bullying (5)

Book Review: One Second

Book Review:
Any Second by Kevin Emerson
Pub. date: November 20, 2018
Read courtesy of netgalley.com

5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review!
I cannot wait to get this book for my high school's library!

My students are taught to be an upstander instead of a bystander. In Any Second, Maya did this... and beyond. Kevin Emerson wrote a story that is both unique and scarily possible, which is what makes it such a compelling read.

Emerson did a great job with the pace of the storytelling and the points at which the narrator's focus switched between Maya and Eli. There was also enough detail to create mental pictures without being grossed-out to the point at which the story's narrative could have been overshadowed by the horror of the circumstances. There was enough to make the reader squirm without having to be told the minutia of Eli's torture and captivity.

The author created an atmosphere that allowed the reader to be drawn into Maya's and Eli's decision making. As a reader I was being told things each character couldn't know, and since I had no way of telling them, I had tension, sympathy, relief, anxiety, and hope right along with them.

The main characters had consistently true personalities, which helped this reader connect with the plot and action. The minor characters never felt extraneous and were used well to move the story forward. One Second will appeal to many different kinds of readers and could be recommended to readers of realistic fiction as well as of action/adventure or suspense fiction.

[The only negative critique -- a hiccup I encountered -- is in chapter 17, where Eli contemplates "how some commentators said Eli's disappearance would have been a bigger deal if he'd been white." Emerson has already made the book uber-inclusive (ex., religion, sexual orientation, gender roles, class, etc.), so this one line struck me as intrusive to the flow of the story, an extraneous or obvious attempt to highlight what the author had already made clear about Eli's ethnicity when discussing Eli's names.]

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Book Review: The Stone Rainbow

The Stone Rainbow
by Liane Shaw
Pub Date: 17 Sep 2019  
Read courtesy of NetGalley.com

My first note to myself early in the book was, "As a straight person, I've been curious about this. Maybe I'll find out," in reaction to Jack wondering how to find out if someone he might be interested in is gay or not.   It ends up that I don't explicitly "find out," due mainly to the fact that there's nothing to "find out." One simply asks someone, no different than a straight person finds out if a straight person is interested in return -- and sometimes the person isn't straight! People are people! (I also didn't find out because Jack's crush, Benjamin, isn't shy about liking other guys.)

The author's message is clear throughout the book. "I don't live in a fantasy land where being gay is easy. It should be. I don't know why it isn't. Why would anyone care who I decide to spend time with?" and "I'll always have a different heaven from hers. In her heaven, everyone starts fresh, reborn into something better than before. Blind men can see, and the lame can walk...and I would guess the gays become "straight" if they make it that far." [Powerful in the declaration that some see "straight" people as better than "gay" people, that "straight" is something to aspire to.] And the more obvious parade rally cry, "Kindness rules": "If everyone just decides to treat everyone else with kindness, it all goes away. Intolerance,, disrespect, racism, homophobia, misogyny, bullying...all wiped out with one simple command. Be kind."

At first I thought this was just a romance novel, which felt a little light and fluffy and not holding my attention, but it took a more serious turn. I found myself immediately drawn into things that happen in real life... and I cannot believe people do this to others. But they do, and the author offered a way to counteract violence with grace.  This story didn't need to be written in great literary prose in order for a clear message and interesting story to come through.

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Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your AssYaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass by Meg Medina
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Thanks to Rory and the Goodreads Group, YA Reads For Teachers (And Any Other Adults) for this MUST read book, Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick your Ass by Meg Medina. From the first sentence, “Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick your Ass” (just like the title) to the last sentence, “And I’ve found my rhythm at last-strong and simple, constant and mine,” I was riveted and sickened by Piddy Sanchez’s plight of being in a new school and being threatened by a bully on the first day. Piddy doesn’t know Yaqui and therefore is clueless about why Yaqui is out to get her. Yaqui has a group of girls who terrorize Piddy at school and at her after school job. Worse to come is the brutal fight when Yaqui and her terrorists surprise Piddy on her way home from school, beat her to a pulp, and film the fight as they tear off her shirt. Piddy never tells her mother what has happened (she tells her mother she fell on the steps) but she does confide in her aunt and makes her swear not to tell anyone. As a result of this fight, Piddy loses herself. She begins to fail her classes, cut school, and her personality begins to change. What will happen to Piddy? This is a book for all high school students; one girl’s life was drastically changed as a result of the continued harassment she endured. I highly recommend it for all readers (plus reluctant readers and those who enjoy urban fiction), teachers, and parents. The author suffered through something similar in junior high and this book reaches out to teens and helps them find their dignity again.

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Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner

Maggot MoonMaggot Moon by Sally Gardner
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I read this Prince Honor book as part of the 2014 Hub Challenge and oh did I like it! The world that Miles Standish lives in is scary, bleak, and brutal. Miles is different and for that reason he has no friends and is bullied constantly by students AND teachers. Miles has one blue eye and one brown eye and "can't read, can't write, Miles Standish isn't bright." One day a family moves into Zone 7, the burned out, bombed block aptly named Zone 7 where only the ostracized live- and this family, Hector and his mom and dad, The Lushes, have a secret. The Lushes become like family to Miles and his grandfather. Hector stops the bullies in school from their constant assaults and provides the only light, true friendship, in Miles life. It is Hector who helps Miles stand up to the Motherland. The chapters are short, I couldn't stop turning the pages, and even more disturbing are the illustrations of maggots, flies and rats appearing on the pages with their own story.


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Rotters by Daniel Kraus

RottersRotters by Daniel Kraus
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Joey Crouch is a straight-A student who lives with his mom in Chicago when she is suddenly and horribly killed by a bus. Child Services locates his father; Joey‘s mom has never told Joey anything about him. Imagine arriving in Bloughton, Iowa; your father is nowhere for 3 days; there is no food in the hovel he lives in and it is filthy and filled with old newspapers. Joey gets himself to school and finds students hate him because his father is a garbage man. Joey’s horror story begins and we follow, unable to turn away when we learn his father is a grave robber, that there is a long line of insurrectionists; and one particularly crazy one, Boggs will stop at nothing to destroy Joey and his dad. Along the way you will learn the history of grave robbers, the methods of burials and lots about rats, maggots, death, and decomposition. Joey is so miserable in school with bullying he begins to join his father and learn his trade. You can’t turn away as you follow along with Joey Crouch and meet many unforgettable characters !


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