Small Damages has grown on me, especially
when reflecting on it after reading the final page.
Kenzie is a
senior in high school, which should be a highlight of her life, and it is.
However, she also has to contend with the fact that she is pregnant. Her mother’s answer to this “dilemma” is to
send her to Spain to a cortijo to be cared for, to deliver, and to not be a
disgrace to the family and social network.
A teen mother and child out of wedlock is simply not something Kenzie’s
mother could handle, and certainly not something she believes, nor wants, Kenzie
doing on her own.
Kenzie does a lot
of soul-searching while in the countryside of Spain and away from her friends
and boyfriend who are enjoying their summer on the shore. She thinks adoption is the best way to go,
but truly is conflicted about what to do – what really is the right choice for
her to make. In the comfort and safety
of Spain and its people, Kenzie learns about love, loss, and healing through
the meals she cooks with Estela, the horses and quiet nature of Esteban, and
the music and stories of the Gypsies.
Kenzie has to deal with a mature reality that she doesn’t think she is
ready to endure. Yet, it is beautiful
Spain and these strangers that become family for Kenzie, and, thus, teach her more about herself and
support her to make her life decision.
What appears to
be a simple story is a story with deeper meaning than meets the eye. It’s a a story that provides insight into the
emotional and psychological realities of life, no matter teenager or adult, and
linger after the book is closed.
Since reflecting on the themes, and I've found myself appreciating the book..One of my favorite quotes is: "Don't judge, my father said.. "Evaluate. Evaluate, especially youreslf, because no decision is a decision until the action has been made" (275). Though, I still don't understand the cover art. The title, cover art, and story don't mesh for me.
How does one solve a mystery that has endured almost 150
years? Why is a secret sustained for so long? Award winning author David O.
Stewart ably seeks to explore the question of who was really behind Lincoln’s
1865 assassination in The Lincoln Deception.
This historical mystery is set in 1900 and provides numerous
details about John Wilkes Booth and possible conspiracies related to Lincoln’s
death. It explores the relationship
between Jamie Fraser (a white doctor from Ohio) and Speed Cook (an educated
black man trying to become a journalist) as their adventures unfold and they try
to trust each other. In describing this “rocky partnership,” the author says, “America
was a very racist place in 1900; the Jim Crow segregation laws were spreading…”
As a reader, both the mystery of who wanted Lincoln to be killed and the
struggle to form a friendship across racial lines were fascinating and I will
recommend the book as a possible selection for Junior Theme. I read it as an eBook and found myself often
turning to quick online research for background on historical characters such
as Stanton, Seward, or Lucy Lambert Hale Chandler. For students and general readers, I therefore think
the book could benefit from a brief description – with cameo images – of historical
characters or even from including a brief timeline of key Civil War events.
Surely this book will itself eventually become a movie, but
classes could consider pairing it with excerpts from Robert Redford’s film The
Conspirator for added sense of the time period’s speech and dress. Other
titles by this author include the non-fiction works Summer of 1787, Impeached, and American Emperor, any of which may also appeal to our Junior
Theme writers and researchers.
If you are still reeling from the twists and turns in Wein’s
award-winning Code Name Verity, look for Rose under Fire, a companion
novel. We meet Rose Justice, an American teenager and volunteer civilian pilot
during WWII who is captured over France by the Nazis and ultimately sent to
Ravensbruck, a women's concentration camp.
Told through journal entries which describe appalling
conditions, this novel is darker and yet even better in some ways than Code Name
Verity. Once again, Elizabeth Wein has aptly crafted a story of WWII – with
flashbacks and foreshadowing. No incident that Wein shares with us is wasted … fuses
and hands… aerial ramming… the technical
descriptions and images fill your mind.
Wein’s books do take patience and slowly build to a place
where the reader truly empathizes with the characters. It was difficult to
think about the day to day sacrifice and hardship associated with the camps…
perhaps that is why the writer carefully provides such detailed descriptions –
truly pulling her readers into the place and time period.
I was struck not only by the power of this story but by the
many connections it raised, especially to poetry and art. I liked the reference to the embroidery, the
paper airplanes and other efforts the prisoners made to find beauty in their
circumstances … they made me think of similar efforts by other groups of prisoners (for example, see
Art of Gaman about Japanese Internment at that same time period or the Return
with Honor exhibit of works by Vietnam-era POWs at National Museum of the U.S.
Air Force). And Rose’s poetry and “counting-out
rhymes” connected for me with the modern day Landays
shared by women in Afghanistan. If you
want to develop this connection with your students, more information on that is
available through Poetrymagazine or the Poetry
Foundation.
Yes, Rose Under Fire is dark and heavy in telling of
the “Rabbits,” Polish political prisoners who were victims of medical
experiments. Yet, Wein wants Rose and us
to soar, to TELL THE WORLD, much like Rabbi Joachim Prinz did
50 years ago at the March on Washington when he said, “the most tragic problem
is silence.”
A “hot and gritty” story aimed at older teens, this
novel centers on Callie who was kidnapped at age five and lived a dozen years on the run with
her Mom until they are discovered and Callie is returned to her dad – and his
extended Greek family – in Florida. Callie struggles with the transition and
questions her identity: “Granddaughter, daughter, friend, a girl a normal boy
would date -- a growing list of people I don’t know how to be.”
While I enjoyed reading Where the Stars Still Shine and found the colorful cover
especially appealing, I also struggled with some aspects of the story:
·Why did Callie not receive
any counseling?
·Was her Dad so afraid of losing
her again that he could not bring himself to put any limits on her behavior?
·Or was this just an aspect
of his personality and how he had treated her Mom in the past?
Doller raises these and other questions as she chronicles Callie’s
difficulties in building friendships and relationships. Teens will relate to Callie’s
confusion and Doller’s everyday example like choosing an ice cream cone to
illustrate Callie’s efforts to define her loyalties (should she pick the flavor
she always chose with her Mom or something new?). Readers looking for similar themes
may also like Just One Day by Forman, Rules of Survival by Werlin
or Story of a Girl by Zarr.
What did it feel
like on the beaches and marching inland in the days and weeks after D-Day? Invasion is another excellent novel by
Walter Dean Myers about the hardships and moral dilemmas faced by soldiers
during war. This time he has chosen to
focus on World War II and tells the story primarily through the eyes of soldier
Josiah (“Woody”) Wedgewood.
Myers aptly uses
scenes of war to show how the soldiers will never be the same again. He provides
his readers with plenty of action and a sense of the shock and horror of
war.Even still, we see soldiers trying
to cope: “Two first downs and I would be all right,” thinks Woody as he
prepares to cross open fields. Woody’s internal dialogue (“I thought about God
more than I ever had.” and “My reactions weren’t thought out any more – they just
happened.”) will help readers empathize with the soldiers.
While Myers
alludes to self-inflicted wounds, possible court-martial for disobeying orders,
and the futility of taking a now-deserted town, he focuses primarily on the
action that Woody sees. Marcus Perry, a
character in Invasion who is black and related to soldiers in Myers’
other novels (Fallen Angels or Sunrise over Fallujah), does not
have his story fully developed.If you
are looking for more about racial discrimination at the time try Mudbound
by Jordan or Flygirl by Sherri Smith.
Myers’ Invasion
should have a map and I would definitely show some documentary footage if I was
teaching this book with middle or high school students. Pair this with novels
also set in the 1940’s: Eyes of the
Emperor, Code Name Verity, When the Emperor was Divine -- literature
circles focusing on the European Theatre, the Homefront, and Pacific Campaign
would have much to share and to teach each other.
