Do you have any more words like “searing"?

In Wintertgirls, Laurie Halse Anderson disassembles a very troubled teenager. It’s almost a therapy session, but one page into it, we can’t help but like and almost admire her protagonist, Lia. And soon, very soon, be terribly afraid of her.

Lia’s very good at convincing herself that she’s wrong. Her interior battles take place in interior monologues with strikeout text, bursts of self-loathing, and very bad decisions. Her outward impulses are generous and thoughtful. However, she is trapped in an echo chamber that is coming to light more these days.

She is dying from words.

The brilliance of the book is that it makes for a great read. I’m resisting any adjectives like “searing” because they fall short, and are overused. There is a fishhook quality to this book. I flinched on every page, and couldn’t escape needing to know the outcome. The bait was constantly replenished, too – deft characterization (I knew who Elijah was the moment he appeared), hard scenery (every place is a place we’ve seen, often in pain), and high tension.

Anderson’s book is more than brilliant. It’s also good. It’s part of what should be a national conversation about the terrifying new stresses our social and media environment puts on teens. Maybe we shouldn’t complain so much. Our distant ancestors lived, if they were fortunate, to the ripe, old age of 25 or 30. Kids today (don’t read this in a “get off my lawn” voice), at least in most of the developed world, do not want for physical comfort, food, educational opportunities. The disparities of wealth and access to power that do exist are even highlighted by some as examples of how wealthy we are.

So why should we be concerned with girls who have negative self-images? what is the difference between body image issues and self-esteem?

Low self-esteem weeds the winners from the losers. This is very useful if you need to cull the children in order to have enough food for adults, and if the adults all have to be hard as nails. We have drifted from that – well, for some, it’s an ideal – to the principle that happiness is a human’s right, at least to pursue, if not obtain. And if we’re all equal (again with the Enlightenment ideals), then we should stop culling ther children, and let them develop in their happy differences.

In so many respects, this works. We have consumer-protection laws that reduce the incidence of lead in children’s toys because it’s bad for them. We stopped accepting child labor (onshore) because we felt bad for the kids. There are foundations today focused on evening out the opportunities in schools, because we feel bad for the kids.

And bullying is making the news increasingly as a threat to our kids. It has always existed. It’s long been a concern of parents, more recently one of politicans, to restrict it, or to ignore it as natural, a way of sorting out the bosses from the followers.

One strain of bullying affects teenage girls’ self-image. And it’s not only bullying by kids against kids. It’s bullying by our entire society against kids. The reason, I think, lies in the use of concept marketing instead of product marketing.

Do you ever see a fat person drinking soda in a commercial? Do you ever see sick people going to the beach in paradise on an airline commercial? How about car ads? Drug rehab center ads on late-night tv?

We ingest a steady diet of these images, and tney become us. We are what we eat. And the difference between the ideal and the real causes pain to some, and is a stick others (bullies) use against them.

Anderson’s Lia is that girl. She’s trapped. She doesn’t need the bikini models to tormet her anymore. She is so far past them, she can taunt them instead.

If you can face Lia’s demons, you ought to give this book a read.

Bad luck for paper-bound publishers?

Alex Knapp at Forbes.com asks, "Are Apps the Future of Book Publishing?"

I think he begins by assuming the affirmative, and proceeds by asking which type of app.

I work in the paper-bound book publishing industry. I don't have a e-reader or tablet device.* I'm actually shopping for a bigger bookcase.

[*partly because my kids would never let me use it]

Knapp points out that something I've been wondering about since Myst is coming to fruition - a book type narrative that readers generate interactively. FWIW, I think that's a different type of literature from the dominant sale-scaled fiction narrative today, the novel.

(I know, Knapp didn't ask if enhanced ebooks would replace novels, but that seems to be the real, underlying question. Who really thinks that college students in 2020 will have 40-pound textbooks that are out of date when printed?)


Yes, this makes me worry about, first, the future of literacy (will we all require enhancements as well as phonics instruction?), second, my publishing job, and third, what I will do with my new, big bookcase in seven years.

It does not make me worry about the publishing industry. Boo-hoo. The fat cats have to adjust. Don't worry, they're already figuring out how to get authors and customers to foot the entire bill.

Maybe I should assemble a group of really creative people to publish enhanced content. We'll have to come up with a new genre, since "novel" is taken, "enhanced novel" sounds creepy, and "e-book" sounds so pre-millennial.

Suggestions?

note on breadth, depth

When I started blogging (was: "publishing," but that sounded like aggrandizement) thoughts about what I had read, the idea was to share the breadth of things. But who wants to read lists? (The Pillow-Book of Sei Shonagon notwithstanding - really, you should read this, and the lists are among the best points.)

Depth takes time, however, and I've been both reading and (gasp!) writing, and now that soccer season is starting, I'm coaching, too, with no letup in yardwork, commuting, or being Dad, none of which I'm great (deep) at, but breadth takes time, too.

As for breadth, I've recently (this morning) discovered behavioral economist Dan Ariely's blog, which is so well written I think I might enjoy reading more about economics.

Here are some of my other recent readings, scored on a scale of 1 (why did I bother?) to 10 (how did I live without it?):

• Scott Westerfield, Uglies. 8/10. The protagonist doesn't know she's living in a nightmare, then discovers she is, then decides to unlearn that in order to rescue everyone else. Same character age (reader appeal) as Hunger Games, but far less violent. Still, the materials is directly linked to post-puberty issues, so I don't imagine 13 year-olds would be terribly interested. Anyone who wants to disagree, please comment! 
• Orson Scott Card, "Salvage," (Wastelands). 7/10. Unreliable narrator, deep secondary characters. Unremarkable postapocalyptic scenario, but well fleshed-out. The strength here is the characters' interaction with the history and conditions of their situation. I'm embarrassed I haven't yet read Ender's Game. Going to remedy soon
• Paulo Bacigalupi, "Bread and Bombs," (Wastelands). 9/10. Wowowow. What is human? Will we survive the changes we've wrought on the world, and if we do, will we still be human? And if we aren't, will we still be able to write like this? 
• Hiroyuki Asada, Tegami Bachi (Letter Bee) vol. 3. 7/10. Asada's art is so wonderful, the world he creates so stark and mesmerizing, and the names he chooses so silly, that I've found if I just accept the silly names (Gauche Suede? Lag Seeing? Jiggy Pepper? No, really...), everything else just falls into place.

Here's another reason I was keeping the blog. I can't remember anything. What the heck else did I read? More later. I hope. 

Aftertime, by Sophie Littlefield

Aftertime is a blow-to-the-gut, first of a series by veteran mystery writer Sophie Littlefield. The world she creates is a few years or a few months in our future, but vastly changed. Cass, the protagonist, arrives lost and confused, acts in desperation and fury, squeaking through conflicts and narrowly escaping moral danger and worse. Her heart is wracked by guilt; her body is ravaged by injury and disease; her mind is clouded by both. Cass’ way is uncertain, but she is driven to pursue it full tilt.

The physical descriptions are at times evocative and purely physical—the smell of the miracle plant “kaysev” cooking, for instance—while others are emotionally wrenching to read. This is not a book for children, even the fairly big kids. The frank and unsentimental descriptions of sex, of violence, of social decay are woven into the fabric of the book. They carry the plot along. They are much of what Littlefield wants us to see about Cass.

As a result, reading Aftertime did not go quickly for me. I generally prefer somewhat younger YA fare, or speculative fiction, science-fiction, or fantasy with more magic spells and telepathic dragons. Still, I could feel the story building, the protagonist changing, the world coming into clearer, and often painful, focus. And as it did, I felt more drawn to the story, as draining an experience as it was.

The end is cathartic. It has elements in common with the end of an action flick—I half-expected to hear the music from the end of Terminator II: Judgment Day, or see plumes of evaporating dry ice meant to convince me of a fire. The disturbing parts of the story were prelude to the resolution, but it’s a resolution that leaves the way clear to sequels. There is much in Cass’ world left to accomplish—to repair, to redress—and Cass is the woman for the job.

---

[note: The author very politely points out that this is not "YA" - I've seen a lot of definitions of Young Adult lit, and this is very mature for kids, but if your young adults are twentysomethings, this is just about right; it's also okay for older people who want to feel like twentysomethings, though we have to watch out for heart stress - this is pretty powerful stuff.]

Bakuman vol. 8

I put the seventh volume of Bakuman down around November of last year, and I almost forgot how much I enjoyed it. Fortunately, I've got an Amazon gift card, so I can enjoy the convenience without the guilt of actually sending "Booktopus, Inc." any money.

Author Tsugumi Ohba and illustrator Takeshi Obata teamed up before for the big hit series Death Note, of which I was aware, but not particularly a fan. In this series, they perform an almost postmodern twist, exploring the experiences of a young author-illustrator pair publishing manga in the real-world magazine Shonen Jump, published by real-world publisher Shueisha.

It's fun seeing behind the scenes in the business while enjoying all the stagecraft of manga at the same time. In this case, it's a combination of teen angst, romance, and social drama, with 15-year-old protagonist Moritaka suddenly - unexpectedly even to him - blurting out a marriage proposal to Miho, a girl he's admired from afar for years. Just as unexpectedly, Miho accepts (through her rather grand house's intercom system, no less), but on one condition: they put off even talking in person until they both reach their goals.

Miho is an aspiring seiyuu (voice actress), and possible screen actress, and Moritaka is an aspiring mangaka.

All this takes place in an avalanche of rash decisions that walks a fine line between realistically badly thought out teenage planning and crazy fantasy.

Moritaka's writing partner is Takagi, a wise-cracking high-achiever who's really tired of being admired for getting good grades. He gets the ball rolling at the beginning of the series - by suggesting he and Moritaka team up blackmailing Moritaka into teaming up with him in the first place, and then that they go talk to Miho about their plans - and provides plenty of impetus to the plot in each volume.

As of volume 8, Takagi's girlfriend Kaya (who goes casually by her first name Miyoshi most of the time) is my favorite character. She doesn't get as much "screen time" as the other leads, but in compensation, packs a punch, often literally. Kaya is fiercely loyal, emotionally mercurial, considered tomboyish and not pretty (hard to tell in the drawings, which make her look tomboyish, voluptuous, and cute all at once), but she proves to be not only the glue holding together the friendships of some of the leads, but also a catalyst in expanding the circle of friends in unlikely ways.

I got the delivery a couple of days ago, and read the whole thing last night. I waited so long to order it, volume 9 was ready, too, so I have something more to read this weekend.

Never A Dull Moment: Body piercing? Extreme sports? Teen pregnancy? Welcome to the action-packed world of hi/lo books

It's always nice to be mentioned in print, and even though it's indirect twice-over (my company, as part of a list), it can't hurt.

Michael Sullivan, in "Never A Dull Moment: Body piercing? Extreme sports? Teen pregnancy? Welcome to the action-packed world of hi/lo books,"
describes very recent changes in the world of high-interest, low-reading-level books for struggling and reluctant readers.

High Noon Books is the classroom materials imprint of Academic Therapy Publications. Our original focus, a quarter century ago, was on skill building, but the chapter books were an afterthought. The approach was to lower the bar to struggling readers' independent reading success by using frequently-occurring, and therefore more likely to be recognized, vocabulary.

Concern with reading frustration, and studies indicating a direct link with vocabulary familiarity, led us to recently adopt a strict vocabulary level and decodability formula for our hi/lo books. We also have invested a fair amount of time and energy into raising the interest level - the excitement - of our books through revision and new writing emphasizing contemporary, real-life experiences. It's hard to write about these with simple vocabulary, but I'm glad we're not the only ones trying.

As an exercise, take a page from the sequel of a novel you've been waiting to read. Copy the page, and have someone black out every twentieth word. That's 5% - the approximate border between successful independent reading and frustration, the fine line we're trying to walk, or rather write. Then read the page, and see how well you understand it.

Makes reading fun, right?

Unfair!

It’s totally unfair of me to consider Patricia Reilly Giff’sNewberry Honor Book, Pictures of HollisWoods (Random House, 2004), alongside Tim Green’s Rivals: aBaseball Great novel (HarperCollins, 2010).

Nothing says I have to be fair, however, or that either author would benefit. 

** Note: some spoilers below

Pictures of Hollis Woods is a literary novel for tweens. I’m not sure I’ve encountered anything like it till now. Sure, we’ve all read and/or avoided the sorry-for-the-poor-kid books that read like Saturday afternoon tv specials from the 19

70s. They give me a headache, probably caused by trying to digest the frosting cliché on the middling cake of a story.

And Hollis Woods, the protagonist, is the kid from those stories. She’s an orphan, difficult, twelve, vulnerable and hard at the same time, and oh, so deserving of a better life. However, that’s not how the story reads. Here’s why I think Giff’s book is a literary novel: structure.

The title means something (there’s a concept) – in this case, it’s a device for flashbacks, delicately revealing how Hollis’s past becomes her present, and Hollis’s own contribution to her story, the scenes of her life she draws to remember, someday perhaps to understand, as well as a way she can be herself while drawing, something she yearns to do, and does with remarkable skill and vision.

The current chapters all have the same title, indicating the present day, and the flashback chapters all are about the subject of a drawing, narrating the time leading into, and after, the events Hollis depicts. Giff executes this subtly and cleverly, rendering the flashback narratives in italics, and revealing just enough to keep the story flowing toward its goal.

The end isn’t a huge surprise. It’s not supposed to be. Of course Hollis finds a family. Of course it’s the Regans. Of course Josie is part of her life. None of this is in question after page 40 or so. It’s not a mystery, but a narrative of strands weaving together just as people’s lives intertwine.

This is a delicate slip of a novel, under 170 wide-lined pages, and all fitting together neatly. The characters all matter, are all recognizeable, all memorable. It’s about the easiest thing in the world to read, vocabulary aside (and that’s not too hard). If I taught sixth grade, I might assign it to the class.

So, what’s so bad about Tim Green’s Rivals? It can’t be “unfair” to compare it to a Newberry Honor Book like Pictures of Hollis Woods without being unfair to Rivals, can it?

 

Why, yes, it can.

Green’s a master of a different type of storytelling. There are few flashbacks. There’s no fancy structure. It’s great for baseball-crazy boys, and perhaps a few girls who don’t mind that baseball stories always focus on the boys. (There’s a strong girl character in here – hoo, boy, just wait.)

And Rivals is all about twelve-year-olds, too. These kids are doing pretty well for themselves. Josh LeBlanc is a baseball prodigy, six feet tall a bit early, and a skilled batter and infielder. He makes all the plays you want to see (if you like baseball, which I don’t , but which I started to, a little, on reading this). Josh is also gifted with insight, a great coach who is also a great father, and two awesome friends – Benji, whose over-the-top self-glorifying banter is never meant nor ever received as pridefulness, and Jaden, whose feelings for Josh lurk dangerously close to the surface of their friendship, without her or Josh ever really figuring it out.

Here’s the thing: Green’s characters all matter, are all recognizeable, all memorable. Green drives the plot relentlessly forward, which takes less concentration on the part of the reader, but with twice the pagecount, there’s a lot more story. It’s rollicking good fun, with danger, adolescent angst, athletic challenges, and clever dialog. It crackles with the intensity any successful novel for tweens has to have. But reading it is not like solving a puzzle. It’s like riding a roller-coaster.

So, what’s fair or not? In truth, I’m glad I read both books. If I liked only boyish books like Rivals, would I be open to reading Pictures of Hollis Woods? And if I favored the contemplative, sparse narratives of Patricia Reilly Giff, would I be open to enjoying the driving linear narrative of Tim Green? I hope so. The unfairness comes in part from the channeling we experience, our tribalism infecting (or shaping? I guess it matters which word I choose, and I’m not sure about my choice) everything we do or think. Even with all the clever ways these authors break boundaries, by including characters, meaningfull ones, of various tribes, in their narratives, we still read the book in a genre or demographic category.

My older son is in sixth grade. I imagine a classroom like his somewhere, where a boy reads Rivals next to a girl reading Pictures of Hollis Woods. I hope they talk with each other when they’re done.