When did Blogger change their layout? I don't know how I feel about this...
Anyways, I know it's been a while and after having this blog for something like 2 years, I think I've finally come to terms with the fact that I'm just not gonna be a dedicated blogger. It's not that I don't want to, it's just that I don't do it. Oh well. I'm not too broken up about it. I sometimes wish I had that dedication, you know, the people who blog every day about cute crafts they make or things they cook or their kids or whatever. I am neither crafty nor a phenomenal cook and have no children soooo yeah.
Instead of boring you with the details of my life, I'm just gonna say that pretty much nothing has changed and life is still good. the end.
I want to write about something that I've been thinking about lately. This last semester, I took an English class that focused on Young Adult literature (aka books you read in school from 6th grade to 12th grade). I loved this class because not only were most of the books incredibly enjoyable (I'll give you a list of some of my favourites at the end of this post), but they also provoked a lot of different types of discussions in my class. If I were to describe my class in four words, they would be: opinionated, conservative, insightful, and emotional. It was an interesting group of people, to say the least, and sometimes I liked what they had to say, and other times, I didn't because it was either annoying or just didn't suit my personal opinions too much.
That's kinda where this post is coming from. For my class, we read the graphic novel American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang, which is essentially a book about being comfortable in your own skin and accepting your racial identity (note: a graphic novel is, more or less, a glorified comic book, and should not be confused with a porngraphic novel... which is not a comic book). I really enjoyed this novel because it approached racism and stereotypes in a powerful way that younger audiences can understand and relate too. I was surprised, however, that a lot of people didn't like the novel because they didn't get it and because they didn't like how it dealt with racism. I should mention that the novel was a little confusing because it was three different stories that initially seem very unrelated, but all tie together in the end. So I can see how this novel was confusing, but I don't quite know why my class didn't like how it dealt with racism and stereotypes.
There was one girl in particular who was rather opinionated about everything and this novel was the peak of her opinionated-ness. I have a really difficult time with excessively opinionated people for two reasons: 1) they never listen to anyone else and won't consider other viewpoints; and 2) they frequently present their opinions as supreme intelligent thought that God himself admires. It gets old kinda fast, right?
Anyways, we're talking about American Born Chinese, and this girl, who I will call Marcy, explains that the reason she hated it was because it didn't jive with her personal views on race and that it relied on stereotypes too much. Marcy then explained that growing up, she was never allowed to comment on someone's race and that her mother, whenever someone of another race was around, would tell her to comment on something about them, outside of their skin color. Marcy said that she grew up only seeing people by their attributes and never by their race, stating that she didn't know President Obama was black until after he was elected to office.
Okay. I want to say that I don't completely disagree with this mindset. I think it's incredibly valuable to teach children from a young age that race doesn't completely define a person and that you should focus on their other qualities because those also define them as a person. However. I also disagree so strongly with this because I think it completely ignores race and does a huge injustice to people who are proud of their race. I think of it like this: if you were to completely cut race out of anything you knew about a person and they were black or hispanic, that's cutting out a ton of tradition and cultural heritage that they are (most likely) proud of. It also makes you incredibly ignorant of their culture because you've decided that it doesn't define anything about the person, which it totally does. I also think it's problematic in terms of racial discrimination. Marcy was saying how she doesn't discriminate people because she doesn't see that they're different from her in terms of race. I think it's quite the opposite; by ignoring their racial differences, I think it's ignoring the struggles that they or their family have gone through, which is another large part of their identity. Does that make sense? The idea that by ignoring someone's race, you're essentially ignoring a huge part of their identity? I don't know, but the point is that I don't think it's okay to view people as racially neutral. It's cutting out their heritage, culture and a large part of their identity.
phew. glad that's out. It was just an interesting experience and one that left me thinking.
And now, to the list! My YAL class was really great because it introduced me to a lot of books that I probably wouldn't have read otherwise, mostly because I wouldn't have heard about them. In truth, I enjoyed almost all of the books we read, with the exception of The Catcher in the Rye, which try as I might, I just could not finish and still dislike it as much as I did in high school. So, here is a list of all the books we read, a brief summary and the books with little stars by them are the ones I really enjoyed. I'm going for a 5-star scale, so expect lots of stars.
- Go Ask Alice by Beatrice Sparks: diary of a girl growing up in the late 1960s and experimenting with drugs. **
- Godless: by Pete Hautmam: Teenager Jason Bock creates his own religion based off of the town's water tower. ***
- Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech: A young girl goes on a roadtrip with her grandparents to visit her mother, who left her the previous year. *
- Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse: Historical fiction that tells of a young girl who grew up during the Dust Bowl in Oklahoma and the events therein. ***
- NightJohn by Gary Paulsen: Story of an African slave girl named Sarny who is taught to read and write by NightJohn. ***
- The Watsons Go to Birmingham by Christopher Paul Curtis: Historical Fiction about a family who lives in New Jersey and take a trip down to Birmingham during the 1963 bombings. ****
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury: Science fiction novel about Guy Montag, who lives in a world where books are burned and technology is everything. *
- The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman: A young boy is raised in a graveyard by the graveyard ghosts, who are protecting from a man that is trying to kill him. ***
- The Giver by Lois Lowry: Dystopian novel about a boy named Jonas who is given all the memories of time while the rest of his civilization lives without them. *
- The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander: Fantasy novel about a boy who goes on a quest to bring back a magical pig that can see into the future.
- Freak The Mighty by Rodman Philbrick: Maxwell Kane forms a friendship with an unlikely individual, Kevin Avery, and together, they are Freak The Mighty. *****
- Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World by Jennifer Armstrong: Non-fiction telling of Captain Ernest Shackleton and his trip down to Antartica. ***
- Hitler Youth by Susan Bartoletti: Non-fiction telling of the youth that served Hitler during World War II. *****
- The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt: A young boy, Holling Hoodhood, is stuck spending Wednesday afternoons with a teacher who hates him. *****
- Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen: Cole is a delinquent who is forced into exile on an island near Alaska after ruthlessly beating a peer.
- Rules by Cynthia Lord: Catherine has a brother with Autism and constantly writes out rules for him to live by. **************** (this was my favourite)
- Stuck in Neutral by Terry Trueman: Shawn is an intelligent boy who has cerebral palsy and seems outwardly retarded to the rest of the world. **
- Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes by Chris Crutcher: Eric and Sarah Byrnes were childhood friends because they were outsiders, but things change when they enter high school. *****
- Breathing Underwater by Alex Flinn: A teenager, Nick, is going through therapy because he physically abused his girlfriend, Caitlin. ****
- Seedfolk by Paul Fleischman: A community comes together as they work on a garden in the neighbourhood. ***
- American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang: Three characters, the Monkey King, Jim Wang and Danny, learn to accept their racial identity. ****
- The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Sallinger: Holden Caulfield is an adolescent boy who is struggling with fitting in with 1950s society.
- Forever by Judy Blume: A story about teenage sexuality and how it effects the teenage experience. ****
I know that's a lot of books, but if you're looking for summer reading, you can find all of these at the Provo Library and they're quick reads that are also (for the most part) enjoyable. if you have any questions, feel free to ask away :)
ANNNNNND that's all for now. also, in the course of writing this post, I've decided I like the new blogger format.
Good night and good luck :)
