English 485: Expedition Adolescence

So, I’m kind of at a loss as to what to write about this particular piece. It hardly seems fair to critique or even analyze the traumatic recollections contained in the diary. As someone who has never experienced that side of a war, or even really had my daily life impacted by one my country started elsewhere, I do not feel qualified to offer anything more than my abject horror about Zlata’s ordeal. I will say that, at the tender age of 11, Zlata already had a greater command of images and symbolism than I could ever hope to possess. Her use of irony in describing the politicians as “kids” was almost humorous. That is, until you remember that their actions are resulting in the slaughter of innocent people. “The ‘kids’ are trying to come to some agreement again. They’re drawing maps, coloring with their crayons, but I think they’re crossing out human beings, childhood and everything that’s nice and normal” (Filipovic 167).  Zlata was forced to grow up and abandon childish whimsy a...

       Although New York Times Bestseller, The Secret Life of Bees, written by Sue Monk Kidd is set in 1964, it's theme surrounding the civil rights and irrationality of racism in the American South can be closely examined to fit into today's era of racial inequality and hardships faced by African Americans. To say that it is extremely heartbreaking that excessive ideals of racism continue to exist in America, after hundreds of years of attempted change, would be the greatest understatement. If not ever, the current year of 2020 has revealed the true colors of racism that reside in the souls of white supremacists. The repeated cycle of racism through generations have continued to burden, oppress and murder the innocent lives of African Americans. Kidd highlights the issues, stereotypes and prejudices clouded around racism through the storytelling of protagonist, Lily Owens.      For starters, my favorite characteristics of Kidd's novel are the...

    The  Testing  by Joelle Charbonneau is a dystopian young adult novel that anyone of us would have enjoyed in middle school when we were going through our Hunger Games and Divergent phases. The protagonist Cia is a sixteen-year-old girl from the Five Lakes Colony who has spent her entire life studying and working hard to be chosen by the United Commonwealth for The Testing. Once selected for The Testing, Cia is required to complete four stages of rigorous testing to secure her spot in the United Commonwealth's University. The Testing turns out to be more than just your regular multiple-choice questions (think SAT/ACT but once you get done taking it you have to survive in the wilderness, travel 700 miles, and avoid getting murdered). Luckily or unluckily, depending on how you look at it, Cia is able to trust and create alliances that help her throughout her four stages. She even manages to find love in the midst of life-threatening testing, with one of her fe...

     Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson is in no way an easy book to digest. Not because it's poorly written or it has a bad story, but because Anderson takes no time in sugarcoating the very real subject of this book: Anorexia. The main character, Lia, began counting calories and restricting her diet in just eighth grade along with her, now dead, friend, Cassie.       I think what Anderson does amazingly in this novel is portray the mentality behind eating disorders. It may start with wanting to be skinny because skinny equals pretty, but it can quickly move past being pretty. Early in the book, we find the statement, "Yesterday's dirt and mistakes have moved through me. I am shiny and pink inside. Empty is good. Empty is strong" (Anderson, 7). Her mentality has nothing to do with attracting guys. She genuinely believes that being thin is good for her; that it makes her stronger. She enjoys knowing that she's the thinnest person in the room. "I meas...

     In Everything, Everything  by Nicola Yoon, the main character, Madeline Whittier, suffers from a disease known as Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (or SCID), which basically means that she is allergic to everything. Throughout the novel, we see how Madeline has had to adapt to a world where she can only experience things through books, movies, and the internet, and specifically through writing book reviews.       In the novel, Yoon uses a variety of writing styles to show us how Maddy is feeling or what she is thinking. Yoon includes graphics, lists, book reviews and many other styles of writing to help us see who Maddy truly is as a character. Through the different writing styles we are also able to understand how Maddy navigates a world that she cannot fully experience. In order to explain her own world Maddy frequently compares her life to other novels. Yoon titles six different chapters "Life is Short," and in each of those chapters Maddy...

 Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon provides a fresh take on a "coming of age" novel. We are introduced to our main character Madeline, who is a bi-racial 18-year-old who has been diagnosed with SCID. She is locked away in her white castle with air filters and white clothes to protect her from any triggers of the outside world. Madeline operates as the narrator of this story to provide direct accounts of how she is feeling. Reading each page feels as if we are reading her medical records; we are checking to see how she feels every page. When a new family moves in next door, Madeline begins to secretly message 18-year-old Olly. Olly is her prince dressed in all Black meant to introduce her to the world. After meeting him, her daily routine of isolation is completely disrupted.  Everything, Everything feels like a perfect read for the time that we are in. How do you love someone you have never met in person? How to maintain relationships online? How do you show love when you...

 

A overarching theme of Everything, Everything is escapism. How can one experience the world without ever leaving his or her home? This is a very real question for the protagonist Madeline, who has an immunocompromising disease. Allergic to literally everything, she cannot leave her home. She is forced to interact with people online, and to pass countless hours of isolation, she reads and blogs about books. She has to imagine what life would be like outside of her house, and goes to great lengths to establish this fake life for herself for her sanity. For example, when she receives books to read, which are packed tightly in plastic so as not to expose her to any germs, she writes her name inside of them and makes a list of rewards to anyone who may find and return one of her books, which realistically never leave her home. Her make-believe lists, which are dreams to her, are very basics things like "a walk outside with me (Madeline) just down the block and back" (page 2) and ...

  The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau is the first book in a YA dystopian/sci-fi trilogy that follows sixteen-year-old Malencia "Cia" Vale and her friends as they navigate a world that has been devastated by the Seven Stages War. Released five years after The Hunger Games , The Testing rides the wave of popularity that Katniss Everdeen spawned for dystopian books in the Young Adult demographic. While there are many similarities between these two novels, Charbonneau's book is its own story, that, like THG, has a plot filled with messages for adolescent readers. Cia starts as a young, somewhat naïve girl who wants nothing more than to do well in school so she can go onto participate in The Testing, a program that helps the leaders of her country determine who will become the leaders of the future. Like many adolescents in today's world, Cia deals with the stress caused by school work and relationships with her peers, and she has to deal with a large family—where she is he...

       The Testing is a young adolescent literature book that focuses on the struggles of poverty and loss living in a world after the Seven Stages War. In the book, students become an adult after they graduate from high school, students study very hard to achieve the goal of getting chosen for the Testing, in hopes that they will pass the test and be allowed to attend the University. Cia, the main character, and protagonist of the story is a very intelligent girl whose father once attended the University. Her main goal is to follow in his footsteps and become a testing candidate. She wants to rebuild their future, after so much has been lost from the war. This book is centered around loss; it is first evident when Cia is chosen for the Testing and has to leave her family, possibly to never see them again. If she makes it to the University, it is very unlikely that she will be placed back in her hometown. Before she leaves, her father explains to her the horrors tha...

The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau is a  dystopian Y/A novel that follows sixteen year old Cia Vale in her journey to pass The Testing. The Testing is the rigorous series of challenges that will determine if candidates can earn a spot at University and a rewarding career. The Testing is administered from Tosu City where candidates will get to go if they pass.The adolescent protagonist Malencia (Cia) Vale is a strong and quick-witted girl who earned a spot to be considered for The Testing. She wants to make her family proud and wants to do more with her life than become a mechanic. Cia wants to experience more from her life and wants to go on to work in Tosu City where she has always been inspired by the officials that reside there. I feel as though this is a common theme of adolescence. Many teenagers/young adults have a person or figurehead in their life that they admire and aspire to work towards. Once Cia gets accepted into The Testing, her feelings towards the Tosu City official...

  Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon is a coming of age novel about eighteen year old Madeline Whittier who is suffering from a disease called Severe Combined Immunodeficiency, or SCID. Maddy describes her sickness as being allergic to "everything". Maddy has been unable to leave her house for over seventeen years. But, Maddy does not completely ignore the world, nor does it ignore her. Through the structure in the novel, the reader can see how Maddy is able to communicate and interact with the world outside of SCID.  All throughout the book, Yoon uses different kinds of graphics to reveal Maddy's view of her world. Periodically, Maddy draws cartoons of what she is thinking about. A common theme throughout the book, is a toy astronaut that Maddy places in her architecture models. She feels connected to the idea of being an astronaut because they can go anywhere and do anything but they have to remain in their bubble at all times. So, she draws herself as an astronaut ...

Wintergirls is a near perfect example of adolescent literature and an essential work for the secondary classroom. Within it, Anderson lays bear the inner workings of the anorexic mind. Through the lense of this disease she simultaneously exposes and explores adolescent concerns of inadequacy and imperfection. Anderson does not attempt to disguise the brutality of the illness or its impact on the body and mind of her main character, Lia. “I am that girl. I am the space between my thighs, daylight shining through… I am the circus freak encased in beeswax. I am the bones they want, wired on a porcelain frame. When I get close, they step back” (Anderson 19). By not sugarcoating her protagonist’s illness Anderson demonstrates respect for the intellectual and social maturity of her readership which is an essential element of any YA novel. “The first incision runs from my neck to just below my heart, deep enough so that I can finally feel something, not deep enough to flay me open. The pain ...

  Sold by Patricia McCormick is an absolutely heart wrenching book. It's based on true facts of young Nepali girls being sold into sex trafficking in India. Lakshmi was only a thirteen year old girl who thought she was going to the city to work as a maid and she finds herself living in a house where she is constantly taken advantage of. The content is extremely heavy and hard to consume. However, it is also educational. To know that there are still places in our world that thrive on selling the services of young men and women is horrible, but it needs to be talked about. People need to know that this is still in existence so that they can be a part of the solution.  The element of this book that I want to focus on for this particular review is the way that the young people in this book find to cope with the tragic acts being done to them and around them. McCormick uses these coping mechanisms to bring a little bit of light in a dark world. For instance, Pushpa, focuses all of...

  Sold is by far one of the most heart-wrenching books I have read in a long time. When you take into account that Lakshmi's story isn't necessarily one of fiction, it makes the novel all the more horrifying. One thing that I latched onto in this book, however, was Lakshmi's namesake. In the beginning of the novel, she states that she is named after the Hindi goddess Lakshmi, but me being the mythology junkie that I am couldn't help but notice how relevant it was. A touch as small as the character's name adds so much weight and painful irony to the story that I can't put into words.  For those not aware, the goddess Lakshmi is primarily known as the goddess of fortune, material wealth, contentment, luxury, and things of the like. With this being said, we can see several correlations between the character Lakshmi and the goddess; The first being her relationship with wealth and luxury. In the beginning of the novel, we see Lakshmi struggling through the seasons o...

I can count on two hands the number of things I have taken for granted in my life, and while some may say that is not many, I beg to differ after reading about Lakshmi.  You think life is tough until you read about a 13-year-old child sold for sex by her gambling-addicted stepfather and having a mother who has no say.  Throughout this entire book, I found myself continuously heartbroken and hugging my daughter a little tighter time after time.  To travel so far from home to an unfamiliar destination only to find out that you were sold for sex and not maid services at the mere age of 13 is just entirely devastating and unimaginable.  When Lakshmi says's "On those nights I lie restless in the sleeping loft, wondering what the world is like beyond my mountain home" (McCormick 9); I feel a sense of defeat for her. Lakshmi wanted the world beyond her home mountain to be the right place, and the happiness house took that from her. It makes me wonder if she will ever be abl...

Sold  is written in prose, therefore it is short and concise rather than lengthy and detailed. The story is told with vignettes or verbal sketches. The reader must critically think to understand everything that is taking place in a vignette, for they are often short and carefully crafted.  This novel is interesting; it displays how different life can be in other countries, such as India and Nepal.   Sold introduces certain roles of women in other cultures. The book also entails violence, language, and sexual abuse that may be alarming for a young adolescent reader.  Personally, I would save this one for my 11-12 th grade students, or advanced 10 th graders.  The novel was an intense page-turner by always keeping the reader guessing what could happen next.  "There is another way to use a shawl, she says.   I cannot tell... if she is being kind or cruel.   That new girl, the one in your old room, she says.   Yesterday morni...