-year-old Anne Shirley arrives at Green Gables with nothing but a carpetbag and an overactive imagination, she knows that she has found her home.
But first she must convince the Cuthberts to let her stay, even though she isn’t the boy they’d hoped for. The loquacious Anne quickly finds her way into their hearts, as she has with generations of readers, and her charming, ingenious adventures in Avonlea, filled with colorful characters and tender escapades, linger forever in our memorie.
This Modern Library edition of the first of L. M. Montgomery’s beloved and immensely popular Avonlea novels features the restored original text and an Introduction by the noted children’s literature scholar Jack Zipes. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—November 30, 1874
• Where—Clifton, Prince Edward Island, Canada
• Death—April 24, 1942
• Where—Toronto, Ontario
• Education—Prince of Wales College; Dalhousie
University
• Honors—Order of the British Empire (OBE); Fellow
of the Royal Society of Arts, England; Person of
National Historic Significance, designated by the
Government of Canada
Lucy Maud Montgomery OBE, called "Maud" by family and friends and publicly known as L. M. Montgomery, was a Canadian author best known for a series of novels beginning with Anne of Green Gables, published in 1908. The book was an immediate success—its central character Anne, an orphaned girl, made Montgomery famous in her lifetime and gave her a large international following.
The first Green Gables novel was followed by a series of sequels with Anne as the central character. Montgomery went on to publish 20 novels, as well as 500 short stories and poems. Because many of the novels were set on Prince Edward Island, Canada and the Canadian province became literary landmarks. She was awarded Officer of the Order (OBE) of the British Empire in 1935. Her literary works, diaries and letters have been read and studied by scholars and readers worldwide.
Early life
Lucy Maud Montgomery was born in Clifton (now New London), Prince Edward Island on November 30, 1874. Her mother, Clara Woolner Macneill Montgomery, died of tuberculosis when Lucy was 21 months old. Stricken with grief over his wife’s death, Hugh John Montgomery gave custody over to Montgomery’s maternal grandparents. Later he moved to Prince Albert, Saskatchewan when Montgomery was seven years old. Lucy's grandparents, Alexander and Lucy Macneill, raised her in a strict and unforgiving manner. Her ’s early life in Cavendish was very lonely. Montgomery credits this time of her life, in which she created many imaginary friends and worlds to cope with her loneliness, as what developed her creative mind.
Montgomery completed her early education in Cavendish with the exception of one year (1890–1891) during which she was at Prince Albert with her father and step-mother. In November 1890, while at Prince Albert, the Charlottetown paper The Daily Patriot published her poem "On Cape LeForce"—it was her first published work.
Her return to Prince Edward Island in 1891 was a great relief to her (her relationship with her stepmother was an unhappy one). In 1893 Montgomery completed her grade school education in Cavendish and attended Prince of Wales College in Charlottetown, earning a teacher's license. In 1895 and 1896, she studied literature at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Adult life and writing
Montgomery worked as a teacher in various island schools, and although she did not enjoy teaching, it afforded her time to write. Beginning in 1897, she began to have her short stories published in various magazines and newspapers. Over the next 10 years she published more than 100 stories.
During her teaching years, Montgomery had numerous love interests. An aattractive and fashionable young woman, she enjoyed the attentions of several young men. After a lengthy period of flirtation and refusals of several marriage proposals, she eventually married Ewen Macdonald in 1911.
In the intervening years, however, Montgomery moved back to Cavendish to live with her widowed grandmother until her grandmother's death in 1911. She was inspired to write her first books during her time on Prince Edward Island and enjoyed considerable income from her publications, especially from Anne of Green Gables. Published in 1908, Anne, her first book, was an immediate success, establishing Montgomery's career. She would write and publish other works (including numerous sequels to Anne) for the rest of her life.
Although enjoying her income and the independence it allowed, Montgomery was aware that “marriage was a necessary choice for women in Canada.” Shortly after her grandmother's death in 1911, she married Ewen (spelled in her notes and letters as "Ewan") Macdonald (1870–1943), a Presbyterian Minister. The couple moved to Ontario where he had taken the position of minister of St. Paul's Presbyterian Church, Leaskdale, (present-day Uxbridge Township). Montgomery wrote her next eleven books from the Leaskdale manse. The structure was subsequently sold by the congregation and is now the Lucy Maud Montgomery Leaskdale Manse Museum.
The Macdonalds had three sons, the second of whom was stillborn. The great increase of Montgomery's writings in Leaskdale is the result of her need to escape the hardships of real life. Montgomery underwent several periods of depression while trying to cope with the duties of motherhood and church life and with her husband’s attacks of religious melancholia and deteriorating health. For much of her life, writing was her one great solace. It was also during this time that she was engaged in a series of difficult lawsuits with the publisher L.C. Page,. The suits dragged on until she finally won in 1929.
In 1920 Montgomery stopped writing about Anne, preferring to create books about other young, female characters. Other series written by Montgomery include the "Emily" and "Pat" books, which, while successful, never reached the same level of acclaim as the "Anne" volumes. She also wrote a number of stand-alone novels, which were also generally successful, if not as successful as her Anne books.
In 1926, the family moved in to the Norval Presbyterian Charge, in present-day Halton Hills, Ontario, where today the Lucy Maud Montgomery Memorial Garden can be seen from Highway 7.
In 1935, upon her husband's retirement, Montgomery moved to Swansea, Ontario, a suburb of Toronto, buying a house which she named Journey's End, situated on the Humber River. Montgomery continued to write, and returned to Anne after a 15-year hiatus with Anne of Windy Poplars in 1936, Jane of Lantern Hill in 1937, and Anne of Ingleside in 1939.
In the last year of her life, Montgomery completed what she intended to be a ninth book featuring Anne, titled The Blythes Are Quoted. It was republished as a collection of short stories, The Road to Yesterday, in 1974. A complete edition of The Blythes Are Quoted, edited by Benjamin Lefebvre, was published in its entirety by Viking Canada in October 2009.
Death
Montgomery died on April 24, 1942. A note was found beside her bed, read, in part, "I have lost my mind by spells and I do not dare think what I may do in those spells. May God forgive me and I hope everyone else will forgive me even if they cannot understand. My position is too awful to endure and nobody realizes it. What an end to a life in which I tried always to do my best."
While it was reported that Montgomery died from coronary thrombosis, in 2008 her granddaughter, Kate Macdonald Butler said that Montgomery suffered from depression—possibly as a result of caring for her mentally ill husband for decades—and may have taken her own life via a drug overdose. But Mary Rubio a biographer (Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Gift of Wings, 2008), believes the message was intended as a journal entry rather than a suicide note.
Montgomery was buried at the Cavendish Community Cemetery in Cavendish following her wake in the Green Gables farmhouse and funeral in the local Presbyterian church.
Legacy
All told, Montgomery published 20 novels, over 500 short stories, an autobiography, and a book of poetry. Aware of her fame, by 1920 Montgomery began editing and recopying her journals, presenting her life as she wanted it remembered. In doing so certain episodes were changed or omitted. Her major collections are archived at the University of Guelph, while the L.M. Montgomery Institute at the University of Prince Edward Island coordinates most of the research and conferences surrounding her work.
Despite the fact that Montgomery published over twenty books, "she never felt she achieved her one 'great' book." Her readership, however, has always found her characters and stories to be among the best in fiction. Mark Twain said Montgomery’s Anne was “the dearest and most moving and delightful child since the immortal Alice." Montgomery was honoured by being the first female in Canada to be named a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in England and by being invested in the Order of the British Empire in 1935.
A national park was established near Mongomery's home in Cavendish in honour of her works. Her home of Leaskdale Manse in Ontario and the area surrounding Green Gables and her Cavendish home in Prince Edward Island have both been designated National Historic Sites of Canada. Montgomery herself was designated a Person of National Historic Significance by the Government of Canada in 1943.
Her life's work does not only live on in print but in movies, television shows and cartoons that have become enduring favorites to fans who have never even read a word she has written.
In 1975 Canada Post issued "lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables" designed by Peter Swan and typographed by Bernard N.J. Reilander. The 8¢ stamps are perforated 13 and were printed by Ashton-Potter Limited. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Who can resist another encounter with Anne Shirley? Is it possible to do justice to one of literature's most beloved girls? Since its publication in 1908, Anne of Green Gables has been recognized as a classic, as well as a hallmark of great Canadian literature. To celebrate the 100th year since it was first published, Deirdre Kessler has written a beautifully-crafted adaptation that takes this novel into the 21st century without losing any of its charm. Many famous episodes are included in this wonderful retelling, such as Anne's arrival at Green Gables, the tempest in the schoolroom, Anne's debut as Lady Elaine in a King Arthurian re-enactment, and the final scene, in which Anne and Gilbert Blythe finally reconcile their differences and become friends. Anne Shirley emerges from this adaptation just as lovable, imaginative, and impulsive as she is in L. M. Montgomery's original novel—and on her way toward winning the hearts of another generation of readers around the world. This book will inspire young readers to return to the classic novel, and the illustrations will appeal to anyone who has ever loved the original. Reviewer: Suzanna E. Henshon, Ph.D..
Children's Literature
Discussion Questions
1. In chapter 2, when Matthew is driving Anne back to Green Gables, she asks him: “Isn’t it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive” (p. 16). Given her tragic childhood, how do you think Anne is able to maintain such a positive attitude?
2. From the moment she arrives in Avonlea, Anne is insistent on renaming places and inanimate things. Barry’s Pond, for example, becomes “The Lake of Shining Waters” and Marilla’s geranium becomes “Bonny.” Why do you think she does this?
3. Marilla gives several reasons for finally deciding to keep Anne. What reason do you think most changed her mind?
4. “Scope for imagination” is a characteristic that Anne treasures highly in others. Discuss the role of imagination in the novel. How does it shape Anne’s time at Green Gables? How does it evolve in other characters around her?
5. Good behavior is very important to Marilla and very difficult for Anne. From where do you think each derives her moral code? How do both characters change, when it comes to behavior? Think, in particular, of Anne’s confessions.
6. Anne is a remarkably compassionate child and is able to forgive even those who have judged her unfairly, such as Mrs. Rachel Lynde or Mrs. Barry. Why, then, do you think she holds such a grudge against Gilbert Blythe?
7. Why is it so important to Anne to have a dress with puffed sleeves? Why is it important to Matthew?
8. When Anne is at Queen’s College, she thinks: “All the Beyond was hers with its possibilities lurking rosily in the oncoming years—each year a rose of promise to be woven into an immortal chaplet” (p. 266). How is this message both hopeful and sad? How do you think Anne’s conceptions of the future change throughout the book?
9. Discuss Anne’s reaction to Matthew’s death. How do you think it shows her maturation? How, if at all, do you think she was prepared for it?
10. At the end of the book, Rachel Lynde tells Marilla, “There’s a good deal of the child about her yet in some ways,” and Marilla responds by saying, “There’s a good deal more of the woman about her in others” (p. 285). What do you make of her comment? How has Anne changed during her time at Green Gables? How has she stayed the same?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Messenger (The Giver Quartet, 3)
Lois Lowry, 2004
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
192 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780547995670
Summary
Strange changes are taking place in Village. Once a utopian community that prided itself on its welcome to new strangers, Village will soon be closed to all outsiders. As one of the few people able to travel through the dangerous Forest, Matty must deliver the message of Village's closing and try to convince Seer's daughter to return with him before it's too late. But Forest has become hostile to Matty as well, and he must risk everything to fight his way through it, armed only with an emerging power he cannot yet explain or understand.
In this novel that unites characters from The Giver and Gathering Blue, Matty, a young member of a utopian community that values honesty, conceals an emerging healing power that he cannot explain or understand. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—March 20, 1937
• Where—Hawaii, USA
• Education—B.A., M.F.A., University of
Southern Maine
• Awards—Newbery Medal (2)
• Currently—lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Lois Lowry is an American author of children's literature. She began her career as a photographer and a freelance journalist during the early 1970s. Her work as a journalist drew the attention of Houghton Mifflin and they encouraged her to write her first children's book, A Summer to Die, which was published in 1977 (when Lowry was 40 years old). She has since written more than 30 books for children and published an autobiography. Two of her works have been awarded the prestigious Newbery Medal: Number the Stars in 1990, and The Giver in 1993.
As an author, Lowry is known for writing about difficult subject matters within her works for children. She has explored such complex issues as racism, terminal illness, murder, and the Holocaust among other challenging topics. She has also explored very controversial issues of questioning authority such as in The Giver quartet. Her writing on such matters has brought her both praise and criticism. In particular, her work The Giver has been met with a diversity of reactions from schools in America, some of which have adopted her book as a part of the mandatory curriculum, while others have prohibited the book's inclusion in classroom studies. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Some critics objected to the unresolved endings of the first two books; others applauded. While Messenger may tie the three stories together just a little too neatly, it is still far from a sweet resolution. Up to the last anguished page, Lois Lowry shows how hard it is to build community. I suspect that many young readers will want to return to all three stories.
Hazel Rochman - New York Times
It sounds abstract and portentous, but Lowry's mastery of dramatic pacing, eye for homey detail and sly sense of humor combine to make this allegorical world seem far more real than the cardboard-cutout malls and schools of many a "realistic" YA novel.
Elizabeth Ward - Washington Post
Life is good for Matty and the Seer, the blind man with whom he lives in their open and friendly community. However, changes begin to take place. People become obsessed with trading for objects, and some have traded their "deepest selves." When some of the people vote to close the village to keep strangers out, Leader sends Matty to other villages so they will know what is happening. Matty also goes to the Seer's village to bring his daughter back. On the return trip however, the forest has turned angry and most foul. Matty must use every ounce of his being to bring the forest and life in the village back to normal. Lowry is a marvelous storyteller who grabs hold of the reader's imagination as strongly as the vines and branches of her terrible forest. Lowry's themes of the necessity of caring for one another, the importance of being open and honest, the significance of the relationship between humans and our natural surroundings are all worthy of discussion. However, for this reader there were some loose ends that were not satisfactorily resolved. The issue of the trading was left—perhaps intentionally—rather nebulous. The reader never learns the details of who is making the trades and what the people are trading in return. In healing the forest, Matty was able to heal all that was wrong with the people of the village—their greed as well as illness. It seems that no one was required to take responsibility for his or her own actions. This is a companion novel to The Giver and Gathering Blue, but it can be read on its own.
Children's Literature
Fans of Lowry's Newbery-winning The Giver (Houghton Mifflin, 1993) and its companion book, Gathering Blue (2000), will find themselves brought back to the same world that bridges the two previous volumes by connecting characters and events, answering some questions but asking even more. Matty is the main character, a boy on the threshold of adulthood, who lives in Village with Seer, the blind man who has taken him in and raised him as his own. Matty is a messenger who travels throughout Village and occasionally through Forest, taking messages to the communities beyond. Village has been a welcoming place of refuge for others like Matty who have fled their homes to escape mistreatment and even death; however, something is different. People in Village are changing, and a group of townspeople have approached Leader demanding to close off Village to refugees. Through democratic vote, the will of the people prevails. Matty must warn the other communities that Village will soon be off-limits, and he must travel through Forest, which is thickening and growing more sinister day by day. His most important task is to bring Seer's daughter, Kira, back with him on his return journey, which becomes more ominous and more dangerous with every step. Matty's journey is one of self-discovery, and Lowry's simple prose belies complex issues of human nature woven throughout the story—faith, desire, and accepting the consequences of one's choices. As in The Giver, by the end of this book readers will want the story to continue to answer the questions that Lowry poses.
VOYA
Lowry masterfully presents another thought-provoking, haunting tale in this third novel, a companion to The Giver and Gathering Blue. Matty, the scruffy thief from Gathering Blue, lives with the blind man called Seer and helps him around the house. Now an educated young adult, Matty delivers messages for Leader, the head of Village, traversing the sometimes inhospitable Forest. On one such mission, he discovers that he has the power to heal. Meanwhile, sinister attitudes begin to infiltrate his formerly tolerant Village-most notably in Mentor, the man who "tamed" Matty-and to threaten the principles on which it was founded. While Lowry intertwines compelling threads from past novels (readers discover what happened to Jonas, and that Kira also has a connection to Village), this story more than stands on its own. The author revisits some of the themes of her previous novels (the cost of striving for physical perfection; the benefits of inclusion), and takes them to another level. Because she continues to work in allegorical terms, her lessons about the effects of consumerism on society and the importance of knowing one's history never feel teacherly; instead, she allows readers to come to their own conclusions. And Matty himself, once a taker, in many ways brings the series full circle, becoming the Village citizen who offers the greatest gift.
Publishers Weekly
Matty, who has lived in Village with the blind Seer since running away from an abusive childhood, is looking forward to receiving his true name, which he hopes will be Messenger. But he is deeply unsettled by what is going on. He has discovered his own power to heal others and learned of disturbing changes within his community. Under the gentle guidance of Leader, who arrived in Village on a red sled as a young boy and who has the power of Seeing Beyond, the citizens have always welcomed newcomers, especially those who are disabled. But a sinister force is at work, which has prompted them to close admission to outsiders. Also, it seems that Matty's beloved Mentor has been trading away parts of his inner self in order to become more attractive to Stocktender's widow. When the date for the close of the border is decided, Matty must make one more trip through the increasingly sinister Forest to bring back Seer's daughter, the gifted weaver Kira. On the return journey, Matty must decide if he should use his healing but self-destructive power to reverse the inexorable decline of Forest, Village, and its people. While readers may be left mystified as to what is behind the dramatic change in Village, Lowry's skillful writing imbues the story with a strong sense of foreboding, and her descriptions of the encroaching Forest are particularly vivid and terrifying. The gifted young people, introduced in The Giver (1993) and Gathering Blue (2000, both Houghton), are brought together in a gripping final scene, and the shocking conclusion without benefit of denouement is bound to spark much discussion and debate. —Marie Orlando, Suffolk Cooperative Library System, Bellport, NY
School Library Journal
(Starred review.) Like Lowry's hugely popular Newbery winner, The Giver (1993), this story dramatizes ideas of utopia gone wrong and focuses on a young person who must save his world.... Lowry moves far beyond message, writing with a beautiful simplicity rooted in political fable, in warm domestic detail, and in a wild natural world, just on the edge of realism.... The physical immediacy of his quest through a dark forest turned hostile brings the myth very close and builds suspense to the last heart-wrenching page
Booklist
Told in simple, evocative prose, this companion to The Giver (1993) and Gathering Blue (2000) can stand on its own as a powerful tale of great beauty. Though it does offer connections to its predecessors, it is not a mere postscript to them, but something new and grand: a completely enchanting, haunting story about the dark corruption of power and good people using their gifts as weapons against it. Readers will be absorbed in thought and wonder long after all of the pages are turned.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Gatherine Blue (The Giver Quartet, 2)
Lois Lowry, 2000
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780547995687
Summary
Lame and suddenly orphaned, Kira is mysteriously removed from her squalid village to live in the palatial Council Edifice, where she is expected to use her gifts as a weaver to do the bidding of the all-powerful Guardians.
Lame and suddenly orphaned, Kira is mysteriously removed from her squalid village to live in the palatial Council Edifice, where she is expected to use her gifts as a weaver to do the bidding of the all-powerful Guardians. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—March 20, 1937
• Where—Hawaii, USA
• Education—B.A., M.F.A., University of
Southern Maine
• Awards—Newbery Medal (2)
• Currently—lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Lois Lowry is an American author of children's literature. She began her career as a photographer and a freelance journalist during the early 1970s. Her work as a journalist drew the attention of Houghton Mifflin and they encouraged her to write her first children's book, A Summer to Die, which was published in 1977 (when Lowry was 40 years old). She has since written more than 30 books for children and published an autobiography. Two of her works have been awarded the prestigious Newbery Medal: Number the Stars in 1990, and The Giver in 1993.
As an author, Lowry is known for writing about difficult subject matters within her works for children. She has explored such complex issues as racism, terminal illness, murder, and the Holocaust among other challenging topics. She has also explored very controversial issues of questioning authority such as in The Giver quartet. Her writing on such matters has brought her both praise and criticism. In particular, her work The Giver has been met with a diversity of reactions from schools in America, some of which have adopted her book as a part of the mandatory curriculum, while others have prohibited the book's inclusion in classroom studies. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
With characteristic grace, Lowry pulls her reader into this tale of a devastated world in which judgments are harsh and the dead are left to rot in the fields. Here we find Kira, her leg twisted from birth and her heart, impossibly, nourishing hope. Kira is in a struggle for survival, and the world she inhabits has been crafted with care. The narrative voice is compelling, and in the end, the reader is left with the satisfying sense that in the creation of beauty out of cruelty lies infinite potential. Those who appreciated The Giver will find here another readable, futuristic fantasy, set in a world of flaws and fortunes that bear contemplation in relevance to our own.
Children's Literature
This outstanding novel is set in a futuristic hunter-gatherer society in which primitive laws and barbaric custom hold sway. Fatherless thirteen-year-old Kira, almost killed at birth because of her twisted leg, was saved when her mother intervened. After her mother dies, Kira turns to the village's Council of Guardians for help when the village women try to kill her for her meager plot of land. The Council spares Kira because her extraordinary weaving talents will allow her to complete the ceremonial robe worn in the village's annual gathering by the village Singer. Kira is sent to live in the Council offices, where she meets Thomas, a young woodcarver using his exceptional skills to complete the Singer's staff, and Jo, a six-year-old being trained to take over the duties of the Singer. The three prodigies, however, soon begin to lose the joy they had previously taken in their gifts. As the annual gathering draws near, Kira and Thomas discover that their parents and Jo's might have died at the Council's hands so that the Council could control the children's remarkable talents. Lowry has created a world diametrically opposed to the technologically centered, rigidly structured world of The Giver. This title similarly leaves its young protagonist at a crossroads, and one hopes that Kira's story will continue. The author weaves in details that bring Kira's world to life as seamlessly as Jonas's in The Giver. Readers can see and feel Kira's excitement when she finally acquires the ability to make blue, a color that has eluded her people. This extraordinary novel is remarkable for its fully realized characters, gripping plot, and Lowry's singular vision of afuture in which technology does not predominate but has instead been essentially discarded.
VOYA
After conjuring the pitfalls of a technologically advanced society in The Giver, Lowry looks toward a different type of future to create this dark, prophetic tale with a strong medieval flavor. Having suffered numerous unnamed disasters (aka, the Ruin), civilization has regressed to a primitive, technology-free state; an opening author's note describes a society in which "disorder, savagery, and self-interest" rule. Kira, a crippled young weaver, has been raised and taught her craft by her mother, after her father was allegedly killed by "beasts." When her mother dies, Kira fears that she will be cast out of the village. Instead, the society's Council of Guardians installs her as caretaker of the Singer's robe, a precious ceremonial garment depicting the history of the world and used at the annual Gathering. She moves to the Council Edifice, a gothic-style structure, one of the few to survive the Ruin. The edifice and other settings, such as the Fen—the village ghetto—and the small plot where Annabella (an elder weaver who mentors Kira after her mother's death) lives are especially well drawn, and the characterizations of Kira and the other artists who cohabit the stone residence are the novel's greatest strength. But the narrative hammers at the theme of the imprisoned artist. And readers may well predict where several important plot threads are headed (e.g., the role of Kira's Guardian, Jamison; her father's disappearance), while larger issues, such as the society's downfall, are left to readers' imaginationsn.
Publishers Weekly
Gathering Blue begins, a harsh, barbaric community of the future challenges the right of Kira to remain a part. Orphaned by the recent death of her mother, Kira has been cursed by a deformed leg and blessed by unsurpassed artistic talent. Facing the Council of Guardians, she pleads her case and finds an important role that plunges her deep into the heart of this enigmatic civilization. Lois Lowry, the consummate yarn-spinner, has deftly woven this cautionary tale so reminiscent of her Newbery tour-de-force, The Giver. She takes a bleak and colorless landscape, embroiders it richly with her storytelling prowess, and even treats us to an introductory spoken passage filled with insight into her thoughts and motivations for writing the story. Gathering Blue lends itself well to the medium of audiobook. The unusual-yet-familiar vocabulary used by the villagers can be recognized readily through the expert reading of actress Katherine Borowitz. The story is loquacious, mysterious, and thought provoking a must-have for young adults. The audio version is certain to be popular on circulation lists and with teachers. —Lisa Denton, J.S. Russell Junior High School, Lawrenceville, VA
School Library Journal
(Starred review.) Lowry is a master at creating worlds, both real and imagined, and this incarnation of our civilization some time in the future is one of her strongest creations.
Booklist
Lowry returns to the metaphorical future world of her Newbery-winning The Giver (1993) to explore the notion of foul reality disguised as fair.... Readers will find plenty of material for thought and discussion here, plus a touch of magic and a tantalizing hint (stay sharp, or you'll miss it) about the previous book's famously ambiguous ending. A top writer, in top form.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Discuss what gave Katrina, Kira’s mother, the courage to stand up to the people of the village and spare Kira’s life, when the custom in Kira’s society was to destroy babies born with birth defects. Do you think Katrina was aware of her daughter’s gift? Katrina never created the color blue. Do you think she knew that her daughter would someday find the secret of creating blue?
2. At the beginning of the novel, Katrina dies and Kira is left homeless. Kira is fearful, especially when Vandara, a vicious and angry woman, tells her that she is worthless. Discuss the strength Kira displays when she faces the Council of Guardians. How does Kira show strength and courage throughout the novel?
3. Discuss the way children are treated in Kira’s society. What is the difference between abuse and neglect? How is Matt both abused and neglected? What is his role in the story? How does Matt contribute to Kira’s growth as a person and an artist?
4. Vandara is known throughout the village. “People whispered about her. She was known, and respected. Or feared.” (p. 15) How can someone who is feared be respected? Discuss whether the women of the village fear Vandara more than they respect her. How do you know that they don’t really agree with Vandara regarding Kira’s fate?
5. What qualities determine the difference between skill and art? Debate whether Katrina was a skilled weaver or an artist. At what point in the novel does Kira display the true qualities of an artist?
6. Why is the history of the people called the Ruin Song? The scenes on the Singer’s Robe represent Ruin, Rebuilding, Ruin Again, andRegrowth. How does this symbolize the history of our world?
7. Kira has always been told that beasts killed her father. When Kira tells Jamison that Annabella says there are no beasts, he replies, “She’s very old. It’s dangerous for her to speak that way.” (p. 128) Do you think Annabella knows the truth about Kira’s father? Discuss whether Jamison is responsible for Annabella’s death.
8. Matt is concerned that Kira might be held captive at the Council Edifice. How is it that he has a better understanding of the meaning of captivity than Kira does? Debate whether Kira and Thomas, the young carver, are indeed held captive even though they are allowed to roam. At what point does Kira realize that she isn’t really free?
9. What do Kira, Thomas, and Jo have in common? Interpret the following statement: “They were forcing the children to describe the future they wanted, not the one that could be.” (p. 212)
10. At the end of the novel, Matt brings Christopher, Kira’s blind father, to meet her. How does meeting her father alter Kira’s concept of her purpose in life and her contribution to her society’s future?
(Questions courtesy of Pat Scales, author, former Director of Library Services, South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities, Greenville.)
Time Between Us
Tamara Ireland Stone, 2012
Hyperion Books for Children
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781423159568
Summary
Anna and Bennett were never supposed to meet: she lives in 1995 Chicago and he lives in 2012 San Francisco. But Bennett’s unique ability to travel through time and space brings him into Anna’s life, and with him, a new world of adventure and possibility. As their relationship deepens, they face the reality that time might knock Bennett back where he belongs, even as a devastating crisis throws everything they believe into question. Against a ticking clock, Anna and Bennett are forced to ask themselves how far they can push the bounds of fate—and what consequences they can bear in order to stay together.
Fresh, exciting, and deeply romantic, Time Between Us is a stunning and spellbinding debut from an extraordinary new talent in YA fiction. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Tamara Ireland Stone grew up in northern California. In addition to writing, Tamara co-owns a Silicon Valley marketing communications firm and enjoys skiing, hiking, and spending time with her husband and two children. Tamara lives just outside San Francisco, where she is at work on her second novel. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Anna started an ordinary day with her usual routine, running. She did not, however, usually see a hot guy on campus as she ran by, and she had never seen a guy who just...disappeared. But then he showed up later in the day at school—turned out Bennett was real, seemed nice, but maybe a little aloof. Anna falls for Bennett, who reveals his secret: he disappeared that morning because he is able to travel through time and space. At first, Anna delights in Bennett's ability. She wants to travel so badly, and he can take her to Italy on a moment's notice—and without any adults noticing they are missing. Their relationship gets complicated when Bennett reveals another secret: he is from the past and he is losing control over his unusual ability. Teen romance readers will enjoy this twist on a "bad boy" story—Bennett is actually a good guy, but his special power seriously complicates their relationship. First-time author Stone has had a successful career in public relations, but says that Anna's story came to her during a conversation with her husband. He asked her which superpower she would like to have. She replied that she would want time-traveling abilities—so that she could go back five minutes each time she stuck her foot in her mouth., and maybe to see Green Day play back in the '90s. Soon, Bennett was born; then Anna. Hyperion is betting on this to be a hit, releasing it in print, audio, and as an e-book simultaneously.
Anna Foote - VOYA
The cute new boy at school, Bennett Cooper, keeps disappearing on steadfast Anna Greene in this warm, time-bending romance, set in 1995. High school junior Anna feels stuck in Evanston, Ill., growing up in her father’s childhood home and dreaming of travel and adventure. Anna stays smitten with Bennett as he alternately flirts with her and pushes her away. Debut author Stone takes a while to let Anna discover that Bennett is a time traveler from the year 2012; they fall for each other knowing they might be pulled apart by Bennett’s inability to stay in 1995. Some readers may get slightly tripped up by the logistics of time travel—Bennett is simultaneously a baby and a 17-year-old in 1995 while looking for his sister who got stuck in 1994. But the chemistry between Bennett and Anna—and the fun and brave things they do together—will have readers rooting for the couple that keeps daring fate. The secret Bennett keeps from Anna unravels into a dreamy, twisty ending.
Publishers Weekly
The story will hold readers with its twists and turns, present and future; its love, sadness, and anger; and especially, its surprising secrets.
Booklist
A slow-moving time-travel romance emphasizes romance over everything else. When Anna sees a strange boy who smiles warmly at her when she's out for her morning jog, she's puzzled. Puzzlement turns to bewilderment when that boy—Bennett—shows up as a new student at her tony private high school and reacts violently to her name but seems not to recognize her at all. She has always wanted to see the world, but she's hardly ever left her hometown of Evanston, Ill.; she explores the travel section of her father's bookstore instead. One night, Bennett uses his amazing time-travel ability to save her from a robbery at the store; he explains that he comes from 2012 and is in Anna's time, 1995, to find the sister he lost at a Pearl Jam concert. Love ensues. Stone doesn't bother to give Bennett's unique talent any kind of coherent framework, instead using it to fuel fabulous trips to exotic places and to provide an excuse for hand-wringing about unrequitable love. Anna forces him to go against his preternaturally developed sense of chrono-ethics when her two best friends are in a terrible car accident, but even the consequences of that are only limply explored. The rushed ending exposes the lost sister for the MacGuffin she is and knocks the feet out from under the novel's only emotionally honest moment, Anna's decision to live for herself. Time travel can be fascinating, but here it is not.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Specific discussion questions will be added if and when they are made available by the publisher.
Liar & Spy
Rebecca Stead, 2012
Random House Children's Books
192 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385737432
Summary
The instant New York Times bestseller from the author of the Newbery Medal book When You Reach Me: a story about spies, games, and friendship.
Seventh grader Georges moves into a Brooklyn apartment building and meets Safer, a twelve-year-old self-appointed spy. Georges becomes Safer's first spy recruit. His assignment? Tracking the mysterious Mr. X, who lives in the apartment upstairs. But as Safer becomes more demanding, Georges starts to wonder: what is a lie, and what is a game? How far is too far to go for your only friend? Like the dazzling When You Reach Me, Liar & Spy will keep readers guessing until the end. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 16, 1968
• Where—New York City, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Vassar College
• Awards—Newbery Medal
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York
Rebecca Stead is an American author who writes books for children and young adults. She won the 2010 Newbery Medal for the most distinguished contribution to children's literature for her second novel, When You Reach Me.
Personal Life
Born and raised in New York City, Stead enjoyed her elementary school years and remembers fondly the way to make and enjoy tacos. She attended Vassar College and received her bachelor's degree in 1989.
Rebecca Stead is married to attorney Sean O'Brien and has two sons. She and her family live on the upper west side of Manhattan.
Writing Career
Stead enjoyed writing as a child, but as she grew older she felt it was 'impractical' and became a lawyer instead. After years as a public defender she returned to writing after the birth of her two children. On her website she credits her son with inspiring her to write a children's novel, but not in the way one would expect. For years she had collected story ideas and short stories on a laptop, which the child pushed off a table, destroying it and losing all her 'serious' writing. As a way to lighten her mood she began again with something light-hearted. The creation of First Light followed.
First Light
When You Reach Me
When You Reach Me takes place in 1978-1979 New York. The story follows Miranda, a sixth grader, as she recalls the events of the past few months, laying out clues and puzzles as she asks an unseen listener to figure it out. The setting is a tiny slice of Manhattan, filled with abundant details and vivid characters. It has been described as suspense with a bit of the supernatural. Miranda is a great fan of Madeleine L'Engle's classic, A Wrinkle in Time and references to that book help add to the mystery of the novel. Three plot lines run through this novel, seemingly unrelated as the tale begins: Miranda's mother prepares to be a guest on The $20,000 Pyramid; Miranda's lifelong friend Sal will no longer speak to her; and "the laughing man", a very strange homeless man catches Miranda's attention. Publishers Weekly applauds Stead's ability to 'make every detail count' as she creates a plausible conclusion with these divergent and improbable plot lines. A New York Times Book Review called it a "taut novel, every word, every sentence, has meaning and substance. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Stead has such a fine grasp on the alternately base and fanciful preoccupations of seventh graders that even the occasional forays into capital-C Cuteness get a pass.... Stead handily succeeds in keeping all the mysteries going to the bitter end. And in each case, this non-young adult was genuinely surprised by the outcomes.
Lucinda Rosenfeld - New York Times Book Review
Georges has it pretty good, but then his best friend becomes a skater who hangs with the bullies who make Georges their target; his dad gets fired; his mom has to work extra shifts; and they have to sell their house. The new apartment does not measure up, until Georges sees a sign advertising the Spy Club. This leads him to Safer, who promises to train Georges to be a spy and enlists him to help scope out the building's possibly murderous man in black. Georges is unsure about being a spy, but is also unsure about how to deal with the bullies at school, whether the taste lab will determine he is, in fact, a geeksack, and, most importantly, whether Safer is really all he seems. Stead's vibrant, fully actualized characters—determined Georges; his earnest, hopeful father; the mysterious, damaged Safer; Dallas the jeering bully; enigmatic Bob English Who Draws—elevate this coming-of-age story from typical middle-school angst to a truly quirky, memorable piece. The seemingly insignificant minutiae of Georges' daily life—the anatomy of the tongue, escaped parrots, Ben Franklin's Rules for Spelling—achieve symbolic significance as they lead Georges to a place where he can face the looming loss he spends most of the novel avoiding. All the pieces come together in a magnificent twist at the end, reinforcing the message that all obstacles can be overcome. Young readers will see themselves in Georges's frustrations, and celebrate and be inspired by his victories over his tormentors—and himself.
VOYA
Seventh grade is not going well for Georges, the only child of an out-of-work Brooklyn architect and a nurse who named him after her favorite painter, pointillist Georges Seurat. Although Georges's mother has taken on double shifts to bring in extra income, the family has had to sell their house and move into an apartment. At school, former best friend Jason, who has started dressing like the skateboarder he isn't, now stands idly by while bullies harass Georges. Newbery Medalist Stead (When You Reach Me) expertly balances Georges's blue period with the introduction of the new neighbors: amateur spy Safer, and his younger sister, Candy, whose parents (in one of many hilarious details) let the kids name themselves. As homeschooled siblings, they offer refreshing perspectives on the ridiculousness of what goes on at Georges's school, including a forthcoming science unit on taste buds that the kids believe forecasts one's destiny. Safer recruits Georges to investigate and observe—using the lobbycam to track a mysterious tenant and binoculars to monitor a nest of wild green parrots—but the biggest secrets are the ones these two sensitive boys have buried in their hearts. Stead has a talent for introducing curriculum-ready topics in the most accessible ways imaginable, e.g., Seurat's painting methods become a persuasive metaphor for what Georges is going through and how he can survive it. Chock-full of fascinating characters and intelligent questions, this is as close to perfect as middle-grade novels come.
Publishers Weekly
The ending twists readers’ entire perception of the events and creates a brilliant conclusion to an insightful novel.
School Library Journal
A seventh-grade boy who is coping with social and economic issues moves into a new apartment building, where he makes friends with an over-imaginative home-schooled boy and his eccentric family. Social rules are meant to be broken is the theme of this big-hearted, delightfully quirky tale, and in keeping with that, Stead creates a world where nothing is as it seems.... It would be unfair to give anything away, but suffice it to say that Georges resolves his various issues in a way that's both ingenious and organic to the story. Original and winning.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
(The following questions have been adapted from an educators guide by Random House. The first six questions are based on themes.)
1. On FAMILY—Describe Georges’ family. Georges’ mom calls Safer’s family “bohemian,” but his dad calls them “progressive.” Discuss the difference. Why is Georges intrigued with Safer’s family? Georges’ mom is a nurse, and he refers to her working double shifts. What is the first clue that she is an actual patient in the hospital? Explain why Georges’ dad needs him. Why is Georges uncomfortable with their conversations?
2. On FRIENDSHIP—How might Georges define friendship? Explain what happened to the friendship between Georges and Jason. Georges feels like a loser when Jason betrays him for the “cool” kids. How is Georges really the winner? Debate whether Safer understands the meaning of friendship. Describe the relationship between Georges and Bob English Who Draws. Discuss whether Georges’ idea of friendship changes by the end of the novel.
3. On BELONGING—Georges certainly doesn’t belong to the “cool” group at school. Then his dad loses his job and the family has to move from their house to an apartment. What does Georges miss about his old neighborhood? Contrast Georges and Safer’s need to belong. How does Safer need Georges more than Georges needs Safer? What prompts Mr. Landau to ask Georges if he’s doing okay.
4. On BULLYING—Define bullying and talk about the difference between teasing and bullying. How does teasing lead to bullying? Dallas Llewellyn is the leader of the bullies that torment Georges. Discuss how Georges solves his problem with Dallas and his gang.
5. On SELF-DISCOVERY—Georges makes an important journey in the novel. What does he learn about himself? How does learning the truth about Safer’s fears help him mastermind a plot to improve his image at school? Georges and Safer deal with identity issues because of their names. How is “Safer” both a label and a name? When does Georges begin to see “the big picture”? How does this change his view of himself?
6. On CONFLICTING VALUES—Georges isn’t normally a liar. Why does he allows Safer to talk him into lying about the Spy Club meeting. In what other ways does Georges violate the moral values that his parents taught him? Georges feels somewhat betrayed when he finds out that Safer has been dishonest about Mr. X. Debate whether Safer is a liar or someone who doesn’t tell the whole story.
7. In teaching the class about taste, Mr. Landau asks, “What is the taste of the human experience?” Talk about how taste is frequently used as a metaphor to describe life? What tastes might you use to describe some of your life experiences.
8. What is Bob English Who Draws' system of spelling reform? Have some fun demonstrating how it works.
9. What clues are given that Safer suffers from some type of social phobia?
10. Talk about pointillism and the way in which author Rebecca Stead uses it as a symbol for the troubles Georges is going through.
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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Son (The Giver Quartet, 4)
Lois Lowry, 2012
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780547887203
Summary
They called her Water Claire. When she washed up on their shore, no one knew that she came from a society where emotions and colors didn’t exist. That she had become a Vessel at age thirteen. That she had carried a Product at age fourteen. That it had been stolen from her body. Claire had a son. But what became of him she never knew. What was his name? Was he even alive? She was supposed to forget him, but that was impossible. Now Claire will stop at nothing to find her child, even if it means making an unimaginable sacrifice.
Son thrusts readers once again into the chilling world of the Newbery Medal winning book, The Giver, as well as Gathering Blue and Messenger where a new hero emerges. In this thrilling series finale, the startling and long-awaited conclusion to Lois Lowry’s epic tale culminates in a final clash between good and evil. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—March 20, 1937
• Where—Hawaii, USA
• Education—B.A., M.F.A., University of Southern Maine
• Awards—Newbery Medal (2)
• Currently—lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Lois Lowry is an American author of children's literature. She began her career as a photographer and a freelance journalist during the early 1970s. Her work as a journalist drew the attention of Houghton Mifflin and they encouraged her to write her first children's book, A Summer to Die, which was published in 1977 (when Lowry was 40 years old). She has since written more than 30 books for children and published an autobiography. Two of her works have been awarded the prestigious Newbery Medal: Number the Stars in 1990, and The Giver in 1993.
As an author, Lowry is known for writing about difficult subject matters within her works for children. She has explored such complex issues as racism, terminal illness, murder, and the Holocaust among other challenging topics. She has also explored very controversial issues of questioning authority such as in The Giver quartet. Her writing on such matters has brought her both praise and criticism. In particular, her work The Giver has been met with a diversity of reactions from schools in America, some of which have adopted her book as a part of the mandatory curriculum, while others have prohibited the book's inclusion in classroom studies. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
A beautifully wrought political fable.... A consummate stylist, Lowry handles it all magnificently: the leaps in time, the shifts in perspective, the moments of extreme emotion—fear, joy, sadness—all conveyed in unadorned prose that seizes the heart.... This is the rare concluding volume that will send readers back to the first.
Mary Quattlebaum - Washington Post
Drawing characters and themes from The Giver and its companions, Gathering Blue and Messenger, Lowry concludes her Giver Quartet nearly 20 years after the Newbery Medal–winning first book was published. The story is divided into three sections, and in the completely absorbing opening, Lowry transports readers back to the horrifying world from which Jonas came. The spotlight is on 14-year-old Claire, a Birthmother who is given an emergency Caesarean to save “the Product.” The child survives, but Claire is coldly “decertified” and sent to work elsewhere, mystified as to what happened to her and her baby. Those familiar with The Giver will feel the pieces fall into place as Claire figures out which Product is hers and tracks his progress. Part two details Claire’s decade-long struggle to remember who she is, and it suffers slightly from having a main character afflicted with a well-worn plot device (amnesia); the final third reunites characters from all three previous novels for a showdown with evil incarnate. If the latter sections don’t quite keep up with the thrilling revelations of the first, Lowry still ties together these stories in a wholly satisfying way.
Publishers Weekly
Son is a tender conclusion to this memorable story, and definitely the best of the books in this sequence since The Giver itself.
School Library Journal
(Starred review.) Lowry is one of those rare writers who can craft stories as meaningful as they are enticing.
Booklist
In this long-awaited finale to the Giver Quartet, a young mother from a dystopian community searches for her son and sacrifices everything to find him living in a more humane society with characters from The Giver (1993), Gathering Blue (2000) and Messenger (2004). A designated Birthmother, 14-year-old Claire has no contact with her baby Gabe until she surreptitiously bonds with him in the community Nurturing Center.... Intent on finding Gabe, she single-mindedly scales the cliff, encounters the sinister Trademaster and exchanges her youth for his help in finding her child.... Written with powerful, moving simplicity, Claire's story stands on its own, but as the final volume in this iconic quartet, it holistically reunites characters, reprises provocative socio-political themes, and offers a transcending message of tolerance and hope. Bravo!
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Define community. Compare and contrast each community in which Claire lives. How is she a mystery, or a foreigner, in all three communities?
2. Discuss how the rituals in the seaside community in “Book Two: Between." Define the culture of the people. How does Claire’s previous life resemble a science lab? What is the connection between science, culture, and the human experience? How does Jonas understand the human experience? Explain how Claire’s “Between” years help her make the transition to “Beyond."
3. Claire is inexperienced with feelings. Why is she soconfused when she begins to have a “yearning” for herproduct? How does this feeling frighten her? Discuss how the emotion of love overtakes the emotion offear. Explain how Claire’s “yearning” sets her free.
4. Discuss Claire’s reaction when she learns that she is a failure as a Birthmother. Debate whether she thinks she has failed herself or her community. Discuss whether her product’s failure to thrive contributes to additional feelings of failure. How does her failure as a Birthmother cause her shame in the seaside community? Why is she considered “stained”? How does her failure as a “vessel” allow her to become amother?
5. Secrets and lying are prohibited in the community. How do Claire’s secret feelings cause her great pain? Debate whether Claire is guilty of lying or simply creating excuses to wander from the Fish Hatchery to the Nurturing Center. The man who is caring for Thirty-six is also harboring a secret. What would happen if the Chief Elder of the community discovered that he had named the product, now a new child? What is symbolic about the new child’s name?
6. What does the nurturer see in Thirty-six that others can’t see? Explain Gabe’s gift. Jonas gave Gabe life by taking him to Elsewhere. Debate the possibility that Jonas saw something “special” in the infant Gabe. What does he give him at the end of Son?
7. In “Book One: Before,” Claire says that she is lonely, though she really doesn’t understand the meaning of the word. How does she confront her feelings of loneliness as she makes her journey to “Between” and“Beyond”? Which other characters suffer from a similar loneliness? Debate whether Gabe is lonely or simply needs to understand his history.
8. In “Book Two: Between,” Alys realizes that Claire is deeply wounded. How does she help Claire come to terms with “Before”? Why does Claire decide to tell Bryn her story? How does Claire know that Lame Einar won’t be scornful of her past?
9. Discuss what Lame Einar means when he tells Claire, “It be better, I think, to climb out in search of something, instead of hating what you’re leaving.” (p.209) How is love stronger than hate? Discuss how Alys understands a mother’s love, even though she is not a mother herself.
10. Explain the statement, “Fear dims when you learnthings.” (p. 162) Debate whether Claire’s fear intenseifies or lessens as she continues her plight to and her son. What does she learn in “Book Two: Between” that dims her fears? Which characters in the seaside village help her gain knowledge?
11. Power may corrupt, but it can heal. How does Trademaster use his power to corrupt? Jonas needs for Gabe to understand the difference between a unique power and a gift. Why does Jonas feel that having a gift is burdensome? Discuss why Gabe is uncomfortable with his special gift. He uses his gift of veering to destroy evil. Debate whether he will ever use his gift again.
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Wake (Watersong Novel #1)
Amanda Hocking, 2012
St. Martin's Press
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250008121
Summary
Fall under the spell of Wake—the first book in an achingly beautiful new series by celebrated author Amanda Hocking—and lose yourself to the Watersong.
Gorgeous. Fearless. Dangerous. They're the kind of girls you envy; the kind of girls you want to hate. Strangers in town for the summer, Penn, Lexi and Thea have caught everyone's attention—but it’s Gemma who’s attracted theirs. She’s the one they’ve chosen to be part of their group.
Gemma seems to have it all—she’s carefree, pretty, and falling in love with Alex, the boy next door. He’s always been just a friend, but this summer they’ve taken their relationship to the next level, and now there’s no going back. Then one night, Gemma’s ordinary life changes forever. She’s taking a late night swim under the stars when she finds Penn, Lexi and Thea partying on the cove. They invite her to join them, and the next morning she wakes up on the beach feeling groggy and sick, knowing something is different.
Suddenly Gemma is stronger, faster, and more beautiful than ever. But her new powers come with a terrifying price. And as she uncovers the truth, she’s is forced to choose between staying with those she loves—or entering a new world brimming with dark hungers and unimaginable secrets. (From the publisher.)
See the video.
Author Bio
• Birth—July 12, 1984
• Raised—Austin, Minnesota, USA
• Education—attended community college
• Currently—lives in Austin, Minnesota
Amanda Hocking was employed as a group home worker, writing novels in her free time—17 of them. In April 2010, she began self-publishing them as e-books, and by March 2011, she had sold over a million copies of her nine books and earned two million dollars from sales, previously unheard of for self-published authors. In early 2011, Hocking averaged 9,000 book sales each day.
Hocking's published work, originally self-published, consists of My Blood Approves, a vampire romance series; the Trylle Trilogy, which covers a teenage girl's journey of self-discovery in an urban fantasy setting; and Hollowland, a zombie novel. The New York Times characterized her novels as "part quirky girl-like-Hocking characters, part breakneck pacing, part Hollywood-style action and part bodice-ripping romance—they are literature as candy, a mash-up of creativity and commerce."
In March 2011, Hocking signed her first conventional publishing contract for four books, at a price of two million dollars, with St. Martin's Press. It concerns her new young-adult paranormal series called "Watersong." Book one, Wake, was released in 2012, with the second installment, Lullaby, following later the same year. All three books in her previously self-published Trylle Trilogy were also sold to St. Martin's Press, and have been re-released in 2012. (From Wikipedia.)
Read the New York Times Magazine article on Hocking.
Book Reviews
Hocking hits all the commercial high notes… She knows how to keep readers turning the pages.
New York Times
The inaugural title in the four-book Watersong series by Hocking (the Trylle series) will please her fans and likely win her new ones. Sixteen-year-old Gemma Fisher is happy—she’s a star on the swim team, her family is loving and supportive, and the crush-worthy boy next door returns her interest. The only downside: three gorgeous but creepy new girls who have her in their sights. One night, Gemma is lured into joining the girls at a campfire by the water; she wakes up the next morning bruised and battered with no clear memories of what happened, but discovers she has supernatural healing abilities and is a far better swimmer than she realized. The girls tell Gemma stories of gods, goddesses, and curses that are actually blessings, but Gemma (rightly) suspects that some important information has been left out. While Hocking’s writing isn’t always polished (the foreshadowing can be painfully heavy), the well-structured story and strong characters carry readers over the rough spots. A cliffhanger ending sets up the next book, Lullaby. Ages 12–up.
Publishers Weekly
Pretty sixteen-year-old Gemma loves the water, especially night-time swims in Anthemusa Bay. Three other young women also frequent the ocean cove...[and] to Gemma's surprise, they court her company, but she and older sister Harper think these beautiful newcomers are strange.... One night while Gemma swims, however, the girls' singing lures and ensnares her. Harper searches for the missing Gemma and discovers her disoriented on the beach. The potion Gemma reluctantly swallowed has transformed her into a siren (part woman, part fish) with eternal life, beauty, and seductive powers but no real love.... Plot tension escalates steadily as the sirens ramp up their repulsiveness and Gemma resists joining them. A surreal battle scene adds excitement. Make room, vampires, because the sirens and this Watersong series have sharp teeth. —Barbara Johnston
VOYA
Hocking’s novel effectively melds myth and contemporary teen life. High school, family, young love, and mythology all combine to create an easy-to-read paranormal suspense story that will have fans eagerly awaiting new installments.
Booklist
When the initial fog of [Gemma's] late night at the cove with a trio of sirens...wears off, Gemma discovers that she is stronger, faster and more beautiful than ever.... Now she just has to choose between the life she loves and the lure of her newfound mythical powers.... In the end, it's secondary characters, like the girls' love interests, who will sustain readers determined to make it to the final page. Whether they'll feel motivated to pick up the next three books is anyone's guess.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
We will add specific Discussion Questions when they become available from the publisher.
Daughter of Smoke and Bone
Laini Taylor, 2011
Little, Brown & Co.
432 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316134026
Summary
Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.
In a dark and dusty shop, a devil's supply of human teeth grown dangerously low.
And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherwordly war.
Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she's prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands"; she speaks many languages—not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she's about to find out.
When one of the strangers—beautiful, haunted Akiva—fixes his fire-colored eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself? (From the publisher.)
This is the first book in the planned Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy. Days of Blood and Stardust is the second.
Author Bio
Laini Taylor is the author of four other novels: the forthcoming Days of Blood and Starlight, the Dreamdark books Blackbringer and Silksinger, and the National Book Award finalist Lips Touch: Three Times. She lives in Portland, Oregon, USA, with her husband, illustrator Jim Di Bartolo, and their daughter, Clementine. (From the publisher .)
Book Reviews
Any book that opens with "Once upon a time" is inviting high expectations. It's a phrase that inevitably evokes fairy tales and leather-bound classics about epic adventures, setting up the anticipation that readers will discover worlds filled with magic.... In this case, the story that follows...is a breath-catching romantic fantasy about destiny, hope and the search for one's true self that doesn't let readers down. Taylor has taken elements of mythology, religion and her own imagination and pasted them into a believably fantastical collage.
Chelsey Philpot - New York Times
(Starred review.) National Book Award finalist Taylor (Lips Touch: Three Times) again weaves a masterful mix of reality and fantasy with cross-genre appeal. Exquisitely written and beautifully paced, the tale is set in ghostly, romantic Prague, where 17-year-old Karou is an art student--except when she is called "home" to do errands for the family of loving, albeit inhuman, creatures who raised her. Mysterious as Karou seems to her friends, her life is equally mysterious to her: How did she come to live with chimaera? Why does paternal Brimstone eternally require teeth—especially human ones? And why is she "plagued by the notion that she wasn't whole....a sensation akin to having forgotten something?" Taylor interlaces cleverly droll depictions of contemporary teenage life with equally believable portrayals of terrifying otherworldly beings. When black handprints begin appearing on doorways throughout the world, Karou is swept into the ancient deadly rivalry between devils and angels and gradually, painfully, acquires her longed-for self-knowledge. The book's final pages seemingly establish the triumph of true love--until a horrifying revelation sets the stage for a second book.
Publishers Weekly
Gr 9 Up—Blue-haired Karou is 17, and, in addition to her unusual tresses, has other intriguing aspects to her personality. She supports her life as an art student in Prague by running errands for her foster parent, a supernatural chimera named Brimstone. These errands, which take Karou through strange portals to strange places to meet with even stranger individuals, reap rewards not only of money, but also wishes. Taylor builds a thoroughly tangible fantasy world wherein a complex parallel universe competes with far-flung geographic locales for gorgeously evoked images. Karou herself is a well-rendered character with convincing motivations: artistic and secretive, she longs for emotional connection and a sense of completeness. Her good friend Zuzana goes some way toward mitigating Karou's solitude, but a sour breakup with beautiful bad boy Kaz has left her feeling somewhat bereft. Taylor leads readers from this deceptively familiar trope into a turbulent battle between supernatural species: angel-beings seek the destruction of demonlike chimera in revenge for the burning of the archive of the seraph magi. The more Karou discovers about the battle, however, the less simple good and evil appear; the angels are not divine, the chimera are not evil, and genocide is apparently acceptable to both sides in this otherworldly war. Initially, the weakest part of the story appears to be the love story between Karou and Akiva, an angel of "shocking beauty"; there is little to support their instant bond until their true connection is disclosed. The suspense builds inexorably, and the philosophical as well as physical battles will hold action-oriented readers. The unfolding of character, place, and plot is smoothly intricate, and the conclusion is a beckoning door to the next volume.—Janice M. Del Negro, GSLIS Dominican University, River Forest, IL
School Library Journal
Author Taylor has created a variety of worlds, time frames, and creatures with such detail and craft that all are believable.... Readers will look forward to the suggested sequel to this complex, exciting tale.
Booklist
(Starred review.) Along with writing in such heightened language that even casual banter often comes off as wildly funny, the author crafts a fierce heroine with bright-blue hair, tattoos, martial skills, a growing attachment to a preternaturally hunky but not entirely sane warrior and, in episodes to come, an army of killer angels to confront. Rarely—perhaps not since the author's own Faeries of Dreamdark: Blackbringer (2007)—does a series kick off so deliciously.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Explain the significance of the title, Daughter of Smoke and Bone. In your opinion, does it accurately describe the events and relationships portrayed in the novel?
2. Daughter of Smoke and Bone opens with Karou being accosted by her former boyfriend Kazimir as he attempts to reconcile with her by telling her, “We’re meant to be together, you and me.” What can readers conclude about Karou’s belief in commitment from her reaction to his statement? What has this relationship with Kaz taught Karou about love?
3. Consider the wishes Karou earns from Brimstone as a result of her errand work. Why does Brimstone chastise her for spending them on frivolous items?
4. Why do Karou’s sketchbooks have such a following among the other art students? What fascinates others about this world that she captures?
5. After sharing more fantastical tales of Brimstone, Issa, Twiga, and the others from the shop, Zuzana asks, “How do you make this stuff up, maniac?” Karou responds by stating, “Who says I do? I keep telling you, it’s all real.” Why does offering a wry smile after such a statement allow her to tell the truth without the risk of being believed?
6. After Kaz surprises her by posing as a model for her drawing class, Karou uses her scuppies to wish itches on him and thinks, “This isn’t just for today. It’s for everything.” What can readers infer about Karou by considering her need to right the wrong he has bestowed on her?
7. After her failed relationship with Kaz, Brimstone tells Karou, “When an essential one comes along, you’ll know. Stop squandering yourself, child. Wait for love. It will come, and you will know it.” Do you agree with his assessment? What makes Brimstone capable of offering such sage advice?
8. Readers learn that Karou collects languages, often given to her by Brimstone as birthday presents. What might be her motivation in doing so? What does having this unique collection afford Karou? If you could “collect” a language (or two), what would it be? Why?
9. Describe Akiva or Karou. What makes him/her a dynamic character? What are three things that you find most (or least) appealing about this character? What are the biggest challenges he/she has to overcome?
10. Consider this conversation between Brimstone and Karou: “Wishes are not for foolery, child.” “Well, what do you use them for?” “Nothing,” he said. “I do not wish.” “What?” It had astonished her. “Never?” All that magic at his fingertips! “But you could have anything you wanted—“ “Not anything. There are things bigger than any wish.” “Like what?” “Most things that matter.” In your opinion, why does Brimstone offer such a poignant perspective on wishes? Do you agree with his assessment?
11. Who are your favorite or least favorite secondary characters in the novel? What is it about these characters that you find endearing or disturbing?
12. Considering Karou and Akiva’s perspectives, in what ways is Daughter of Smoke and Bone a story about things that have been lost? What does each of them find along the way?
13. Consider the variety of settings for Daughter of Smoke and Bone; name the three places you believe to be most important to the story. Using textual evidence from the book, explain why you find them to be significant to the overall story structure.
14. How would you characterize the relationship between Karou and Akiva? Do you feel that it changes over the course of the novel? If so, in what ways? Using textual evidence from the book, explain why you find them to be significant to the overall story structure.
15. Using the phrase, “This is a story about… ,” supply five words to describe Daughter of Smoke and Bone. Explain your choices.
16. Trust is a major theme throughout the novel; offer specific examples where a character’s willingness (or unwillingness) to trust others (or himself) proves advantageous or disastrous.
17. As the novel closes, Karou and Akiva are once again separated. Predict what will happen to them in the next installment of the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy.
(Questions issued by publisher.)
The Fault in Our Stars
John Green, 2012
Penguin Group USA
364 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781594137907
Summary
Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis.
But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel’s story is about to be completely rewritten.
Insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw, The Fault in Our Stars is award-winning author John Green’s most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet, brilliantly exploring the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—August 24, 1977
• Where—Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
• Rasied—Orlando, Florida
• Education—Kenyon College
• Awards—Michael L. Printz Award (twice);
Edgar Award for Best Young Adult Novel;
ture; Corine Literature Prize.
• Currently—lives in Indianapolis, Indiana
John Michael Green is an American author of young adult fiction and a YouTube vlogger. He is also a #1 Best Selling author on the New York Times Bestseller list.
Green grew up in Orlando, Florida, before attending Indian Springs School, a boarding and day school outside of Birmingham, Alabama. He graduated from Kenyon College in 2000 with a double major in English and Religious Studies.
Green lived for several years in Chicago, where he worked for the book review journal Booklist as a publishing assistant and production editor while writing Looking for Alaska. While there, he reviewed hundreds of books, particularly literary fiction and books about Islam or conjoined twins. He has also critiqued books for the New York Times Book Review and written for National Public Radio's All Things Considered and WBEZ, Chicago's public radio station. He lived in New York City for two years while his wife attended graduate school.
Green currently resides in Indianapolis, Indiana with his wife, Sarah, his son Henry, and his dog, a West Highland Terrier, named Willy (full name Fireball Wilson Roberts).
Writing
Green's first novel, Looking for Alaska (based on his own boarding school experience), won the 2006 Michael L. Printz Award presented by the American Library Association, and made the ALA 2005 Top 10 Best Book for Young Adults. The film rights to Looking for Alaska were purchased by Paramount in 2005 and the movie scheduled to be released in 2013.
His second novel, An Abundance of Katherines (2006), was a 2007 Michael L. Printz Award Honor Book, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and may also be made into a movie in the future.
Green collaborated on a book with fellow young adult authors Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle called Let It Snow (2008), which contains three interconnected short stories that take place in the same small town on Christmas Eve during a massive snowstorm. The story that he penned is called "A Cheertastic Christmas Miracle". On November 27, 2009, the book reached number 10 on the New York Times bestseller list for paperback children's books.
Green's third novel, Paper Towns (2008 ), debuted at number 5 on the New York Times bestseller list for children's books, and the movie rights to Paper Towns have been optioned, with Green hired to write the screenplay. Paper Towns was awarded the 2009 Edgar Award for Best Young Adult Novel and the 2010 Corine Literature Prize.
Green collaborated with fellow young adult writer and friend David Levithan on the 2010 book entitled Will Grayson, Will Grayson, and Green appeared on the Smart Mouths Podcast to discuss the book and collaboration.
Before Green's fifth book, The Fault in Our Stars, was released in 2012, he agreed to signed all 150,000 copies of the first printing, as well as his wife and his brother leaving their own symbols, a Yeti and an Anglerfish respectively. The New York Times Best Seller List for Children's Books listed the book at #1 within weeks.
John is also the cocreator (with his brother, Hank) of the popular video blog Brotherhood 2.0, which has been watched more than 30 million times by Nerdfighter fans all over the globe. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
This is [John Green's] best work yet. Narrator Hazel Grace Lancaster, 16, is (miraculously) alive thanks to an experimental drug that is keeping her thyroid cancer in check. In an effort to get her to have a life (she withdrew from school at 13), her parents insist she attend a support group at a local church, which Hazel characterizes in an older-than-her-years voice as a "rotating cast of characters in various states of tumor-driven unwellness." Despite Hazel's reluctant presence, it's at the support group that she meets Augustus Waters, a former basketball player who has lost a leg to cancer. The connection is instant, and a (doomed) romance blossoms. There is a road trip—Augustus, whose greatest fear is not of death but that his life won't amount to anything, uses his "Genie Foundation" wish to take Hazel to Amsterdam to meet the author of her favorite book. Come to think of it, Augustus is pretty damn hot. So maybe there's not a new formula at work so much as a gender swap. But this iteration is smart, witty, profoundly sad, and full of questions worth asking, even those like "Why me?" that have no answer. Ages 14–up.
Publishers Weekly
"It's not fair," complains 16-year-old Hazel from Indiana. "The world," says Gus, her new friend from her teen support group, "is not a wish-granting factory." Indeed, life is not fair; Hazel and Gus both have cancer, Hazel's terminal. Despite this, she has a burning obsession: to find out what happens to the characters after the end of her favorite novel. An Imperial Affliction by Dutch author Peter Van Houten is about a girl named Anna who has cancer, and it ends in mid-sentence (presumably to indicate a life cut short), a stylistic choice that Hazel appreciates but the ambiguity drives her crazy. Did the "Dutch Tulip Man" marry Anna's mom? What happened to Sisyphus the Hamster? Hazel asks her questions via email and Van Houten responds, claiming that he can only tell her the answers in person. When she was younger, Hazel used her wish-one granted to sick children from The Genie Foundation—by going to Disney World. Gus decides to use his to take Hazel to Amsterdam to meet the author. Like most things in life, the trip doesn't go exactly as anticipated. Van Houten is a disappointment, but Hazel, who has resisted loving Gus because she doesn't want to be the grenade that explodes in his life when she dies, finally allows herself to love. Once again Green offers a well-developed cast of characters capable of both reflective thought and hilarious dialogue. With his trademark humor, lovable parents, and exploration of big-time challenges, The Fault in Our Stars is an achingly beautiful story about life and loss. —Ragan O'Malley, Saint Ann's School, Brooklyn, NY
School Library Journal
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for The Fault in Our Stars:
1. John Green derives his book's title from a famous line in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings." (I,ii,139-140). What does the line mean—and why would Green have used it for his title? Even more important, why would he have altered it to read, "The fault in our stars" rather than ourselves? How does Green's meaning differ from Shakespeare's?
2. How would you describe the two main characters, Hazel and Gus? Do either of them conform, in behavior or thinking, to what we normally associate with young cancer patients? How do the two differ from one another...and how do their personality traits and interests complement each other?
3. How do Hazel and Gus each relate to their cancer? Do they define themselves by it? Do they ignore it? Do they rage at life's unfairness? Most importantly, how do the two confront the big questions of life and death?
4. Do you find some of the descriptions of pain, the medical realities that accompany cancer, or the discussion of bodily fluids too graphic?
5. At one point, Hazel says, "Cancer books suck." Is this a book about cancer? Did you have trouble picking up the book to read it? What were you expecting? Were those expectations met...or did the book alter your ideas?
5. John Green uses the voice of an adolescent girl to narrate his story. Does he do a convincing job of creating a female character?
7. Hazel considers An Imperial Affliction "so special and rare that advertising your affection for it feels like a betrayal." Why is it Hazel's favorite book? Why is it so important that she and Gus learn what happens after its heroine dies? Have you ever felt the same way about a book as Hazel does—that it is too special to talk about?
8. What do you think about Peter Van Houten, the fictional author of An Imperial Affliction? This book's real author, John Green, has said that Van Houten is a "horrible, horrible person but I have an affection for him." Why might Green have said that? What do you think of Van Houten?
9. Green once served as a chaplain in a children's hospital, working with young cancer patients. In an interview, he referred to the "hero's journey within illness"—that "in spite of it, you pull yourself up and continue to be alive while you're alive." In what way does Green's comment apply to his book—about two young people who are dying? Is theirs a hero's journey? Is the "pull yourself up" phrase an unseemly statement by someone, like the author or any reader, who is not facing a terminal disease?
10. What did you make of the book's humor? Is it appropriate...or inappropriate? Green has said he "didn't want to use humor to lighten the mood" or "to pull out the easy joke" when things got hard. But, he said, he likes to write about "clever kids, [and they] tend to be funny even when things are rough." Is his use of humor successful? How did it affect the way you read the book?
11. After his chaplaincy experience, Green said he believed that "life is utterly random and capricious, and arbitrary." Yet he also said, after finishing The Fault in Our Stars that he no longer feels that life's randomness "robs human life of its meaning...or that it robs even lives of people who don't get to have full lives." Would you say that the search for meaning—even, or especially, in the face of dying—is what this book explores? Why...or why not?
12. How do Hazel and Gus change, in spirit, over the course of the novel?
13. Talk about how you experienced this book? Is it too sad, too tragic to contemplate? Or did you find it in some way uplifting?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
I Am the Messenger
Markus Zusak, 2002
Random House Children's Books
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780375836671
Summary
Winner, 2003 Book of the Year Award for Older Readers—Australian Children's Book Council
Meet Ed Kennedy—underage cabdriver, pathetic cardplayer, and useless at romance. He lives in a shack with his coffee-addicted dog, the Doorman, and he’s hopelessly in love with his best friend, Audrey.
His life is one of peaceful routine and incompetence, until he inadvertently stops a bank robbery. That’s when the first Ace arrives. That’s when Ed becomes the messenger.
Chosen to care, he makes his way through town helping and hurting (when necessary), until only one question remains: Who’s behind Ed’s mission?
Winner of the 2003 Children’s Book Council Book of the Year Award in Australia, I Am the Messenger is a cryptic journey filled with laughter, fists, and love.
After capturing a bank robber, nineteen-year-old cab driver Ed Kennedy begins receiving mysterious messages that direct him to addresses where people need help, and he begins getting over his lifelong feeling of worthlessness. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1975
• Where—Sydney, Australia
• Education—N/A
• Awards—Michael L. Printz Honor, 2006 and 2007; Kathleen Mitchell Award, 2006; Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award, 2003
• Currently—lives in Sydney
Australian author Markus Zusak grew up hearing stories about Nazi Germany, about the bombing of Munich and about Jews being marched through his mother’s small, German town. He always knew it was a story he wanted to tell.
"We have these images of the straight-marching lines of boys and the ‘Heil Hitlers’ and this idea that everyone in Germany was in it together. But there still were rebellious children and people who didn’t follow the rules and people who hid Jews and other people in their houses. So there’s another side to Nazi Germany,” said Zusak in an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald.
By the age of 30, Zusak had already asserted himself as one of the most innovative and poetic novelists around. After publication of The Book Thief, he was dubbed a"literary phenomenon" by Australian and U.S. critics. In 2018 he published Bridge of Clay, also to wide acclaim.
Zusak is the award-winning author of four previous books for young adults: The Underdog, Fighting Ruben Wolfe, Getting the Girl, and I Am the Messenger, recipient of a 2006 Printz Honor for excellence in young adult literature. He lives in Sydney. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Ed Kennedy, a hapless 19-year-old Australian cab driver, has a life that's going nowhere until he manages to foil a bank robbery. After this incident he starts to receive mysterious messages, written on playing cards, that send him to addresses where people need help: to a house where a husband comes home drunk every night and rapes his wife; to a home where a sweet if senile old woman is lonely and missing her dead husband; to the aid of a teenage runner who lacks confidence; to a church that needs a congregation. In the end, Ed is even sent to fix his friends' lives, and in the process of helping others discovers that he has now become "full of purpose rather than incompetence." But who is sending these messages to him, and why? The answer is surprising (though not entirely credible, I thought), but it's the journey, and Ed's narration, that will delight the reader, and perhaps provoke some thought, too, about the value of helping others. Originally published in Australia as The Messenger, this novel by the gifted young author of Fighting Ruben Wolfe and Getting the Girl received the Children's Book Council of Australia's Book of the Year Award. Told in the present tense by Ed, it's funny, engrossing, and suspenseful, and it will appeal to a wide audience. (Winner of the ALA Printz Award for Excellence.) —Paula Rohrlick
KLIATT
It is no wonder that Zusak's wild ride of a novel won the Children's Book Council of Australia 2003 Book of the Year for Older Readers and the Ethel Turner Prize in the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards for 2003. This dense literary novel is heavy on plotting, secondary characters (including a great dog named The Doorman), and belated coming-of-age anguish, all pulled together with the dazzling first person, sometimes sentence-fragmented voice of Ed Kennedy. Nineteen-year-old Ed is a cabbie who seems more a passenger in life than a participant. After foiling a robbery, Ed gets his fifteen minutes of fame, and then the first card arrives. Ed receives playing cards, four aces and a joker, that contain an address or a clue to an address at which Ed will find a person in need. These situations vary, from a harried mother who merely needs an ice cream to a priest who needs his church filled to a brutal husband who needs to be killed, but in each case, Ed must figure out the message that he is called upon to deliver or the need he must fill. It is a book of small riddles and minor triumphs but also of crushing disappointment as the messages get closer to Ed's broken past and his loveable yet lacking friends. Although the curtain pulling at the book's finale is more of a whimper than a bang, Ed's journey into secret lives is so emotional and intellectually challenging that older readers will enjoy the trip. —Patrick Jones
VOYA
Gr 9 Up-Nineteen-year-old cabbie Ed Kennedy has little in life to be proud of: his dad died of alcoholism, and he and his mom have few prospects for success. He has little to do except share a run-down apartment with his faithful yet smelly dog, drive his taxi, and play cards and drink with his amiable yet similarly washed-up friends. Then, after he stops a bank robbery, Ed begins receiving anonymous messages marked in code on playing cards in the mail, and almost immediately his life begins to swerve off its beaten-down path. Usually the messages instruct him to be at a certain address at a certain time. So with nothing to lose, Ed embarks on a series of missions as random as a toss of dice: sometimes daredevil, sometimes heartwarmingly safe. He rescues a woman from nightly rape by her husband. He brings a congregation to an abandoned parish. The ease with which he achieves results vacillates between facile and dangerous, and Ed's search for meaning drives him to complete every task. But the true driving force behind the novel itself is readers' knowledge that behind every turn looms the unknown presence-either good or evil-of the person or persons sending the messages. Zusak's characters, styling, and conversations are believably unpretentious, well conceived, and appropriately raw. Together, these key elements fuse into an enigmatically dark, almost film-noir atmosphere where unknowingly lost Ed Kennedy stumbles onto a mystery-or series of mysteries-that could very well make or break his life. —Hillias J. Martin, New York Public Library
School Library Journal
(Starred review). Ed is a 19-year-old loser...[whose] life begins to change after he acts heroically during a robbery.... But as much as he changes those who come into his life, he changes himself more.... As for the ending, however, Zusak is too clever by half. He offers too few nuts-and-bolts details before wrapping things up with an unexpected, somewhat unsatisfying recasting of the narrative. Happily, that doesn't diminish the life-affirming intricacies that come before (Gr. 9-12.) —Ilene Cooper
Booklist
In this winner of the Australian Children's Book Award for Older Readers, 19-year-old Ed Kennedy slouches through life driving a taxi, playing poker with his buddies, and hanging out with his personable dog, Doorman. The girl he loves just wants to be friends, and his mother constantly insults him, both of which make Ed, an engaging, warm-hearted narrator, feel like a loser. But he starts to overcome his low self-esteem when he foils a bank robbery and then receives a series of messages that lead him to do good deeds. He buys Christmas lights for a poor family, helps a local priest, and forces a rapist out of town. With each act, he feels better about himself and builds a community of friends. The openly sentimental elements are balanced by swearing, some drinking and violence, and edgy friendships. Suspense builds about who is sending the messages, but readers hoping for a satisfying solution to that mystery will be disappointed. Those, however, who like to speculate about the nature of fiction, might enjoy the unlikely, even gimmicky, conclusion.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. There are many ironies in Ed Kennedy’s life. One is in the name of the company for which he works—Vacant Taxi Company. What is “vacant” in Ed’s life? Explain the irony in Audrey’s statement, “You used to just be.... Now you’re somebody, Ed.” (p. 232) Discuss how Ed resolves the ironies in his life.
2. Describe Ed’s family. Explain what his mother means when she says, “Believe it or not—it takes a lot of love to hate you like this.” (p. 245) Ed’s mother says that his father promised to take her away. She resents the fact that he never did. Debate whether his mother is simply looking for someone to blame for her unhappiness. How is Audrey’s family similar to Ed’s family?
3. Discuss Ed and Audrey’s relationship. Audrey says that she likes Ed too much to have sex with him, and he says that he wants more than sex from her. Why does Audrey think that sex would ruin their relationship? What does Ed want from Audrey? It is obvious that Audrey is having sex with other guys. How does her attitude toward casual sex indicate disrespect for herself? Ed eventually learns that Audrey is in love with him. Why is she reluctant to reveal her love for him? What might Ed offer her at the end of the novel that he was incapable of offering in the beginning?
4. Ed and his friends are in a bank when it is robbed. Debate whether Ed is in the wrong place at the right time, or the right place at the wrong time.
5. After the robbery, Ed begins receiving the cards in the mail. Explain how Ed knows that each mission he is handed is serious business.
6. One of Ed’s first messages is to soothe Milla Johnson’s loneliness by posing as her deceased husband. How does this experience show Ed the real meaning of love? Then, Ed delivers a message to Sophie, the barefoot runner. Explain the courage that Ed learns from Sophie. What does Ed learn from each of the twelve messages that he delivers? How is each mission a lesson for the heart?
7. There are times when self-hatred is almost debilitating to Ed. Who is most responsible for his poor self-concept? How do the cards help Ed gain a more positive sense of self? Explain how Ed is both the messenger and the message. How does this support the theory that by helping others, a person helps himself? What does Ed mean when he says, “If I ever leave this place, I’ll make sure I’m better here first?” (p. 283)
8. Ed says, “I want words at my funeral. But I guess that means that you need life in your life.” (p. 298) How do the missions slowly put “life” in Ed’s life? Think about the words that each of the characters might offer Ed by the end of the novel.
9. Some readers like open endings, and others like distinct conclusions. What is your preference? Why do you think the author ended the novel the way he did? Make a case for both types f endings.
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Batboy
Mike Lupica, 2010
Penguin Group USA
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780142417829
Summary
Brian is living every baseball kid's dream: he is a batboy for his hometown Major League team. Brian believes that it's the perfect thing to bring him and his big-leaguer dad closer together.
And if that weren't enough, this is the season that Hank Bishop, Brian's baseball hero, returns to the Tigers for the comeback of a lifetime. The summer couldn't get much better! Until Hank Bishop starts to show his true colors, and Brian learns that sometimes life throws you a curveball. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—May 11, 1952
• Where—Oneida, New York, USA
• Education—B.A. Boston College
• Awards—Jim Murray Award (journalism)
• Currently—lives in New Canaan, Connecticut
Michael Lupica is an American newspaper columnist, best known for his provocative commentary on sports in the New York Daily News and his appearances on ESPN.
Lupica spent his childhood in Nashua, New Hampshire and graduated from Bishop Guertin High School and later Boston College. He first came to prominence as a sportswriter in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. Lupica wrote "The Sporting Life" column at Esquire magazine for ten years beginning in the late 1980s, and currently writes a regular column for Travel + Leisure Golf. He has also written for Golf Digest, Parade, ESPN The Magazine, and Men’s Journal, and has received numerous awards including, in 2003, the Jim Murray Award from the National Football Foundation.
Writing
Lupica co-wrote autobiographies with Reggie Jackson and Bill Parcells and collaborated with screenwriter William Goldman on Wait Till Next Year and Mad as Hell: How Sports Got Away From the Fans and How We Get It Back. Lupica also wrote The Summer of ’98: When Homers Flew, Records Fell, and Baseball Reclaimed America, which detailed how the 1998 and the Mark McGwire/Sammy Sosa home run chase had allowed him to share a love for baseball with his son. Lupica has been listed a vocal critic of the steroid era.
Lupica is also a novelist; his work includes mysteries involving fictional NYC television reporter Peter Finley. One of them, Dead Air, was nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best First Mystery and adapted into a television movie called Money, Power, Murder. He has written a novel for younger audiences called Travel Team. Lupica’s Bump and Run and Wild Pitch were best sellers. 2003 saw a sequel to Bump and Run, entitled Red Zone.In April 2006, his second children's book, Heat, was published by Philomel. Heat is a fictional story based on the Danny Almonte scandal in the South Bronx Little League. In October 2006, Lupica's third children's novel, Miracle on 49th Street, was published. Summer Ball, a sequel to Travel Team, was released in 2007; Safe at Home and The Big Field in 2008; The Million Dollar Throw in 2009; and The Batboy in 2010.
Television & radio
Since 1988 Lupica has been one of the rotating pundits on The Sports Reporters on ESPN. He also briefly hosted an unsuccessful television chat program, The Mike Lupica Show, on ESPN2, as well as a short-lived radio show on WFAN in New York City in the mid-1990s. He has been a recurring guest on the CBS Morning News, Good Morning America, and The MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour. Lupica has made frequent radio appearances on Imus in the Morning since the early 1980s. On May 9th, Lupica began a daily radio show on 1050 ESPN New York from 2PM-3PM. He works along side Don La Greca, and precedes The Michael Kay Show. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
After Brian Dudley lands his dream job as a batboy for the Detroit Tigers, he is disappointed when his hero, Hank Bishop, who has been given a final chance by the Tigers after a steroid scandal, proves to be uncommunicative and even hostile.... Lupica has hit upon an effective formula for his novels, giving his readers a behind-the-scenes look at major league sports. In this novel, he adds genuine insights into family dynamics and the emotional state of his hero. —Todd Morning
Booklist
(Grade 5–10) Brian's dad, a former big league pitcher, left Brian and his mom years earlier, and the boy still longs for his return. This summer, Brian has won a coveted spot as a batboy for the Detroit Tigers during home games at Comerica Park. He relishes his dream come true: hustling to complete tasks, enjoying a sleepover at the ballpark, and his front-row seat for the on-field action. On his days off, he plays on a travel team with his best friend, Kenny. Then his favorite player, Hank Bishop, returns to the Tigers following a suspension for steroid use. Bishop is stumbling at the end of his career: this is his last chance to reach a milestone 500 home runs. Brian shyly attempts to befriend his hero, but Bishop treats Brian and his teammates with frosty disdain. Lupica is at the top of his game, crafting a crisp, fast-paced novel teeming with edge-of-the-seat baseball drama. He limns his characters with well-observed detail and dialogue. Brian is a recognizable, multilayered teen; he's close to his mom, though they struggle to communicate and understand one another. Meanwhile, he learns the hard truth: "no matter how much Brian loved baseball, it was never going to make his father love him more." Though this novel will undoubtedly appeal to those who equate summer with baseball, it should also win over readers who appreciate finely crafted storytelling and engaging characters. —Marilyn Taniguchi, Beverly Hills Public Library, CA
Library Journal
Brian loves baseball. But baseball has not always been a positive influence in his emotional life. His parents are divorced due in large part to the fact that his father's devotion to his own baseball career far exceeded his feelings for his family. In addition, Brian's all-time favorite player was deeply involved in the steroid scandals that affected an entire era of baseball achievements and statistics. Now in one dream summer as batboy for the Detroit Tigers he learns some truths about second chances and letting go. When his absentee father briefly returns, Brian realizes that their relationship will never be more than a common interest in the game. But he does develop a tentative connection with his hero, who is making a comeback with the Tigers. Lupica takes on these touchy subjects and deftly fleshes them out with sympathetic characters, crisp dialogue and enough dramatic baseball action to satisfy the most diehard fan. Although there's an upbeat ending, not all problems are neatly solved, allowing readers to form their own opinions. A pennant winner..
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for The Batboy:
1. Why does Hank Bishop seem so angry at everyone on the Tigers team? Why does he rebuff Brian, a mere boy?
2. Is Brian's immersion in baseball, to the point that he eats, breathes, and sleeps it, healthy? Is that kind of devotion typical of adolescents? Will he outgrow it? Should he outgrow it? Or is his passion an indication of doggedness, some character trait that might stand him in good stead in a future career, either in or out of sports? How do you account for the devotion of sports fans...in general?
3. For Brian, Hank Bishop "was the first guy in sports who made Brian want to watch...and he was the first guy to make him care" about baseball. Why is that?
4. In what way is Hank's return to baseball with the Tigers a chance for redemption? Can he redeem himself inspite of his past?
5. Brian says that steroids have corrupted the baseball records and severed the connection between the past and present players. What does he mean by that? What do think about the use of steroids in sports? Is it understandable given the pressures to perform?
6. Talk about Brian's relationship with his mother? At one point, he thinks to himself that he's run out of things to talk to his mother about. Is that normal for boys and mothers? Should Brian's mother learn to enjoy baseball more than she does? Should Brian try to widen his interests? Or, finally, is this just a passing phase to be ignored?
7. Talk about the ways Brian feels abandoned by father figures in his life: first, his real father, and later Hank Bishop's taking steroids. Why does Brian feel that Hank abandoned him when he hadn't yet met him?
8. Hank says to Brian I'm not the guy you still want to be your hero. I was never that kind of guy....I never wanted to be that kind of guy." What kind of guy does Brian think Hank is? What does Hank mean when he says he isn't who Brian wants him to be?
9. (Follow-up to Question 8: How does having to live up to a legend make life difficult for baseball greats or anyone famous? Why do we place such extraordinary expectations on mere human beings—simply because they have unusual gifts or talents? What do we expect from them—and what does it say about us that we shower them with adoration? Why can't famous people be just...people?
10. What caused Hank's baseball slump? What caused Brian's slump? Are slumps psychological?
11. Why is Hank so grateful to Brian after he comes out of his slump?
12. What does Brian come to realize about his father? What is your assessment of Dudley Cole?
13. Why does Brian's mother seem eager to get involved with another ball player?
14. What do you think the future holds for Brian, his mother, and Hank Bishop?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
City of Bones (Immortal Instruments series #1)
Cassandra Clare, 2007
Simon & Schuster
669 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781416995753
Summary
When fifteen-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder—much less a murder committed by three teenagers covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air. It’s hard to call the police when the murderers are invisible to everyone else and when there is nothing—not even a smear of blood—to show that a boy has died. Or was he a boy?
This is Clary’s first meeting with the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the earth of demons. It’s also her first encounter with Jace, a Shadowhunter who looks a little like an angel and acts a lot like a jerk. Within twenty-four hours Clary is pulled into Jace’s world with a vengeance, when her mother disappears and Clary herself is attacked by a demon. But why would demons be interested in ordinary mundanes like Clary and her mother?
And how did Clary suddenly get the Sight? The Shadowhunters would like to know. Exotic and gritty, exhilarating and utterly gripping, Cassandra Clare’s ferociously entertaining fantasy takes readers on a wild ride that they will never want to end. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Aka Cassandra Claire
• Birth—Jul7 31, 1973
• Where—Tehren, Iran (to US parents)
• Education—N/A
• Awards—nominated for or won 20 state, regional, and
organizational awards, including the American Library Assn.,
Locus, and Coventry Inspiration Awards.
• Currently—lives in California and New York City
Cassandra Clare is an American author who has written the bestselling young adult saga, "The Mortal Instruments" series.
Cassandra Clare was born to American parents in Tehran. As a child Clare traveled frequently, spending time in England, France, and Switzerland. She returned to the U.S. for high school (in Los Angeles, California). She later split her time between California and New York, where she worked at various entertainment magazines and tabloids including the Hollywood Reporter.
In 2004, Clare started working on her first-published novel City of Bones, inspired by the urban landscape of Manhattan. The book was released by 2007.
City of Bones, a contemporary fantasy story revolving around characters Clary Fray, Jace Wayland, and Simon Lewis, became a New York Times bestseller upon its release. City of Ashes and City of Glass completed the trilogy. A fourth installment, City of Fallen Angels was announced in 2009.
According to Clare, City of Fallen Angels is actually the start of a second "Mortal Instruments" cycle, to include two other books: City of Lost Souls and City of Heavenly Fire. The new cycle is to focus on the same characters as in the first cycle, as well as a few new characters we will meet in the new books.
Clare also announced in 2009 a new series of prequels called "The Infernal Devices" set in the same universe as "The Mortal Instruments," but in the Victorian era. This series is to consist of three books: The Clockwork Angel, published in 2010, followed by The Clockwork Prince in 2011, and The Clockwork Princess, in 2012.
"The Mortal Instruments" series has been optioned for film by Unique Features and Constantin Films. First-time writer Jessica Postigo has been hired to write the screenplay, based on the first book in the series. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Vampires, werewolves, and creatures of every eerie stripe are lurking all over New York, as Cassandra Clare's City of Bones begins "The Mortal Instruments" trilogy. Clary Fray, 15, knows something's strange when she sees a punk rocker demon destroyed by Jace, Alec, and Isabelle. What's more, her friend Simon can't see any of the rune tattooed trio. It turns out that the three powerful teens are Shadowhunters, a race of warriors. Clary's mother has hidden her own connection to these magical marauders, but the teen's blocked memory is gradually returning. When her mother disappears and Clary is attacked by a monstrous insect predator, the girl is rescued by Jace and they retreat to safety at The Institute. Drawn into the quest for the Mortal Cup, Clary gets embroiled in numerous bloody encounters and betrayals as she uncovers the truth about her father, her family, and the forces stalking her. A romantic attachment to Jace and questions about her relationship with Simon add to her turmoil. Though a family friend in an unexpected guise helps her save her mother, the cliffhanging conclusion leaves plenty of room for new conflicts. Narrator Ari Graymor is suitably ironic and dramatic as the text demands. With a female protagonist and horror movie levels of gore, the novel will appeal to guys and girls who like their fantasy sometimes fast paced and often gruesome. (Gr 8 up.) —Barbara Wysocki, Cora J. Belden Library, Rocky Hill, CT
Library Journal
Fifteen-year-old Clary Fray visits her favorite New York City night club late one evening and watches attractive teenagers follow a blue-haired boy into a storage room. Next thing Clary knows, the boy is dead and the body disappears. Clary is not your typical mundie-she can see Shadowhunters and the demons that they hunt. Clary's mother is kidnapped, their home is ransacked, and Clary kills an evil Ravener in her home. She is then temporarily adopted into the Shadowhunter clan and begins to learn their ways. For some reason, Clary has the Sight and must use her powers and her new friends to find and rescue her mother. Along the way, she is burdened by the love of her best friend, Simon, and the complicated feelings she has towards Jace, a Shadowhunter. This fast-paced fantastic thriller will keep readers on the edge of their seats. It includes everything from werewolves and mind-sucking librarians to vampires and a brother unknowingly kissing his sister-just what teenagers love to read. Clary is an independent, saucy female character who adapts to her newfound powers easily and thinks nothing of throwing a weapon at a werewolf. The dialogue is awkward at times. Clary makes some trite remarks that interrupt the narrative flow. The author is in a writing group with Holly Black, author of dark fantasies similar to this one.
VOYA
Discussion Questions
(You'll find a set of activities below the discussion questions. Both are provided by the publisher.)
1. When Clary learns that Magnus Bane had erased her supernatural memories, she says that she had always felt like there was something wrong with her. How much of this is because she didn't know her history, and how much is caused—as Magnus says—by the simple fact that she's a teenager? Does she belong in the Shadowhunter world?
2. How much of what mundanes see in this world is a glamour, constructed by those with magical powers? Why do these glamours exist? How do things change for Clary once she can see through them?
3. Where did Nephilim, witches and warlocks, vampires, werewolves, and faeries come from? Do their origins justify the roles they play and the rivalries between them?
4. Why did Valentine rebel against the Clave in the first place? What does he hope to accomplish by stealing the Mortal Instruments and fighting the Clave now? Whose best interests does he have in mind?
5. At one point, Jace says he doesn't believe in God (City of Bones, p. 256). Do you think this is true? Can someone be a Shadowhunter and not believe in God?
6. What is it about the Silent Brothers that is so disturbing to Clary and the others? Do you think the Silent Brothers play up this aura of creepiness?
7. Why was Jace, who rarely felt fear, so afraid when he was imprisoned in the Silent City?
8. How do Jace's feelings about danger and death differ from Alec's and Isabelle's? Why does Jace feel the way he does about putting himself in the line of danger? How does Clary change this?
9. Shadowhunters are charged with protecting mundanes, but they seem to have very little respect for those they serve. Why do you think their feelings for normal humans are so complicated? Why do they continue to serve mundanes if they don't like them?
10. After Valentine takes the Mortal Cup and returns to Idris, why does the Clave find it difficult to trust Jace? What does Jace do to earn their trust? What should he have done? Does Maryse Lightwood really distrust him?
11. What role does Luke play in Clary's life? Does this role change as the story progresses? How does the Clave feel about Luke? Why does he inspire such strong feelings in others?
12. When Simon becomes a daylighter, how will this keep him from finding his place in the world? In what ways is it helpful to him?
13. Discuss the character of Hodge. Why did he betray his young charges? Was he just self-serving and bad, or did he do some good with his life? Was he right to fear Valentine more than the Clave?
14. How did Jace and Clary get their special abilities? Why do you think they developed different skills? Will the other Shadowhunters view their abilities as a gift or a curse?
15. What is the significance of Clary creating the binding rune? Does its origin tell us anything about how Shadowhunters and Downworlders should treat each other?
16. What sacrifices does Simon make? Why is he willing to do these things? Does he gain anything by doing this?
17. Valentine's plotting and lies cause a lot of confusion about who his children are. How does Clary define family? Who had the greatest influence on the formation of Jace's character? Where does Jace belong? Which of the three children—Clary, Jace, and Jonathan—was most affected by Valentine?
18. Several people, including Jace and Luke, accuse Clary of rushing into situations without any regard to how her actions will affect others. Do you think this is a fair assessment? Do any other characters act like this? In the end, does this trait harm or help Clary?
19. Why does Alec have such a hard time telling people about his relationship with Magnus Bane? What changes his mind?
20. What does the phrase "Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin" mean? Where did it originally come from? How does it apply to the situation with Valentine? How does it compare to what Clary was thinking when she wrote it?
21. Clary and her mother are both artists. How does this figure into their gifts as Shadowhunters? Overall, is Clary's gift creative or destructive?
22. Discuss the many biblical references in the book, particularly those that make up the chapter titles—East of Eden, All the Host of Hell, Where There is Sorrow, Sins of the Fathers, etc. Do these chapter headings add to the actions that take place in the chapters they begin? Why do you think the author chose so many quotes from the Bible? Is the Bible important in the lives of any of the characters?
23. The author starts each book and each section within the books with a quotation. What do you know about the sources of these quotations? What sort of works are they from? Is there a common theme? Why do you think the author chose these quotes?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
__________________
Activities
1. Write a research paper on ancient runes. When were they used? By whom? What did they look like? Are they still used today? What is their connection to modern written language?
2. Clary is able to identify a problem and create a rune that will solve that problem. Choose a problem that is currently being faced by you, your school, your community, or your government and create a rune that will help. What do the different lines in the rune stand for? What will the rune do? What were you thinking when you drew it? Write a story about how the rune is used to solve the problem you chose.
3. Hodge knew many tricks for healing physical ailments using herbs, plants, and other natural remedies. Compare and contrast different branches of alternative medicine—homeopathy, herbal medicine, acupuncture, etc. How do they compare to the practice of medicine as we traditionally think of it?
4. There is a rich mythology surrounding angels, Nephilim, demons, vampires, and other creatures in the book. Choose one of these magical creatures and find out more about them. Find other books and movies that cover the subject, and compare the world found there to the world of The Mortal Instruments. Write a short paper about the history of the creature you've chosen and the different ways it has shown up in literature throughout the years.
5. Shadowhunters devote their lives to making the world a safer and better place for those around them. What can you do to make the world a better place? Choose a cause you believe in and then volunteer.
6. Clary is a talented artist, and often uses art to make sense of the things that are happening in her world. Express yourself through some art form—drawing, painting, sculpting, or collage—and draw someone or something from the books.
7. Shadowhunters have strong ties to their ancestors. Trace the family trees of the Shadowhunters and discover their connections to one another.
(Activities and Discussion Questions issued by publisher.)
A Mango Shaped-Space
Wendy Mass, 2005
Little, Brown & Co.
270 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316058254
Summary
Thirteen-year-old Mia Winchell has a secret: sounds, numbers, and words appear to her in color. Mia has synesthesia, the mingling of perceptions whereby a person sees sounds or tastes shapes. This coming-of-age novel chronicles Mia's developing appreciation for her gift. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 17, 1967
• Where—Livingston, New Jersey, USA
• Education—B.A. English, Tufts University
• Awards—American Library Association Schneider
Family Book Award, Peoples' Choice Award,
Great Lakes Book Award and Michigan State Award
• Currently—lives in New Jersey
Wendy Mass is the author of ten novels for young people (which have been translated into 13 languages and nominated for 42 state book awards), including A Mango-Shaped Space (which was awarded the Schneider Family Book Award by the American Library Association), Leap Day, the Twice Upon a Time fairy tale series, Every Soul a Star, 11 Birthdays, Heaven Looks a Lot Like the Mall, Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life, and Finally.
Wendy wrote the storyline of The Candymakers for an episode of the television show Monk, entitled "Mr. Monk Goes to the Theatre," which aired during the show's second season. She tells people her hobbies are hiking and photography, but really they're collecting candy bar wrappers and searching for buried treasure with her metal detector. She lives with her family in New Jersey. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
In an intriguing first novel, Mass introduces a 13-year-old heroine with an unusual perspective. Mia Winchell is a synesthete; her visual and hearing senses are connected so that numbers, letters, words, sounds and even some people's auras appear to her as colors. The letter "a," for instance, is the shade of a "faded sunflower," screeching chalk "makes red jagged lines in the air," and Mia's beloved cat, Mango, is surrounded by an orange cloud. Mia's unique view proves to be both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, she enjoys having heightened senses ("If I couldn't use my colors, the world would seem so bland-like vanilla ice cream without the gummy bears on top," she says). On the other hand, sometimes it's hard for her being reminded that she is different, like when her brother, Zack, calls her "the Missing Link." Although the story line, at times, seems cluttered with underdeveloped subplots about Mia's friendships, potential romances and conflicts at school, the novel's premise is interesting enough to keep pages turning. The author successfully brings abstract ideas down to earth. Her well-defined characterizations, natural-sounding dialogue, and concrete imagery allow readers to feel Mia's emotions and see through her eyes a kaleidoscopic world, which is at once confusing and beautiful. Ages 10-13.
Publishers Weekly
Mia, 13, has always seen colors in sounds, numbers, and letters, a fact she has kept secret since the day she discovered that other people don't have this ability. Then she discovers that she has a rare condition called synesthesia, which means that the visual cortex in her brain is activated when she hears something. From then on, she leads a kind of double life-she eagerly attends research gatherings with other synesthetes and devours information about the condition, but continues to struggle at school, where her inadvertent pairing of particular colors with numbers and words makes math and French almost impossible to figure out. Her gradual abandonment of her frustrating school life in favor of the compelling world of fellow synesthetes and the unique things only they can experience seems quite logical, although readers may feel like shaking some sense into her. Finally, and rather abruptly, her extreme guilt at her beloved cat Mango's illness and death brings her back down to earth and she begins to work on some of the relationships she let crumble. Mia's voice is believable and her description of the vivid world she experiences, filled with slashes, blurs, and streaks of color, is fascinating. Not all of the many characters are necessary to the story, and some of the plot elements go unresolved, but Mia's unique way of experiencing the world is intriguing. —Eva Mitnick, Los Angeles Public Library
School Library Journal
Mia, age 13, has a secret she has guarded closely. She is concerned that others will regard her as a freak if she admits that sounds, numbers, and letters have color for her. When her beloved cat Mango meows and purrs, for example, she sees puffs of yellow-orange color in the air. This ability makes it hard for Mia to do math and foreign languages, however, and now that she is in middle school that's a problem. She finally admits to her parents what's been going on, and they take her first to a family doctor and then to a sympathetic neurologist. The neurologist explains that she has synesthesia a harmless condition in which her visual and hearing senses are linked. He gives her the address of a Web site so that she can contact others with synesthesia and invites her to a conference where she meets others with the same condition, including a boy who gives Mia her first kiss. Her best friend is furious that Mia has never told her about her condition, but in the end, despite the trauma of Mango's death, Mia comes to understand what an important part of her life her synesthesia is. The information on this rare condition is fascinating, but as my 15-year-old daughter points out, the plot of this novel isn't half as interesting. Mia's ups and downs with friends, boys, and family are fairly ordinary. Still, for those interested in psychology and the workings of the brain, this novel will hold their attention.
Paula Rohrlick - KLIATT
Mia was humiliated in third grade when her whole class ridiculed her for presenting a math problem using colored chalk because it made sense to her to write each number in its own color. When the teacher sent her to the principal's office and even her parents failed to understand, she decided never to mention the incident or her unique ability again. Now in eighth grade, Mia is having trouble in math and Spanish and is forced to tell her parents. Not only does Mia see each number and letter in its own particular color, but sounds produce colors and shapes in front of her. Her cat is even named Mango because his meow produces mango-colored puffs. Mia's parents take her to a string of doctors until they find a neurologist who explains that Mia has a harmless condition called synesthesia. "It means 'senses coming together.' Imagine that the wires in your brain are crossed... your visual and hearing senses are linked." After meeting other synesthetes and armed with new understanding, Mia moves from hiding her colors in shame to accepting them as a gift. Mia is devastated when Mango dies, believing that she was so busy worrying about her condition that she neglected to notice his strange behavior. Eventually her parents are able to reassure her, and readers with similar concerns could find great comfort in these passages. Despite her special condition, Mia's narrative shows her to be a typical teen with best friend troubles, sibling rivalries, and potential boyfriends. Although this book is probably not one that teens will pick up without coaxing, they will enjoy this unique look at a fascinating condition. It is highly recommended for the middle school crowd.
Angela Carstensen - VOYA
A young teen whose world is filled with colors and shapes that no one else sees copes with the universal and competing drives to be unique and to be utterly and totally normal. Thirteen-year-old Mia is a synesthete: her brain connects her visual and auditory systems so that when she hears, or thinks about, sounds and words, they carry with them associated colors and shapes that fill the air about her. This is a boon in many ways-she excels in history because she can remember dates by their colors-and a curse. Ever since she realized her difference, she has concealed her ability, until algebra defeats her: "Normally an x is a shiny maroon color, like a ripe cherry. But here an x has to stand for an unknown number. But I can't make myself assign the x any other color than maroon, and there are no maroon-colored numbers.... I'm lost in shades of gray and want to scream in frustration." When Mia learns that she is not alone, she begins to explore the lore and community of synesthesia, a process that disrupts her relationships with her family, friends, and even herself. In her fiction debut for children, Mass has created a memorable protagonist whose colors enhance but do not define her dreamily artistic character. The present-tense narration lends immediacy and impact to Mia's color perceptions: "Each high-pitched meow sends Sunkist-orange coils dancing in front of me...." The narrative, however, is rather overfull of details—a crazily built house, highly idiosyncratic family members, two boy interests, a beloved sick cat—which tend to compete for the reader's attention in much the same way as Mia's colors. This flaw (not unusual with first novels) aside, here is a quietly unusual and promising offering.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Mia lost her grandfather and paints a picture in his honor. Jenna lost her mother and every year on Jenna's birthday she receives a present from her mother that Mia's mother has been holding for her. Have you ever lost anyone close to you? If so, what things do you do to remember them? Do you have any traditions for honoring those you lost? When Mia's cat Mango dies, she falls apart. Have you ever lost a pet?
2. When Mia shows her father the picture she painted of her grandfather, her father says, "They say the eyes are the windows to the soul, you know. I can see Grandpa in those eyes." (p. 28) What does he mean by that?
3. Describe the relationship between Mia and Jenna. As with any friendship there are highs and lows. Site various examples of times when Mia and Jenna are getting along and those when their friendship seems to be in question.
4. Mia doesn't tell anyone about her synesthesia; not even Jenna. When the truth is revealed, Jenna's response surprises mia. "Maybe you don't know what a best friend is." (p. 62) How would you describe Jenna's reaction? Anger? Disappointment? Hurt? Do you think Jenna is just in her feelings? How would you respond to Jenna's statement about the meaning of best friend?
5. When Mia's friendship bracelet gets snagged on the door latch and a thread rips (p. 128), how is that symbolic of their relationship?
6. "I hurry back to the house thinking of all the things we keep from other people. Even our best friends." (p. 32) Discuss this statement with the class Do you think everyone keeps things hidden? How does this statement compare to Mia's statement on page 100: "It's so much easier to talk to poeple over e-mail than it is in person." Do you agree? Why or why not?
7. Mia is apprehensive about engaging in an e-mail exhnge with Adam, questioning his true identty. (p. 103) Do you think Mia is right to be cautious?
8. Mia is part of a unique and loving family. How does each family member deal with Mia's diagnosis? Do you think it has pulled them together as a family?
9. Mia uses her synesthesia to cheat on a math quiz and finally receives an A. "I'm so proud of myself that I forgot to be ashamed." (p. 115) Discuss the dichotomy in this statement.
10. Ever since being made to feel stupid in third grade, Mia finally feels like she has found ehr place with fellow synesthesians. Can she belong and be accepted by both groups?
11. What does Mia mean when she says, "I guess life is all about priorities." (p. 150) Does Mia have her priorities in order? What are her priorities/ Do you think that is why she was so hard on herself when Mango died? Her father said, "We all do the best we can, trying to keep all the balls in the air at once." (p. 197) Discuss this statement. Do you think this helped ease Mia's grief? Woul you agree with her father's assessment of life?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter #6)
J.K. Rowling, 2005
Scholastic, Inc.
672 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780439785969
Summary
Winner, 2006 British Book Awards—Book of the Year
The war against Voldemort is not going well; even Muggle governments are noticing. Ron scans the obituary pages of the Daily Prophet, looking for familiar names. Dumbledore is absent from Hogwarts for long stretches of time, and the Order of the Phoenix has already suffered losses.
And yet...
As in all wars, life goes on. Sixth-year students learn to Apparate—and lose a few eyebrows in the process. The Weasley twins expand their business. Teenagers flirt and fight and fall in love. Classes are never straightforward, though Harry receives some extraordinary help from the mysterious Half-Blood Prince.
So it's the home front that takes center stage in the multilayered sixth installment of the story of Harry Potter. Here at Hogwarts, Harry will search for the full and complex story of the boy who became Lord Voldemort—and thereby find what may be his only vulnerability. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 31, 1965
• Where—Chipping Sodbury near Bristol, England (UK)
• Education—Exeter University
• Awards—3 Nestle Smarties Awards; British Book Award-
Children's Book of the Year; Children's Book Award;
Whitbread Children's Book of the Year; British Book Awards-
Author of the Year; British Book Awards-Book of the Year.
• Currently—lives in Perthshire, Scotland and London, England
Joanne "Jo" Rowling, better known under the pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British author known as the creator of the Harry Potter fantasy series, the idea for which was conceived while on a train trip from Manchester to London in 1990. The Potter books have gained worldwide attention, won multiple awards, sold more than 400 million copies, and been the basis for a popular series of films.
Rowling is perhaps equally famous for her "rags to riches" life story, in which she progressed from living on welfare to multi-millionaire status within five years. As of March 2010, when its latest world billionaires list was published, Forbes estimated Rowling's net worth to be $1 billion. The 2008 Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling's fortune at £560 million ($798 million), ranking her as the twelfth richest woman in Great Britain. Forbes ranked Rowling as the forty-eighth most powerful celebrity of 2007, and Time magazine named her as a runner-up for its 2007 Person of the Year, noting the social, moral, and political inspiration she has given her fandom. She has become a notable philanthropist, supporting such charities as Comic Relief, One Parent Families, Multiple Sclerosis Society of Great Britain, and the Children's High Level Group.
Early years
Rowling was born to Peter James Rowling and Anne Rowling (nee Volant), on 31 July 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire, England, 10 miles (16.1 km) northeast of Bristol. The family moved to the nearby village Winterbourne when Rowling was four. She attended St Michael's Primary School, a school founded by abolitionist William Wilberforce. (The school's headmaster has been suggested as the inspiration for Harry Potter's Albus Dumbledore).
As a child, Rowling often wrote fantasy stories, which she would read to her sister. "I can still remember me telling her a story in which she fell down a rabbit hole and was fed strawberries by the rabbit family inside it. Certainly the first story I ever wrote down (when I was five or six) was about a rabbit called "Rabbit." He got the measles and was visited by his friends, including a giant bee called Miss Bee." When she was a young teenager, her great aunt gave her a very old copy of Jessica Mitford's autobiography, Hons and Rebels. Mitford became Rowling's heroine, and Rowling subsequently read all of her books.
She attended secondary school at Wyedean School and College, where her mother, Anne, had worked as a technician in the Science Department. Rowling has said of her adolescence, "Hermione [A bookish, know-it-all Harry Potter character] is loosely based on me. She's a caricature of me when I was eleven, which I'm not particularly proud of." Sean Harris, her best friend in the Upper Sixth owned a turquoise Ford Anglia, which she says inspired the one in her books. "Ron Weasley [Harry Potter's best friend] isn't a living portrait of Sean, but he really is very Sean-ish."
Rowling read for a BA in French and Classics at the University of Exeter. After a year of study in Paris, Rowling moved to London to work as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International.
In 1990, while she was on a four-hour-delayed train trip from Manchester to London, the idea for a story of a young boy attending a school of wizardry "came fully formed" into her mind. When she had reached her Clapham Junction flat, she began to write immediately. In December of that same year, Rowling’s mother died, after a ten-year battle with multiple sclerosis, a death that heavily affected her writing: she introduced much more detail about Harry's loss in the first book, because she knew about how it felt.
Rowling then moved to Porto, Portugal to teach English as a foreign language. While there she married Portuguese television journalist Jorge Arantes in 1992. Their child, Jessica Isabel Rowling Arantes (named after Jessica Mitford), was born in 1993 in Portugal. The couple separated in November 1993. In December 1993, Rowling and her daughter moved to be near her sister in Edinburgh, Scotland. During this period Rowling was diagnosed with clinical depression, which brought her the idea of Dementors, soul-sucking creatures introduced in the third book.
After Jessica's birth and the separation from her husband, Rowling had left her teaching job in Portugal. In order to teach in Scotland she would need a postgraduate certificate of education (PGCE), requiring a full-time, year-long course of study. She began this course in August 1995, after completing her first novel while having survived on state welfare support.
She wrote in many cafes, especially Nicolson's Cafe, whenever she could get Jessica to fall asleep. As she stated on the American TV program A&E Biography, one of the reasons she wrote in cafes was not because her flat had no heat, but because taking her baby out for a walk was the best way to make her fall asleep.
Harry Potter books
In 1995, Rowling finished her manuscript for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on an old manual typewriter. The book was submitted to twelve publishing houses, all of which rejected the manuscript. A year later she was finally given the green light (and a £1500 advance) by Bloomsbury, a small British publishing house in London, England. The decision to publish Rowling's book apparently owes much to Alice Newton, the eight-year-old daughter of Bloomsbury’s chairman, who was given the first chapter to review by her father and immediately demanded the next.
Although Bloomsbury agreed to publish the book, her editor Barry Cunningham says that he advised Rowling to get a day job, since she had little chance of making money in children’s books. Soon after, in 1997, Rowling received an £8000 grant from the Scottish Arts Council to enable her to continue writing. The following spring, an auction was held in the United States for the rights to publish the novel, and was won by Scholastic Inc., for $105,000. Rowling has said she “nearly died” when she heard the news.
In June 1997, Bloomsbury published Philosopher’s Stone with an initial print-run of 1000 copies, five hundred of which were distributed to libraries. Today, such copies are valued between £16,000 and £25,000. Five months later, the book won its first award, a Nestle Smarties Book Prize. In February, the novel won the prestigious British Book Award for Children’s Book of the Year, and later, the Children’s Book Award. Its sequel, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was published in July, 1998.
In December 1999, the third novel, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, won the Smarties Prize, making Rowling the first person to win the award three times running. She later withdrew the fourth Harry Potter novel from contention to allow other books a fair chance. In January 2000, Prisoner of Azkaban won the inaugural Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year award, though it lost the Book of the Year prize to Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf.
The fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was released simultaneously in the UK and the US on 8 July 2000, and broke sales records in both countries. Some 372,775 copies of the book were sold in its first day in the UK, almost equalling the number Prisoner of Azkaban sold during its first year. In the US, the book sold three million copies in its first 48 hours, smashing all literary sales records. Rowling admitted that she had had a moment of crisis while writing the novel; "Halfway through writing Four, I realised there was a serious fault with the plot....I've had some of my blackest moments with this book..... One chapter I rewrote 13 times, though no-one who has read it can spot which one or know the pain it caused me." Rowling was named author of the year in the 2000 British Book Awards.
A wait of three years occurred between the release of Goblet of Fire and the fifth Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. This gap led to press speculation that Rowling had developed writer's block, speculations she fervently denied. Rowling later admitted that writing the book was a chore. "I think Phoenix could have been shorter", she told Lev Grossman, "I knew that, and I ran out of time and energy toward the end."
The sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was released on 16 July 2005. It too broke all sales records, selling nine million copies in its first 24 hours of release. While writing, she told a fan online, "Book six has been planned for years, but before I started writing seriously I spend two months re-visiting the plan and making absolutely sure I knew what I was doing." She noted on her website that the opening chapter of book six, which features a conversation between the Minister of Magic and the British Prime Minister, had been intended as the first chapter first for Philosopher's Stone, then Chamber of Secrets then Prisoner of Azkaban. In 2006, Half-Blood Prince received the Book of the Year prize at the British Book Awards.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released in July, 2007, (0:00 BST) and broke its predecessor's record as the fastest-selling book of all time. It sold 11 million copies in the first day of release in the United Kingdom and United States. She has said that the last chapter of the book was written "in something like 1990", as part of her earliest work on the entire series. During a year period when Rowling was completing the last book, she allowed herself to be filmed for a documentary which aired in Britain on ITV on 30 December 2007. It was entitled J K Rowling... A Year In The Life and showed her returning to her old Edinburgh tenement flat where she lived, and completed the first Harry Potter book. Re-visiting the flat for the first time reduced her to tears, saying it was "really where I turned my life around completely."
Harry Potter is now a global brand worth an estimated £7 billion ($15 billion), and the last four Harry Potter books have consecutively set records as the fastest-selling books in history. The series, totalling 4,195 pages, has been translated, in whole or in part, into 65 languages.
The Harry Potter books have also gained recognition for sparking an interest in reading among the young at a time when children were thought to be abandoning books for computers and television, although the series' overall impact on children's reading habits has been questioned.
Life after Harry Potter
Forbes has named Rowling as the first person to become a U.S.-dollar billionaire by writing books, the second-richest female entertainer and the 1,062nd richest person in the world. When first listed as a billionaire by Forbes in 2004, Rowling disputed the calculations and said she had plenty of money, but was not a billionaire. In addition, the 2008 Sunday Times Rich List named Rowling the 144th richest person in Britain. In 2001, Rowling purchased a luxurious nineteenth-century estate house, Killiechassie House, on the banks of the River Tay, near Aberfeldy, in Perth and Kinross, Scotland. Rowling also owns a home in Merchiston, Edinburgh, and a £4.5 million ($9 million) Georgian house in Kensington, West London, (on a street with 24-hour security).
On 26 December 2001, Rowling married Neil Michael Murray (born 30 June 1971), an anaesthetist, in a private ceremony at her Aberfeldy home. Their son was born in 2003 and a daughter in 2005.
In the UK, Rowling has received honorary degrees from St Andrews University, the University of Edinburgh, Napier University, the University of Exeter and the University of Aberdeen; and in the US, from Harvard. She has been awarded the Légion d'honneur by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. (During the Elysée Palace ceremony, she revealed that her maternal French grandfather had also received the Légion d'honneur for his bravery during World War I.) According to Matt Latimer, a former White House administrator for President George W. Bush, Rowling was turned down for the Presidential Medal of Freedom because administration officials believed that the Harry Potter series promoted witchcraft.
Subsequent writing
Rowling has stated that she plans to continue writing, preferably under a pseudonym. Although she "thinks it's unlikely" that she will write another Harry Potter, an "encyclopedia" of wizarding along with unpublished notes may be published sometime in the future. In March 2008, Rowling revealed in interview that she had returned to writing in Edinburgh cafes, intent on composing a new novel for children. "I will continue writing for children because that's what I enjoy," she told the Daily Telegraph. "I am very good at finding a suitable cafe; I blend into the crowd and, of course, I don't sit in the middle of the bar staring all around me." (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
These newest 652 pages—far darker than those that preceded them—are leavened with humor, romance and snappy dialogue, and freighted with secrets, deepening bonds, betrayals and brutal lessons, many of them coming from the sinister, Harry-hating Severus Snape, master of the dark arts. Up to now, Harry, while overcoming any number of harrowing trials, has managed to retain a trusting nature; but at 16, worsening circumstances force him to realize that even though he regards himself as ''Dumbledore's man through and through,'' he must also be his own man.
Liesl Schillinger - New York Times Book Review
The darkest and most unsettling installment yet.... It is a novel that pulls together dozens of plot strands from previous volumes, underscoring how cleverly and carefully J. K. Rowling has assembled this giant jigsaw puzzle of an epic.... The achievement of the Potter books is the same as that of the great classics of children's literature, from the Oz novels to The Lord of the Rings: the creation of a richly imagined and utterly singular world, as detailed, as improbable and as mortal as our own.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times
The journey from child to adult is tough enough for ordinary mortals, but the trip has been unusually hazardous for the world-famous wizard-in-training. Rowling shepherds her hero's arduous trek to maturity with her customary grace and good humor, though she has infused her story with more bone-cracking and blood-spattering than may be tolerable for many of the young readers who have followed Harry's adventures so far.
Jabari Asim - Washington Post
Our hero, Harry, now 16, battles ever-more-complex evil as Lord Voldemort's followers begin to wreak havoc even in the Muggle (non-wizarding) world. Rowling writes with increasing depth and nuance, her characters gaining maturity and dimension with each book. As Harry and Professor Dumbledore join forces to unlock the secrets of Voldemort's dark heart, their discoveries tie up loose ends from previous installments while (vexingly) unraveling others to be resolved in the seventh, and final, installment. The dark tone, snogging (kissing), and a shocker of an ending make this a better choice for older readers.
Child Magazine
Your library already owns multiple copies of this blockbuster fantasy adventure, of course, but just in case you haven't read it yet, this tells of heroic Harry's sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He is now 16, and romance is in the air along with hefty helpings of humor, horror, and Rowling's delightfully inventive fantasy details (wouldn't you like a potion that confers luck?). Headmaster Dumbledore teaches Harry about the background of Harry's mortal enemy, Lord Voldemort, so that together they can try to defeat him. Old adversaries Draco Malfoy and Professor Snape play important roles, as do Harry's faithful friends Ron and Hermione, and a particularly beloved character meets a nasty end. Not as gripping as the last volume, but the action-packed final chapters help make up for a slow start. (Ages 12 to adult.)
KLIATT
(Gr. 5 & Up) Opening just a few weeks after the previous book left off, the penultimate entry in the series is, as the author foretold, the darkest and most unsettling yet. The deeds of Voldemort's Death Eaters are spreading even to the Muggle world, which is enshrouded in a mist caused by Dementors draining hope and happiness. Harry, turning 16, leaves for Hogwarts with the promise of private lessons with Dumbledore. No longer a fearful boy living under the stairs, he is clearly a leader and increasingly isolated as rumors spread that he is the "Chosen One," the only individual capable of defeating Voldemort. Two attempts on students' lives, Harry's conviction that Draco Malfoy has become a Death Eater, and Snape's usual slimy behavior add to the increasing tension. Yet through it all, Harry and his friends are typical teens, sharing homework and messy rooms, rushing to classes and sports practices, and flirting. Ron and Hermione realize their attraction, as do Harry and Ginny. Dozens of plot strands are pulled together as the author positions Harry for the final book. Much information is cleverly conveyed through Dumbledore's use of a Pensieve, a device that allows bottled memories to be shared by Harry and his beloved professor as they apparate to various locations that help explain Voldemort's past. The ending is heart wrenching. Once again, Rowling capably blends literature, mythology, folklore, and religion into a delectable stew. This sixth book may be darker and more difficult, but Potter fans will devour it and begin the long and bittersweet wait for the final installment. —Connie Tyrrell Burns, Mahoney Middle School, South Portland, ME
School Library Journal
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince:
1. If you had a bottle of Felix Felicis what would you use it for?
2. Why does Dumbledore refuse the position of Minister of Magic? Would he have done more good for the wizarding community as the Minister than as headmaster of Hogwarts?
3. Discuss the different ways in which Professor Slughorn causes damage. Do his actions towards the end of the book redeem him at all?
4. A number of romantic relationships were formed or changed between the sixth year class. Which of these pairings surprised you, and which did you expect?
5. Throughout the series, Dumbledore has unwaivering faith in Professor Snape, yet there is no explanation for his trust. What do you think—do you trust Snape because Dumbledore does, or are you wary of him, as are Harry and his friends?
6. Were you surprised at the identity of the Half-Blood Prince? Who did you think it was going to be?
7. How does this book compare to the five others that come before it in the series?
8. Some readers and reviewers think this installment leaves too many questions unanswered. Do you agree or disagree? It is also considered the darkest of the series. Did you enjoy The Half-Blood Prince more or less than other books in the series? Was it as exciting? Were you surprised by the ending?
9. Have you seen the Half-Blood Prince film? If so, which details or story lines were left out? How do these omissions change the story for you? Overall, how does the movie stack up against the book?
10. Want to make predictions for the seventh (and final) Harry Potter book—The Deathly Hallows?
(Questions by Katherine O'Connor of LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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The Face on the Milk Carton (Janie Johnson Series #1)
Caroline B. Cooney, 1990
Random House Children's Books
208pp.
ISBN-13: 9780440220657
Summary
No one ever really paid close attention to the faces of the missing children on the milk cartons.
But as Janie Johnson glanced at the face of the ordinary little girl with her hair in tight pigtails, wearing a dress with a narrow white collar—a three-year-old who had been kidnapped twelve years before from a shopping mall in New Jersey—she felt overcome with shock. She recognized that little girl—it was she. How could it possibly be true?
Janie can't believe that her loving parents kidnapped her, but as she begins to piece things together, nothing makes sense. Something is terribly wrong. Are Mr. and Mrs. Johnson really Janie's parents? And if not, who is Janie Johnson, and what really happened?
The book was adapted into a 1995 film for television. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—May 10, 1947
• Where—Old Greenwich, Connecticut, USA
• Awards—American Library Association Award, Best Book for
Young Adults; IRA-CBC Children's Choice
• Currently—lives in Westbrook, Connecticut
Caroline B. Cooney is an American author of young adult books. An avid reader, Cooney read many books while in elementary school. Three books that she recalls particularly liking were Sword of The Wilderness by Elizabeth Coalsworth, Indian Captive by Lois Lenski, and Black River Captive by West Lanthrop.
Cooney played the piano, directed a chorus and was a church organ player by the time she was 13. While a teenager, she favored reading books in the The Hardy Boys and Cherry Ames series, but a particular favorite was Magic by the Lake by Edward Eager. During college, she studied arts, music and English.
She has written over 60 books beginning with Safe as the Grave in 1979. Several of her novels, including Driver's Ed, Among Friends, Twenty Pageants Later, Both Sides of Time, and Out of Time have won awards, including the American Library Association award and an IRA–CBC Children's Choice Award.
At least two of her works have been made into films for television, including The Face on the Milk Carton. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
A milk carton portrait causes a 15-year-old girl to question her true identity; citing the novel's "strong characterizations and suspenseful, impeccably paced action,'' PW added, "The roller-coaster ride Jane experiences with her emotions is both absorbing and convincing.'' Ages 12-up.
Publishers Weekly
(Grades 7-10) The message on the milk carton reads, "Have you seen this child?"' Three-year-old Jennie Spring was kidnapped 12 years earlier, but Janie Johnson, looking at the photo, suddenly knows that she is that child. Fragments of memory and evidence accumulate, and when she demands to know about her early childhood years, her parents confess what they believe to be true, that she is really their grandchild, the child of their long-missing daughter who had joined a cult. Janie wants to accept this, but she cannot forget Jennie's family and their loss. Finally, almost against her will, she seeks help and confides in her parents. Her mother insists that she call the Spring family, and the book ends as she calls them. Many young people fantasize about having been adopted or even kidnapped, but the decisions Janie must face are painful and complex, and she experiences denial, anger, and guilt while sorting her way toward a solution. Janie's boyfriend—sensible, funny, with problems of his own--is an excellent foil for her intensity. Their romance is natural and believable. Cooney again demonstrates an excellent ear for dialogue and a gift for protraying responsible middle-class teen-agers trying to come to terms with very real concerns. —Tatiana Castleton, Stockton-San Joaquin County Public Library, CA
School Library Journal
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for The Face on the Milk Carton:
1. How would you describe Janie Johnson and her life...before she sees her face on the milk carton? What does she like about her life? What would she like to change?
2. How does Janie begin to piece together the clues that will tell her the story of her life? What about her memories—her daydreams or flashbacks—what do they reveal? Do you have memories of your earliest life?
3. Janie's friends begin to notice her changed behavior. Why won't Janie tell her friends, especially Sarah Charlotte, her best friend, what she has uncovered?
4. What about Reeve—is he a good guy? Do you like him as a character?
5. How would it feel to wonder whether your parents were really your parents? If it turned out that your parents were not your biological parents, would that change your feelings toward them? What would you want to know about your birth parents? Who would be your "real" parents—in other words, what is a "parent"?
6. This book is about identity, discovering the truth about who one is. What determines identity? What would it be like to find out you aren't who you thought you were? If you have lived your life as one person and then uncover a past you didn't know about, are you still the same person? In other words, what makes you who you are?
7. Should Janie have asked the Johnsons at the beginning about the milk carton? When she finally does confront them, what is their reaction? Was it right that they had never told her about her past?
8. What does Janie realize by the end of the story? Is there a lesson she learns?
9. Do you find Janie's story compelling. Is the book suspenseful—does it keep you turning the pages to find out what happens next? What about the ending? Does it satisfy... or leave you hanging?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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Fade to Black
Alex Flinn, 2005
HarperCollins
208 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780060568429
Summary
Three perspectives—one truth.
The victim: After his windshield was shattered with a baseball bat, HIV-positive Alex Crusan ducked under the steering wheel. But he knows what he saw. Now he must decide what he wants to tell.
The witness: Daria Bickell never lies. So if she told the police she saw Clinton Cole do it, she must have. But did she really?
The suspect: Clinton was seen in the vicinity of the crime that morning. And sure, he has problems with Alex. But he'd never do something like this. Would he? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—October 23, 1966
• Where—Glen Cove, New York, USA
• Education—University of Miami
• Currently—lives in Miama, Florida
Alex Flinn grew up in Syosset, New York and Miami, Florida. At the age of five she started thinking about being a writer and submitted early efforts to magazines like Highlights, which did not publish them. At twelve, she moved to Palmetto Bay, Florida, a suburb of Miami, where she still lives. She had a hard time making friends at her new school, and she has said that this experience inspired much of her writing for young adults, particularly her book, Breaking Point.
She graduated from Miami-Palmetto High School and was in a magnet performing arts program called PAVAC (Performing And Visual Arts Center), which inspired some of her book, Diva. She graduated from the University of Miami with a degree in vocal performance (opera) then went to law school and practiced law for 10 years before retiring to devote herself full-time to writing. She lives in Miami, Florida, with her husband, Eugene Flinn, two daughters, a cat, and a dog.
Alex Flinn loves fairy tales and is also the author of a modern retelling of "Beauty and the Beast" titled Beastly, which was named a VOYA Editor's Choice for 2007, a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age for 2008, and a 2008 ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers.
Her other books include Breathing Underwater, an ALA Top 10 Best Book for Young Adults, Breaking Point, Nothing to Lose, Fade to Black, and Diva. (Adapted from Wikipedia and the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Flinn, a former attorney, is also interested in point of view—or rather the challenges presented when multiple points of view collide. In this tautly constructed novel, an HIV-positive high school student sees his life 'fading to black.' Then an unknown assailant attacks him in his car, and he suddenly finds himself sifting shades of gray. As the victim, the suspect and the lone witness take turns with the narrative, 'truth' and 'guilt' grow increasingly elusive.
Elizabeth Ward - Washinton Post
Flinn, author of Breathing Underwater (2001) and Nothing to Lose (2004), takes aim at bullying once again. [Characters] alternate telling their stories and sharing their secrets.... Teens will enjoy ferreting out the reality from the conflicting narratives and arguing about the sensitive issues raised along the way.
Booklist
The facts are clear: Alex Crusan, an HIV-positive Cuban-American high school student who recently moved to small-town Pinedale, FL, was attacked in his car by someone with a baseball bat. He is now in the hospital with multiple injuries. Daria Bicknell, a special education (Down syndrome) student, was a witness to the attack. But who was the assailant? Daria thinks it was fellow student Clinton Cole. Clinton was seen in the area that morning, and he's been vocal about his feelings about someone who might spread "the black plague": his little sister and Alex's are best friends, and Clinton wants Alex out of their lives. We get the story in alternating chapters from the three teenagers' points of view. Alex tells of his struggle to deal with his HIV-positive status and to cope with his overprotective mother, and his fear of having no future. He forms a friendship with a candy striper at the hospital, and gradually decides to come clean about how he contracted HIV—it was from a brief relationship with a college girl, and not from a transfusion, as his family had told everyone. In blank verse, Daria tells about what she saw, and how it gets her much-desired attention from the other girls. And Clinton tells about his anger and what he really did: he is guilty, but not of this crime. In the end, telling the truth is difficult but liberating for all three young people. Flinn, a former attorney and author of the notable YA novels Breathing Underwater, Nothing to Lose, and Breaking Point, tells a convincing and wrenching tale of teens dealing with thorny issues. The three viewpoints effectively help the reader consider the plights and concerns of each character. A worthy and thought-provoking novel, with an eye-catching cover. Ages 12 to 18.
Paula Rohrlick - KLIATT
(Grade 8 & Up) Alex Crusan, an HIV-positive, Hispanic teen, is brutalized by an attacker wearing a high school letter jacket, and all fingers point to Clinton Cole, the narrow-minded jock/jerk known for making Alex and his family's lives miserable since they arrived in the rural, north Florida town. Daria Bickell, a special-ed student with Down syndrome, is the only witness to the crime. Right from the outset, it seems as though Flinn has tried to pack too much into this unsteady novel. Through alternating first-person narratives, the three main characters grapple with physical disability, racism, bullying, homophobia, and AIDS anxiety. The after-school-special approach to the issues and the inclusion of several mid-90s cultural references make Fade to Black read as though it were written a decade ago. Not to say fans won't pick up this acclaimed author's latest mystery, but literary merit is sacrificed when edgy tension takes a backseat to preachy sentimentality. —Hillias J. Martin, New York Public Library
School Library Journal
Before 17-year-old Alex transfers to a small Florida high school, its administrators announce at an assembly that he's HIV-positive. Alex persuades his protective parents not to sue for this illegal action even though it leads to harassment, particularly from a fellow student named Clinton. When Alex is attacked in his car one morning, Clinton is the obvious suspect. Alex, Clinton and Daria, a student with Down Syndrome who sees Clinton near the scene of the crime, each narrate chapters describing the aftermath when Alex is hospitalized, Clinton is shunned by classmates and Daria vacillates in her testimony. Alex, who knows Clinton isn't guilty, struggles with his inclination to let his harasser take the blame, while Clinton starts looking beyond his self-absorbed, difficult life to feel some sympathy for Alex. Only near the end does the reader learn how Alex contracted the virus, a story that, perhaps inevitably, reads like a warning. Flinn draws perceptive pictures of family relationships and of the emotions of a teenager scared about his future but determined to make the most of the present in this readable exploration of ethical issues.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What do you think Daria saw on the morning of October 27? Did she misunderstand what she saw, or did she merely have difficulty communicating with the police?
2. In the early chapters, both Alex and Daria speak of feeling invisible or ignored. Does Clinton share this feeling? Why or why not? Do you see kids at school being treated like they're invisible, and for what reason?
3. Alex describes Clinton as his "arch nemesis" and Clinton would probably agree that the two boys have little in common. Is this true? In what ways are Alex and Clinton alike? How are they different?
4. How does Clinton justify his treatment of Alex at the beginning of the book? Does he change this attitude by the end, or does he merely agree with Alex to get out of trouble?
5. Why do Alex's parents encourage him to lie about how he contracted HIV? How does this make him feel? Why does he want to tell the truth?
6. Would it bother you, as it did Clinton, to have to sit next to Alex in class? Why? Did your attitude change after reading this book?
7. Alex debates whether to tell the truth about Clinton's involvement in the crime. Do you think he would have been justified in lying? Why? What would you do in his situation?
8. Why do you think the author chose to tell the story through three different characters' eyes? In what ways might the story have been told differently if it were told in only one viewpoint? Do you think the "truth" is affected by who is seeing it?
9. Why do you think the author chose Daria as a narrator for the story? What does her narrative add?
10. In what ways, if any, do the viewpoint characters grow in the course of the story? Which character do you think experiences the most growth?
11. Why does Jennifer tell Alex the story about her experiences with her father?
12. Discuss the relationships Alex, Clinton, and Daria have with their families? How are these relationships similar and different? In what ways do these relationships change in the course of the book?
13. Did you feel sympathetic toward Clinton? What factors, if any, made him a sympathetic character?
14. How do people at the school react to the crime against Alex? Do you think this is how you or people you know would react to a similar crime?
15. Why is Jennifer drawn to Alex? Why does she talk to Clinton about him at school? Why does Alex get angry at her for doing so?
16. What do you think would have happened if Clinton had never been accused of the baseball bat incident but, instead, had been picked up for throwing the rock? Would the outcome have been different? What would the relationship between the two boys have been if Clinton had been accused only of the crime he actually committed?
17. Alex dislikes Pinedale, yet doesn't want to leave when his mother says they will go back to Miami. Why? How does his attitude toward Pinedale change during the course of the book? What factors contribute to this change?
18. At the end of the book, Daria says, "Mama says I am still a hero." Is she? In what way?
19. What is Alex's attitude toward Daria? Does it change in the course of the book? Why and how?
20. If the three characters were unable to settle their differences but were, instead, required to testify under oath in a court of law, what would the likely outcome be?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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The Hunger Games (Hunger Games Series 1)
Suzanne Collins, 2008
Scholastic
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780439023528
Summary
Katniss is a 16-year-old girl living with her mother and younger sister in the poorest district of Panem, the remains of what used be the United States.
Long ago the districts waged war on the Capitol and were defeated. As part of the surrender terms, each district agreed to send one boy and one girl to appear in an annual televised event called, "The Hunger Games."
The terrain, rules, and level of audience participation may change but one thing is constant: kill or be killed. When Kat's sister is chosen by lottery, Kat steps up to go in her place. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—August 10, 1962
• Where—Hartford, Connecticut, USA
• Education—B.A., Indiana University; M.F.A., New York University
• Currently—lives in Connecticut
Collins's career began in 1991 as a writer for children's television shows. She worked on several television shows for Nickelodeon, including Clarissa Explains It All, The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo, Little Bear, and Oswald. She was also the head writer for Scholastic Entertainment's Clifford's Puppy Days. She received a Writers Guild of America nomination in animation for co-writing the critically acclaimed Christmas special, Santa, Baby!
After meeting children's author James Proimos while working on the Kids' WB show Generation O!, Collins was inspired to write children's books herself. Her inspiration for Gregor the Overlander, the first book of the best selling series "The Underland Chronicles," came from Alice in Wonderland, when she was thinking about how one was more likely to fall down a manhole than a rabbit hole, and would find something other than a tea party.
Between 2003 and 2007 she wrote the five books of the "Underland Chronicles": Gregor the Overlander, Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane, Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods, Gregor and the Marks of Secret, and Gregor and the Code of Claw. During that time, Collins also wrote a rhyming picture book illustrated by Mike Lester entitled When Charlie McButton Lost Power (2005).
In September 2008 Scholastic Press released the The Hunger Games, the first book of a new trilogy by Collins. The Hunger Games was partly inspired by the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. Another inspiration was her father's career in the Air Force, which allowed her to better understand poverty, starvation, and the effects of war.
This was followed by the novel's 2009 sequel, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay in 2010. In just 14 months, 1.5 million copies of the first two "Hunger Games" books have been printed in North America alone. The Hunger Games has been on the New York Times Best Seller list for more than 60 weeks in a row. Collins was named one of Time magazine's most influential people of 2010.
Collins earned her M.F.A. from New York University in Dramatic Writing. She now lives in Connecticut with her husband, their two children, and 2 adopted feral kittens. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
[B]rilliantly plotted and perfectly paced...a futuristic novel every bit as good and as allegorically rich as Scott Westerfeld's "Uglies" books...the considerable strength of the novel comes in Collins's convincingly detailed world-building and her memorably complex and fascinating heroine. In fact, by not calling attention to itself, the text disappears in the way a good font does: nothing stands between Katniss and the reader, between Panem and America. This makes for an exhilarating narrative and a future we can fear and believe in, but it also allows us to see the similarities between Katniss's world and ours.
John Green - New York Times
This gripping tale explores ever-timely topics—violence-as-entertainment and rule-by-intimidation—and through Katniss holds out the possibility of change.
Mary Quattlebaum - Washington Post
Whereas Katniss kills with finesse, Collins writes with raw power...The Hunger Games and Catching Fire expose children to exactly the kind of violence we usually shield them from. But that just goes to show how much adults forget about what it's like to be a child. Kids are physical creatures, and they're not stupid. They know all about violence and power and raw emotions. What's really scary is when adults pretend that such things don't exist.
Time
(Audio version.) Suzanne Collins's first book of a planned trilogy introduces an easy-to-imagine, cruel future society divided by wealth and obsessed with media and celebrity. The controlling Capitol broadcasts the Hunger Games, mandatory watching for all citizens of Panem. The annual event pits 24 Tributes-a girl and boy teen from each of the 12 Districts surrounding the Capitol-against one another in a desperate battle to the death. When 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen steps forward to take her younger sister's place as District Twelve's girl Tribute, she is thrown into a media frenzy, complete with stylists and costumes, literally fighting for her life in the arena. Intense, graphic action, along with a touch of romance, makes this dystopic adventure a great choice for older reluctant readers. Although the plot mimics both Stephen King's The Long Walk (1999) and Running Man (1999) as well as Koushon Takami's Battle Royale (2007), Collins creates a fascinating world and Katniss is a believably flawed and interesting character. Carolyn McCormick ably voices the action-packed sequences and Katniss's every fear and strength shines through, along with her doomed growing attraction to one of her fellow Tributes. This engrossing audiobook belongs in all public and school libraries. —Charli Osborne, Oxford Public Library, MI
School Library Journal
This is an amazingly suspenseful story, combining the familiar ("Survivor"-type TV shows) with details of a horrific future. Once again, an author chooses a future in which some calamity has created a society cowed into submission by dictators, and manipulated and controlled through technology. The Hunger Games are this future culture's way of entertaining and frightening the people, all at once. Young people are chosen by lot as participants in the games. Once chosen, the "contestants" scheme for the others' deaths—real deaths—because that is the only way to survive: to be the last person standing. The people follow the "action" via camera, with strategy and suffering presented as entertainment (sort of like the action in the Roman Empire's Coliseum, I suppose). The heroine is 16-year-old Katniss, a skilled hunter and survivor managing to keep her mother and younger sister alive in their repressive society. When Katniss's younger sister, who is not very strong, draws the lot, Katniss takes her place, willing to die for her family. In a masterstroke of strategic planning, Katniss teams up with another contestant, a boy she has known in her village, to ensure their survival. The "games" themselves are nonstop action: physical, mental, emotional. Readers will be absorbed in the action, identifying with Katniss and frightened by this view of a possible future. —Claire Rosser
KLIATT
Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen cannot believe it when her younger sister Prim is chosen as the female tribute from their district at the Reaping. In this futuristic society, each district is required to send two tributes to the Games in the Capitol where they must fight to the death while the whole country watches on live television. To protect her sister, Katniss volunteers to take her place, knowing that she will probably never again return home. Twenty-four young people are dropped off in a remote area and must fight for survival against the harsh conditions and each other. Only one is allowed to live. Katniss and Peeta, the other tribute from District 12, form an uneasy alliance that blossoms into romance amid the brutality and deprivation of the Hunger Games. Katniss and Peeta try to rebel against the Gamemakers but discover that they must play the game to its end. Collins moves up a level from the "Gregor the Overlander" books in this gripping story that is the first of a new trilogy. Themes of government control, "big brother," and personal independence are explored amidst a thrilling adventure that will appeal to science fiction, survival, and adventure readers. The suspense of this powerful novel will keep the reader glued to the page long after bedtime. —Deborah L. Dubois
VOYA
(Starred review.) What happens if we choose entertainment over humanity? In Collins's world, we'll be obsessed with grooming, we'll talk funny, and all our sentences will end with the same rise as questions. When Katniss is sent to stylists to be made more telegenic before she competes, she stands naked in front of them, strangely unembarrassed. "They're so unlike people that I'm no more self-conscious than if a trio of oddly colored birds were pecking around my feet," she thinks. In order not to hate these creatures who are sending her to her death, she imagines them as pets. It isn't just the contestants who risk the loss of their humanity. It is all who watch. —Megan Whalen Turner
Publishers Weekly
Katniss Everdeen is a survivor. She has to be; she's representing her District, number 12, in the 74th Hunger Games in the Capitol, the heart of Panem, a new land that rose from the ruins of a post-apocalyptic North America. To punish citizens for an early rebellion, the rulers require each district to provide one girl and one boy, 24 in all, to fight like gladiators in a futuristic arena. The event is broadcast like reality TV, and the winner returns with wealth for his or her district. With clear inspiration from Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" and the Greek tale of Theseus, Collins has created a brilliantly imagined dystopia, where the Capitol is rich and the rest of the country is kept in abject poverty, where the poor battle to the death for the amusement of the rich. Impressive world-building, breathtaking action and clear philosophical concerns make this volume, the beginning of a planned trilogy, as good as The Giver and more exciting. (11 & up.)
Kirkus Reviews
Book Club Discussion Questions
1. How does Katniss feel about the country of Panem? Why does she need to make her face "an indifferent mask" and be careful what she says in public?
2. Describe the relationships of Katniss with Gale, with Prim, with her mother. How do those relationships define her personality? Why does she say about Peeta, "I feel like I owe him something, and I hate owing people." How does her early encounter with Peeta affect their relationship after they are chosen as tributes?
3. How does the fact that the tributes are always on camera affect their behavior from the time they are chosen? Does it make it easier or harder for them to accept their fate? How are the "career tributes" different from the others?
4. Why are the "tributes" given stylists and dressed so elaborately for the opening ceremony? Does this ceremony remind you of events in our world, either past or present? Compare those ceremonies in real life to the one in the story.
5. When Peeta declares his love for Katniss in the interview, does he really mean it or did Haymitch create the "star-crossed lovers" story? What does Haymitch mean when he says, "It's all a big show. It's all how you're perceived." Why do they need to impress sponsors and what are those sponsors looking for when they are watching the Games?
6. Before the Games start, Peeta tells Katniss, "...I want to die as myself ... I don't want them to change me in there. Turn me into some kind of monster that I'm not." What does this tell you about Peeta? What does he fear more than death? Is he able to stay true to himself during the Games?
7. Why does Katniss ignore Haymitch's advice to head directly away from the Cornucopia? Did she do the right thing to fight for equipment? What are the most important skills she has for staying alive — her knowledge of nature? — her skill with bow and arrow? — her trapping ability? What qualities of her personality keep her going - her capacity for love? — her intelligence? — her self-control?
8. Why does Peeta join with the Career Tributes in the beginning of the Games? What does he hope to gain? Why do they accept him when they start hunting as a group? Why do groups form in the beginning when they know only one of them will be able to survive?
9. What makes Katniss and Rue trust each other to become partners? What does Katniss gain from this friendship besides companionship? Is Katniss and Rue's partnership formed for different reasons than the other group's?
10. Discuss the ways in which the Gamemakers control the environment and "entertainment" value of the Games. How does it affect the tributes to know they are being manipulated to make the Games more exciting for the gamblers and viewers? Does knowing that she is on live TV make Katniss behave differently than she would otherwise?
11. When does Katniss first realize that Peeta does care for her and is trying to keep her alive? When does she realize her own feelings for him? Did Haymitch think all along that he could keep them both alive by stressing the love story? Are they actually in love?
12. What do you think is the cruelest part of the Hunger Games? What kind of people would devise this spectacle for the entertainment of their populace? Can you see parallels between these Games and the society that condones them, and other related events and cultures in the history of the world?
13. In 1848, Karl Marx wrote in The Communist Manifesto, "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." Discuss this statement as it applies to the society and government of Panem. Do you believe there is any chance to eradicate class struggles in the future?
14. Reality TV has been a part of the entertainment world since the early days of television (with shows such as Candid Camera and the Miss America Pageant), but in the 21st century there has been a tremendous growth of competitive shows and survival shows. Discuss this phenomenon with respect to The Hunger Games. What other aspects of our popular culture do you see reflected in this story?
(Questions from Scholastic's Teacher Book Wizard)
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Catching Fire (Hunger Game series #2)
Suzanne Collins, 2009
Scholastic, Inc.
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780439023498
Summary
Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has won the annual Hunger Games with fellow district tribute Peeta Mellark. But it was a victory won by defiance of the Capitol and their harsh rules. Katniss and Peeta should be happy.
After all, they have just won for themselves and their families a life of safety and plenty. But there are rumors of rebellion among the subjects, and Katniss and Peeta, to their horror, are the faces of that rebellion. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—August 10, 1962
• Where—Hartford, Connecticut, USA
• Education—B.A., Indiana University; M.F.A., New York University
• Currently—lives in Connecticut
Collins's career began in 1991 as a writer for children's television shows. She worked on several television shows for Nickelodeon, including Clarissa Explains It All, The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo, Little Bear, and Oswald. She was also the head writer for Scholastic Entertainment's Clifford's Puppy Days. She received a Writers Guild of America nomination in animation for co-writing the critically acclaimed Christmas special, Santa, Baby!
After meeting children's author James Proimos while working on the Kids' WB show Generation O!, Collins was inspired to write children's books herself. Her inspiration for Gregor the Overlander, the first book of the best selling series "The Underland Chronicles," came from Alice in Wonderland, when she was thinking about how one was more likely to fall down a manhole than a rabbit hole, and would find something other than a tea party.
Between 2003 and 2007 she wrote the five books of the "Underland Chronicles": Gregor the Overlander, Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane, Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods, Gregor and the Marks of Secret, and Gregor and the Code of Claw. During that time, Collins also wrote a rhyming picture book illustrated by Mike Lester entitled When Charlie McButton Lost Power (2005).
In September 2008 Scholastic Press released the The Hunger Games, the first book of a new trilogy by Collins. The Hunger Games was partly inspired by the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. Another inspiration was her father's career in the Air Force, which allowed her to better understand poverty, starvation, and the effects of war.
This was followed by the novel's 2009 sequel, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay in 2010. In just 14 months, 1.5 million copies of the first two "Hunger Games" books have been printed in North America alone. The Hunger Games has been on the New York Times Best Seller list for more than 60 weeks in a row. Collins was named one of Time magazine's most influential people of 2010.
Collins earned her M.F.A. from New York University in Dramatic Writing. She now lives in Connecticut with her husband, their two children, and 2 adopted feral kittens. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Fresh from their improbable victory in the annual Hunger Games, Katniss and Peeta get to enjoy the spoils only briefly before they must partake in a Capitol-sponsored victory tour. But trouble is brewing—President Snow tells Katniss directly he won’t stand for being outsmarted, and she overhears rumbles of uprisings in Panem’s districts. Before long it’s time for the next round of games, and because it’s the 75th anniversary of the competition, something out of the ordinary is in order. If this second installment spends too much time recapping events from book one, it doesn’t disappoint when it segues into the pulse-pounding action readers have come to expect. Characters from the previous volume reappear to good effect: Katniss’s stylist, Cinna, proves he’s about more than fashion; Haymitch becomes more dimensional. But the star remains Katniss, whose bravery, honesty and wry cynicism carry the narrative. (About her staff of beauticians she quips: “They never get up before noon unless there’s some sort of national emergency, like my leg hair.”) Collins has also created an exquisitely tense romantic triangle for her heroine. Forget Edward and Jacob: by book’s end (and it’s a cliffhanger), readers will be picking sides—Peeta or Gale? (Ages 12–up.).
Publishers Weekly
(Grade 7 & up) in Suzanne Collins's planned trilogy, set in the dystopic nation of Panem, Katniss has survived The Hunger Games (2008), a fight to the death, and learns that she is now considered a danger to the Capital because she has become a symbol of rebellion. President Snow lets her know he is out to "get her" and those she loves. After she and Peeta complete a victory tour to all of the districts and witness firsthand the unrest and force used to squelch it, she learns that in this year of the Quarter Quell (a special version of The Games), former champions are to be the competitors once again. She enters this game with one goal in mind—to keep Peeta alive. The only problem is that he has the same goal. Suspense abounds as, along with Katniss, listeners experience the games once again, with new secrets and questions about the "true" loyalty of her supposed allies. Katniss's feelings about Peeta and Gale continue to confuse her, sometimes clouding her thinking. While Carolyn McCormick's voice sounds older than one might expect for Katniss, she perfectly captures all of her moods. She is very versatile in voicing Peeta's earnestness, Gale's quiet strength, Haymitch's sarcasm, and the feelings of all the lesser characters. The ending is a cliffhanger, and fans of the series will eagerly await the next installment. —Edie Ching, Washington Latin Public Charter School, DC
Library Journal
World-weary after her historic victory during the Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen finds her life forever changed. She and her fellow District 12 tribute Peeta Mellark embark on the requisite Victory Tour, where there are hints of rebellion in several of the districts. Inspired by her earlier example of defiance, citizens have taken to wearing the mockingjay pin Katniss wears. There are twists, turns, and unexpected developments as Katniss faces possible betrayal at every turn. The action in this sequel to The Hunger Games never lets up, with hints of things to come and wrongs to be righted. All of the secondary characters are fleshed out effectively. President Snow's palpable hatred for Katniss oozes throughout his plans for the Seventy-fifth Hunger Games. Readers will groan in frustration at the book's conclusion, since there are so many loose ends. The tantalizing hints of a possible District 13 guarantee more surprises for readers. —Barbara Ward
Alan Review
In the sequel to the hugely popular The Hunger Games (2008), Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, having won the annual Games, are now rich and famous-and trapped in the fiction that they are lovers. They are seen as a threat to the Capitol, their unusual manner of winning an act of rebellion that could inspire uprisings throughout Panem. Knowing her life is in danger, Katniss considers escaping with her family and friends but instead reluctantly assumes the role of a rebel, almost forced into it by threats from the insidious President Snow. Beyond the expert world building, the acute social commentary and the large cast of fully realized characters, there's action, intrigue, romance and some amount of hope in a story readers will find completely engrossing. Collins weaves in enough background for this novel to stand alone, but it will be a far richer experience for those who have read the first installment and come to love Katniss, Peeta, Haymitch and the rest of the desperate residents of this dystopia. A humdinger of a cliffhanger will leave readers clamoring for volume three.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
(Scholastic, Inc., the publisher, has provided two sets of questions—one set for Catching Fire and the second set compares Catching Fire to The Hunger Games.)
1. How did Katniss’s participation in the Games change her relationship with Gale? Why does she say, “The Games have spoiled even that…There’s no going back.”
2. What emotions does Peeta stir in Katniss? Though she is stiff and formal with him, what are her true feelings? How did the events in the first Games affect their relationship?
3. Why does President Snow come to Katniss’s home? What does he mean when he says, “you have provided a spark which left unattended may grow into an inferno....” What, exactly, was the significance of the handful of poisonous berries at the end of The Hunger Games?
4. How do the events of the Victory Tour affect Katniss and Peeta, their relationship to each other, and their feelings about their future?
5. Why does the Capitol devise a special reaping procedure for every 25th Game? Do you believe the requirements for this Quarter Quell were decided in the past or were they designed for this Game to force Katniss and Peeta back to the Arena?
6. What is the significance of the mockingjay image? What does it mean to the people in the Districts and the people in the Capitol? Why does Plutarch Heavensbee show Katniss the hidden mockingjay image on his watch? Discuss how the mockingjay species developed and how Katniss happened to wear the pin during the first Games.
7. Why does Gale refuse Katniss’s offer to try to escape into the wild? What does he mean when he says, “It can’t be about just saving us anymore”? How does Gale’s whipping change Katniss’s thinking about escape and her feelings for Gale?
8. What makes Katniss say, “No wonder I won the Games. No decent person ever does.” Is she being too hard on herself? What makes her realize that fighting the Capitol is more important than running away? What is the importance of her meeting with Bonnie and Twill in the forest?
9. Why does the Capitol push plans for the wedding of Katniss and Peeta if they know that they will be returning to the Games in the Quarter Quell? What does the Capitol hope to gain by sending previous victors back to the Games? Is it really, as Katniss says, a way to show “that hope was an illusion”?
10. What do Katniss and Peeta learn when they watch the video of Haymitch’s Hunger Games, the 2nd Quarter Quell? How does it affect their understanding of Haymitch and the mockingjay symbol? How did Haymitch trick the Capitol?
11. How do both Peeta and Katniss mock the Gamemakers during the “talent show” portion of the training? Why do they each take the chance of offending those who will control the Games? How does this change their feelings for each other?
12. Discuss the effect on Katniss of what happens to Darius and Cinna. Why are the Capitol officials attacking those who have befriended her? Why is Cinna attacked just before Katniss is placed in the Arena?
13. Why is Katniss determined to keep Peeta alive during the Games, even at the expense of her own life? When does she realize the importance of forming alliances with the other tributes? Why does Finnick save Peeta’s life? When does Katniss realize that her first impression of Finnick was wrong?
14. Describe the relationship between Katniss and Johanna. What made Katniss realize that Wiress and Beetee would be helpful allies in the Arena? What important contribution does each one of the allies make to keep the group alive? What is the role of the unseen “sponsors”?
15. What is more harmful to the players in this Game—the physical traumas like the fog and rain of fire, or the emotional trauma of hearing the jabberjays?
16. What does Haymitch mean when he tells Katniss before the Game begin, “You just remember who the enemy is—that’s all.” Who is the enemy? Have the other tributes been trying to keep Peeta or Katniss alive? Which of them is most important to the rebellion?
17. Why were Katniss and Peeta not aware of the plans for the rebellion? Why were they kept in the dark when other tributes knew about it?
18. What is the meaning of the title? How many different ways can you identify the theme of “catching fire” in this volume?
__________________
Comparing The Hunger Games and Catching Fire:
1. Discuss the differences between the Games in the first volume and the second—the training sessions, the interviews, the set-up of the Arena, the strategies that Katniss and Peeta use. How is each of them changed by the time they spend in the Arena?
2. What are the forces that contribute to the rebellion in Catching Fire? Were they already starting to happen in The Hunger Games? What clues can you find in the books about the rebellion?
3. Why are all citizens of Panem required to watch the Hunger Games on television? How does this affect the people? Why haven’t they rebelled earlier against the brutality of the Games? Discuss the effect of television and reality TV in your own life.
4. What are your predictions for the third volume in the series?
5. Compare the society in Panem (the government, its tight control on the population, and the growing rebellion) to others that you have studied or encountered in books or films. Consider historical and contemporary nations as well as fictional worlds. What does Panem have in common with these cultures, and how does it differ? What can we learn about our own world from studying and reading about historical and fictional societies?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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The Remember Box (Job's Corner Series #1)
Patricia Sprinkle, 2000
Bella Rosa / Zondervan Press
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781933523095
Summary
I stroked the satin wood in delight and confusion. Why should Uncle Stephen send it to me? The Remember Box was Aunt Kate's private place, the one we were sternly forbidden to open. Suddenly I was reluctant, even fearful—a modern Pandora, about to let out our own lost world. That box held one year I'd spent a lifetime trying to forget.
Summer in Job's Corner meant big trees, cool grass, and sweltering afternoons stretching endlessly under the Southern sun. Those were the days without plastic, microwaves, television, or air conditioning, a time when clocks ticked comfortingly in the night and a cool breeze was a gift. But as the long sultry summer of 1949 comes to an end, events will transform this sleepy Southern crossroads.
After losing her mother to polio, eleven-year-old Carley Marshall comes to Job's Corner to make a new start, along with her Aunt Kate and Uncle Stephen Whitfield and her cousins Abby and John. The family is welcomed warmly by this small North Carolina community as Stephen takes up the post of pastor to Bethel Church, a Presbyterian congregation. But their welcome begins to wear thin and covert criticism runs rampant as Stephen challenges age-old beliefs and traditions.
As Job's Corner confronts national struggles for civil rights, coal strikes, and hysteria over Communism, Stephen's voice of reason gets lost in the growing hostility of a vocal minority. Though this quintessential Southern community seems to be filled with people who are the salt of the earth, secrets and lies are hidden beneath the easy-going surface—and the truth must be revealed before an innocent man is convicted of murder.
With the dawning of a new decade, Carley learns to face her own family secrets. And discovers that we all must make the journey to truth alone. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Patricia H. Sprinkle is a freelance writer whose nonfiction books include the companion to this volume, Children Who Do Too Little. She is also a best-selling mystery writer and an active member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America. She is a frequent speaker at seminars and women's conferences and lives in Miami with her husband. They have two grown children. (From the publisher.)
More
In her own words:
My folks are North Carolinians, but lived in West Virginia for three years, just long enough to have my sister and me, while my preacher dad served coal field churches. When I was two we moved to Loray, North Carolina, just outside of Statesville. My little sister and I did a lot of things the children do in my novels The Remember Box and Carley's Song. Five years later we moved to Wilmington, where we played in the Atlantic and promised we’d swim to France--tomorrow. When I was twelve, we moved down the coast to Jacksonville, Florida. I decided in ninth grade to become a writer, so after Robert E. Lee High, I headed to Vassar College, which had a great creative writing program.
After college I returned to my folks, by then in Miami, to work toward a serious test of my writing commitment. With $750, one suitcase, two coats and a portable typewriter, I headed the next October to a Scottish Highland village where, at that time, room and board cost $14 a week. Before the money ran out, I had sold one poem, one article, one short story, and a one-act play. Fortified by that major impact on British literature, I moved to Atlanta and started a series of writing-related jobs. But no matter what I was writing, what I was reading was mostly mysteries.
When I met and married Bob in 1970, he looked over our budget and demanded, "Why don’t you write a mystery to pay for all the ones you buy?" I immediately took a building where I’d once worked and put a body in its basement. However, being over endowed with the Protestant ethic, I wrote "important" things first and only wrote the mystery in my spare time, so my first mystery, Murder at Markham (reissued by Silver Dagger in 2001), took thirteen years to complete. It took even longer for me to learn that any writing which gives me pleasure is important, whether fiction or non-fiction.
Since 1988 I have written 20 mysteries, two other novels, and five non-fiction books, and currently am writing the first of two non-mystery novels in a new series. I am so grateful to my readers and editors for letting me do what I enjoy most in the world. Bob has concluded that writing is not a profession, it's an obsession—my favorite vacation is to go to a place where somebody else fixes my meals and where I can write more than I do at home, without interruptions. Thanks, if you are one of the readers who keeps my fingers on the keys. I do enjoy spending time with you at conferences, book clubs, and signing events.
Bob is still my encourager and faithful patron of the arts. During our thirty-eight years together we have lived in Atlanta (four times), Chicago (twice), St. Petersburg (twice), Mobile, and Miami. Along the way we had two sons. Barnabas is married to Emi and they have two little boys. Ask me about my grandsons! Our younger son, David, lives and optimizes web sites in New York City, plays drums and a mean electric piano, and composes beautiful music.
The rest of what you want to know, you’ll find in my books. The people are different, but the basic stories are true. I always figure, why make up anything I can remember instead? (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Patricia Sprinkle weaves an interesting tale with vivid description ... Unlike much Christian fiction there is no overriding spiritual lesson in this story. It's just a good old-fashioned tale of the happenings in a small Southern town. And Sprinkle may be credited for not trying to include a last-minute spiritual twist simply to end the story.
Christian Retailing
In this Christian novel, Sprinkle (author of the Sheila Travis mysteries and When Did We Lose Harriet?) deftly addresses racial tensions in the segregated South in 1949. Carley Marshall, an 11-year-old white girl, is forced to move in with her aunt and uncle in their sleepy village of Job's Corner, N.C., after her mother dies. Having been raised under the influence of her racially conservative grandmother, Carley is startled by the attitude of her preacher-uncle, a firm advocate of biblical equality. The town has similar concerns about him. For the people of Job's Corner, eating meals prepared by blacks is de rigueur, while sitting down to table with them is another matter entirely. In Uncle Steven, Sprinkle has crafted a strong yet sympathetic character whose ideas on race and social justice are ahead of their time. In his wife, Kate, torn between her love for her husband and her fear of what people will think of them, Sprinkle allows readers to see the toll such visionary leadership can have on a family. Written as a flashback, the novel is aptly named as the grown-up Carley struggles to write the true story of what happened in Job's Corner in 1949 from a box of tangible memories. Readers will enjoy Sprinkle's memorable cast of characters and unexpected plot twists, and be challenged by her message of racial equality.
Publishers Weekly
After her Aunt Kate dies, Carley Marshall's uncle, Stephen Whitfield, gives her Kate's "remember box" and asks her to write its story, the story of the year the family lived in the segregated Job's Corner, NC. Before the Civil Rights movement became a national concern, Stephen, the pastor of Bethel Church, lived by his beliefs that all men are loved equally by God regardless of color. This unpopular opinion and his outspoken criticism of anti-Communist rhetoric split his congregation further. As 11-year-old Carley, a ward in her uncle's household, learned to think for herself, a violent murder and the sexual assault of a retarded girl tore the community apart and threatened the strength, solidity, and beliefs of the Whitfield family. Acclaimed mystery maven Sprinkle lends her unique voice to the Christian market with this part whodunit, part black comedy, and part coming of age novel.
Library Journal
(Adult/High School) A novel that captures readers in short order. Now adults, Abby gives her cousin Carley a "remember box" that had belonged to Abby's mother. As Carley lifts the objects from the box, readers are given hints as to the importance of each piece but must read on to learn the whole story that unfolded so many years before as recorded by Carley. In 1949, when her mother died, 11-year-old Carley was sent to live with her Aunt Kate, Uncle Steven, four-year-old Abby, and infant John in Job's Corner, NC, where Steven was the new Presbyterian minister. Feisty, brave, and aware, young Carley faces the racial bigotry in herself and others that is the social norm of the time, bred into children by blacks and whites alike. The treachery of some adults is brought home when her uncle stands trial after being falsely accused of molestation, again when a black family friend is nearly convicted of murder, and in the dangerous encounter she has with the father she had thought was dead. She also witnesses the uncommon heroics and self-sacrifice that can be found in the most unexpected places. The story lures readers along as the pieces fall into place. The characters are steeped in reality, drawn convincingly and full of the surprises inherent in ordinary people. The story should provoke some interesting discussion about situations that are as real today as they were then. —Carol DeAngelo, Kings Park Library, Burke, VA
School Library Journal
Sprinkle's Remember Box is modeled on To Kill a Mockingbird with 11-year-old Carley Marshall standing in for Scout.... Sprinkle, known for her mysteries with rich southern settings, competently evokes the 1950s hysteria over Communism and racism, and her characterizations, particularly of the sullen black servant, Raifa, are filled with wisdom. But it's hard to escape the feeling you've been here before. —John Mort
Booklist
Discussion Questions
We have two sets of questions for this work: the first kindly submitted by the Joaquin (Texas) Book Club, and the second from LitLovers.
1. On some sites, Patricia Sprinkle is categorized as a Christian writer. Do you think that this is a “Christian” book?
2. Does using an adult narrator flashing back to her tweens make the story unfold better? Would you say this is a young adult novel or an adult one?
3. Did the hymn titles and/or introductory remarks before each part increase your understanding of the story?
4. At the end, Carley comments that “each of us is a blend of good and evil.” Is that true of all the characters in this book? For instance, can you think of something good about Miz Baines, Pauline, or Carley’s father?
5. Among the characters Carley considers “good” are Uncle Stephen, Aunt Hannah, Big Mama, Jay, and Rilla. Are they too good, or do they also have believable faults?
6. At the end, grown-up Abby asks, “You didn’t make me talk funny, did you?” How did you feel about Abby’s speech patterns—distracting, cute, annoying, whatever?
7. There are big topics explored in this book—racism, communism, mistreatment of workers, gender roles, and alcoholism, for example. Are these topics dealt with even-handedly, or does the reader see mostly a one-sided view? (If one-sided, is it the “correct” view?)
8. Is Uncle Stephen a good preacher/pastor? Do Kate and the children make his job easier or harder? How would you feel as his parishioner?
9. Both Jay and Stephen are accused and tried with little evidence. Would this have happened in 1950s legal and/or church system (or today)? In both cases, Carley is instrumental in uncovering the truth: Again, is this believable (including the adults’ acceptance of the children’s testimony)?
10. Do you agree with the way forgiveness is presented in this book? What characters need to be forgiven, and in what situations?
11. Did you notice any parts of this book that were particularly descriptive?
(The above questions are courtesy of Joaquin Book Club—thanks for the generosity!)
1. In what way do Big Mama's views differ from Uncle Stephen's on the social questions of the day? How different is each of their understanding of the Bible and its message?
2. How is the minister's family first received in Job's Corner, and what percipitates the community's changing attitudes toward them? (You might also talk about the significance of the town's name.)
3. Discuss the novel's characters. Which ones do you find most sympathetic or admirable. Which ones do you identify with the least?
4. Talk about Aunt Kate and how she deals with the controversy surrounding her husband?
5. How would you describe the townspeople of Job's Corner? Are they typical, or atypical, of southerners back in the mid-20th century? Has Sprinkle depicted them adequately, fairly, or realistically? Have attitudes and beliefs changed over the past 50 or 60 years?
6. Talk about how the story's two main issues, race and communism, have changed. Historically, what national and international events led to the changes? Talk, too, about the labor movement, the influence of Billy Graham, and the threat of polio.
7. The Remember Box can be seen as a coming-of-age story. Carley is on the cusp of adolescence when she goes to live with her aunt and uncle. How does she mature—what does she come to understand about herself and the adult world—during the course of the novel?
8. Talk about the contents of the Remember Box. Why does Uncle Stephen's purpose in sending it to Carley? How does she feel upon receiving it? She refers to it as Pandora's Box—what does she mean by that?
9. Going through the box resurrects an ugly past for Carley. In your own life is it important to revisit a painful past, or is it sometimes best to let the past alone and move on?
10. This novel has been compared to Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. If you've read that work (or seen the film with Gregory Peck), how similar, or dissimilar, are these two works?
(The above questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use either set of questions, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
Ann Brashares, 2001
Random House
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780553494792
Summary
Carmen got the jeans at a thrift shop. They didn't look all that great; they were worn, dirty, and speckled with bleach. On the night before she and her friends part for the summer, Carmen decides to toss them. But Tibby says they're great. She'd love to have them. Lena and Bridget also think they're fabulous. Lena decides they should all try them on. Whoever they fit best will get them.
Nobody knows why, but the pants fit everyone perfectly. Even Carmen (who never thinks she looks good in anything), thinks she looks good in the pants. Over a few bags of cheese puffs they decide to form a sisterhood, and take the vow of "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants." The next morning, they say good-bye.
And now the journey of the pants—and the most memorable summer of their lives—begins. (From the publisher.)
Sisterhood was adapted to film in 2005. The second book in the series, Forever in Blue, was adapated in 2008, as Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2.
Author Bio
• Birth—July 30, 1967
• Where—Alexandria, Virginia, USA
• Reared—in Chevy Chase, Maryland
• Education—Barnard College
• Currently—lives in New York , New York
Ann Brashares is an American writer of young adult fiction, best known as the author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series.
She was born in Alexandria, Virginia, and grew up in Chevy Chase, Maryland. She attended elementary and high school at the Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. After studying philosophy at Barnard College, she worked as an editor for 17th Street Productions. 17th Street was acquired by Alloy Entertainment, and following the acquisition she worked briefly for Alloy.
After leaving Alloy she wrote The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, which became an international best seller. It was followed with three more titles in the "Pants" series, the last of which, Forever in Blue, was released in January 2007. The first book in the series was made into a film in 2005, and a second film based on the other three titles in the series was released in August 2008.
Brashares' first adult novel, The Last Summer (of You and Me) was released in 2007. The first companion book to the Sisterhood series, 3 Willows: The Sisterhood Grows was published in 2009, and the second companion book, Sisterhood Everlasting was published in 2011.
A second novel for adults, My Name is Memory was published in 2010 and has been optioned for film. Her next book, a young-adult time-travel novel, The Here and Now, was published in 2014. She lives in New York with her artist husband, Jacob Collins. They have four children.
Although Brashares writes primarily fiction, she has contributed two 80-page biographies to the nonfiction book series Techies—Linus Torvalds, Software Rebel and Steve Jobs Thinks Different, both issued in 2001. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 4/27/2014.)
Book Reviews
First novelist Brashares successfully creates four distinct characters, each with her own story line, and ties them together with a creative device: a pair of pants purchased in a thrift shop. .... [A]n outstanding and vivid book that will stay with readers for a long time. Readers will hope that Brashares chronicles the sisterhood for volumes to come. (Ages 12-up.)
Publishers Weekly
Any story that begins "Once upon a time..." has to be good, and this one is. It is hard to imagine that one pair of thrift shop jeans could play such an important role in the lives of four teenage girls.... "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" is born when the girls decide to send the jeans to each other over the summer.
Rita Karr - Children's Literature
Fun book! I have read many YA novels that focus on changing friendships, but never one that revolves around a pair of magical pants. I thought that the comparison between pants that make all wearers look and feel good and friendship was insightful and creative.... [E]njoyable and meaningful.... (Hard to imagine it being any better written.) —Deana Rutherford, Teen Reviewer.
VOYA
Young teens will identify with one, or even all four, of these interesting, funny young women, and they'll be on the lookout for their own pair of traveling pants. —Frances Bradburn
Booklist
During their 15th summer, four girls who have been lifelong friends spend the season apart. In a summer's launch ceremony, they decide to pass along among themselves a pair of thrift shop jeans.... While the traveling pants themselves seem rather artificial, [the] emotions and the developments they inspire in the individuals and in their relationships ring absolutely true (Grade 9 & up). —Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA
School Library Journal
In this feel-good novel with substance, four teenage girls, friends since they were all born just weeks apart, are about to embark on their first summer as separate young women.... The pants become a metaphor for the young women finding their own strength in the face of new love, unexpected friendships and death, a father's remarriage, and a reckless relationship-and without their best friends.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The novel opens and closes with a first-person narrative by Carmen. Why do you think the author selected this character to frame the story? If you could change it, would you select another character, and if so, what would he or she say? Or do you think Carmen's is the best viewpoint to begin and end the novel?
2. "For some reason our lives were marked by summers.... Summer was the time when our lives joined completely, when we all had our birthdays, when really important things happened" (p. 5). What is the significance of the Sisterhood's first summer apart? Why is it so important that the four friends have individual adventures? Do you think they would have remained close if the Pants had not been a part of their lives?
3. Of the four girls, whom are you the most like? The most different from?
4. Epigraphs (short quotations) from a variety of sources—song lyrics,remarks by real-life personalities, fictitious sayings by the novel's characters—are used to separate sections of the book. Which one is your favorite and why?
5. Carmen's discovery of a new blond stepfamily comes as quite a shock. How could her father have better handled this news? Would it have made a difference to Carmen?
6. In the movie It's a Wonderful Life, George Bailey sees what the world would have been like had he not been born. Author Ann Brashares has said that the character of Bailey was inspired by this film. How would Tibby's life have been different if she had not met Bailey?
7. Lena is described as quite beautiful. How do you think this affects her friendships? Have you ever been friends with someone who is noticeably more or less attractive than you are? How did it make you feel?
8. Bridget feels powerful as she pursues Eric, but her actions leave her fragile and uncertain. Do you think that by the end of the story, Bridget is able to take back some of her power? Why or why not? What role do you think Bridget's friends will play in her recovery?
9. In the novel, the Pants take on a life of their own. Each of the girls in turn feels loved and comforted by them, as if the Pants were a creature or a person. Do you believe that the Pants are really looking out for the girls? Or is what the girls sense a manifestation of their own emotions? Or is it some combination of the two?
10. Each of the girls is very different from her friends and has widely ranging talents: Lena is a painter, Tibby is a filmmaker, Bridget is an athlete. But their talents don't define them so much as send them off in different directions. Carmen is more of an enigma; what would you say her talents are and where do they take her in the novel?
11. If you were given the Pants, what rule governing their use would be the hardest for you to keep? Rule 10 is "Remember: Pants = love. Love your pals. Love yourself" (p. 25). How is this rule observed by each member of the Sisterhood in the story? How is it broken?
12. In the epilogue (p. 293), Carmen says, "What happened in front of my friends felt real. What happened to me by myself felt partly dreamed, partly imagined, definitely shifted and warped by my own fears and wants." Have you ever felt that way? How does it feel to see yourself reflected in other people?
13. The novel's settings are varied—Baja California, Greece, South Carolina, and Maryland. By the end of the book, each of the girls has had a revelation that has a lot to do with where she has been. If you could spend a summer in one of these places, which would you choose? If you could spend a summer anywhere in the world, where would you go? Would you want your friends with you or would you rather travel solo?
14. What does Carmen mean when she says that she, Lena, Tibby, and Bridget are the real Septembers (p. 7)? What is it about their friendship that convinces Carmen they won't drift apart the way their mothers did? Fast-forward ten years...do you think the Sisterhood will still be inseparable? What are the bonds that will help their friendship endure? Will the Pants still fit them? If not, will it matter?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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The Rope Walk
Carrie Brown, 2007
Knopf Doubleday
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307278098
Summary
In The Rope Walk, Carrie Brown crafts a luminous story of a young girl's coming of age during a crucial summer in New England.
On her tenth birthday Alice meets two visitors to her quiet town: Theo, the African American grandson of her father's best friend, and Kenneth, an artist who has come home to convalesce. Theo forms an instant bond with Alice that will indelibly change them both. The pair in turn befriend Kenneth, and decide to build a “rope walk” through the woods for him, allowing to make his way through the outdoor world he has always loved.
But their good intentions lead to surprising consequences, and Alice soon learns how different the world of children and adults really are. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Carrie Brown is the author of four novels and a collection of short stories. She has won many awards for her work, including a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, the Barnes and Noble Discover Award, and the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize.
Her previos novel, Confinement, won the Library of Virginia Book Award. She lives in Virginia with her husband, the novelist John Gregory Brown, and their three children. She teaches at Sweet Briar College. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
This coming-of-age novel begins with Alice MacCauley on the morning of her 10th birthday, as she sits on the windowsill of her bedroom, viewing the scene below through the opening of a square made by her fingers—a make-believe camera lens, and a trope that repeats throughout the story.... The tone changes as Brown reveals an older Alice in the wonderful last part of the book, where a new note of seriousness and gravity is deeply felt. We leave Alice decidedly more mature than she was in the opening chapter, which means decidedly less sanguine. It's not that we have to worry for her; we never did, but we're moved by the change. She has, by the end of the book, given up her make-believe camera and is taking pictures with a real one that once belonged to her mother. She's off the windowsill and on her feet.
Elizabeth Strout - Washington Post
Like Brown's first novel, Rose's Garden, her sixth sets themes of tolerance and understanding in a picture-postcard setting. In a Vermont town where a description of the local library racks up a dozen adjectives (including "tall," "bracing," "rippling," "silvery" and "delicious"), children collect butterflies and recite "Hiawatha." When Kenneth Fitzgerald, the artist who sponsored the library's transformation from dreary to spectacular, returns to his childhood home dying of AIDS, he asks 10-year-old Alice MacCauley and her neighbors' manic visiting mixed-race grandson, Thelonious Swann— "a tawny little lion cub"—to come by and read to him in the afternoons. Alice's mother died young; her father teaches Shakespeare and recites it around the house (while her older brothers blow smoke rings), so Alice is primed for literature. All three are drawn into Lewis and Clark's journals as Alice reads them aloud; the explorers' historic journey stands in for Fitzgerald's journey toward death and for Alice and Theo's trip into nascent first love and adulthood. The rope Alice walks isn't very high off the ground, but Brown keeps it taut and stretched across some engaging vistas.
Publishers Weekly
Alice is the only daughter of a widower with four sons. Her mother died when she was very young, and Alice is living a protected and love-cushioned life with her beloved father and her rowdy brothers who flit in and out of the house on school vacations. On her tenth birthday, her family takes in a boy her own age who is the grandson of her father's friend, and whose family is in disarray. The boy, who is African American, is an adventurer and knowledgeable in ways she is not, and together they discover things about themselves and the world they are living in. They also meet Kenneth, the artist brother of one of their neighbors, who is dying of HIV, and they decide to make him a rope walk behind his house so that he can safely take walks in the woods by himself. Their well-meaning act leads to an inevitable end. They are separated and Alice's comfortable relationships are disrupted. She must figure out how to put the pieces together and grow up with an understanding that adults and children can be well meaning, but wrongheaded. The story is beautifully written and the just barely pre-pubescent relationship of the young girl and boy is told in a sweet and innocent way. The New England setting is vividly described. —Nola Theiss
KLIATT
In this latest from Brown (Confinement), ten-year-old Alice MacCauley enjoys an idyllic if motherless childhood in quaint Grange, VT, surrounded by five adoring, much older brothers and gently guided through life by Archie, her professor father. Alice's self-contained curiosity meets its match when Thelonius Swann, also ten, joins their household for the summer while his family struggles with debilitating crises. Alice and Theo have an imagination-rich friendship that extends to Kenneth Fitzgerald, a world-renowned sculptor who has returned home, dying of AIDS. The children spend the summer building a rope walk through the woods near Kenneth's home. Intended as a gift to Kenneth to give him back some of the freedom stolen from him by the ravages of his disease, it is the catalyst for a shattering event. It takes a masterly touch to make believable Alice's maturity and her unfiltered forthrightness when telling her story. Brown's exquisite word paintings of the details of childhood are tone-perfect and utterly irresistible. Highly recommended
Beth E. Andersen - Library Journal
(Adult/High School) Alice MacCauley and her family are celebrating her 10th birthday. As the guests arrive, readers are introduced to neighbors, friends, and family, all of whom have hidden prejudices and anxieties. Theo, the biracial grandson of Alice's father's friends, is supposed to be visiting his grandparents, but by the end of the evening he is sharing Alice's bedroom and will become a fixture in her family for the remainder of the season. Over the course of the summer they share secrets, befriend a dying artist, and learn more about suffering, humanity, and intolerance then any child her age needs to know. Together they try to make sense of the world, particularly of how adults think and why people hate the way they do. One of the lessons Alice learns is that the most heartfelt intentions can produce the most tragic results. Teens looking for an angst-filled novel will find that this one asks many questions about life and relationships without providing any pat answers. —Joanne Ligamari, Rio Linda School District, Sacramento, CA
School Library Journal
Discussion Questions
1. The Rope Walk is told from the point-of-view of a 10-year-old girl. Why has the author written a literary novel for adults from this viewpoint? Does the novel make you reminisce about your own childhood?
2. Describe the similarities and differences between Alice and Theo. Why are they drawn to each other, and why do they become such good friends?
3. In what ways does the author stress the importance of stories, literature, and art in our daily lives in The Rope Walk? What is the importance of collective family stories, particularly those about Alice's mother? How do stories give meaning to Alice’s experience?
4. How is the landscape—the trees, the river, the garden—crucial to this story? How has the physical environment of this small Vermont town helped form the child that is Alice? Why does Theo adapt so well to Vermont even though he is a city boy?
5. Alice meets Theo and Kenneth on her tenth birthday and through them is confronted with issues of race and AIDS. How does befriending these two influence Alice, and what do they teach her about the larger adult world?
6. Why does Kenneth enter Alice and Theo’s lives so suddenly and prominently? How is he different from the other adults around them? How does the presence of these children affect Kenneth?
7. Why do the children choose to read The Journeys of Lewis and Clark to Kenneth? How does this choice influence the children and the course of the novel?
8. Why do the children decide to build a rope walk for Kenneth? Why and how do they keep it a secret from everyone?
9. Though Alice and Theo are motherless during the course of the novel, how dotheir mothers and memories of their mothers influence their lives? How does the absence of mothers affect both Alice (who has never known her mother) and Theo (who is temporarily removed from his)?
10. Father and daughter annually walk down to the river together—“This was their tradition on her birthday, a tradition begun by Archie for Alice alone [p. 63]." The Rope Walk is filled with family rituals and traditions. How are these important in giving Alice a sense of her world and of her purpose in it?
11. What kind of home environment do Alice’s father and her brothers create for her? How does she, so much younger than everyone else and the only female, fit into the household?
12. In what ways does this novel remind you of the importance of play and the imagination in childhood? Do you think Alice’s father should have reined the children in before the accident happened?
13. Do you agree with Archie that writing about something is the only way to learn it? What do you think of the “letters of apology” that he makes his children write?
14. Pieces of furniture in Alice’s house have names and memories attached to them as if they were members of the family. Describe the connection between the house and the family. Contrast Alice’s house with the Fitzgerald house.
15. Death appears throughout The Rope Walk in various forms—Alice’s dead mother, the dying figures of Theo’s grandmother and Kenneth, the frozen deer. How do the two children approach and accept death? Do they understand it?
16. Alice captures photos with an imaginary camera throughout the novel. Why? What happens when she eventually finds her mother’s old camera?
17. Though there are references to the year 2005 and to various news events, the novel has a sense of timelessness. How does the author achieve this, and what do you think her intention was?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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When You Reach Me
Rebecca Stead, 2009
Random House
208 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385737425
Summary
Four mysterious letters change Miranda's world forever.
By sixth grade, Miranda and her best friend, Sal, know how to navigate their New York City neighborhood. They know where it’s safe to go, like the local grocery store, and they know whom to avoid, like the crazy guy on the corner.
But things start to unravel. Sal gets punched by a new kid for what seems like no reason, and he shuts Miranda out of his life. The apartment key that Miranda’s mom keeps hidden for emergencies is stolen. And then Miranda finds a mysterious note scrawled on a tiny slip of paper:
I am coming to save your friend’s life, and my own.
I must ask two favors. First, you must write me a letter.
The notes keep coming, and Miranda slowly realizes that whoever is leaving them knows all about her, including things that have not even happened yet. Each message brings her closer to believing that only she can prevent a tragic death. Until the final note makes her think she’s too late. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 16, 1968
• Where—New York City, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Vassar College
• Awards—Newbery Medal
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York
Rebecca Stead is an American author who writes books for children and young adults. She won the 2010 Newbery Medal for the most distinguished contribution to children's literature for her second novel, When You Reach Me.
Personal Life
Born and raised in New York City, Stead enjoyed her elementary school years and remembers fondly the way to make and enjoy tacos. She attended Vassar College and received her bachelor's degree in 1989.
Rebecca Stead is married to attorney Sean O'Brien and has two sons. She and her family live on the upper west side of Manhattan.
Writing Career
Stead enjoyed writing as a child, but as she grew older she felt it was 'impractical' and became a lawyer instead. After years as a public defender she returned to writing after the birth of her two children. On her website she credits her son with inspiring her to write a children's novel, but not in the way one would expect. For years she had collected story ideas and short stories on a laptop, which the child pushed off a table, destroying it and losing all her 'serious' writing. As a way to lighten her mood she began again with something light-hearted. The creation of First Light followed.
First Light
When You Reach Me
When You Reach Me takes place in 1978-1979 New York. The story follows Miranda, a sixth grader, as she recalls the events of the past few months, laying out clues and puzzles as she asks an unseen listener to figure it out. The setting is a tiny slice of Manhattan, filled with abundant details and vivid characters. It has been described as suspense with a bit of the supernatural. Miranda is a great fan of Madeleine L'Engle's classic, A Wrinkle in Time and references to that book help add to the mystery of the novel. Three plot lines run through this novel, seemingly unrelated as the tale begins: Miranda's mother prepares to be a guest on The $20,000 Pyramid; Miranda's lifelong friend Sal will no longer speak to her; and "the laughing man", a very strange homeless man catches Miranda's attention. Publishers Weekly applauds Stead's ability to 'make every detail count' as she creates a plausible conclusion with these divergent and improbable plot lines. A New York Times Book Review called it a "taut novel, every word, every sentence, has meaning and substance. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
In this era of supersize children's books, Rebecca Stead's When You Reach Me looks positively svelte. But don't be deceived: In this taut novel, every word, every sentence, has meaning and substance. A hybrid of genres, it is a complex mystery, a work of historical fiction, a school story and one of friendship, with a leitmotif of time travel running through it. Most of all the novel is a thrilling puzzle. Stead piles up clues on the way to a moment of intense drama, after which it is pretty much impossible to stop reading until the last page.
Monica Edinger - New York Times
Like A Wrinkle in Time (Miranda's favorite book), When You Reach Me far surpasses the usual whodunit or sci-fi adventure to become an incandescent exploration of "life, death, and the beauty of it all." Look in vain for cheesy time-travel machines and rock-'em-sock-'em action. Instead, the believable characters and unexpected ending invite readers to ponder the extraordinary that underlies the ordinary in this fictional world and in their own.
Mary Quattlebaum - Washington Post
Readers ... are likely to find themselves chewing over the details of this superb and intricate tale long afterward.
Wall Street Journal
Twelve-year-old Miranda, a latchkey kid whose single mother is a law school dropout, narrates this complex novel, a work of science fiction grounded in the nitty-gritty of Manhattan life in the late 1970s. Miranda’s story is set in motion by the appearance of cryptic notes that suggest that someone is watching her and that they know things about her life that have not yet happened. She’s especially freaked out by one that reads: “I’m coming to save your friend’s life, and my own.” Over the course of her sixth-grade year, Miranda details three distinct plot threads: her mother’s upcoming appearance on The $20,000 Pyramid; the sudden rupture of Miranda’s lifelong friendship with neighbor Sal; and the unsettling appearance of a deranged homeless person dubbed “the laughing man.” Eventually and improbably, these strands converge to form a thought-provoking whole. Stead (First Light) accomplishes this by making every detail count, including Miranda’s name, her hobby of knot tying and her favorite book, Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. It’s easy to imagine readers studying Miranda’s story as many times as she’s read L’Engle’s, and spending hours pondering the provocative questions it raises. Ages 9–14.
Publishers Weekly
(Gr 5-8) Sixth-grader Miranda lives in 1978 New York City with her mother, and her life compass is Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. When she receives a series of enigmatic notes that claim to want to save her life, she comes to believe that they are from someone who knows the future. Miranda spends considerable time observing a raving vagrant who her mother calls “the laughing man” and trying to find the connection between the notes and her everyday life. Discerning readers will realize the ties between Miranda’s mystery and L’Engle’s plot, but will enjoy hints of fantasy and descriptions of middle school dynamics. Stead’s novel is as much about character as story. Miranda’s voice rings true with its faltering attempts at maturity and observation. The story builds slowly, emerging naturally from a sturdy premise. As Miranda reminisces, the time sequencing is somewhat challenging, but in an intriguing way. The setting is consistently strong. The stores and even the streets–in Miranda’s neighborhood act as physical entities and impact the plot in tangible ways. This unusual, thought-provoking mystery will appeal to several types of readers. —Caitlin Augusta, The Darien Library, CT
Library Journal
The mental gymnastics required of readers are invigorating; and the characters, children, and adults are honest bits of humanity no matter in what place or time their souls rest.
Booklist
When Miranda's best friend Sal gets punched by a strange kid, he abruptly stops speaking to her; then oddly prescient letters start arriving. They ask for her help, saying, "I'm coming to save your friend's life, and my own." Readers will immediately connect with Miranda's fluid first-person narration, a mix of Manhattan street smarts and pre-teen innocence. She addresses the letter writer and recounts the weird events of her sixth-grade year, hoping to make sense of the crumpled notes. Miranda's crystalline picture of her urban landscape will resonate with city teens and intrigue suburban kids. As the letters keep coming, Miranda clings to her favorite book, A Wrinkle in Time, and discusses time travel with Marcus, the nice, nerdy boy who punched Sal. Keen readers will notice Stead toying with time from the start, as Miranda writes in the present about past events that will determine her future. Some might guess at the baffling, heart-pounding conclusion, but when all the sidewalk characters from Miranda's Manhattan world converge amid mind-blowing revelations and cunning details, teen readers will circle back to the beginning and say, "Wow...cool." (12 & up)
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for When You Reach Me:
1. Consider how Madeleine L'Engle's book, A Wrinkle in Time, sets the stage for When You Reach Me—especially Marcus's comment to Miranda that "those ladies lied in the beginning." How does Marcus's concern about time prefigure the events of this book? Can you explain, in your own words, Marcus's observations about leaving and returning to the garden in A Wrinkle?
2. Can you also explain—can you even grasp—Marcus's comment that time "isn’t a line stretching out in front of us, going in one direction. It’s—well, time is just a construct, actually." What does he mean by "construct"? Consider his concept that time occurs simultaneously. How does that work?
3. When did you realize that is Miranda, as she narrates this story, isn't talking to us, the readers? Were you able to figure out whom she was addressing before the end?
4. Talk about the way in which the author makes New York City feel like a neighborhood in a small town. How are/were Miranda's day-to-day experiences living in the city different from your own...leaving school for lunch, for instance?
5. Were you confused by the way the book skips back and forth between past tense and present tense? Do the different time frames ultimately make sense?
6. How are the chapter titles related to the $20,000 Pyramid game show...and how do those titles fit into the plot?
7. Talk about how friendships form and fall apart in this book— Sal who stops speaking to Miranda, Annemarie, Colin and Julia. How does the author interject racism into the story and how does it affect the friendships?
8. Talk about they way in which all the clues come together like a puzzle at the end. Does it all make sense?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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Book of a Thousand Days
Shannon Hale, 2007
Bloomsbury USA
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781599903781
Summary
When a beautiful princess refuses to marry the prince her father has chosen, her father is furious and locks her in a tower.
She has seven long years of solitude to think about her insolence. But the princess is not entirely alone—she has her maid, Dashti. Petulant and spoilt, the princess eats the food in their meagre store as if she were still at court, and Dashti soon realises they must either escape or slowly starve.
But during their captivity, resourceful Dashti discovers that there is something far more sinister behind her princess's fears of marrying the prince, and when they do break free from the tower, they find a land laid to waste and the kingdom destroyed. They were safe in the tower, now they are at the mercy of the evil prince with a terrible secret.
Thrilling, captivating, and a masterful example of storytelling at its best. The princess’s maid is a feisty and thoroughly modern heroine, in this wonderfully timeless story. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 26, 1974
• Where—Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Utah; M.A. University of
Montana
• Awards—Newberry Award; Josette Frank Award
• Currently—lives in South Jordan, Utah
Shannon Hale is the author of five award-winning young-adult novels, including the best-selling Newbery Honor book Princess Academy.
Her two adult novels are Austenland and The Actor and the Housewife. She and her husband Dean Hale have also published a graphic novel, Rapunzel's Revenge. She lives with her husband and their two children in South Jordan, Utah.
Shannon Bryner was born in Salt Lake City, where she attended West High School. Before writing professionally, she wrote while pursuing acting in television, stage and improv comedy, as well as studying in Mexico and the UK. She spent a year and a half as an unpaid missionary in Paraguay, then returned to the United States to earn her bachelors degree in English from the University of Utah and a masters in creative writing from the University of Montana.
Hale has been writing since the age of 10, but met with numerous rejections until her first book The Goose Girl was finally published in 2003. The Goose Girl, was an American Library Association Top Ten Book for Young Adults and Josette Frank Award winner. In 2004 her second novel, Enna Burning, which follows Enna, a minor character from The Goose Girl, was published. Princess Academ, published in 2005, won a Newbery Honor Book and became a New York Times Best Seller. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Hale delivers another winning fantasy, this time inventively fleshing out the obscure Grimm tale, Maid Maleen, through the expressive and earthy voice of Dashti, maid to Lady Saren. A plucky and resourceful orphan, Dashti comes from a nomad tribe in a place resembling the Asian Steppes, and is brought to the Lady's house in the midst of a crisis. Lady Saren, having refused to marry the powerful but loathsome Lord her father has chosen, faces seven years' imprisonment in an unlit tower. Initially, Dashti believes her worth is tied to her ability to care for her "tower-addled" lady until she can join Khan Tegus, to whom she is secretly betrothed. When the gentle Tegus comes to the tower, Dashti must step in for her traumatized lady, speaking to him as Saren through the one tiny metal door. Hale exploits the diary form to convey Dashti's perspective; despite her self-effacing declaration that "I draw this from memory so it won't be right," the entries reflect her genuinely spirited inner life. The tension between her unstinting loyalty and patience and burgeoning realization of her own strength and feelings for Tegus feels especially authentic. Readers will be riveted as Dashti and Saren escape and flee to the Khan's realm where, through a series of deceptions, contrivances and a riotously triumphant climax, the tale spins out to a thoroughly satisfying ending. (Ages 12-up.)
Publishers Weekly
Princess Saren is in love with Khan Tegus but betrothed to the dark Lord Khasar. Saren fears him, for good reason, and rejects the match. As punishment for her rebelliousness, her father locks her in a windowless tower for seven years. As the novel opens, Princess Saren is alone, except for the companionship of her mucker maid, Dashti. In this recasting of Grimm's classic fairy tale, Newberry Award winning author Shannon Hale once again delights modern audiences with a feisty, female protagonist, who not only must come into her own but also protect the fearful, insecure Princess from herself as well as from others who would do her harm. Young adult girls, who are also on their own journeys of self-discovery, will be enchanted by this tale about female friendships, healing, and coming of age amidst the real-world tensions of betrayal, abandonment, deception, and loss. Discussion of literary elements, such as the narrative structure of fairy tales or the traditional use of character types, will make this book a productive companion to a study of classic tales in the classroom. —Phyllis Thompson
Alan Review
Dashti, a fifteen-year-old peasant girl from the Central Asian steppes, documents her time in service to Lady Saren through journal entries. When Saren, sixteen, refuses her father's choice of bridegroom, her father locks both girls in an isolated tower with provisions for seven years. Dashti's earlier life in the steppes has prepared her to live with hardships, and she is able to care for Saren until the food runs out. After nearly three years in the tower, Dashti finds a way out, and the two girls discover that the kingdom is in ruins and that they have been forgotten. They journey to the next kingdom, and disguised, find work in the household of Saren's beloved, where Dashti's resourcefulness and talents blossom into initiative and leadership. The story is based loosely on Maid Maleen from the Brothers Grimm. As with her other books, Hale creates a female character who succeeds because of her intelligence, integrity and hard work, and who is eventually rewarded for it. Dashti, relying on her upbringing on the steppes, appears educated and independent, in contrast to Saren's helplessness as a member of the nobility. It is a refreshing change from the typical princess story, and a nod to democracy. Smith's illustrations enhance the story, which is well-written and fast-paced, and which will captivate readers.
VOYA
(Audio version.) When Dashti the muckermaid from the steppes region throws in her lot with Lady Saren, little does she expect her loyalty to be tested by being bricked up in a tower with the Lady for seven years as punishment for Saren's refusal to marry the evil Lord Khasar, rather than her own preference, the handsome and gentle Khan Tagis. A series of first-person journal entries chronicle the differences between Dashti's resourceful, optimistic, and pragmatic personality and that of Lady Saren-a 16-year-old girl/woman who is prone to depression, fearful of the world, and unable to function independently. The full cast production of the fantasy by Shannon Hale captures the lyricism of the author's language, although the voice of Dashti seems extremely young and naïve. The inclusion of many snippets of "healing songs" detracts from, rather than adds to, the story. Fans of Hale's previous books will enjoy this latest offering. Despite the somewhat predictable plot, the story is one of inspiration and hope. —Cindy Lombardo, Cleveland Public Library, IL
School Library Journal
A rousing, even spellbinding tale—with outlines in the Grimms' Maid Maleen—is set in medieval Mongolia and told in journal form. Dashti is maid and scribe to Lady Saren, whose father has bricked both of them in a tower for Saren's crime of refusing to be married to vicious lord Khasar. Dashti knows healing songs from the steppes, and she needs them, as Saren is what we would now call schizophrenic. The girls' captivity is eased at first by visits of the Khan Tegus, but the Khasar visits, too, and threatens to burn the tower with them inside. The rats that have eaten their food supply also tunnel a way out, so they escape-and find Saren's father's city destroyed. They make their way to Khan Tegus, where both girls serve hidden in his kitchen. Dashti's healing songs are needed in a war between Khasar and Tegus, and who she is, and who they are, come forth in a strongly presented climax. Dashti's voice is bright and true; Hale captures her sturdy personality, Saren's mental fragility and Khan Tegus's romantic warrior as vibrantly as she limns the stark terror of the Mongolian cold and the ugly spirit from which Khasar draws his strength. (Fantasy. 12-15.)
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help start a conversation for Book of a Thousand Days:
1. Describe the two young women in this story, Lady Saren and Dashti. In what ways are they different from one another? How does each cope with the deprivations of the tower? (Lest we judge...how would most of us fare locked away in a tower?) Why is it left to Dashti to communicate with the visitors who come to the tower?
2. Do you like the way in which this story is told: with Dashti narrating through her journal. How would you describe Dashti's voice—boastful...self-effacing...bright...depressive... uncertain...strong...thoughtful...? Does her voice change during the story?
3. How does Dashti's background prepare her to endure the isolation of the tower and the hardships of the Mongolian landscape? Talk about the ways in which Dashti's leadership and ingenuity save the two young women in their fight for survival.
4. Describe Dashti's conflict: her growing feelings for Kahn Tegus vs. her loyalty to Saren. How did you feel about the budding relationship between Dashti and Tegus?
5. How would you describe Dashti's healing songs—are they poetry, folk lore, magic? What is their purpose: why does Dashti use them, and why would Hale include them as part of the story?
6. Talk about the male characters: Lord Khasar and Khan Tegus? Are either fully-developed as human beings? Or are they one-dimensional, cartoonish characters?
7. Comment on this lovely passage: "Things worn closest to the skin, to the heart, carry the scent of a person, and of course, scent is the breath of the soul." What might Dashti mean by the last 5 words? Find and read other passages that you find lyrical or otherwise notable.
8. In what way does Saren change by the end of the book? Does she rise in stature in your estimation?
9. Hale based this book on a Brothers Grimm folk tale, "Maid Maleen," in which the imprisoned lady is the heroine, not her servant. Why might Shannon Hale have changed the heroine in her reworking of the original?
10. Does the book deliver in terms of engaging you all the way through? Are characters compelling, is the plot suspenseful, and are you satisfied with how the story ends?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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The Seer of Shadows
Avi, 2008
HarperCollins
208 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780060000172
Summary
Newbery Medalist Avi weaves one of his most suspenseful and scary tales—about a ghost who has to be seen to be believed and must be kept from carrying out a horrifying revenge.
The time is 1872. The place is New York City. Horace Carpetine has been raised to believe in science and rationality. So as apprentice to Enoch Middleditch, a society photographer, he thinks of his trade as a scientific art. But when wealthy society matron Mrs. Frederick Von Macht orders a photographic portrait, strange things begin to happen.
Horace's first real photographs reveal a frightful likeness: it's the image of the Von Machts' dead daughter, Eleanora.
Pegg, the Von Machts' black servant girl, then leads him to the truth about who Eleanora really was and how she actually died. Joined in friendship, Pegg and Horace soon realize that his photographs are evoking both Eleanora's image and her ghost. Eleanora returns, a vengeful wraith intent on punishing those who abused her.
Rich in detail, full of the magic of early photography, here is a story about the shadows, visible and invisible, that are always lurking near. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Full Name—Avi Wortis
• Birth—December 23, 1937
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Wisconsin; M.A.,Columbia
University
• Awards—Newbery Awards, 1991, 1992, 2003.
Born in Manhattan in 1937, Avi Wortis grew up in Brooklyn in a family of artists and writers. Despite his bright and inquisitive nature, he did poorly in school. After several academic failures, he was diagnosed with a writing impairment called dysgraphia which caused him to reverse letters and misspell words. The few writing and spelling skills he possessed he had gleaned from his favorite hobby, reading—a pursuit enthusiastically encouraged in his household.
Following junior high school, Avi was assigned to a wonderful tutor whose taught him basic skills and encouraged in him a real desire to write. "Perhaps it was stubbornness," he recalled in an essay appearing on the Educational Paperback Association's website, "but from that time forward I wanted to write in some way, some form. It was the one thing everybody said I could not do."
Avi finally learned to write, and well! He attended Antioch University, graduated from the University of Wisconsin, and received a master's degree in library science from Columbia in 1964. He worked as a librarian for the New York Public Library's theater collection and for Trenton State College, and taught college courses in children's literature, while continuing to write—mostly plays—on the side.
In the 1970s, with two sons of his own, he began to craft stories for children. "[My] two boys loved to hear stories," he recalled. "We played a game in which they would give me a subject ('a glass of water') and I would have to make up the story right then. Out of that game came my first children's book, Things That Sometimes Happen." A collection of "Very Short Stories for Little Listeners," Avi's winning debut received very positive reviews. "Sounding very much like the stories that children would make up themselves," raved Kirkus Reviews, "these are daffy and nonsensical, starting and ending in odd places and going sort of nowhere in the middle. The result, however, is inevitably a sly grin."
Avi has gone on to write dozens of books for kids of all ages. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle (1991) and Nothing but the Truth (1992) were named Newbery Honor Books, and in 2003, he won the prestigious Newbery Medal for his 14th-century adventure tale, Crispin: The Cross of Lead. His books range from mysteries and adventure stories to historical novels and coming-of-age tales; and although there is often a strong moral core to his work, he leavens his message with appealing warmth and humor. Perhaps his philosophy is summed up best in this quote from his author profile on Scholastic's website: "I want my readers to feel, to think, sometimes to laugh. But most of all I want them to enjoy a good read." (From Barnes & Noble.)
Extras
From an interview with Avi's publisher:
• Avi named Robert Louis Stevenson as one of his greatest inspirations, noting that "he epitomizes a kind of storytelling that I dearly love and still read because it is true, it has validity, and beyond all, it is an adventure."
• When he's not writing, Avi enjoys photography as one of his favorite hobbies.
• Avi got his unique nickname from his twin sister, Emily.( From Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
Newbery Medalist Avi (Crispin: The Cross of Lead) sets this intriguing ghost story in 19th-century New York City, where a photographer's apprentice has a horrifying run-in with a spirit bent on revenge. In the fall of 1872, 14-year-old narrator Horace Carpetine reluctantly becomes involved in his employer's scheme to dupe a superstitious client, wealthy Mrs. Von Macht. The plan is to make a tidy profit by producing a double exposure and offering her an unusual portrait, one incorporating a superimposed image of her dead daughter, Eleanora. Events depart from the expected when the ghost of Eleanora literally enters the picture, and Horace discovers his ability to capture departed souls on film. Suspense builds as the Von Machts' servant, Pegg, reveals secrets about the Von Macht family and explains that Eleanor's angry spirit, brought back into the world through the camera lens, may want revenge on both Mrs. Von Macht and her husband. Mirroring both the style and themes of gothic novels of the period, the story takes ghastly and ghostly turns that challenge Horace's belief in reason. Details about photographic processes add authenticity, while the book's somber ending will leave spines tingling.
Publishers Weekly
Horace Carpentine is apprenticed to Mr. Middleditch, a photographer who sometimes inserts ghostly images of loved ones to drum up more business from the grief-stricken. When he sends Horace to help him with his latest scam, Horace is shocked to realize that one of his photographs contains the image of Eleanora, a girl who died under mysterious circumstances. Pegg, a servant of Eleanora's parents, claims the girl was murdered. Each photograph Horace takes shows progressively clearer images of the dead girl, but that is not what truly frightens Horace. He has started to see Eleanora even without the use of a camera. Horace and Pegg now need to figure out how to put Eleanora to rest before she destroys her adopted parents who caused her death. In perhaps his best work yet, Avi has created a truly chilling tale that will stay with the reader long after the last page is turned and the lights are turned out. —Amie Rose Rotruck
Childrens Literature
A blustery evening calls for a good ghost story, and Newbery medalist Avi offers one thick with spooks and intrigue. In New York City in 1872, a young photographer's assistant, Horace Carpetine, is asked to take a photographic portrait of Mrs. Frederick Von Macht, a society matron. Each photo, though, is marred by a blurred image—that of the woman's dead niece, Eleanora. With the help of a servant girl, Pegg, Horace tries to discover why Eleanora's spirit has returned and how to help her find rest. Avi enriches his suspenseful tale with well-researched historic details, information about the science and art of early photography and an elegant writing style. —Mary Quattlebaum
Children's Literature
Articulate, literate, and numerate, fourteen-year-old Horace is touted as "a model youth for the industrial age" by his philosophical, abolitionist, and radical-Republican father whose children are named for political and social icons of the time. A watch repairman who believes in science and rational thought, Horace's father arranges his youngest son's apprenticeship during post-Civil War New York City in a scientific endeavor with Enoch Middleditch, self-proclaimed society photographer, whose excellent teaching is offset by his laziness and struggling business. Middleditch turns on flattery and charm and eagerly defrauds patrons for financial gain. Unwillingly Horace becomes entangled in a fraudulent scheme to present a rich woman with photographic "evidence" that her daughter's ghost lingers nearby. Youthful honesty contrasted against adults' deceptive flatteries builds reader empathy for narrator Horace's position when Middleditch's hoax paired with Horace's heretofore-unknown photographic sensitivity unintentionally unleash an angry ghost upon the Von Macht household. Horace's resourcefulness and his new friendship with the Von Macht's black servant Pegg are key to solving this suspenseful drama. Avi's rich language evokes images and speech patterns of a bygone era, and his careful chronicling of early photography's art and science make this novel a pleasure to read. Strong male and female teen characters appeal to a broad readership from science fiction, suspense, and ghost story aficionados to photography and history buffs. The refined vocabulary will not deter reluctant readers. —Cynthia Winfield
VOYA
Horace is a 14-year-old photographer’s apprentice in New York City in 1872, and his ambitious and dishonest boss has just received a new commission. A society woman wants a photograph of herself to put on her dead daughter Eleanora’s grave, she says, though her reasons are not as sentimental as they first seem. The photographer plans to add a ghostly image of the girl to the portrait (this was possible even pre-Photoshop!), to make it special and ensure more commissions, he hopes. He assigns Horace to secretly take photos of the images of Eleanora in the woman’s home for this purpose, but Horace’s photos unexpectedly do more than that: they conjure up the actual ghost of the girl, who is out for revenge. According to Pegg, an African American servant girl in the household who befriends Horace, Eleanora was the woman’s niece, not her daughter. Eleanora was valued only for her inheritance, and cruelly neglected until she died. Together, Horace and Pegg must figure out how to thwart the murderous ghost’s plans for vengeance. This spooky tale by the author of Crispin and many other books for young readers captures the era nicely. There are lots of details about photography as well as information about the racism of the time, and Horace’s transition from proudly logical young man to believer in spirits is credible. This ghost story isn’t too creepy for middle school readers, and it works well as a historical novel, too. —Paula Rohrlick
KLIATT
In 1870s New York, at the intersection of scientific advances in photography and post-Civil War superstition, sentimentality and mourning, Horace's father apprentices him to a spirit photographer. He discovers that, while his employer is a swindler, Horace himself is a "seer" on whose photographs genuine ghostly images appear. In this way, he discovers the ghost of a young heiress whose ill treatment at the hands of her adoptive parents has led to her death. When her angry spirit returns seeking revenge, Horace tries to put her ghost to rest and save lives. Avi portrays a complex main character who is torn between his impulse toward honesty and rational thought, his love of the new technology of photography and his need for employment. This tale proves that the time-honored ghost story, capably researched, well-paced and fusing the Gothic elements of mystery, madness and romance, can still thrill in the hands of a skilled craftsman.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Before reading the book, take a look at the cover. What do you think the book is about? What do you think its title means?
2. Do you believe in ghosts? Do you think there are people who can see ghosts? Horace’s initial disbelief in ghosts comes from his parents. Explain where your beliefs come from.
3. Horace and his father consider photography to be a science. They see photographs as factual. Do you agree? Why or why not?
4. What is the difference between science and religion? Can a person believe in both?
5. Horace decides he has to take the secret pictures Mr. Middleditch asks him to take. Why? How do you think you would handle a situation like this one?
6. Horace has a very different relationship with Pegg than the Von Machts or Mr. Middleditch do. Why? What makes people think differently about the same person?
7. What happens to Mr. Von Macht? How do you know?
8. Consider the idea of revenge. Do you think what happens to the Von Machts is just? Explain.
9. Throughout the novel the author uses foreshadowing—he suggests that something is going to happen before it happens. How did this make you feel as you read?
10. What do you imagine happens to Eleanora after the end of the story?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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LIE
Caroline Bock, 2011
St. Martin's Press
224 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312668327
Summary
Everybody knows, nobody’s talking.... Seventeen-year-old Skylar Thompson is being questioned by the police. Her boyfriend, Jimmy, stands accused of brutally assaulting two young El Salvadoran immigrants from a neighboring town, and she’s the prime witness. Skylar is keeping quiet about what she’s seen, but how long can she keep it up?
But Jimmy was her savior.... When her mother died, he was the only person who made her feel safe, protected from the world. But when she begins to appreciate the enormity of what has happened, especially when Carlos Cortez, one of the victims, steps up to demand justice, she starts to have second thoughts about protecting Jimmy. Jimmy’s accomplice, Sean, is facing his own moral quandary. He’s out on bail and has been offered a plea in exchange for testifying against Jimmy.
The truth must be told.... Sean must decide whether or not to turn on his friend in order to save himself. But most important, both he and Skylar need to figure out why they would follow someone like Jimmy in the first place. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Raised—New Rochell, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Syracuse University; M.F.A., City
College of New York
• Currently—lives on Long Island in New York
In her words
I feel like I've been writing all my life, and at the same time, that I'm just getting started. I'm the co-author with my sister, Susan Blech, of the critically-acclaimed memoir, Confessions of a Carb Queen (Rodale, 2008). As a graduate of Syracuse University, I had the distinct honor of studying creative writing with Raymond Carver. In 2011, I received my MFA in Fiction from The City College of New York, and I teach there as an adjunct lecturer in the English department.
Prior to focusing on my writing (and family),I headed the marketing and public relations departments at Bravo and IFC cable networks, and notably, was part of the team that launched The Independent Film Channel.
I was born in the Bronx, brought up in New Rochelle, NY by a father who raised four children by himself and am currently living on
Long Island in New York with my husband, two kids and 22 pound cat named Shelton. I write novels, screenplays, poetry. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
(Young adult.) Bock's (Confessions of a Carb Queen) first YA novel is a smart, topical story about a racially motivated hate crime, its far-ranging consequences, and the community determined to keep it under wraps. Skylar Thompson, a sensitive and complex loner, is deeply reliant on her boyfriend, Jimmy Seeger, a cocky, clean-cut jock. Shortly before their high school graduation, Jimmy and his best friend Sean are arrested for the vicious beating of Arturo Cortez, a young El Salvadoran mason, who subsequently dies of his injuries. Charismatic but cruel, Jimmy has been leading a gang that goes "beaner-hopping" on Saturday nights, assaulting Latinos for sick thrills. Skylar, who witnessed Jimmy's unprovoked attack on Arturo, suffers a crisis of conscience over whether to cover for her boyfriend; the lies Skylar and others are pressured to tell cut through the town like the Long Island Expressway the title plays on. Avoiding preachiness, Bock handles the novel's multiple viewpoints exceptionally well, rotating among the painfully believable voices of high school students and adults. Her characters may keep the truth inside, but their story reads like a confessional.
Publishers Weekly
(Grade 7 & up.) Skylar's life hasn't been the same since her mother died of cancer. The only bright light has been her relationship with her boyfriend, Jimmy, a Scholar-Athlete of the Year, but now he stands accused of assaulting two Salvadoran immigrants and she is the prime witness. The full story slowly comes into focus through the many different perspectives of people in a Long Island town that has seen its demographics change dramatically in recent years. Meanwhile, 18-year-old Skylar navigates her precarious position. As she puts the pieces together and ponders her own future, can she speak out against her boyfriend? And should she? Bock successfully captures a range of voices in addition to Skylar's, from teens close to the perpetrator to the victim's family and community members and richly develops this ripped-from-the-headlines tale. Within the larger picture of tension around illegal immigration is the lesser-known practice of "beaner-hopping," in which teens attack suspected illegal immigrants as a sick sort of sport. While readers are not given direct insight into Jimmy's views, he comes to life as a multifaceted person who unfortunately inherited many of his father's grudge-laden, bigoted opinions. Bock's debut will grip readers searching for complete realism in their fiction. —Jennifer Barnes, Malden Public Library, MA
School Library Journal
(Starred review.) This effective, character-driven, episodic story examines the consequences of a hate crime on the teens involved in it.... Realistic and devastatingly insightful, this novel can serve as a springboard to classroom and family discussions. Unusual and important. (12 & up).
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Why do you think Caroline Bock chooses to write all her characters in the first person? What effect does this point of view have on how you read, or experience, the novel?
2. What major question is posed to all of the characters? What choices and actions do these "first person" characters face? Discuss in broad terms the major problems of each character (both internal and external conflicts).
3. Spend particular time discussing the character of Sean Mayer, who makes a drastic and dramatic decision toward the end of the novel. (Spoiler Alert: Sean hangs himself after grappling with whether or not to tell truth about the hate crime. Discuss why suicide is never an answer to life’s dilemmas. How does his action influence others, including Skylar Thompson and her decision at the end of the novel?)
4. Two essential characters—Jimmy Seeger and Arturo Cortez—are seen only through the eyes of the other characters. Why do you think the writer chooses not to give them their own first person accounts? Do you feel it is more—or less—powerful to witness the incident through the eyes of Arturo's brother, Carlos, who is a legal immigrant?
5. What is the irony inherent in this hate crime—especially given that one brother is documented and one is undocumented? On what do Jimmey and Sean base their assumptions?
6. Talk about the ways in which the author explores peer pressure. How do we make our own choices in life--in the face of overwhelming pressure to follow what our parents, peers, and community believe? What happens when we come to understand, as Skylar does, that we no longer agree with what others close to us think?
7. Discuss the setting of the novel. Why is the town never named? What are the other key settings? How does the setting help define the characters?
8. By the novel's end—how do the characters change and what choices and actions have been resolved?
10. What overall themes in the novel are apparent?
11. If you were a character in a book, what would you have done? Who do you most relate to? Would you have followed Jimmy? Would you have come forth? Why or why not?
(Questions adapted from the publisher's Teacher's Guide.)
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The Old Willis Place
Mary Downing Hahn
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
208 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780618897414
Summary
Diana and her little brother Georgie have been living in the woods behind the old Willis place, a decaying Victorian mansion, for what already seems like forever. They aren't allowed to leave the property or show themselves to anyone.
But when a new caretaker comes to live there with his young daughter, Lissa, Diana is tempted to break the mysterious rules they live by and reveal herself so she can finally have a friend. Somehow, Diana must get Lissa's help if she and Georgie ever hope to release themselves from the secret that has bound them to the old Willis place for so long.
Mary Downing Hahn has written a chilling ghost story in the tradition of her most successful spine-tingling novels. The intriguing characters, frightening secrets, and plot twists will delight her many fans. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—December 9, 1937
• Reared—College Park, Maryland, USA
• Awards—see list below
• Currently—lives in Columbia, Maryland
Mary Downing Hahn, a former children’s librarian, is the award-winning author of many popular ghost stories, including Deep and Dark and Dangerous and The Old Willis Place. An avid reader, traveler, and all-around arts lover, Ms. Hahn lives in Columbia, Maryland, with her two cats, Oscar and Rufus. (From the publisher.)
More
Mary Downing Hahn's first published book, The Sara Summer, was released in 1979, when she was 41 years old. Since then she has written over 20 novels. Many of those novels take place in Maryland, a state in which she grew up and still lives in. Today she has two daughters Karren and Danniela. Karren is 24 and Danniela is 21 and has two donkeys. (From Wikipedia.)
Awards (Partial list)
- Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award (VT)
- Golden Sower Award (NE)
- Volunteer State Book Award (TN)
- Bank Street Best Children's Books of the Year
- William Allen White (KS) Master List
- Disney Adventures Finalist
- Mark Twain Award Master List (MO)
Book Reviews
Readers looking for a mystery intertwined with a ghost story will enjoy this tale of a decaying mansion, a wicked former owner, ghosts, and a series of creepy, unexplained events. The cantankerous and unreasonable owner of the mansion, Miss Willis, died in the parlor ten years ago. The mansion has been empty since then except for various caretakers on the grounds. Diana and her brother, Georgie, live on the property of the crumbling mansion and spend their time spying on the caretakers. Because of some unexplained rules, the siblings mysteriously must always remain hidden and are fearful of their puzzling secret being revealed. Diana is tempted to break the rules when a new caretaker and his daughter, Lissa, arrive. Diana and Georgie sneak into the caretaker's home and yard and "borrow" books, toys, and other items that interest them. Lissa tries to explain to her father that some of her personal items are missing, but they cannot find a reasonable explanation. Eventually Lissa glimpses Diana and accepts an invitation to meet her on the veranda of the mansion. As their friendship evolves, Lissa is surprised that Diana and her brother are only familiar with movies, songs, and books that were popular in the 1930s. She attributes their odd behavior to strict fundamentalist parents. Lissa is fascinated with the mansion and recruits a frightened, reluctant Diana to break into the house with her. The consequence of their actions releases a vindictive ghost, solves a mysterious disappearance, and unites a family. Hahn uses suspense, action, superstition, and mystery to keep readers interested. There is a delicate message of guilt, forgiveness, loyalty, and friendship, and although the story is predictable, it has a satisfying ending. (Gr. 6-8)
VOYA
Some of the action is told through Lissa's diary. Most of the time this works, but it's too bad the climax is revealed this way as the device puts a barrier between readers and the action. Kids will love this anyway: it's just the right mix of chilling and thrilling. (Gr. 4-7.) —Ilene Cooper
Booklist
(Starred review.) Diana and her younger brother, Georgie, have been living on the grounds of the old Willis place for oh, so long. They've seen caretakers come and go, but the new one seems different. Mr. Morrison has a daughter, Lissa, who seems to be about Diana's age. Both girls are lonely and long for a friend but Georgie reminds Diana that it's "against the rules" to have friends; that they must remain out of sight. But Lissa remains intriguing to the children. She not only has a bicycle, but she also has many books and a stuffed animal that reminds Georgie of one he once had. They share even more; Lissa, too, has suffered a huge loss. Masterfully constructed, the story shows readers the same events from the perspectives of both girls; Diana narrates, and Lissa writes in her diary. The combination builds tension, raises questions, and allows characters–and the mysteries that surround them–to unfold gradually. The story is taut, spooky, and fast-paced with amazingly credible, memorable characters. More than just a ghost story, this riveting novel is a mystery and a story of friendship and of redemption. After this tale, readers are not likely to think of ghosts in the same way. —Maria B. Salvadore, formerly at Washington DC P.L.
School Library Journal
Acclaimed novelist Mary Downing Hahn serves up great spooky fare in The Old Willis Place. Twelve-year-old Diana and her little brother, Georgie, are bound by rules. They can't have playmates or travel beyond a certain area or go into the house where Miss Willis lived and died. But when Lissa and her father move into a nearby house, Diana starts breaking the rules. She and Lissa become fast friends. When she mistakenly releases the ghost of the evil Miss Willis, Lissa comes to realize she is the only person who can rescue the children from danger. The characters are exceptionally well drawn, the pacing masterful and the climax gripping and poignant. (Ages 8 to 12)
Mary Quattlebaum - Children's Literature
Diana and Georgie have been living wild, depending only on each other. They remain hidden, never leaving the grounds and never entering the derelict house. Longing for more companionship, Diana decides to befriend the new caretaker's lonely daughter. But the friendship leads to complications and danger. When Lissa leads Diana into the old house, she unwittingly unleashes the spirit of the old woman who lived and died there. With carefully incorporated clues, the reader comes to the realization that the frightening old woman is not the only ghost. Diana and Georgie are ghosts of children who died a terrible death in that house long ago. Diana is the primary narrator, with Lissa's diary entries providing alternate views of the events. The young characters, both human and spirits, are sympathetic and believable. There is even a moral here: that love and forgiveness can lead to everlasting peace. Spooky, but with an underlying sweetness.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for The Old Willis Place:
1. Were you surprised about Diana and Georgie? What are some of the clues that lead up to the discovery of who they really are.
2. Talk about how the story is told to us through two different characters—Diana's voice and Lissa's diary. What do we learn from one that we don't learn from the other?
3. What are are the rules that Diana and Georgie must follow, and why are they so strict?
4. Talk about Lissa's stealing the key from her father, urging Diana to go into the house...and unleashing the horror that follows. How do you feel about Lissa and Diana's friendship with her?
5. What happened to Old Miss Willis? Are Diana and Georgie responsible for "the bad thing that happened"?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter #1)
J.K. Rowling, 1997
Scholastic, Inc.
309 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780545069670
Summary
In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry, an orphan, lives with the Dursleys, his horrible aunt and uncle, and their abominable son, Dudley.
One day just before his eleventh birthday, an owl tries to deliver a mysterious letter—the first of a sequence of events that end in Harry meeting a giant man named Hagrid. Hagrid explains Harry's history to him: When he was a baby, the Dark wizard, Lord Voldemort, attacked and killed his parents in an attempt to kill Harry; but the only mark on Harry was a mysterious lightning-bolt scar on his forehead.
Now he has been invited to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where the headmaster is the great wizard Albus Dumbledore. Harry visits Diagon Alley to get his school supplies, especially his very own wand. To get to school, he takes the Hogwarts Express from platform nine and three-quarters at King's Cross Station. On the train, he meets two fellow students who will become his closest friends: Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger.
Harry is assigned to Gryffindor House at Hogwarts, and soon becomes the youngest-ever Seeker on the House Quidditch team. He also studies Potions with Professor Severus Snape, who displays a deep and abiding dislike for Harry, and Defense Against the Dark Arts with nervous Professor Quirrell; he and his friends defeat a mountain troll, help Hagrid raise a dragon, and explore the wonderful, fascinating world of Hogwarts.
But all events lead irrevocably toward a second encounter with Lord Voldemort, who seeks an object of legend known as the Sorcerer's Stone... (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 31, 1965
• Where—Chipping Sodbury near Bristol, England (UK)
• Education—Exeter University
• Awards—3 Nestle Smarties Awards; British Book Award-
Children's Book of the Year; Children's Book Award;
Whitbread Children's Book of the Year; British Book Awards-
Author of the Year; British Book Awards-Book of the Year.
• Currently—lives in Perthshire, Scotland and London, England
Joanne "Jo" Rowling, better known under the pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British author known as the creator of the Harry Potter fantasy series, the idea for which was conceived while on a train trip from Manchester to London in 1990. The Potter books have gained worldwide attention, won multiple awards, sold more than 400 million copies, and been the basis for a popular series of films.
Rowling is perhaps equally famous for her "rags to riches" life story, in which she progressed from living on welfare to multi-millionaire status within five years. As of March 2010, when its latest world billionaires list was published, Forbes estimated Rowling's net worth to be $1 billion. The 2008 Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling's fortune at £560 million ($798 million), ranking her as the twelfth richest woman in Great Britain. Forbes ranked Rowling as the forty-eighth most powerful celebrity of 2007, and Time magazine named her as a runner-up for its 2007 Person of the Year, noting the social, moral, and political inspiration she has given her fandom. She has become a notable philanthropist, supporting such charities as Comic Relief, One Parent Families, Multiple Sclerosis Society of Great Britain, and the Children's High Level Group.
Early years
Rowling was born to Peter James Rowling and Anne Rowling (nee Volant), on 31 July 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire, England, 10 miles (16.1 km) northeast of Bristol. The family moved to the nearby village Winterbourne when Rowling was four. She attended St Michael's Primary School, a school founded by abolitionist William Wilberforce. (The school's headmaster has been suggested as the inspiration for Harry Potter's Albus Dumbledore).
As a child, Rowling often wrote fantasy stories, which she would read to her sister. "I can still remember me telling her a story in which she fell down a rabbit hole and was fed strawberries by the rabbit family inside it. Certainly the first story I ever wrote down (when I was five or six) was about a rabbit called "Rabbit." He got the measles and was visited by his friends, including a giant bee called Miss Bee." When she was a young teenager, her great aunt gave her a very old copy of Jessica Mitford's autobiography, Hons and Rebels. Mitford became Rowling's heroine, and Rowling subsequently read all of her books.
She attended secondary school at Wyedean School and College, where her mother, Anne, had worked as a technician in the Science Department. Rowling has said of her adolescence, "Hermione [A bookish, know-it-all Harry Potter character] is loosely based on me. She's a caricature of me when I was eleven, which I'm not particularly proud of." Sean Harris, her best friend in the Upper Sixth owned a turquoise Ford Anglia, which she says inspired the one in her books. "Ron Weasley [Harry Potter's best friend] isn't a living portrait of Sean, but he really is very Sean-ish."
Rowling read for a BA in French and Classics at the University of Exeter. After a year of study in Paris, Rowling moved to London to work as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International.
In 1990, while she was on a four-hour-delayed train trip from Manchester to London, the idea for a story of a young boy attending a school of wizardry "came fully formed" into her mind. When she had reached her Clapham Junction flat, she began to write immediately. In December of that same year, Rowling’s mother died, after a ten-year battle with multiple sclerosis, a death that heavily affected her writing: she introduced much more detail about Harry's loss in the first book, because she knew about how it felt.
Rowling then moved to Porto, Portugal to teach English as a foreign language. While there she married Portuguese television journalist Jorge Arantes in 1992. Their child, Jessica Isabel Rowling Arantes (named after Jessica Mitford), was born in 1993 in Portugal. The couple separated in November 1993. In December 1993, Rowling and her daughter moved to be near her sister in Edinburgh, Scotland. During this period Rowling was diagnosed with clinical depression, which brought her the idea of Dementors, soul-sucking creatures introduced in the third book.
After Jessica's birth and the separation from her husband, Rowling had left her teaching job in Portugal. In order to teach in Scotland she would need a postgraduate certificate of education (PGCE), requiring a full-time, year-long course of study. She began this course in August 1995, after completing her first novel while having survived on state welfare support.
She wrote in many cafes, especially Nicolson's Cafe, whenever she could get Jessica to fall asleep. As she stated on the American TV program A&E Biography, one of the reasons she wrote in cafes was not because her flat had no heat, but because taking her baby out for a walk was the best way to make her fall asleep.
Harry Potter books
In 1995, Rowling finished her manuscript for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on an old manual typewriter. The book was submitted to twelve publishing houses, all of which rejected the manuscript. A year later she was finally given the green light (and a £1500 advance) by Bloomsbury, a small British publishing house in London, England. The decision to publish Rowling's book apparently owes much to Alice Newton, the eight-year-old daughter of Bloomsbury’s chairman, who was given the first chapter to review by her father and immediately demanded the next.
Although Bloomsbury agreed to publish the book, her editor Barry Cunningham says that he advised Rowling to get a day job, since she had little chance of making money in children’s books. Soon after, in 1997, Rowling received an £8000 grant from the Scottish Arts Council to enable her to continue writing. The following spring, an auction was held in the United States for the rights to publish the novel, and was won by Scholastic Inc., for $105,000. Rowling has said she “nearly died” when she heard the news.
In June 1997, Bloomsbury published Philosopher’s Stone with an initial print-run of 1000 copies, five hundred of which were distributed to libraries. Today, such copies are valued between £16,000 and £25,000. Five months later, the book won its first award, a Nestle Smarties Book Prize. In February, the novel won the prestigious British Book Award for Children’s Book of the Year, and later, the Children’s Book Award. Its sequel, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was published in July, 1998.
In December 1999, the third novel, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, won the Smarties Prize, making Rowling the first person to win the award three times running. She later withdrew the fourth Harry Potter novel from contention to allow other books a fair chance. In January 2000, Prisoner of Azkaban won the inaugural Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year award, though it lost the Book of the Year prize to Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf.
The fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was released simultaneously in the UK and the US on 8 July 2000, and broke sales records in both countries. Some 372,775 copies of the book were sold in its first day in the UK, almost equalling the number Prisoner of Azkaban sold during its first year. In the US, the book sold three million copies in its first 48 hours, smashing all literary sales records. Rowling admitted that she had had a moment of crisis while writing the novel; "Halfway through writing Four, I realised there was a serious fault with the plot....I've had some of my blackest moments with this book..... One chapter I rewrote 13 times, though no-one who has read it can spot which one or know the pain it caused me." Rowling was named author of the year in the 2000 British Book Awards.
A wait of three years occurred between the release of Goblet of Fire and the fifth Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. This gap led to press speculation that Rowling had developed writer's block, speculations she fervently denied. Rowling later admitted that writing the book was a chore. "I think Phoenix could have been shorter", she told Lev Grossman, "I knew that, and I ran out of time and energy toward the end."
The sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was released on 16 July 2005. It too broke all sales records, selling nine million copies in its first 24 hours of release. While writing, she told a fan online, "Book six has been planned for years, but before I started writing seriously I spend two months re-visiting the plan and making absolutely sure I knew what I was doing." She noted on her website that the opening chapter of book six, which features a conversation between the Minister of Magic and the British Prime Minister, had been intended as the first chapter first for Philosopher's Stone, then Chamber of Secrets then Prisoner of Azkaban. In 2006, Half-Blood Prince received the Book of the Year prize at the British Book Awards.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released in July, 2007, (0:00 BST) and broke its predecessor's record as the fastest-selling book of all time. It sold 11 million copies in the first day of release in the United Kingdom and United States. She has said that the last chapter of the book was written "in something like 1990", as part of her earliest work on the entire series. During a year period when Rowling was completing the last book, she allowed herself to be filmed for a documentary which aired in Britain on ITV on 30 December 2007. It was entitled J K Rowling... A Year In The Life and showed her returning to her old Edinburgh tenement flat where she lived, and completed the first Harry Potter book. Re-visiting the flat for the first time reduced her to tears, saying it was "really where I turned my life around completely."
Harry Potter is now a global brand worth an estimated £7 billion ($15 billion), and the last four Harry Potter books have consecutively set records as the fastest-selling books in history. The series, totalling 4,195 pages, has been translated, in whole or in part, into 65 languages.
The Harry Potter books have also gained recognition for sparking an interest in reading among the young at a time when children were thought to be abandoning books for computers and television, although the series' overall impact on children's reading habits has been questioned.
Life after Harry Potter
Forbes has named Rowling as the first person to become a U.S.-dollar billionaire by writing books, the second-richest female entertainer and the 1,062nd richest person in the world. When first listed as a billionaire by Forbes in 2004, Rowling disputed the calculations and said she had plenty of money, but was not a billionaire. In addition, the 2008 Sunday Times Rich List named Rowling the 144th richest person in Britain. In 2001, Rowling purchased a luxurious nineteenth-century estate house, Killiechassie House, on the banks of the River Tay, near Aberfeldy, in Perth and Kinross, Scotland. Rowling also owns a home in Merchiston, Edinburgh, and a £4.5 million ($9 million) Georgian house in Kensington, West London, (on a street with 24-hour security).
On 26 December 2001, Rowling married Neil Michael Murray (born 30 June 1971), an anaesthetist, in a private ceremony at her Aberfeldy home. Their son was born in 2003 and a daughter in 2005.
In the UK, Rowling has received honorary degrees from St Andrews University, the University of Edinburgh, Napier University, the University of Exeter and the University of Aberdeen; and in the US, from Harvard. She has been awarded the Légion d'honneur by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. (During the Elysée Palace ceremony, she revealed that her maternal French grandfather had also received the Légion d'honneur for his bravery during World War I.) According to Matt Latimer, a former White House administrator for President George W. Bush, Rowling was turned down for the Presidential Medal of Freedom because administration officials believed that the Harry Potter series promoted witchcraft.
Subsequent writing
Rowling has stated that she plans to continue writing, preferably under a pseudonym. Although she "thinks it's unlikely" that she will write another Harry Potter, an "encyclopedia" of wizarding along with unpublished notes may be published sometime in the future. In March 2008, Rowling revealed in interview that she had returned to writing in Edinburgh cafes, intent on composing a new novel for children. "I will continue writing for children because that's what I enjoy," she told the Daily Telegraph. "I am very good at finding a suitable cafe; I blend into the crowd and, of course, I don't sit in the middle of the bar staring all around me." (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
You don't have to be a wizard or a kid to appreciate the spell cast by Harry Potter.
USA Today
A wonderful first novel.... Harry is destined for greatness...and one day he mysteriously receives a notice in the mail announcing that he has been chosen to attend Hogwarts, the nation's elite school for training wizards and witches, the Harvard of sorcery. Before he is done, Harry Potter will meet a dragon, make friends with a melancholy centaur and do battle with a three-headed dog.... Through all this hocus-pocus is delightful, the magic in the book is not the real magic of the book. Much like Roald Dahl, J.K. Rowling has a gift for keeping the emotions, fears and triumphs of her characters on a human scale, even while the supernatural is popping out all over.
Michael Winerip - New York Times Book Review
When Harry's parents die, he has no idea of his real heritage or his destiny. He is treated dastardly by his neglectful aunt and uncle but from the moment of his eleventh birthday, he is summoned to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry where his training begins. The reader embarks on an adventure that continues through the very last page. 309 pages of entertainment filled with magic, sorcery, good vs. evil and a courageous protagonist, eleven-year-old Harry Potter.
Children's Literature
Harry Potter, who believes that his parents were killed in a car accident when he was a baby, lives with his dreadful relatives, the Dursleys. Imagine his surprise when, on his eleventh birthday, he is invited to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry learns that he is a wizard, just as his parents had been, and that he survived the attack in which they were killed battling the evil Voldemort. At Hogwarts, Harry discovers his natural skill at Quidditch, a type of three-dimensional rugby played on flying brooms; he tastes new treats such as "Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans," which truly do come in every flavor from strawberry and coffee to sardine and ear wax; and he learns that there is evil afoot at the school. Harry and his friends, Ron and Hermoine, discover that someone at the school is trying to steal a priceless stone with the power to make a person immortal. In a breathtaking final showdown, Harry faces Voldemort and saves the stone, but not before he nearly loses his life. Rowling's style is a cross between Roald Dahl and Patricia Wrede. First published in Britain, where it won the British National Book Award for Children's Book of the Year as well as the Smarties Prize, this hilarious and suspenseful book will delight American audiences as well.
VOYA
(Starred review.) Readers are in for a delightful romp with this debut from a British author who dances in the footsteps of P.L. Travers and Roald Dahl.
Publishers Weekly
A rousing first novel, an award-winner in England. Harry is just a baby when his magical parents are done in by Voldemort, a wizard so dastardly other wizards are scared to mention his name. So Harry is brought up by his mean Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia Dursley, and picked on by his horrid cousin Dudley. He knows nothing about his magical birthright until 10 years later, when he learns he's to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Hogwarts is a lot like English boarding school, except that instead of classes in math and grammar, the curriculum features courses in Transfiguration, Herbology, and Defense Against the Dark Arts. Harry becomes the star player of Quidditch, a sort of mid-air ball game. With the help of his new friends Ron and Hermione, Harry solves a mystery involving a sorcerer's stone that ultimately takes him to the evil Voldemort. This hugely enjoyable fantasy is filled with imaginative details, from oddly flavored jelly beans to dragons' eggs hatched on the hearth. It's slanted toward action-oriented readers, who will find that Briticisms meld with all the other wonders of magic school.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone:
1. If Harry is so famous in the wizarding world (people actually bow to him in the streets) why is he forced to live with the evil Dursleys for ten years?
2. Gryffindor looks for loyalty, chivalry and courage. Hufflepuff values friendship, hark work and patience. Ravenclaw picks students with knowledge, intelligence and wit. Slytherin has wizards that are resourceful, cunning and ambitious. Which house would you like to be Sorted into?
3. The Forbidden Forest is off-limits to Hogwarts students but later, it is the place where Harry serves his first detention. Do you think there's been a change in the opinion of Hogwarts officials regarding Harry's ability to handle danger? If so, how did this change come about?
4. How would you spend an afternoon on Diagon Alley? Meeting the goblins at Gringotts? Studying spells at Flourish and Blotts? Testing brooms at Quality Quidditch Supplies?
5. There are some humorous character names at Hogwarts. The three-headed dog is named Fluffy, the Professor of Herbology is Professor Sprout. Can you think of any other examples?
6. While choosing his wand at Ollivanders, Harry finds out that the wand right for him shares a special connection to the wand stold to Voldemort. What do you think this connection symbolizes?
7. The story is told through Harry's view, except for the first chapter which is told through Mr. Dursley's point of view. Why does the author choose to tell us the story with Dursley's thoughts and reactions instead of a third-person story? What does it add to the story?
8. The Mirror of Erised shows the most desperate desire of our hearts. Professor Dumbledore told Harry that if he stood in front of the mirror, he would see himself holding a thair of thick, woolen socks. What would you see?
9. Although he knows he is disobeying an order from a teacher, Harry takes flight on a broomstick during an afternoon class. However, instead of being punished, he is named Gryffindor's Seeker on the Quidditch team. Name other instances when Harry broke the rules but was not punished.
10. Who did you expect Harry to encounter once through the trapdoor? Were you surprised? Recall clues to this identity.
(Questions by Kather O'Connor of LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter #2)
J.K. Rowling, 1998
Scholastic, Inc.
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780439064873
Summary
In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the summer after Harry’s first year at Hogwarts has been his worst summer ever...the Dursleys more distant and horrible than ever before. But just as he’s packing his bags to return to school, a creature named Dobby the house-elf announces that if Harry goes back to Hogwarts, disaster will strike.
And it turns out, Dobby is right. Harry and Ron miss the Hogwarts Express, so they fly to school in a blue Ford Anglia, crash landing in the notorious Whomping Willow. Soon other worries accumulate: the outrageously stuck-up new professor Gilderoy Lockhart; a ghost named Moaning Myrtle, who haunts the girls' bathroom; the strange behavior of Ron's little sister, Ginny Weasley; rumors about the "Chamber of Secrets," a cavern buried deep below Hogwarts; and a magical diary owned by Tom Riddle, a Hogwarts student of long ago.
Harry is also shocked to discover that he can speak Parseltongue, the language of snakes—a rare ability that Lord Voldemort also possessed—and that anti-Muggle prejudice exists in the Wizarding world, even affecting Harry's friend Hermione.
But all of these seem like minor concerns when someone starts turning Hogwarts students to stone: an evildoer said to be the fearsome Heir of Salazar Slytherin, on of the founders of the school. Could it be Draco Malfoy, Harry's most poisonous rival? Could it be Hagrid whose mysterious past is finally told? Or could it be the one person everyone at Hogwarts most suspects: Harry Potter himself? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 31, 1965
• Where—Chipping Sodbury near Bristol, England (UK)
• Education—Exeter University
• Awards—3 Nestle Smarties Awards; British Book Award-
Children's Book of the Year; Children's Book Award;
Whitbread Children's Book of the Year; British Book Awards-
Author of the Year; British Book Awards-Book of the Year.
• Currently—lives in Perthshire, Scotland and London, England
Joanne "Jo" Rowling, better known under the pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British author known as the creator of the Harry Potter fantasy series, the idea for which was conceived while on a train trip from Manchester to London in 1990. The Potter books have gained worldwide attention, won multiple awards, sold more than 400 million copies, and been the basis for a popular series of films.
Rowling is perhaps equally famous for her "rags to riches" life story, in which she progressed from living on welfare to multi-millionaire status within five years. As of March 2010, when its latest world billionaires list was published, Forbes estimated Rowling's net worth to be $1 billion. The 2008 Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling's fortune at £560 million ($798 million), ranking her as the twelfth richest woman in Great Britain. Forbes ranked Rowling as the forty-eighth most powerful celebrity of 2007, and Time magazine named her as a runner-up for its 2007 Person of the Year, noting the social, moral, and political inspiration she has given her fandom. She has become a notable philanthropist, supporting such charities as Comic Relief, One Parent Families, Multiple Sclerosis Society of Great Britain, and the Children's High Level Group.
Early years
Rowling was born to Peter James Rowling and Anne Rowling (nee Volant), on 31 July 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire, England, 10 miles (16.1 km) northeast of Bristol. The family moved to the nearby village Winterbourne when Rowling was four. She attended St Michael's Primary School, a school founded by abolitionist William Wilberforce. (The school's headmaster has been suggested as the inspiration for Harry Potter's Albus Dumbledore).
As a child, Rowling often wrote fantasy stories, which she would read to her sister. "I can still remember me telling her a story in which she fell down a rabbit hole and was fed strawberries by the rabbit family inside it. Certainly the first story I ever wrote down (when I was five or six) was about a rabbit called "Rabbit." He got the measles and was visited by his friends, including a giant bee called Miss Bee." When she was a young teenager, her great aunt gave her a very old copy of Jessica Mitford's autobiography, Hons and Rebels. Mitford became Rowling's heroine, and Rowling subsequently read all of her books.
She attended secondary school at Wyedean School and College, where her mother, Anne, had worked as a technician in the Science Department. Rowling has said of her adolescence, "Hermione [A bookish, know-it-all Harry Potter character] is loosely based on me. She's a caricature of me when I was eleven, which I'm not particularly proud of." Sean Harris, her best friend in the Upper Sixth owned a turquoise Ford Anglia, which she says inspired the one in her books. "Ron Weasley [Harry Potter's best friend] isn't a living portrait of Sean, but he really is very Sean-ish."
Rowling read for a BA in French and Classics at the University of Exeter. After a year of study in Paris, Rowling moved to London to work as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International.
In 1990, while she was on a four-hour-delayed train trip from Manchester to London, the idea for a story of a young boy attending a school of wizardry "came fully formed" into her mind. When she had reached her Clapham Junction flat, she began to write immediately. In December of that same year, Rowling’s mother died, after a ten-year battle with multiple sclerosis, a death that heavily affected her writing: she introduced much more detail about Harry's loss in the first book, because she knew about how it felt.
Rowling then moved to Porto, Portugal to teach English as a foreign language. While there she married Portuguese television journalist Jorge Arantes in 1992. Their child, Jessica Isabel Rowling Arantes (named after Jessica Mitford), was born in 1993 in Portugal. The couple separated in November 1993. In December 1993, Rowling and her daughter moved to be near her sister in Edinburgh, Scotland. During this period Rowling was diagnosed with clinical depression, which brought her the idea of Dementors, soul-sucking creatures introduced in the third book.
After Jessica's birth and the separation from her husband, Rowling had left her teaching job in Portugal. In order to teach in Scotland she would need a postgraduate certificate of education (PGCE), requiring a full-time, year-long course of study. She began this course in August 1995, after completing her first novel while having survived on state welfare support.
She wrote in many cafes, especially Nicolson's Cafe, whenever she could get Jessica to fall asleep. As she stated on the American TV program A&E Biography, one of the reasons she wrote in cafes was not because her flat had no heat, but because taking her baby out for a walk was the best way to make her fall asleep.
Harry Potter books
In 1995, Rowling finished her manuscript for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on an old manual typewriter. The book was submitted to twelve publishing houses, all of which rejected the manuscript. A year later she was finally given the green light (and a £1500 advance) by Bloomsbury, a small British publishing house in London, England. The decision to publish Rowling's book apparently owes much to Alice Newton, the eight-year-old daughter of Bloomsbury’s chairman, who was given the first chapter to review by her father and immediately demanded the next.
Although Bloomsbury agreed to publish the book, her editor Barry Cunningham says that he advised Rowling to get a day job, since she had little chance of making money in children’s books. Soon after, in 1997, Rowling received an £8000 grant from the Scottish Arts Council to enable her to continue writing. The following spring, an auction was held in the United States for the rights to publish the novel, and was won by Scholastic Inc., for $105,000. Rowling has said she “nearly died” when she heard the news.
In June 1997, Bloomsbury published Philosopher’s Stone with an initial print-run of 1000 copies, five hundred of which were distributed to libraries. Today, such copies are valued between £16,000 and £25,000. Five months later, the book won its first award, a Nestle Smarties Book Prize. In February, the novel won the prestigious British Book Award for Children’s Book of the Year, and later, the Children’s Book Award. Its sequel, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was published in July, 1998.
In December 1999, the third novel, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, won the Smarties Prize, making Rowling the first person to win the award three times running. She later withdrew the fourth Harry Potter novel from contention to allow other books a fair chance. In January 2000, Prisoner of Azkaban won the inaugural Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year award, though it lost the Book of the Year prize to Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf.
The fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was released simultaneously in the UK and the US on 8 July 2000, and broke sales records in both countries. Some 372,775 copies of the book were sold in its first day in the UK, almost equalling the number Prisoner of Azkaban sold during its first year. In the US, the book sold three million copies in its first 48 hours, smashing all literary sales records. Rowling admitted that she had had a moment of crisis while writing the novel; "Halfway through writing Four, I realised there was a serious fault with the plot....I've had some of my blackest moments with this book..... One chapter I rewrote 13 times, though no-one who has read it can spot which one or know the pain it caused me." Rowling was named author of the year in the 2000 British Book Awards.
A wait of three years occurred between the release of Goblet of Fire and the fifth Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. This gap led to press speculation that Rowling had developed writer's block, speculations she fervently denied. Rowling later admitted that writing the book was a chore. "I think Phoenix could have been shorter", she told Lev Grossman, "I knew that, and I ran out of time and energy toward the end."
The sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was released on 16 July 2005. It too broke all sales records, selling nine million copies in its first 24 hours of release. While writing, she told a fan online, "Book six has been planned for years, but before I started writing seriously I spend two months re-visiting the plan and making absolutely sure I knew what I was doing." She noted on her website that the opening chapter of book six, which features a conversation between the Minister of Magic and the British Prime Minister, had been intended as the first chapter first for Philosopher's Stone, then Chamber of Secrets then Prisoner of Azkaban. In 2006, Half-Blood Prince received the Book of the Year prize at the British Book Awards.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released in July, 2007, (0:00 BST) and broke its predecessor's record as the fastest-selling book of all time. It sold 11 million copies in the first day of release in the United Kingdom and United States. She has said that the last chapter of the book was written "in something like 1990", as part of her earliest work on the entire series. During a year period when Rowling was completing the last book, she allowed herself to be filmed for a documentary which aired in Britain on ITV on 30 December 2007. It was entitled J K Rowling... A Year In The Life and showed her returning to her old Edinburgh tenement flat where she lived, and completed the first Harry Potter book. Re-visiting the flat for the first time reduced her to tears, saying it was "really where I turned my life around completely."
Harry Potter is now a global brand worth an estimated £7 billion ($15 billion), and the last four Harry Potter books have consecutively set records as the fastest-selling books in history. The series, totalling 4,195 pages, has been translated, in whole or in part, into 65 languages.
The Harry Potter books have also gained recognition for sparking an interest in reading among the young at a time when children were thought to be abandoning books for computers and television, although the series' overall impact on children's reading habits has been questioned.
Life after Harry Potter
Forbes has named Rowling as the first person to become a U.S.-dollar billionaire by writing books, the second-richest female entertainer and the 1,062nd richest person in the world. When first listed as a billionaire by Forbes in 2004, Rowling disputed the calculations and said she had plenty of money, but was not a billionaire. In addition, the 2008 Sunday Times Rich List named Rowling the 144th richest person in Britain. In 2001, Rowling purchased a luxurious nineteenth-century estate house, Killiechassie House, on the banks of the River Tay, near Aberfeldy, in Perth and Kinross, Scotland. Rowling also owns a home in Merchiston, Edinburgh, and a £4.5 million ($9 million) Georgian house in Kensington, West London, (on a street with 24-hour security).
On 26 December 2001, Rowling married Neil Michael Murray (born 30 June 1971), an anaesthetist, in a private ceremony at her Aberfeldy home. Their son was born in 2003 and a daughter in 2005.
In the UK, Rowling has received honorary degrees from St Andrews University, the University of Edinburgh, Napier University, the University of Exeter and the University of Aberdeen; and in the US, from Harvard. She has been awarded the Légion d'honneur by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. (During the Elysée Palace ceremony, she revealed that her maternal French grandfather had also received the Légion d'honneur for his bravery during World War I.) According to Matt Latimer, a former White House administrator for President George W. Bush, Rowling was turned down for the Presidential Medal of Freedom because administration officials believed that the Harry Potter series promoted witchcraft.
Subsequent writing
Rowling has stated that she plans to continue writing, preferably under a pseudonym. Although she "thinks it's unlikely" that she will write another Harry Potter, an "encyclopedia" of wizarding along with unpublished notes may be published sometime in the future. In March 2008, Rowling revealed in interview that she had returned to writing in Edinburgh cafes, intent on composing a new novel for children. "I will continue writing for children because that's what I enjoy," she told the Daily Telegraph. "I am very good at finding a suitable cafe; I blend into the crowd and, of course, I don't sit in the middle of the bar staring all around me." (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Those needing a hit of magic, morality and mystical worlds can do no better than opening Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets...Older readers will be able to bite into these meaty themes of racism and suspicion of stangers. But younger readers and those looking for the simple pleasures of a delightful read will be thrilled to be back at the fabulously witchy world of Hogwarts. —Cathy Hainer
USA Today
Harry Potter fans will be positively thrilled with this continuation of his trials and tribulations of growing up as a young wizard caught between the supernatural and muggle (real people) worlds. Whisked away in a flying car near the end of a confining, torturous summer with the Dursleys, Harry returns to Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. He does this despite numerous warnings and obstacles from about his potential doom. The legend of the Chamber of Secrets appears to be a reality. Petrified school mates, a bathroom ghost named Moaning Myrtle, the reference library, a diary and super-sleuthing lead a familiar cast of characters through this fast-paced who-dunnit. New readers unfamiliar with the previous adventure will be just as enthralled with this fantasy-adventure-mystery tale.
Children's Literature
Fans of the phenomenally popular Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Scholastic, 1998) won't be disappointed when they rejoin Harry, now on break after finishing his first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Reluctantly spending the summer with the Dursleys, his mean relatives who fear and detest magic, Harry is soon whisked away by his friends Ron, Fred, and George Weasley, who appear at his window in a flying Ford Anglia to take him away to enjoy the rest of the holidays with their very wizardly family. Things don't go as well, though, when the school term begins. Someone, or something, is (literally) petrifying Hogwarts' residents one by one and leaving threatening messages referring to a Chamber of Secrets and an heir of Slytherin. Somehow, Harry is often around when the attacks happen and he is soon suspected of being the perpetrator. The climax has Harry looking very much like Indiana Jones, battling a giant serpent in the depths of the awesome and terrible Chamber of Secrets. Along with most of the teachers and students introduced in the previous book, Draco Malfoy has returned for his second year and is more despicable than ever. The novel is marked throughout by the same sly and sophisticated humor found in the first book, along with inventive, new, matter-of-fact uses of magic that will once again have readers longing to emulate Harry and his wizard friends. —Susan L. Rogers, Chestnut Hill Academy, PA
School Library Journal
With a year at Hogwarts School under his belt, Harry expects the new term to go smoothly, but a wizard's share of surprises and adventures await the likable lad and his friends. Rowling works her magic and leaves readers begging for more.
Library Journal
The mystery, zany humor, sense of a traditional British school (albeit with its share of ghosts, including Moaning Myrtle who haunts the girls' bathroom), student rivalry, and eccentric faculty, all surrounded by the magical foundation so necessary in good fantasy, are as expertly crafted here as in the first book. Fans who have been thirsting for this sequel will definitely not feel any disappointment. In fact, once they have read it, they will be lusting for the next. —Sally Estes
Booklist
This sequel to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (1998) brings back the doughty young wizard-in-training to face suspicious adults, hostile classmates, fretful ghosts, rambunctious spells, giant spiders, and even an avatar of Lord Voldemort, the evil sorcerer who killed his parents, while saving the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from a deadly, mysterious menace. Ignoring a most peculiar warning, Harry kicks off his second year at Hogwarts after a dreadful summer with his hateful guardians, the Dursleys, and is instantly cast into a whirlwind of magical pranks and misadventures, culminating in a visit to the hidden cavern where his friend Ron's little sister Ginny lies, barely alive, in a trap set by his worst enemy. Surrounded by a grand mix of wise and inept faculty, sneering or loyal peers—plus an array of supernatural creatures including Nearly Headless Nick and a huge, serpentine basilisk—Harry steadily rises to every challenge, and though he plays but one match of the gloriously chaotic field game Quidditch, he does get in plenty of magic and a bit of swordplay on his way to becoming a hero again. Readers will be irresistibly drawn into Harry's world by GrandPre's comic illustrations and Rowling's expert combination of broad boarding school farce and high fantasy.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets:
1. Have you read the The Sorcerer's Stone? If so, did The Chamber of Secrets pick up as you thought it would? If you haven't read The Sorcerer's Stone were you able to easily understand this book?
2. Why do some characters, for example Moaning Myrtle and Nearly-Headless Nick, not leave the world after death? Is it a choice they make themselves? Why isn't Harry able to interact with his dead parents?
3. Do you think that Professor Lockhart is a malicious character or is he simply egocentric? How did your opinion of him change throughout the book?
4. If you could mix up a batch of Polyjuice Potion who would you want to be and why?
5. Why is Harry terrified that he may have some connection to Salazar Slytherin? If Slytherin was so wicked, why is one of the Hogwarts Houses named after him? And why would any student hope to be placed in that House?
6. If Albus Dumbledore is considered one of the greatest wizards of all-time, why is he suspended as Headmaster of Hogwarts? What kind of danger does that leave the school and its future in?
7. Ginny feels foolish for falling under the spell of the diary, especially since her father always warned her "never to trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain." Knowing that, as well as the return of Lord Voldemort, how and why did Ginny get consumed by the diary?
8. In The Chamber of Secrets and The Sorcerer's Stone, Harry is always praised as the hero and gets most of the glory for defeating enemies. Would he be successful without the help of other characters like Ron and Hermione, Dobby, Professor Dumbledore, Hagrid, etc? Why don't they get as much credit as Harry does?
9. Professor Dumbledore tells a doubtful Harry, "It is our choices...that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." (page 333) Do you agree?
10. Will you continue the series and read the third Harry Potter book, The Prisoner of Azkaban? Where do you expect it to pick up? Discuss other predictions for the book.
(Questions by Katherine O'Connor of LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter #3)
J.K. Rowling, 1999
Scholastic Inc.
448 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780439136365
Summary
For twelve long years, the dread fortress of Azkaban held an infamous prisoner named Sirius Black. Convicted of killing thirteen people with a single curse, he was said to be the heir apparent to the Dark Lord, Voldemort, and might even have assisted in the deaths of James and Lily Potter—Harry Potter’s parents.
Now Black has escaped, leaving only two clues as to where he might be headed: Harry Potter's defeat of You-Know-Who was Black's downfall as well. And the Azkaban guards heard him muttering in his sleep, "He’s at Hogwarts...he’s at Hogwarts."
Of course, Harry already had plenty to worry about. After inflating his nasty aunt and running away on the magical Knight Bus, he finds he’s being pursued by death omens at every turn. He receives two wonderful gifts: a top-of-the-line Firebolt broomstick, and the Marauder’s Map, a magical diagram of Hogwarts made by the mysterious “Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs.” Hermione disappears frequently, burdened down by a seemingly impossible course schedule. And the soulless Dementors have come to guard Hogwarts—supposedly to protect Harry from Sirius Black, but they terrify Harry more than the fugitive ever could.
To strengthen himself against them, Harry reaches out to Remus Lupin, the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher who was once a friend of his father’s. Lupin teaches Harry about the Patronus Charm, a defensive measure well above the level of magic generally mastered by wizards Harry’s age. But even with his broom, his map, his magic, and his loyal friends, Harry isn't safe.
Because on top of everything else, there’s a traitor hidden at Hogwarts... (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 31, 1965
• Where—Chipping Sodbury near Bristol, England (UK)
• Education—Exeter University
• Awards—3 Nestle Smarties Awards; British Book Award-
Children's Book of the Year; Children's Book Award;
Whitbread Children's Book of the Year; British Book Awards-
Author of the Year; British Book Awards-Book of the Year.
• Currently—lives in Perthshire, Scotland and London, England
Joanne "Jo" Rowling, better known under the pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British author known as the creator of the Harry Potter fantasy series, the idea for which was conceived while on a train trip from Manchester to London in 1990. The Potter books have gained worldwide attention, won multiple awards, sold more than 400 million copies, and been the basis for a popular series of films.
Rowling is perhaps equally famous for her "rags to riches" life story, in which she progressed from living on welfare to multi-millionaire status within five years. As of March 2010, when its latest world billionaires list was published, Forbes estimated Rowling's net worth to be $1 billion. The 2008 Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling's fortune at £560 million ($798 million), ranking her as the twelfth richest woman in Great Britain. Forbes ranked Rowling as the forty-eighth most powerful celebrity of 2007, and Time magazine named her as a runner-up for its 2007 Person of the Year, noting the social, moral, and political inspiration she has given her fandom. She has become a notable philanthropist, supporting such charities as Comic Relief, One Parent Families, Multiple Sclerosis Society of Great Britain, and the Children's High Level Group.
Early years
Rowling was born to Peter James Rowling and Anne Rowling (nee Volant), on 31 July 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire, England, 10 miles (16.1 km) northeast of Bristol. The family moved to the nearby village Winterbourne when Rowling was four. She attended St Michael's Primary School, a school founded by abolitionist William Wilberforce. (The school's headmaster has been suggested as the inspiration for Harry Potter's Albus Dumbledore).
As a child, Rowling often wrote fantasy stories, which she would read to her sister. "I can still remember me telling her a story in which she fell down a rabbit hole and was fed strawberries by the rabbit family inside it. Certainly the first story I ever wrote down (when I was five or six) was about a rabbit called "Rabbit." He got the measles and was visited by his friends, including a giant bee called Miss Bee." When she was a young teenager, her great aunt gave her a very old copy of Jessica Mitford's autobiography, Hons and Rebels. Mitford became Rowling's heroine, and Rowling subsequently read all of her books.
She attended secondary school at Wyedean School and College, where her mother, Anne, had worked as a technician in the Science Department. Rowling has said of her adolescence, "Hermione [A bookish, know-it-all Harry Potter character] is loosely based on me. She's a caricature of me when I was eleven, which I'm not particularly proud of." Sean Harris, her best friend in the Upper Sixth owned a turquoise Ford Anglia, which she says inspired the one in her books. "Ron Weasley [Harry Potter's best friend] isn't a living portrait of Sean, but he really is very Sean-ish."
Rowling read for a BA in French and Classics at the University of Exeter. After a year of study in Paris, Rowling moved to London to work as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International.
In 1990, while she was on a four-hour-delayed train trip from Manchester to London, the idea for a story of a young boy attending a school of wizardry "came fully formed" into her mind. When she had reached her Clapham Junction flat, she began to write immediately. In December of that same year, Rowling’s mother died, after a ten-year battle with multiple sclerosis, a death that heavily affected her writing: she introduced much more detail about Harry's loss in the first book, because she knew about how it felt.
Rowling then moved to Porto, Portugal to teach English as a foreign language. While there she married Portuguese television journalist Jorge Arantes in 1992. Their child, Jessica Isabel Rowling Arantes (named after Jessica Mitford), was born in 1993 in Portugal. The couple separated in November 1993. In December 1993, Rowling and her daughter moved to be near her sister in Edinburgh, Scotland. During this period Rowling was diagnosed with clinical depression, which brought her the idea of Dementors, soul-sucking creatures introduced in the third book.
After Jessica's birth and the separation from her husband, Rowling had left her teaching job in Portugal. In order to teach in Scotland she would need a postgraduate certificate of education (PGCE), requiring a full-time, year-long course of study. She began this course in August 1995, after completing her first novel while having survived on state welfare support.
She wrote in many cafes, especially Nicolson's Cafe, whenever she could get Jessica to fall asleep. As she stated on the American TV program A&E Biography, one of the reasons she wrote in cafes was not because her flat had no heat, but because taking her baby out for a walk was the best way to make her fall asleep.
Harry Potter books
In 1995, Rowling finished her manuscript for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on an old manual typewriter. The book was submitted to twelve publishing houses, all of which rejected the manuscript. A year later she was finally given the green light (and a £1500 advance) by Bloomsbury, a small British publishing house in London, England. The decision to publish Rowling's book apparently owes much to Alice Newton, the eight-year-old daughter of Bloomsbury’s chairman, who was given the first chapter to review by her father and immediately demanded the next.
Although Bloomsbury agreed to publish the book, her editor Barry Cunningham says that he advised Rowling to get a day job, since she had little chance of making money in children’s books. Soon after, in 1997, Rowling received an £8000 grant from the Scottish Arts Council to enable her to continue writing. The following spring, an auction was held in the United States for the rights to publish the novel, and was won by Scholastic Inc., for $105,000. Rowling has said she “nearly died” when she heard the news.
In June 1997, Bloomsbury published Philosopher’s Stone with an initial print-run of 1000 copies, five hundred of which were distributed to libraries. Today, such copies are valued between £16,000 and £25,000. Five months later, the book won its first award, a Nestle Smarties Book Prize. In February, the novel won the prestigious British Book Award for Children’s Book of the Year, and later, the Children’s Book Award. Its sequel, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was published in July, 1998.
In December 1999, the third novel, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, won the Smarties Prize, making Rowling the first person to win the award three times running. She later withdrew the fourth Harry Potter novel from contention to allow other books a fair chance. In January 2000, Prisoner of Azkaban won the inaugural Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year award, though it lost the Book of the Year prize to Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf.
The fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was released simultaneously in the UK and the US on 8 July 2000, and broke sales records in both countries. Some 372,775 copies of the book were sold in its first day in the UK, almost equalling the number Prisoner of Azkaban sold during its first year. In the US, the book sold three million copies in its first 48 hours, smashing all literary sales records. Rowling admitted that she had had a moment of crisis while writing the novel; "Halfway through writing Four, I realised there was a serious fault with the plot....I've had some of my blackest moments with this book..... One chapter I rewrote 13 times, though no-one who has read it can spot which one or know the pain it caused me." Rowling was named author of the year in the 2000 British Book Awards.
A wait of three years occurred between the release of Goblet of Fire and the fifth Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. This gap led to press speculation that Rowling had developed writer's block, speculations she fervently denied. Rowling later admitted that writing the book was a chore. "I think Phoenix could have been shorter", she told Lev Grossman, "I knew that, and I ran out of time and energy toward the end."
The sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was released on 16 July 2005. It too broke all sales records, selling nine million copies in its first 24 hours of release. While writing, she told a fan online, "Book six has been planned for years, but before I started writing seriously I spend two months re-visiting the plan and making absolutely sure I knew what I was doing." She noted on her website that the opening chapter of book six, which features a conversation between the Minister of Magic and the British Prime Minister, had been intended as the first chapter first for Philosopher's Stone, then Chamber of Secrets then Prisoner of Azkaban. In 2006, Half-Blood Prince received the Book of the Year prize at the British Book Awards.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released in July, 2007, (0:00 BST) and broke its predecessor's record as the fastest-selling book of all time. It sold 11 million copies in the first day of release in the United Kingdom and United States. She has said that the last chapter of the book was written "in something like 1990", as part of her earliest work on the entire series. During a year period when Rowling was completing the last book, she allowed herself to be filmed for a documentary which aired in Britain on ITV on 30 December 2007. It was entitled J K Rowling... A Year In The Life and showed her returning to her old Edinburgh tenement flat where she lived, and completed the first Harry Potter book. Re-visiting the flat for the first time reduced her to tears, saying it was "really where I turned my life around completely."
Harry Potter is now a global brand worth an estimated £7 billion ($15 billion), and the last four Harry Potter books have consecutively set records as the fastest-selling books in history. The series, totalling 4,195 pages, has been translated, in whole or in part, into 65 languages.
The Harry Potter books have also gained recognition for sparking an interest in reading among the young at a time when children were thought to be abandoning books for computers and television, although the series' overall impact on children's reading habits has been questioned.
Life after Harry Potter
Forbes has named Rowling as the first person to become a U.S.-dollar billionaire by writing books, the second-richest female entertainer and the 1,062nd richest person in the world. When first listed as a billionaire by Forbes in 2004, Rowling disputed the calculations and said she had plenty of money, but was not a billionaire. In addition, the 2008 Sunday Times Rich List named Rowling the 144th richest person in Britain. In 2001, Rowling purchased a luxurious nineteenth-century estate house, Killiechassie House, on the banks of the River Tay, near Aberfeldy, in Perth and Kinross, Scotland. Rowling also owns a home in Merchiston, Edinburgh, and a £4.5 million ($9 million) Georgian house in Kensington, West London, (on a street with 24-hour security).
On 26 December 2001, Rowling married Neil Michael Murray (born 30 June 1971), an anaesthetist, in a private ceremony at her Aberfeldy home. Their son was born in 2003 and a daughter in 2005.
In the UK, Rowling has received honorary degrees from St Andrews University, the University of Edinburgh, Napier University, the University of Exeter and the University of Aberdeen; and in the US, from Harvard. She has been awarded the Légion d'honneur by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. (During the Elysée Palace ceremony, she revealed that her maternal French grandfather had also received the Légion d'honneur for his bravery during World War I.) According to Matt Latimer, a former White House administrator for President George W. Bush, Rowling was turned down for the Presidential Medal of Freedom because administration officials believed that the Harry Potter series promoted witchcraft.
Subsequent writing
Rowling has stated that she plans to continue writing, preferably under a pseudonym. Although she "thinks it's unlikely" that she will write another Harry Potter, an "encyclopedia" of wizarding along with unpublished notes may be published sometime in the future. In March 2008, Rowling revealed in interview that she had returned to writing in Edinburgh cafes, intent on composing a new novel for children. "I will continue writing for children because that's what I enjoy," she told the Daily Telegraph. "I am very good at finding a suitable cafe; I blend into the crowd and, of course, I don't sit in the middle of the bar staring all around me." (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Those thousands of fans already familiar with this series will not be disappointed; Rowling is surprisingly inventive in her small details and startling in her plot twists. And what is particularly pleasing is that Harry grows in this novel, as the thematic concerns of the series grow in complexity. In this, the 3rd Harry Potter book, Harry returns to Hogwarts for his third year. He is shadowed by the knowledge of Sirius Black, a close associate of Lord Voldemort and one-time intimate friend of Harry's parents. Lord Voldemort has escaped from the prison of Azkaban and is undoubtedly looking to avenge himself upon Harry. While struggling with this shadow, Harry also deals with the presence of the Dementors, the guards of Azkaban. The Dementors are looking for Sirus Black because they want to suck all joy and happiness out of those they find, and Harry, because of his past, is particularly susceptible to their powers. Supported by close friends Ron and Hermione, our hero Harry faces Black, fights for the House Cup, and in the end, comes to a new knowledge of his parents that he had never dreamed possible. Here the good and the evil are not so starkly drawn, and may even at times blend in disturbing ways. If the final unraveling of the mystery is a bit clumsy, handled by lengthy and stilted exposition rather than her usual brisk action, Rowling is still wonderfully adept at creating engaging characters and a narrative line that pushes forward at a remarkable pace. —Arthur P. Levine
Alan Review
This book is as daring and thrilling as any fantasy can be. Harry must confront the evil wizard responsible for his parent's death. Foes may wear disguises and appear harmless. Harry, with help from his friends, must use all his wits to discover the truth. In between quidditch games, studying, and coping with being an emerging teen, Harry has to battle the forces out to end his life. This third book flies by with breath-taking adventures and in-depth character development that helps us understand the complex cast with greater appreciation. I'm panting for Book Four.
Children's Literature
Rowling proves that she has plenty of tricks left up her sleeve in this third Harry Potter adventure, set once again at the Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. Right before the start of term, a supremely dangerous criminal breaks out of a supposedly impregnable wizards' prison; it will come as no surprise to Potter fans that the villain, a henchman of Harry's old enemy Lord Voldemort, appears to have targeted Harry. In many ways this installment seems to serve a transitional role in the seven-volume series: while many of the adventures are breathlessly relayed, they appear to be laying groundwork for even more exciting adventures to come. The beauty here lies in the genius of Rowling's plotting. Seemingly minor details established in books one and two unfold to take on unforeseen significance, and the finale, while not airtight in its internal logic, is utterly thrilling. Rowling's wit never flags, whether constructing the workings of the wizard world (Just how would a magician be made to stay behind bars?) or tossing off quick jokes (a grandmother wears a hat decorated with a stuffed vulture; the divination classroom looks like a tawdry tea shop). The Potter spell is holding strong.
Publishers Weekly
The Harry Potter epic (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets) continues to gather speed as Harry enters his third year at the Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry and does battle with the traitor behind his parents' deaths. Besides coping with the usual adversaries— sneering classmate Draco Malfoy, evocatively-named Potions Master Snape—the young wizard-in-training has a new worry with the escape of Sirius Black, murderous minion of archenemy Lord Voldemort, from the magicians' prison of Azkaban. Folding in subplots and vividly conceived magical creatures, Azkaban's guards, known as dementors, are the very last brutes readers would want to meet in a dark alley. With characteristic abandon, Rowling creates a busy backdrop for Harry as she pushes him through a series of terrifying encounters and hard-fought games of Quidditch, on the way to a properly pulse-pounding climax strewn with mistaken identities and revelations about his dead father. The main characters and the continuing story both come along so smartly (and Harry at last shows a glimmer of interest in the opposite sex, a sure sign that the tides of adolescence are lapping at his toes) that the book seems shorter than its page count: have readers clear their calendars if they are fans, or get out of the way if they are not.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban:
1. For the past two years, Harry has spent the end of summer with the Weasleys. The Dursleys are terrified of him and have always treated him poorly, so why doesn't Harry just move in with the Weasleys? Also, in The Chamber of Secrets and The Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry's magic causes major problems on Privet Drive. Why do the Dursleys allow Harry to live there?
2. Sirius Black is the most infamous and dangerous prisoner to escape from Azkaban. Immediately before returning to Hogwarts, Arthur Weasley, against a strong warning from his wife, informs Harry that it is believed Black is out to kill him. Black even used to mutter "he's at Hogwarts...he's at Hogwarts" in his sleep whil imprisoned. Why does Harry so badly want to return to school instead of being protected after learning all this? What role does Dumbledore play in his return?
3. Do you think Hagrid makes a better Gamekeeper or Care of Magical Creatures professor? Which of his lesson was your favorite or least favorite?
4. Animals, real and magical, play a huge role in this book. Discuss the importance of Scabbers the rat, Crookshanks the cat, the black dog, Buckbeak the Hippogriff, and the werewolf.
5. Dementors are soulless creaters that guard Azkaban and feed on happiness and positive feelings. Their presence makes things grow cold and dark and force surrounding people to relive their most awful memories. They can perform the Dementor's Kiss where they suck out the victim's soul. Rowling has said that she created the Dementors from her feelings of deep depression. Do you think these creatures are too macabre for a book that children read?
6. In The Chamber of Secrets Lucius Malfoy leads to Dumbledore's suspension as Headmaster and in The Prisoner of Azkaban, he ensures that Buckbeak the Hippogriff will be executed for attacking Draco. Where does Lucius' power come from?
7. Hermione had her own secret this year. Why didn't she share her special tool with Harry and Ron?
8. Harry has repeatadly said that he doesn't feel worthy of the attention he receives because he didn't do anything special when Voldemort attacked him, he literally is only "the boy who lived." But Dumbledore and Lupin continue to give him hints to help him defeat evil. Why are they putting their trust and the fate of the wizarding world in the hands of a 13 year-old boy who has only studied magic for three years?
9. Will you continue the series and read the next Harry Potter book, The Goblet of Fire? Where do you expect it to pick up? Discuss other predictions for the book.
(Questions by Katherine O'Connor of LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter #4)
J.K. Rowling, 2000
Scholastic, Inc.
752 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780439139601
Summary
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry is midway through both his training as a wizard and his coming of age. He wants to get away from the malicious Dursleys and go to the Quidditch World Cup with Hermione, Ron, and the Weasleys. He wants to dream about his crush, Cho Chang (and maybe do more than dream).
And now that he’s gotten the hang of things at Hogwarts—he hopes—he just wants to be a normal fourteen-year-old wizard.
But even by his standards, Harry's year is anything but normal. First Dumbledore announces the revival of a grand competition that hasn't taken place for one hundred years: the Triwizard Tournament, where a Hogwarts champion will compete against rivals from two other schools of magic in three highly dangerous tasks. Then someone frames Harry to participate in the tournament—which really means someone wants him dead.
Harry is guided through the competition by Professor Alastor Moody, this year's Defenst Against the Dark Arts teacher, but he must also contend with a nasty reporter named Rita Skeeter, who digs up some highly unflattering secrets about Hagrid; a terrible fight with Ron, who is deeply jealous of Harry's fame; Hermione's newfound activism on behalf of house-elves; and the terrifying prospect of asking a date to the Yule Ball.
Worst of all, Lord Voldemort may finally have gathered the materials necessary for his rejuvenation...and he has a faithful servant at Hogwarts waiting only for a sign. No, nothing is every normal for Harry Potter. And in his case, different can be deadly. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 31, 1965
• Where—Chipping Sodbury near Bristol, England (UK)
• Education—Exeter University
• Awards—3 Nestle Smarties Awards; British Book Award-
Children's Book of the Year; Children's Book Award;
Whitbread Children's Book of the Year; British Book Awards-
Author of the Year; British Book Awards-Book of the Year.
• Currently—lives in Perthshire, Scotland and London, England
Joanne "Jo" Rowling, better known under the pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British author known as the creator of the Harry Potter fantasy series, the idea for which was conceived while on a train trip from Manchester to London in 1990. The Potter books have gained worldwide attention, won multiple awards, sold more than 400 million copies, and been the basis for a popular series of films.
Rowling is perhaps equally famous for her "rags to riches" life story, in which she progressed from living on welfare to multi-millionaire status within five years. As of March 2010, when its latest world billionaires list was published, Forbes estimated Rowling's net worth to be $1 billion. The 2008 Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling's fortune at £560 million ($798 million), ranking her as the twelfth richest woman in Great Britain. Forbes ranked Rowling as the forty-eighth most powerful celebrity of 2007, and Time magazine named her as a runner-up for its 2007 Person of the Year, noting the social, moral, and political inspiration she has given her fandom. She has become a notable philanthropist, supporting such charities as Comic Relief, One Parent Families, Multiple Sclerosis Society of Great Britain, and the Children's High Level Group.
Early years
Rowling was born to Peter James Rowling and Anne Rowling (nee Volant), on 31 July 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire, England, 10 miles (16.1 km) northeast of Bristol. The family moved to the nearby village Winterbourne when Rowling was four. She attended St Michael's Primary School, a school founded by abolitionist William Wilberforce. (The school's headmaster has been suggested as the inspiration for Harry Potter's Albus Dumbledore).
As a child, Rowling often wrote fantasy stories, which she would read to her sister. "I can still remember me telling her a story in which she fell down a rabbit hole and was fed strawberries by the rabbit family inside it. Certainly the first story I ever wrote down (when I was five or six) was about a rabbit called "Rabbit." He got the measles and was visited by his friends, including a giant bee called Miss Bee." When she was a young teenager, her great aunt gave her a very old copy of Jessica Mitford's autobiography, Hons and Rebels. Mitford became Rowling's heroine, and Rowling subsequently read all of her books.
She attended secondary school at Wyedean School and College, where her mother, Anne, had worked as a technician in the Science Department. Rowling has said of her adolescence, "Hermione [A bookish, know-it-all Harry Potter character] is loosely based on me. She's a caricature of me when I was eleven, which I'm not particularly proud of." Sean Harris, her best friend in the Upper Sixth owned a turquoise Ford Anglia, which she says inspired the one in her books. "Ron Weasley [Harry Potter's best friend] isn't a living portrait of Sean, but he really is very Sean-ish."
Rowling read for a BA in French and Classics at the University of Exeter. After a year of study in Paris, Rowling moved to London to work as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International.
In 1990, while she was on a four-hour-delayed train trip from Manchester to London, the idea for a story of a young boy attending a school of wizardry "came fully formed" into her mind. When she had reached her Clapham Junction flat, she began to write immediately. In December of that same year, Rowling’s mother died, after a ten-year battle with multiple sclerosis, a death that heavily affected her writing: she introduced much more detail about Harry's loss in the first book, because she knew about how it felt.
Rowling then moved to Porto, Portugal to teach English as a foreign language. While there she married Portuguese television journalist Jorge Arantes in 1992. Their child, Jessica Isabel Rowling Arantes (named after Jessica Mitford), was born in 1993 in Portugal. The couple separated in November 1993. In December 1993, Rowling and her daughter moved to be near her sister in Edinburgh, Scotland. During this period Rowling was diagnosed with clinical depression, which brought her the idea of Dementors, soul-sucking creatures introduced in the third book.
After Jessica's birth and the separation from her husband, Rowling had left her teaching job in Portugal. In order to teach in Scotland she would need a postgraduate certificate of education (PGCE), requiring a full-time, year-long course of study. She began this course in August 1995, after completing her first novel while having survived on state welfare support.
She wrote in many cafes, especially Nicolson's Cafe, whenever she could get Jessica to fall asleep. As she stated on the American TV program A&E Biography, one of the reasons she wrote in cafes was not because her flat had no heat, but because taking her baby out for a walk was the best way to make her fall asleep.
Harry Potter books
In 1995, Rowling finished her manuscript for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on an old manual typewriter. The book was submitted to twelve publishing houses, all of which rejected the manuscript. A year later she was finally given the green light (and a £1500 advance) by Bloomsbury, a small British publishing house in London, England. The decision to publish Rowling's book apparently owes much to Alice Newton, the eight-year-old daughter of Bloomsbury’s chairman, who was given the first chapter to review by her father and immediately demanded the next.
Although Bloomsbury agreed to publish the book, her editor Barry Cunningham says that he advised Rowling to get a day job, since she had little chance of making money in children’s books. Soon after, in 1997, Rowling received an £8000 grant from the Scottish Arts Council to enable her to continue writing. The following spring, an auction was held in the United States for the rights to publish the novel, and was won by Scholastic Inc., for $105,000. Rowling has said she “nearly died” when she heard the news.
In June 1997, Bloomsbury published Philosopher’s Stone with an initial print-run of 1000 copies, five hundred of which were distributed to libraries. Today, such copies are valued between £16,000 and £25,000. Five months later, the book won its first award, a Nestle Smarties Book Prize. In February, the novel won the prestigious British Book Award for Children’s Book of the Year, and later, the Children’s Book Award. Its sequel, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was published in July, 1998.
In December 1999, the third novel, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, won the Smarties Prize, making Rowling the first person to win the award three times running. She later withdrew the fourth Harry Potter novel from contention to allow other books a fair chance. In January 2000, Prisoner of Azkaban won the inaugural Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year award, though it lost the Book of the Year prize to Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf.
The fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was released simultaneously in the UK and the US on 8 July 2000, and broke sales records in both countries. Some 372,775 copies of the book were sold in its first day in the UK, almost equalling the number Prisoner of Azkaban sold during its first year. In the US, the book sold three million copies in its first 48 hours, smashing all literary sales records. Rowling admitted that she had had a moment of crisis while writing the novel; "Halfway through writing Four, I realised there was a serious fault with the plot....I've had some of my blackest moments with this book..... One chapter I rewrote 13 times, though no-one who has read it can spot which one or know the pain it caused me." Rowling was named author of the year in the 2000 British Book Awards.
A wait of three years occurred between the release of Goblet of Fire and the fifth Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. This gap led to press speculation that Rowling had developed writer's block, speculations she fervently denied. Rowling later admitted that writing the book was a chore. "I think Phoenix could have been shorter", she told Lev Grossman, "I knew that, and I ran out of time and energy toward the end."
The sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was released on 16 July 2005. It too broke all sales records, selling nine million copies in its first 24 hours of release. While writing, she told a fan online, "Book six has been planned for years, but before I started writing seriously I spend two months re-visiting the plan and making absolutely sure I knew what I was doing." She noted on her website that the opening chapter of book six, which features a conversation between the Minister of Magic and the British Prime Minister, had been intended as the first chapter first for Philosopher's Stone, then Chamber of Secrets then Prisoner of Azkaban. In 2006, Half-Blood Prince received the Book of the Year prize at the British Book Awards.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released in July, 2007, (0:00 BST) and broke its predecessor's record as the fastest-selling book of all time. It sold 11 million copies in the first day of release in the United Kingdom and United States. She has said that the last chapter of the book was written "in something like 1990", as part of her earliest work on the entire series. During a year period when Rowling was completing the last book, she allowed herself to be filmed for a documentary which aired in Britain on ITV on 30 December 2007. It was entitled J K Rowling... A Year In The Life and showed her returning to her old Edinburgh tenement flat where she lived, and completed the first Harry Potter book. Re-visiting the flat for the first time reduced her to tears, saying it was "really where I turned my life around completely."
Harry Potter is now a global brand worth an estimated £7 billion ($15 billion), and the last four Harry Potter books have consecutively set records as the fastest-selling books in history. The series, totalling 4,195 pages, has been translated, in whole or in part, into 65 languages.
The Harry Potter books have also gained recognition for sparking an interest in reading among the young at a time when children were thought to be abandoning books for computers and television, although the series' overall impact on children's reading habits has been questioned.
Life after Harry Potter
Forbes has named Rowling as the first person to become a U.S.-dollar billionaire by writing books, the second-richest female entertainer and the 1,062nd richest person in the world. When first listed as a billionaire by Forbes in 2004, Rowling disputed the calculations and said she had plenty of money, but was not a billionaire. In addition, the 2008 Sunday Times Rich List named Rowling the 144th richest person in Britain. In 2001, Rowling purchased a luxurious nineteenth-century estate house, Killiechassie House, on the banks of the River Tay, near Aberfeldy, in Perth and Kinross, Scotland. Rowling also owns a home in Merchiston, Edinburgh, and a £4.5 million ($9 million) Georgian house in Kensington, West London, (on a street with 24-hour security).
On 26 December 2001, Rowling married Neil Michael Murray (born 30 June 1971), an anaesthetist, in a private ceremony at her Aberfeldy home. Their son was born in 2003 and a daughter in 2005.
In the UK, Rowling has received honorary degrees from St Andrews University, the University of Edinburgh, Napier University, the University of Exeter and the University of Aberdeen; and in the US, from Harvard. She has been awarded the Légion d'honneur by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. (During the Elysée Palace ceremony, she revealed that her maternal French grandfather had also received the Légion d'honneur for his bravery during World War I.) According to Matt Latimer, a former White House administrator for President George W. Bush, Rowling was turned down for the Presidential Medal of Freedom because administration officials believed that the Harry Potter series promoted witchcraft.
Subsequent writing
Rowling has stated that she plans to continue writing, preferably under a pseudonym. Although she "thinks it's unlikely" that she will write another Harry Potter, an "encyclopedia" of wizarding along with unpublished notes may be published sometime in the future. In March 2008, Rowling revealed in interview that she had returned to writing in Edinburgh cafes, intent on composing a new novel for children. "I will continue writing for children because that's what I enjoy," she told the Daily Telegraph. "I am very good at finding a suitable cafe; I blend into the crowd and, of course, I don't sit in the middle of the bar staring all around me." (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
As the midpoint in a projected seven-book series, Goblet of Fire is exactly the big, clever, vibrant, tremendously assured installment that gives shape and direction to the whole undertaking and still somehow preserves the material's enchanting innocence. This time Ms. Rowling offers her clearest proof yet of what should have been wonderfully obvious: what makes the Potter books so popular is the radically simple fact that they're so good.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
The Harry Potter series is a supernatural version of ''Tom Brown's Schooldays,'' updated and given a hip this-is-how-kids-really-are shine. And Harry is the kid most children feel themselves to be, adrift in a world of unimaginative and often unpleasant adults—Muggles, Rowling calls them—who neither understand them nor care to. Harry is, in fact, a male Cinderella, waiting for someone to invite him to the ball. In Potter 1, his invitation comes first by owl (in the magic world of J. K. Rowling, owls deliver the mail) and then by Sorting Hat; in the current volume it comes from the Goblet of Fire, smoldering and shedding glamorous sparks. How nice to be invited to the ball! Even for a relatively old codger like me, it's still nice to be invited to the ball.
Stephen King - New York Times Book Review
Once again, Rowling packs the pages with witty and imaginative ideas.... Fourth year report? Another fine year, Ms Rowling. Three more to go and it looks as though your OWLS (Ordinary Wizarding Levels) results will be terrific.
Sarah Johnson - Times (London)
[T]his is storytelling of a high order indeed. It draws the reader in with a riddle and a letter. It proceeds through a series of trials to a great confrontation. And it concludes with a death and a climactic resolution. E.M. Forster famously observed that, 'Yes—oh dear, yes—the novel tells a story'. HP IV is the apotheosis of 'story.'
Robert McCrum - Guardian
Keeps up the awesome inventiveness, deadpan humor and gripping pace of previous installments.... As usual, Rowling flawlessly knits her plotlines together, with seemingly casual early details taking on meaningful force by the end.
Rebekah Denn - Seattle Post-Intelligencer
This fourth volume of Harry's adventures at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is up to the high standards of its predecessors, full of fantasy, suspense, humor and horror. All the familiar characters are back—Harry's faithful friends Ron and Hermione (she takes on the cause of enslaved house-elves here), professors both kind and nasty, and Moaning Myrtle the ghost, among others—and there are some new characters, too, like the half-giantess Madame Maxime, a little house-elf named Winky, and "Mad-Eye" Moody, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. And defense is needed; because Harry's great enemy Lord Voldemort has risen again, with a new plot to kill Harry. There is a Quidditch World Cup, to supply some sports action, and even more important for Harry, a dangerous Triwizard Tournament in which he is a competitor. At 14, Harry and his friends are starting to mature, and boy-girl relationships are beginning to play a role in their lives, making this book of even greater interest to the YA audience. For all libraries. —Paula Rohrlick
KLIATT
Even without the unprecedented media attention and popularity her magical series has attracted, it would seem too much to hope that Rowling could sustain the brilliance and wit of her first three novels. Astonishingly, Rowling seems to have the spell-casting powers she assigns her characters: this fourth volume might be her most thrilling yet.
The novel opens as a confused Muggle overhears Lord Voldemort and his henchman, Wormtail (the escapee from book three, Azkaban) discussing a murder and plotting more deaths (and invoking Harry Potter's name); clues suggest that Voldemort and Wormtail's location will prove highly significant.
From here it takes a while (perhaps slightly too long a while) for Harry and his friends to get back to the Hogwarts school, where Rowling is on surest footing. Headmaster Dumbledore appalls everyone by declaring that Quidditch competition has been canceled for the year, then he makes the exciting announcement that the Triwizard Tournament is to be held after a cessation of many hundred years (it was discontinued, he explains, because the death toll mounted so high). One representative from each of the three largest wizardry schools of Europe (sinister Durmstrang, luxurious Beauxbatons and Hogwarts) are to be chosen by the Goblet of Fire; because of the mortal dangers, Dumbledore casts a spell that allows only students who are at least 17 to drop their names into the Goblet. Thus no one foresees that the Goblet will announce a fourth candidate: Harry. Who has put his name into the Goblet, and how is his participation in the tournament linked, as it surely must be, to Voldemort's newest plot?
The details are as ingenious and original as ever, and somehow (for catching readers off-guard must certainly get more difficult with each successive volume) Rowling plants the red herrings, the artful clues and tricky surprises that disarm the most attentive audience. A climax even more spectacular than that of Azkaban will leave readers breathless; the muscle-building heft of this volume notwithstanding, the clamor for book five will begin as soon as readers finish installment four.
Publishers Weekly
As the bells and whistles of the greatest prepublication hoopla in children's book history fade, what's left in the clearing smoke is—unsurprisingly, considering Rowling's track record—another grand tale of magic and mystery, of wheels within wheels oiled in equal measure by terror and comedy, featuring an engaging young hero-in-training who's not above the occasional snit, and clicking along so smoothly that it seems shorter than it is. Good thing, too, with this page count. That's not to say that the pace doesn't lag occasionally—particularly near the end when not one but two bad guys halt the action for extended accounts of their misdeeds and motives—or that the story lacks troubling aspects. As Harry wends his way through a fourth year of pranks, schemes, intrigue, danger and triumph at Hogwarts, the racial and class prejudice of many wizards moves to the forefront, with hooded wizards gathering to terrorize an isolated Muggle family in one scene while authorities do little more than wring their hands. There's also the later introduction of Hogwarts' house elves as a clan of happy slaves speaking nonstandard English. These issues may be resolved in sequels, but in the meantime, they are likely to leave many readers, particularly American ones, uncomfortable. Still, opening with a thrilling Quidditch match, and closing with another wizardly competition that is also exciting, for very different reasons, this sits at the center of Rowling's projected seven volume saga and makes a sturdy, heartstopping (doorstopping) fulcrum for it.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire:
1. When Harry's name mysteriously emerges from the Goblet of Fire why won't anyone believe him when he says that he didn't submit it himself? Dumbledore, in particular, seems angry with Harry for the first time. Ron and Harry's friendship suffers until after the first challenge. These two people had never questioned Harry before, so why now? Should they have known that there was an outside force involved?
2. Harry has always had an instinct to help others. He informs Cedric that the first challenge in the Triwizard Tournament involves dragons and he rescues Fleur's sister from the lake though it means he will not win the challenge. How does this instinct help him in the tournament and how does it hurt him? Why does Harry risk his own chances of winning?
3. When was the first time you suspected Mad-Eye Mooney might be dangerous?
4. The maze challenge is the only in the tournament to take place at night. How does this setting change the mood of the story? What would have changed if it had taken place in daylight?
5. Hermione learns that Rita Skeeter is an unregistered Animagus that is able to turn into a beetle. Recall the instances when Harry and friends mentioned the presence of a pesky bug.
6. Lupin once said about Azkaban prison, "They don't need walls and water to keep the prisoners in, not when they're traped inside their own heads, incapable of a single cheerful thought. Most go mad within weeks." How are Sirius Black, in The Prisoner of Azkaban, and Barty Crouch Jr. able to devise clever plans and escape when all other prisoners are practically lifeless?
7. Although money has always been uncomfortably tight for the Weasley family, Harry has never offered to share his inheritence with them before, even though at times he wanted to. What makes him decide to give his tournament winnings to Fred and George to open a joke shop?
8. In the graveyard Voldemort reveals that on the night he killed Harry's parents, Harry survived because of his mother's sacrifice. He explained, "His mother died in the attempt to save him—and unwittingly provided him with a protection that I admit I had not foreseen.... I could not touch the boy." (p. 652). Because he survived that attack, Harry has been labeled as a great wizard. Has he truly earned that title?
9. This was the first of the Harry Potter series to be released at the same time in the UK and the United States. It attracted more attention because of a pre-publication statement from Rowling that one of the characters would be murdered in this book. Why did Rowling do this? If you knew this, did it change the way you read the book?
10. What are some loose ends left open that need to be resolved in the last three books? Does Rowling successfully balance The Goblet of Fire having it's own satisfying ending and leaving questions unanswered for the rest of the series?
11. The final chapter of The Goblet of Fire is tittled "The Beginning." What is beginning and what has ended? What challenges do you predict Harry and his friends will face in the fifth book, The Order of the Phoenix?
(Questions by Katherine O'Connor of LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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