Bug Boy, by Luper (TBF author)

This was a really great book.  I want to be sure to say that first!   Bug Boy was a really engaging story.

I wasn't sure, at first, whether or not I would be able to fully engage with the book.  After all, I didn't even understand the title.   Bug Boy?????   What does a boy who likes bugs have to do with horse racing during the Depression Era???   Furthermore, I have only rode horses a few times in my life and I have spent even less time in a horse barn, tending to the horses.   On the other hand, I did go to Saratoga Springs for the first time last year -- I think it was in April.   Even though I didn't see the race track, we stayed at the historical resort where the actual mineral baths/spa is and I often couldn't help myself but think about these characters at that historical site.

I quickly learned though that the term Bug Boy is a "status title" given to those young boys who were not full-time jockeys, but were just beginning to ride horses in the races.    I also found myself easily engaging with the main character and worrying over how he was going to be able to stay out of trouble -- when trouble seemed to find him in the first 10 pages of the book.   

I have been thinking a lot about the question of whether or not this book would help students become a mature reader, a stage of reading characterized by "including critical reading -- arguing back at the book, syntopical reading, and aesthetic reading" (Knickerbocker & Rycik, 2002, p. 198).

I now have a theory that I'd like to ask others, but I think it might be true that a benefit of historical fiction is that, by the very nature of its textual features, it offers readers many opportunities to develop as critical, syntopical and aesthetic readers.    I would hope that if it was a good story, then the readers would naturally be able to practice their aesthetic reading abilities.  However, when the reader knows that the text is based on true events or that the author took great care to accurately portray a time period, then this easily allows the reader to practice their abilities compare their knowledge based on reading several texts on a similar topic (syntopical reading).   At the same time, if the reader is engaging in the reading practices of a historian -- or at least, one who reads "diversely" (Moon, p. v) the critical reading practices should also be engaged.

What makes a "good" character

I've been thinking a lot about the concept of "character" given our discussion topics for tonight's class and thinking about the characters in The Hunger Games.   Obviously, Katniss is a character which represents individuality, human will to survive (like the mockingjay), but I think it is interesting that Collins shows her character becoming most rebellious, most like a "fire starter" when she is fighting for others -- not for herself.


These qualities of self-sacrifice for others -- other who we "know' or at least somehow "empathize/relate to" -- certainly reflect qualities we value in a democratic society.   


I'd like to say it is a universal human quality, but I'm not sure.   Not when I read other works like I Am Nujood and see how in some cultures it is not only acceptable but celebrated when children are abused, neglected -- particularly when they are female.


I'd love for someone to help me work this through further since I hate posting what feels like such pessimistic responses to what I think are ultimately such empowering and engaging reads.   (sigh)  Okay.  I will not dwell here.  


If anyone else has read Hunger Games, then you know the minute you get to the end of the book you want to start reading the next one.   I felt just as anxious to start re-reading the second book in the series as I did the first time through.  I am thinking now about WHY do certain books pull at a reader's head and heart?  And why does this book pull so?   It's been on the New York Times Best Seller's list for over 100 weeks as of December 2010.   Is it because the reader wants to protect Katniss and all those she loves?   Is it because the individual reader fully embraces the aesthetic response that Rosenblatt (2005, as cited in Wisniewski)  describes?   Is it because our cultural values so heavily embraces these qualities of Katniss?   


I guess the question I am asking is what "reading practices" (Moon,1999, pp. 134-137) are readers heavily relying on when reading this book?    If I use Moon's questions tothink about how I read Hunger Games, I would say...

• Did I read the text as the expression of the author's own ideas and experiences? No.
• Did I read the text as a comment about human nature?  Yes, definitely.
• Did I read the text as evidence of struggles between different groups of people?  Yes, although I didn't spend a lot of  time in my mind trying to make specific "factual" connections to the struggles.   Not sure if this was a limitation in my own reading practice?
• Did I treat characters in the text as human beings, and identify with their experiences?   Yes and no.  I think this is the ambiguousness of Fantasy/Science Fiction.   Unless the reader as able to fully suspend believe (and I am not) then some experiences can still seem true to the "story" but not as naturally identifiable.    This is funny though since other questions Moon poses is did I treat characters merely as devices used to develop ideas in the text?  Did I challenge the validity and acceptability of images in the text? And I certainly didn't think about the fact that these are characters used as devices to develop ideas in a text the first time I read the story (expect for obvious things like the Mockingbird pin, the contrast of most people starving in District 12 and the Capitol having plenty).  But the second time I read the book I did think more about characters like Prim.  Would the story have even happened if Prim wasn't chosen?   At the same time though, neither during the first or second reading did I challenge the validity and acceptability of images in the text. 

I certainly would LOVE to talk to others about this book (and the two other books in the trilogy).  I want to know why they love it as much as I do.   In the meantime, I'm going to keep thinking about this myself.  Maybe I will have more answers by class tonight (or by my next blog post).   

Laurie Halse Anderson

Poem she wrote in response to Speak, called Listen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ic1c_MaAMOI&feature=related

Sherman Alexie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwiQb8OQ6dY


Student author summary video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIClgfqVovs&feature=related

I love YA HATERS video by Jackson A Pierce

I was surfing the web this afternoon looking for some interview on YA literature and I came across this video posted by JacksonAPierce.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC7BRavnPWg


Jackson A Pierce has written  Sisters Red and As You Wish   

Her personal website is http://watchmebe.livejournal.com/

This is a teen review of As You Wish http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-b3Bx_IEmw

Reading Donnelly

I had heard about this book for a few years, but I thought from the cover art that it was going to be a book set in 1770s England.   I had no idea that it had a setting that was so close to home.   Already this makes the work even more interesting since even though I have never been to Moose Lake, we have friends who ride their bikes up there every late summer/early fall and stay at a lodge on the Lake.