8.06.2009

Be smart. Act intelligent. Know things.




“It takes an adult to make a child hate knowing things" -M.T. Anderson

Books make people smarter in all sorts of important ways. I like comparing getting the right book into the right student's hands to watering my garden. A slew of young adult authors are making a point to talk to kids about the importance of being a critical thinker and an aware, engaging citizen. I support them. I'll do my best to get kids reading books they enjoy and are willing to discuss and dissect. That's what good books do. They getting us thinking, talking, and growing.

Here are a few titles of books I've read or read about recently. They are certainly ones that will get readers thinking...and hopefully talking.

High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes

Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland by Sally M. Walker

WinterGirls by Laurie Halse Anderson

The Disreputable Life of Frankie Landau-Banks by e. lockhart

The Pigman by Paul Zindel

Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Read on!
-stenson

8.01.2009

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins


Want action and suspense? Check.
Want gore and guts? Check.
Want likeable characters? Check.
Want a few who make you laugh? Check.
A few to fall in love? Maybe.

With elements of science-fiction and reality television, with futuristic and realistic elements , Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games grabs the readers from the first page and grips them with such suspense few are likely to successfully put it down until the end.

The book beings on the day of the Reaping, where each District of the post-apocalyptic North American country of Panem must send two youth to the 74th Annual Hunger Games. The government exerts total control over its people, and the Games are just one of its cruel ploys to remind the people their lives are only as good or as bad as the government decides they will be.

The book is a lot like The Lottery (a classic short story by Shirley Jackson) meets Survivor (the popular reality-television series) meets Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare tragedy about two star-crossed lovers). The main characters--Katniss and Peeta--are chosen from a lottery, forced to leave their families, and go to the Capitol where they will be contestants in a grisly Gladiator game.

It must be said that Katniss, who is the Girl on Fire, is a terrific heroine. Two thumbs up for a girl with the wits, strength, and kindness to be a true competitor, a protective big sister, an effective hunter, the pride of her District, and the love-interest of at least a couple of boys. She is a girl who could teach us all many lessons. Speaking of lessons, the book has several to tell....about violence in our culture, about the increasingly desensitizing nature of reality television, about the harm of a government not of the people, and about empathy.

It took me a long to pick up the book but minutes to fall in love with it. I urge all ages to read this book. Knowing two more in the series follow, I predict, as did awesome author John Green) the trilogy will be received with Twilight-esque mania. Join in on the fun. Get your hands on a copy today!

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Keep reading!
-stenson