The Graveyard Book

I'm not entirely sure what this post is supposed to be about, so I hope I'm on the right track.

From the novels we've read so far, The Graveyard Book probably falls somewhere in the middle on my scale. I liked it, and even laughed sometimes, but I think it would have been better if the ending had been different.

At first I thought the idea of a living child being brought up by ghosts and other mythical creatures was crazy, but then I found it endearing. I felt really bad for Bod, aka Nobody--just the name sounds so alone (well, obviously). This poor kid has no idea what it's like to be alive or how to live. The only part of the ending I liked was this aspect. Bod leaving the cemetery after slowly losing the ability to see/hear the dead was sad. Here he's leaving everything he's known, and he has hardly an idea of what to expect. I don't know what Silas is thinking, just letting him go off on his own without any kind of guidance. I barely understand how things work right now.

My favorite moment, though, was probably the scenes when Bod was in school or dealing with the bullies. I want to call it his brave innocence.

As to why I wasn't a fan of the ending was how rushed it seemed. One second we're dealing with life and then Jack and his super secret ancient society is chasing down Bod and Scarlet. Um, what? All of sudden we're dealing with the Jack of All Trades, and I actually started laughing at the name. But then again it is for kids around 10 years old.

Before class on Thursday that I found about Neil Gaiman talking about writing this book. I like hearing the inspiration and the process of writing it, so I thought other people might like it, too.

The Book Thief

So, I want to talk about Death.

He was interesting, especially because Markus Zusak chose Death as the narrator. In the critical reading we read, the writer talked a little bit about authors choosing narrators and point of view for their novels and the stories within them. It's a very important decision, in my opinion, especially with young adult lit, since much of the readers are obviously young and need an interesting and compelling narrator to keep reading on.

Markus Zusak could have gone with Liesal as the sole narrator of The Book Thief. However, I don't think that it would have had as much impact without Death. Of course, Death is omniscient and we, as the readers, can see the thoughts and action of most characters within the novel, which gives it a certain depth that we probably wouldn't get any other way. We get to see those moments with Max and Papa and Rosa that Liesal doesn't get to see, and their characters would have been lost to us without that knowledge of those events surrounding them. The POV is kind of weird in this novel, since the narrator is omniscient but at the same time he references himself as I. It's like an omniscient first person. (Is that even a thing? Or is there a third person POV that allows for the I?)

Using Death is also very fitting in relation to the time period that the novel takes place in. Everyone knows that millions of people died during WWII and the Holocaust. Because death was so prevalent in those times it would only make sense to use Death. It's ironic, in a way, that Death should focus on a living girl who loses most of the people she loves.

The irony Death uses in the novel is hilariously sad. At one point he says, "It kills me sometimes, how people die." I had to put down the book for a moment and absorb the sentence.  But it was phrases like that one that made me love Death as a narrator so much.

Leonardo da Vinci once said, "Our lives are made by the death of others."

I feel like that's accurate, especially for Liesal.

A Northern Light

To be honest, A Northern Light was the first young adult historical fiction novel I read (I'm having a lot of firsts in this class, it seems), and I actually quite enjoyed it.

But the novel both disappointed me and exceeded my expectations.

In the back blurb, it says that it takes place in the backdrop of the famous murder of Grace Brown. I thought that it would be like a typical mystery novel (set in the early 1900s), i.e. that Mattie discovers the body and has these letters and the entire novels is about her going on a hunt to find the man who killed Grace. In the words of Sara V., I assumed Mattie would be like a Nancy Drew. But that's not what happened. At all. I liked that it didn't focus completely on the murder because then it would have been like an equation that could be easily solved and I would have ended up bored. Instead Jennifer Donnelly gave us super small snippets of what happened around Grace's death. The novel focuses on what happened with Mattie before going to the Glenwood and meeting Grace. We see Mattie stressing about her future and her father and food and her dreams and her struggles between doing what's right for her versus what her family needs. Usually that stuff would have seemed boring to me, but it wasn't. Donnelly also managed to interweave events around the murder to events that happened in Mattie life before in a way that connected them, which was interested.

Even though I liked having the background, I wish I had more about Grace's death and Grace herself. And it was a little confusing not having a linear timeline, but after a few chapters I managed to figure out the system.

I could relate a lot to Mattie and the balance between my own dreams versus what my family needs/wants. She seemed very real to me, like a real person. And she was a realistic girl from that time period. I could believe her actions. The only times I wanted to throw the book against the wall was any scene with Royal. I hate jerks. Their whole relationship reminded me of Belle and Gaston's relationship in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Actually, Mattie is a lot like Belle.

Weaver was my favorite character. His relationship with his mother, I thought, was excellent. He was strong and funny and caring and wanted what was best for Mattie. He was smart enough to use language against the people he hates to make them think he is less than he is just so he can teach them a lesson.

The use of words in the novel was fantastic. Words are so, so powerful. We know that, but a lot of people don't. To Mattie, words are her hope. She got into college with them; she found herself in the words left behind by Grace Brown; she tests feminist boundaries with them.

Right now I am in an obsessive phase with quotes, so I'm going to end this long post with one. I think it fits Mattie well.

"The art of living lies in the fine line of letting go and holding on." ~ Henry Ellis

Looking For Alaska

I like John Green because he writes in a very realistic teen voice type of way. Reading Looking For Alaska, I found myself smiling because Pudge or the Colonel sounded just like me when I was a teen, at least in terms of what they say. Sometimes I still think I think or speak the way John Green's characters do, but that might be because I'm not even 20 yet (*sigh*).

While Looking For Alaska had its good and bad, I think lots of teenagers could/have/will relate to it. The critical reading talked about readers identifying themselves with young adult novels; I did as an adolescent. But I think it's important to point out that teenagers won't necessarily relate to this novel only because of the death (though that's a biggie), but also because of things like crushes, those annoying things called feelings, friendship, family, fun, and discovering oneself.

That's part of the reason why I liked Pudge as the main character, since he goes through all those things within the course of the novel. The biggest things for me in high school was friends. I left the Brainerd school district in March of 5th grade to go to New Ulm, left there for Anoka in the middle of 9th grade, stayed for two months, and then went back up to Brainerd for 10th grade, and then in 11th grade went to the local community college as a PSEO student. Each move I had to make new friends--in Anoka, I didn't even have anyone to sit with at lunch, and looking back, I wish I become friends with other people. So I understand Pudge's struggle with friendship. Other teens would understand, too, and relate on a level that might have an impact on them.

And then there are the teens that might identify with the Colonel, Alaska, Lara/Lera/whatever her name is. So despite whatever your opinion on it, John Green's book rates relatively high on the relatability scale.

Impactful Paper

I *think* we were supposed to post this...anyway, here it it:

I was not prepared for how I would feel rereading Pretties, the second book in the Uglies trilogy; they were probably the most influential books I had read that shaped how I read. It’s not a fantastic read, but at the age of eleven or twelve, I thought it was genius. Deep down, I had hoped rereading it as a nineteen-year-old senior in college would have the same effect on me as it did as a tween. Of course that wasn’t the case, but it wasn’t terrible. There was equal amount of disappointment and enlightenment.

            The first time I read it I was young—perhaps a little too young. I put it on my bookcase and picked it up again a year or so later. The second time around, I devoured the entire trilogy. I read it and reread it over and over again for two weeks straight, only leaving my bedroom to go to the bathroom or get food, and then promptly go back to bed to read some more. It was like an addiction, something I couldn’t control. The dystopian world Scott Westerfeld created absorbed me, fascinated me. The physical and emotional experiences the characters went through seemed so large. I loved the escape reading Uglies gave me. My life at the time was all over the place and some major changes were happening. Tally, the protagonist, also went through some major changes. (Literally. Like body-altering changes.) While we were in completely separate situations, we were both going through tough parts of life. We needed to adapt.

            After my Uglies ammo ran out, I moved on to other books. Twilight, I’m reluctant to say, was one of the reads that I became obsessed with—I was at the perfect age when it became huge. But despite my temporary adolescent idiocy, I began to read more than I ever had after reading the Uglies Trilogy. They may not have been great books I was reading, but at the time I needed that commercial quality that outpoured after Twilight. It’s eight years later and, while I’ve learned the difference between good writing and bad writing, I still read commercial books that give me that feeling of escape I first felt while reading Uglies.

            While I unfortunately didn’t have the first book in the series (who knows where it went), I was still excited to reread Pretties. A part of me prepared for what my brain would digest, like clichés and character development and relationships, but I was surprised when I wanted to chuck the book against the wall. I almost did. Fifty pages in and Tally is kissing someone who is not David! My inner romantic, childish-self still loves the first love interest, even though, at age twelve, I rooted for the second love interest, Zane. But after having grown up and learning about the dos and don’ts of writing and storytelling, I just about gave up on the book when kissing was going on with some guy she’d just met fifty pages in. I also rolled my eyes a lot at some of the cheesy lines.

            Despite the above, there were some aspects of the book I rediscovered and loved. Mostly, these were world building aspects. Scott Westerfeld created a world after the apocalypse and referenced certain features of today’s society that made me think. “Rusties” is the term used for us. Several lines or passages either made me smile at the ironic truth Tally noted or made me seriously consider if I should worry more than I already am about our world. There’s a point in the novel where Tally is walking through the “Rusty Ruins” and observes skeletons crumbling in rusted automobiles, withering away after a plague made petroleum burst into flame. She comments on how, despite the knowledge of the plague, people still went into their cars to drive away from it, but then died before they could. I stopped reading at this point and thought, “A lot of people really would do that.” Fear can make idiotic choices. At age twelve I didn’t have the brain connections to understand what Westerfeld was trying to say. But now I do. And it’s kind of scary.

            I think I got a lot more reading the second time around. While there were parts that made me want to gag or beat the book against the wall to get rid of the stupid moments, I could appreciate the underlying conflicts, morals and social commentary in the story. The good and interesting bits outweighed the terrible romance. The image of a burned, crumbling skeleton is etched into my brain for a long time.

Disturbing the Universe

With the "Do I Dare" reading, I am soooo not touching the super long E and B words. So instead I'm going to talk about power. More specifically: who has it, who wants it, and how do you get it.

Dante, I think, is a good example of power in young adult literature.

In the reading, the author talks about the types of power--the "power to" and "power over." Society is most definitely a "power over" authority, in which it dominates over everything. The common force behind society pressures people--especially adolescents--to meld with the crowd, do what is considered normal (if there is such a thing) and if you cannot abide by the laws which society has laid out, you will be shunned. Society forces its power on people, sometimes without them even knowing. This allows for a kind of harmony. The author of "Do I Dare" mentioned Foucault contrasting two different ideas, something about how individuals will relinquish what power they have to society in order to live in this harmony, and the other idea being that people are repressed by this forceful domination. I think there's truth to both. I think Ari shows some traits of them.

Dante is more of a "power to" kind of kid in the way that he has the power to free himself from the constraints of society. From the get-go he stands out, not because he's trying to stand out but because that's simply the way he is. It's easier for Dante to let go of society's norms because of many reasons that can be debated. Dante has power; it comes from within him. Empowerment. Ari's power grows over the course of the novel. Some powers are hidden deeper than others.

That's not a bad thing.

The only problem with having empowerment is with incidents like Dante and the kids who beat him to a pulp. Some people are so scared or so angry of people who fray from the dominance of society that they will do whatever it takes to make them normal again. But there are always those people who will do what they want because that is what they are supposed to do. People like Dante. And because of people like Dante, with the capability to free themselves and others, they help people like Ari to find power.

Now I'm going to let the night have power over me. Goodnight, y'all.