Crank Blog

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I initially read this book over the summer when the required book list for each class was registered. Upon seeing it, I thought, "Dear God, this is an entire tree." Hoping to get a long read out of the way, I began reading, only to find out that it was going to be one of the quickest reads of my life. Crank is full of free verse poems that tell the story of Kristina/Bree and her rollercoaster ride with the monster, meth. Although most wouldn't like it too much, I love the structure of some of the poems, like Flirting' With the Monster or the chapter about the tattoo. Based on the reader's interpretation, you can read certain poems in different ways that correlate to either Kristina or Bree. Also, I love how you can read Kristina/Bree's stream of consciousness alongside another character's dialogue or her own dialogue. This shows readers the character dynamic and development of Bree/Kristina as she forms her addiction and dependency towards meth.

Before exploring this novel, I never knew how young the opioid crisis went. The main character in the text is 16/17 years old and addicted to meth... this was something that was sat hard on me. I've never personally met anyone around that age with an addiction other than something "simple" like marijuana or adderall. The research infographics we explored in class were very eye-opening as to how big of an issue the opioid crisis is among teenagers.

I definitely don't see this as a text I could teach to my future middle schoolers, but if I was teaching high school this would definitely be a novel that I would add to my classroom library. I just feel like for middle schoolers, this topic is extremely heavy. From the rape scene to the main character transitioning from snorting to smoking, these are topics that most middle-school age parents do not want there children exposed to at such a young age, which I totally understand. If I were to incorporate this novel into my classroom, I would probably use it in a unit about poetry and talk about free verse and stanza structure or in a unit about figurative language and have students find imagery within certain poems.

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