Parenthetical

A colleague sent me this article from Rethinking Schools: “Save the Muslim girl!”, about the presentation of Afghan and Pakistani girls in modern YA lit. The most popular and critically acclaimed include Deborah Ellis’ Breadwinner trilogy and Suzanne Fisher Staples’ Under the Persimmon Tree, both written by white women and “featur[ing] a young heroine trapped [...]

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Editor Roger Sutton blogs about a new n-word-free edition of Huck Finn, and includes his eloquent 1984 column about an earlier edition that did the same thing: Huck, by Wallace, doesn’t believe “He was a mighty good n____*, Jim was.” Instead, “He was a mighty good man, Jim was.” In Twain’s book, Huck, expressing approval [...]

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5 out of 5! Reggie has big dreams for his school, but Clarke Junior School isn’t stepping up. His classmates are more interested in helping themselves than helping each other, and besides, nobody listens to Reggie anyway after an unfortunate incident on the first day of school left him with the nickname “Pukey.” With help [...]

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After the discussion of trilogies (and Martini-Corona’s eternal John Christopher obsession), I decided this project wouldn’t be complete without a Tripod book. The Tripod trilogy (…heh) might have been the first major YA science fiction trilogy, and is certainly a classic. If you somehow missed these books, the premise is that aliens invade, in giant [...]

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Sorry it’s been awhile. Fortunately the 7th grade trip to New York was not apocalyptic in the slightest. Anyway, speaking of New York, it’s the setting of today’s old-school apocalypse! In the future, everyone lives in vast suburban Tracts in little boxes made of ticky-tacky. All Cities have been evacuated and sealed, deemed too filthy [...]

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1. No Brownies at Bake Sales, but Doritos May Be O.K. raised my blood pressure way more than a whole plate of brownies (mmm… brownies): Nine months after effectively banning most fund-raising food sales in city schools, a city panel will vote Wednesday on an amended regulation that will allow student groups to sell items [...]

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Now that the Cybils winners are all official ‘n stuff, I can review the finalists from the Middle Grade Fantasy & Science Fiction category. Here they are, in one speedy blowout: The Prince of Fenway Park, Julianna Baggott Check this premise, people: the famous Curse on the Red Sox is a real curse, brought on [...]

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Why do we often find it so hard to criticize the stories we love? Why do we feel we have to deny their flaws in order to love them? (*cough*Twilight*cough*) I just read an excellent article by Mitali Perkins in the April School Library Journal, “Straight Talk on Race”. She designates five questions to consider [...]

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The kids are always horrified by this, but sometimes we get rid of books. Usually there’s a good reason. Sometimes there’s a very, very good reason. I want to share with you some of the best that cross my desk on their way to the “free books” cart… Crosbie, John S. Crosbie’s Dictionary of Puns. [...]

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