Award Winners

For this next post will tackle the topic of ‘Award Winners’.  I’ll be focusing on two awards in particular – the Printz Award and the National Book Award for Young People.  So what are the similarities and differences between these awards?  For one the NBA focuses on a much wider range of youth than the Printz since it includes books intended for Elementary audiences on through Highschool.  The Printz is the first truly YA book award as it makes its selections solely from texts intended for YA’s.  Both books look to selecting the best representative out of their respective pools though the NBA limits itself by only considering American authors who are citizens of the USA.  I think this has caused that award to bypass some excellent works such as The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean and Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta – both Printz winners published by foreign authors.  I believe both Printz and NBAYP winners set themselves apart  with their richly drawn characters  and unflinching look as many of the issues faced by our youth – issues ranging from drugs to finding something to believe in amidst a host of competing ideologies.  I’ve chosen two titles in particular to discuss in light of this topic: NBAYP winner Godless by Pete Hautman and Printz Honor book Punkzilla by Adam Rapp. 

 

 

The story takes place against the backdrop of Fairview – a typical American town complete with water tower and disgruntled teenagers.  One of those teenagers, Jason, becomes disenchanted with his parents religion and decides to invent one of his own.  Why not worship the towns water since it provides life (water) to everyone living their?  Thus the new religion of Chutengodia is born.  His reasoning is that one religion is just as good as another since they are all fake anyway.  He recruits a number of diverse teenagers to his cause: the shy and unassuming Shin, the vicious and apparently psychotic Henry, the unremarkable and bland Dan and the beautiful and cynical Magda.

At first his experiment is fun and engaging, giving him power over his friends and the ability to choose what to believe rather than being told what to believe.  Things soon take a turn for the worse as the impressionable Shin takes his role as Keeper of the Texts seriously and ‘communes’ with his new god.  Henry endangers everyone in the interest of exploring inside the ‘god’s’ head and Magda decides to leave after being convinced of the dangerous nature of the new religion.  Jason tries to pull the pieces together and learns that starting a religion is much harder than controlling it.

I think this novel does an excellent job of addressing many issues that youth struggle with today (just as many other Printz and NBYP books) – in particular the issue of belief.  What should I believe in?  Do I have to believe in what others tell me to?  Jason, the main protagonist, decides the answer to these questions is to be found in the new religion he creates and for a while finds solace in his newfound power.  However, he discovers as many young adults have that any cause is empty without the belief to fill it.

Many of the characters in the story were also as diverse and multifaceted as I expected.  I think my personal favorite was Henry.  At first he is depicted as wild and psychotic, someone who cares little for himself or others and is therefore willing to take risks most would shun.  This is his dominant side and the one he presents to the world at large.  He also has other sides that he takes pains to conceal.  There is the intellectual Henry who shows an interest in reading especially Science Fiction and Fantasy.  He also has a warm side which he briefly displays when in the company of those he cares for such as Magda.  Overall Henry is a welcome addition to the story who serves as an interesting counterpoint to the largely one-dimensional Jason.

 

 

The story begins with Jamie, a.k.a “Punkzilla”, a troubled fourteen year old boy who is traveling to meet his older brother Peter who is slowly dying of cancer.  Jamie keeps himself occupied by writing letters to Pete, whom he refers to as P, that reveal various details of his sordid past.  His journey is not an easy one as he is at one point mugged at a train station by three strangers and coerced into oral sex by an aging meterman.  Undeterred Jamie pushes on spurred by the need to see his brother – one of the few people he has felt a connection with. He is helped along the way by an odd but well-meaning assortment of characters  ranging from the kind but strange transvestite Lewis (busy saving up money to surgically graft on a penis) to the unrepentant traveler Kent (a middle aged man with a habit of abandoning loved ones).  These chance encounters teach Jamie that life can be dark but there is always light to go along with it.

I thoroughly enjoyed the gritty, stream of consciousness style Rapp writes in.  Printz books have always been known to showcase the best of alternate writing styles in YA literature and Punkzilla is no exception.  Jamie’s constant flitting from one topic to the next kept me on the edge of my seat and the revelations of his experiences in vivid detail forged a connection between me and this tragic character.  The letters from his family and loved ones broke up the constant stream of his letters and provided an interesting alternate view of his life from more objective eyes.

The characters, the driving force of any good Printz book, were also well written.  Rapp shows a flair for presenting both the best and worst of humanity (often in the same person).  Take Jamie’s friend Branson for example.  His negative qualities are many – he receives oral sex from middle-school aged girls, sniffs glue, steals ipods and numerous other unsavory habits.  Yet he also exhibits a good heart by taking in and befriending a somewhat naïve Jamie struggling to survive on his own.  I recommend this book to anyone seeking to understand the dark depths and kindness of humanity or perhaps make sense of these qualities within themselves.

Classic Young Adult Literature

Welcome!  I’m kicking off this blog with a discussion of classic YA literature with a few reviews of classic YA books.  So what exactly is a ‘classic’?  Everyone has their own opinion so I’ll share mine and that of a few friends and leave you do decide if I’m right or I don’t know what the heck I’m talking about J. Many have the conception that a ‘classic’ is simply a book that has been around for a long time or that it has to be something with a lot of thees and thous in it (Shakespeare anyone?).  When I think of a ‘classic’ I think of a book that can still impact a reader’s emotions and give something to relate to no matter how different culture and styles in the story are from what we know today.  Patricia, a fellow graduate student, mentioned that “Classics can be read again and again with the reader remembering the emotions that it brought about when you first read the story.”  In other words a classic is read “once to enjoy and twice to remember.”  I also consider a book a ‘classic’ if I can read it and ‘see’ myself in whatever time or culture is depicted – whether that is a poor inner-city neighborhood in the 1970’s or 18^th century England.  That’s something to chew on as I talk about Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island and Alice Childress’ A Hero ain’t nothing but a Sandwich. 
 

Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson begins with the arrival of an old seafarer (self-styled ‘The Captain’) at the Admiral Benbow inn near Bristol, England.  The son of the owners, Jim Hawkins, soon takes note of the ‘Captains’ odd behavior.  He always keeps a close eye on the coast, drinks rum like a fish and never opens his old and battered sea chest.  Events proceed at a fast pace after the Captain dies following a confrontation with the vicious Pew and, upon searching his old sea chest, Jim and his mother discover a map leading to the vast treasure of the notorious pirate Flint.

Jim brings this to the attention of Squire Trelawney who, with the assistance of Dr. Livesey and veteran sailor Long John Silver, forms a crew to voyage in pursuit of this vast wealth.  At first the crew seems to be hard-working and loyal, but Jim soon discovers that a mutiny is growing in its midst with Silver at the forefront.  Upon reaching the island the mutineers and loyalists face off with only one emerging the victor.

The story takes place against the backdrop of 18^th century England when sailing the seas was common and pirates or ‘gentlemen of fortune” abounded.  Colorful and ‘salty’ language abounds and terms like gully (dagger) and songs such as “Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest, yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum” that drew me into the story and made this world of the high seas and adventure come alive.

Some may criticize the relatively underdeveloped character of Jim but I think that this was a brilliant move on Stevenson’s part.  Jim has no detailed description, no deep and troubled past and no age (unless I missed something).  Basically he is a blank slate that the reader is free to reimagine in their own image and develop a closer relationship with the character.  In this way, I was able to ‘feel’ Jim’s anguish and guilt after abandoning his companions, his courage in facing the mutineers and his rebellious spirit as he defies the order of his captain.   While I am not likely to take up cutlass and musket and go adventuring on the high seas, I felt what is was like to be an adventurous youth during a very interesting period of history.
 

The setting is a poor urban community in early 1970’s America.  Wounds from the hotly debated and tension filled Civil Rights Movement are still fresh and blacks still feel oppressed by a white-dominated society.  Thirteen year old Benjie Johnson is struggling to find himself in this turbulent time period and overcome the emotional scars left by the father who abandoned him.  He convinces himself that his family, and especially his new stepfather Butler, don’t care about him and turns to drugs to ease his loneliness.  At first he sticks to marijuana but soon is drawn into using the far more deadly drug Heroin.

His family and friends watch his slow decline into full-time junkie and desperately reach out to him.  His step-father attempts to take on the role of confidant, his mother Rose tries to recapture the closeness they once had and his teachers take a direct approach by putting him in a clinic.  Benjie continuously pushes everyone away, convinced he is unloved and beyond redemption.  It is not until a dramatic confrontation between himself and Butler that he finally opens his eyes to the truth.

Despite being born many years after the time period depicted in this book and never touching drugs, I felt a connection to Benjie.  I think most of us at that age have felt that loneliness that Benjie struggles with.  Some of you reading this may even have been abandoned by a family member yourselves.  The author also made good use of the unique blend of black slang which helped me to immerse myself in the story.  ‘Hearing’ Benjie talk about being a chile (child) or his boons (friends) made my connection with the character that much stronger.

I also enjoyed Childress’ method of switching between character viewpoints after each chapter.  Instead of experiencing the thoughts and emotions of each character secondhand through a main character I had the opportunity to see events directly through their eyes.  This resulted I what I believe is an amazingly well-written and fleshed-out story that fully captures the angst and loss of innocence that results of using drugs for the first time as a teen.  The use of authentic slang and fully developed characters and emotions made this a ‘classic’ in my mind.