Animal Farm: Reading the Classics is Fun!

The student book club here at RB recently selected George Orwell's 1945 classic allegorical novel Animal Farm to read. I like reading the classics, especially when they're so short (gasp! yes, I said that!). If you're not familiar with the story, it's set in the English countryside and is about talking farm animals who overthrow their farmer in order to live free, self-determined, happy lives of abundance. The animals, led by the pigs, establish a set of rules to live by, including such mandates that no animal shall kill another, no animal shall wear clothes, and no animal shall sleep in a bed. The animals also live by the slogan "Four legs good, two legs bad." The idyllic, equal life the animals had imagined for themselves quickly changes, however, as the pigs take over. The pigs become increasingly power hungry, change the farm's rules so that they (and only they) CAN kill other animals, CAN wear clothes, CAN sleep in beds and, perhaps most egregiously, CAN walk on two legs. The story itself is fascinating, but when you add the fact that it's also an allegory of the Russian Revolution, and that the two "head pigs" are actually Lenin and Stalin, Animal Farm because so much cooler! I thoroughly enjoyed Animal Farm on so many levels, and know that you will, too.
4 out of 4 Bananas!

Soviet-Era Murder Mysteries are Awesome

It's been so long since I've posted! It's good to be back, talking about more great books that I've been reading. I only have a few pages left in Tom Rob Smith's Child 44, but I just couldn't wait to write a post about it and share the awesomeness that is Child 44 with the world!
I'll admit to a fascination with Cold War-era Soviet Union (I even took a college history course about it), but even those with little background knowledge will be fascinated by what it reveals about the Soviet government and the reign of terror it held over its citizenry during the Stalin and post-Stalin years.
The novel's protagonist is Leo Stepanovich Demidov, a resident of Moscow and an agent of the Soviet secret police force. Leo is often obliged to arrest citizens in the dead of night for a variety of "crimes against the State". He doesn't normally consider the validity of these arrests, as his job gives him enormous personal benefits and a comfortable life compared to the vast majority of the population. Leo's unwavering belief in the righteousness of the State is shaken, however, when two events occur: first, he realizes that a man he's just arrested is a completely innocent veterinarian, and second, one of his colleague's children is brutally murdered. Leo is forced to pay the family a visit and essentially threaten them into accepting that their child's death was simply an unfortunate accident, not a murder. Murders and other crimes are not supposed to exist in the Soviet system, which is supposed to breed happy citizens, and happy citizens do not commit murder.
When it's discovered that Leo does not believe that the veterinarian he arrested was guilty, he and his wife are forced into exile, and Leo is demoted to the local militia. He soon discovers that several local children have been murdered in the manner in which his colleague's child was killed. This discovery leads Leo to begin investigating a serial killer who has been murdering children across the Soviet countryside, but he is forced to pursue the killer secretly, for fear of being discovered by the authorities and executed for his illegal investigation.
This book absolutely crackles (I don't think I've ever described a book that way!), but it's an accurate description of how fast-paced and exciting it is. Smith's prose is fluid, and the picture he paints of life under 1950s Soviet control is stark and terrifying.
Child 44 is without a doubt one of the best three books I've read in the past several years. Totally recommended to everyone who enjoys a great story with a ton of dramatic tension. 4 out of 4 Bananas!

Good at Being Skinny

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson is the story of Lia, a high school girl who is good at being skinny. So good, in fact, that she has been hospitalized several times and has had to be in outpatient therapy to deal with her weight and the issues she has with being thin. Lia's best friend Cassie, with whom she had a falling out over the fact that she was in therapy, has just died alone in a motel room after calling Lia 33 times. The novel begins when Lia hears the news.
It seems that I usually hear about people with anorexia and bulimia as having issues with control, and possibly as having a tumultuous family life. Lia is no different. Lia's parents were divorced after her surgeon mother discovered that her professor father was having an affair. Her father married the other woman, and together they had a daughter, a little sister who Lia adores. Lia and her mother don't get along, so after Lia's most recent hospitalization, she goes to live with her father's new family. Her stepmother weighs her every day and tries to ensure that she is eating properly, but Lia has tampered with the scale, only pretends to eat, often goes to the basement during the night and spends hours on the treadmill, and uses razor blades to cut herself.
The crux of the novel is that Lia is haunted by Cassie's ghost. She sees her in her bedroom at night and throughout the day, and she can tell that Cassie wants Lia to join her on the other side, so Cassie encourages Lia to "stay strong" in her fight to keep skinny. On the other side, however, is Lia's little sister, who desperately wants her to be healthy, and who later in the novel is witness to something pretty horrific.
I loved Wintergirls for the beauty of its writing, especially. Anderson does more than tell a story; she evokes mood through language, and uses metaphor to powerful effect. If you liked Speak, also by Anderson, then you will love Wintergirls. 4 out of 4 Bananas!

What If There Are No Right Answers?

I recently read Jodi Picoult's My Sister's Keeper for the Bulldog Book Club. It was a novel I've avoided reading for years, even though I enjoy Jodi Picoult's writing, but the subject matter just seemed too depressing. Childhood cancer is not a subject that I really want to read about in my free time, especially since I have two little girls who are about the age that the characters in the novel are when the oldest sister's cancer is diagnosed. But, ever the supportive Book Club sponsor, I dutifully checked it out and read it. I liked it, for the most part. Maybe I haven't read Picoult in a while, but this one seemed more rambling and not quite as tight as my memory of some of her others. The one thing I really liked is that each chapter is told from a different character's perspective, including: the younger sister who is suing for medical emancipation, her mother, her father, her lawyer, her court-appointed juvenile representative, and her older brother. The glaringly obvious omission is the point of view of her older sister Kate, for whom Anna has been undergoing medical procedures since birth. Kate was diagnosed with cancer when she was a toddler, but no one in her family was a perfect match for bone marrow, etc., and the likelihood of finding an unrelated person who was a match was almost impossible. Kate's doctor had mentioned that a sibling who was a perfect match would be the best option, so Kate's parents decided to have a third child. They were able to choose an embryo that was a perfect match for Kate, had it implanted in her mother, who then gave birth to Anna, Kate's perfect match. This meant that Anna was Kate's default provider of blood, bone marrow, and other bodily tissues and fluids for most of Anna's young life. At the novel's beginning, Anna is faced with donating a kidney, and she finally has had enough and decides to sue her parents for medical emancipation. This of course causes great anguish and heartache for everyone in the family, as the likelihood of Kate's death looms large in the absence of a kidney donation. Anna, however, remains steadfast in her refusal to donate. The questions involved in this often-riveting family drama include: when does the individual become more important than the family? To what lengths would you go to preserve control over your own body? How can families recover from devastating events which might tear them apart? Are all family members equal? At what age should you be allowed to control your destiny?
Jodi Picoult is a master of the "grey area", where black and white do not exist. By the end of the novel I had come to terms with what I thought was going to happen, but I was blown out of the water by the mega-twist that came instead. I felt really outraged at first because it all seemed too unlikely, but then when I read the "Author's Note" at the end, and had time to think about the point Picoult was trying to make with this conclusion, I realized that it really could not have ended any other way and been as satisfying (after my initial outrage had subsided).
So, here's a long and rambling post about a sometimes-long-and-rambling book, but because of its overall message and the intriguing questions posed within its story, I'm giving it 3 out of 4 Bananas.

Look Me in the Eye: My Life With Asperger's

John Elder Robison's younger brother is Augusten Burroughs, author of the acclaimed memoir Running With Scissors. Burroughs' memoir details his father's descent into alcoholism and his mother's increasingly debilitating mental illness. John Elder Robison, the author of Look Me in the Eye, was absent for most of Augusten's childhood, as he was older and had fled the family for a life of independence and adventure. He always had trouble relating to people, however, and was considered by others to be strange and sometimes rude, yet brilliant in electronics and automotives. Look Me in the Eye details Robison's amazing life, including stints designing custom guitars for heavy metal band KISS, electronic toys for Milton Bradley, and finally running his own luxury car repair service. Robison also describes his difficulty with people, his inability to look people in the eye (hence the memoir's title), and his habit of giving people names (he calls his wife Unit Two). Robison was finally diagnosed with Asperger's when we was forty years old, and he describes it as a lightbulb going off in his head, giving him a name for the condition he'd been struggling with his entire life. There is no cure for Asperger's, but he has learned the social skills necessary for maintaining friendships and other relationships. This makes it much easier for him to deal with people, even though he says he still comes off as a little strange. One of the most illuminating comments for me was that he emphasizes that although people on the autism spectrum seem to want to be alone all the time, when he was a child he wanted desperately to be with others: he just didn't know how. Look Me in the Eye is an invaluable addition to the repertoire of literature on Asperger's and autism because, since it is actually written by someone with the disability, it provides great insight into the hearts and minds of people who may not be able to speak out on their own. Although a bit long in parts, Look Me in the Eye is engaging and original. 3 1/2 out of 4 Bananas!

Abraham Lincoln Illinois High School Book Award 2010 Nominee

Zombies in Plain English

Ever wonder how to survive a zombie attack? Commoncraft.org is well-known for their 3-minute videos explaining a variety of topics including Twitter, Blogging, Podcasting, etc., and they've also produced this highly informative video on how to survive zombie attacks. Protect yourself and your loved ones this Halloween season!

Leaving Paradise Left Me Behind

Leaving Paradise by Simone Elkeles has an intriguing premise: a year before the novel begins, Caleb Becker admitted to driving drunk, hitting his neighbor Maggie Armstrong, and then leaving the scene of the crime. Caleb was sentenced to serve a year in the Department of Corrections' juvenile jail, where he lived with gang members, was subjected to full body searches, and spent his time hardening both his body and his mind. The novel begins with Caleb's release from jail, and the reception he receives from his family and from the kids at school. One of the best aspects of the novel is that it is told in alternating chapters, going back and forth between Caleb's and Maggie's perspectives. Maggie has spent the previous year undergoing numerous surgeries and physical therapy to help heal the leg that was ruined by the accident. She is angry that Caleb is released and can go back to what she perceives as his "normal life", while she has been forever damaged by his reckless behavior. Both Caleb's and Maggie's families have been changed by the accident, and both have unreasonable expectations of how their children should act in the accident's aftermath. Caleb's mother wants him to pretend to be a cleancut, preppy kid for the sake of outward appearances, while his sister has become totally goth and largely unrecognizable. The reasons for this are revealed later in the novel. Maggie's mother (her father has left the family and holds Maggie at arm's length) desperately wants her to be happy and to feel like she fits in with the rest of the kids at school, which is far from reality. Maggie and Caleb are forced to confront one another when they begin helping an elderly woman after school, Maggie to make money for a trip to Spain, and Caleb to fulfill his community servicement requirements for parole. They begin to fall in love, but have to keep that love secret because how could anyone possibly understand why Maggie, the victim could forgive Caleb, much less fall in love with him? And how could anyone understand how Caleb can love damaged Maggie, when his ex-girlfriend Kendra is the hottest girl in school?
Leaving Paradise is a gentle romance which many students may enjoy. For me, Elkeles' writing and dialogue fell flat, and her adult characters were way over-the-top caricatures of "out-of-it parents". Also, the ending! What was up with the ending? If you can overlook the abrupt ending and the (IMHO) bad writing, you just may find paradise. 2 out of 4 Bananas.

Abraham Lincoln Illinois High School Book Award 2010 Nominee