Anger is a Gift Audiobook

 

My Thoughts:

Similar to urban contemporary books like The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, I Rise by Marie Arnold, This is My America Kim Johnson, and Dear Martin by Nic Stone. What makes this different, though is that Mark Oshiro is not black, nor a female like the authors I mentioned. Mark Oshiro (they/them) is a LatinX, Japanese, queer YA author.  Here is what stands out about this book as well as why I have it with these other diversify your bookshelf, social justice books. He is with these other authors because although the protagonist, Moss or Morris Jefferies Jr. is black and queer, it is not about being black in America, or even being queer in America. It is about continuing to survive through racism, social injustice, marginalization, trauma. Surviving is not enough though. Not wanting to jump off a building is not enough. This book, like the others is about YA characters fighting for a human experience and wanting to be seen as heard as individuals. 

The frustration was so sharp that I had to stop but Moss is a character that readers want to love and protect. It is a frustratingly brutal read. Read it (or listen to it) any way.

From the Publisher:

Six years ago, Moss Jefferies' father was murdered by an Oakland police officer. Along with losing a parent, the media's vilification of his father and lack of accountability has left Moss with near crippling panic attacks. Now, in his sophomore year of high school, Moss and his fellow classmates find themselves increasingly treated like criminals in their own school. New rules. Random locker searches. Constant intimidation and the Oakland Police Department stationed in their halls. Despite their youth, the students decide to organize and push back against the administration. 

When tensions hit a fever pitch and tragedy strikes, Moss must face a difficult choice: give in to fear and hate or realize that anger can actually be a gift.

Publication Information:

Author/Narrator: Mark Oshiro 

Publisher: MacMillan Audio (May 22, 2018)

The Hate U Give

My Thoughts: 

This has been on the must read list all year and for good reason. Although it starts off  like an imitation of the television show Lincoln Heights, this story is a crucial literary piece to capture the frustration, mourning and rage that we see on television as "blips" and 10 second news stories of police shootings and the Black Lives Matter reaction. 

I wish I were back in my 8th grade classroom. I would definitely work with my social studies partner to create a paired unit. 

From the Publisher:

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.

Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.

But what Starr does—or does not—say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.

A Few:

I look at the stars again. Daddy says he named me Starr because I was his light in the darkness. I need some light in my own darkness right about now.

Far From the Tree

My thoughts:

I have seen this book touted as "for people who love This Is Us." I am not sure if it holds the same chapter by chapter intensity as the television show holds, but this definitely will have appeal to YA readers. I would have devoured this book except that I had to keep returning it to the library and waiting on the "holds" list until it came around to me again. 

This is the story of searching and finding a family you did not know you had. It is about heartache and hope as it interweaves the stories of three teens. Read worthy.

From the pages:

And I finally learned to ride, but I wouldn't let them take the wheels off because I liked that feeling, you know? They caught me every time. That's what it felt like with Grace and Maya. Like I was falling, but then I didn't. They were there. - Joaquin

Solo (audiobook)

My thoughts:

After unsuccessfully trying to listen to several audiobooks that are part of the weekly paired audiobooks offered free by SYNC Audiobooks for teens, and just as I was going to opt out of their emails, this book in verse read by the author caught my attention. This is a great guy book if they are interested in music and poetry and family secrets and rock and roll. 

What really appealed to me was the way the author read his own work. Only authors know how they want their piece to sound and as a reader, I appreciate hearing poets like Jacqueline Woodson (Feathers, Locomotion, Brown Girl Dreaming) and Kwame Alexander read because they have a definite rhythm to their work that is musical and haunting. 

One thing the audiobook has that is not in print is the music and performance of the songs. For a stark look at contemporary issues and for the musicality, this is a must listen. I take back my opinion on audiobooks. This one must be listened to. 

Description:

Blade never asked for a life of the rich and famous. In fact, he’d give anything not to be the son of Rutherford Morrison, a washed-up rock star and drug addict with delusions of a comeback. Or to no longer be part of a family known most for lost potential, failure, and tragedy, including the loss of his mother. The one true light is his girlfriend, Chapel, but her parents have forbidden their relationship, assuming Blade will become just like his father.

In reality, the only thing Blade and Rutherford have in common is the music that lives inside them. And songwriting is all Blade has left after Rutherford, while drunk, crashes his high school graduation speech and effectively rips Chapel away forever. But when a long-held family secret comes to light, the music disappears. In its place is a letter, one that could bring Blade the freedom and love he’s been searching for, or leave him feeling even more adrift.

Last words:

But most of all/I sing for myself, the spider,/I'm finally ready to face./ I play the song inside that's been waiting for me to listen,/the one I'm finally ready to hear.

Since this is an audiobook, I do not know where the line breaks are. The line breaks are just my best guess based on my reading. If this is not correct, I sincerely apologize since I was not reading the print version.

Speak: the Graphic Novel

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson originally came out in the late 90s and quickly  became a book talk book and a mentor text in my classroom. It is about Melinda, a freshman in high school who was raped at a party in her 8th grade summer, calls the police and becomes a pariah in her high school from day one. It is about Melinda's inability to speak about her experience. It is about fear and depression, warning signs for parents and finding a voice.

The original text is used as a mentor text when I want to demonstrate the writing strategies "show don't tell," "thoughtshots" and "snapshots." Anderson is an author that uses craft to her advantage.

The difference in this graphic novel is that while the story is there, many of the very poignant writing cannot follow into this genre. What the reader is left with, though, is a pared down powerful story told in stark black and gray. The art by Emily Carroll is bleak in all the right places.

The one jarring thing in this collaboration is that although the original text was written before the internet and the prevalence of even elementary students having smart phones,  technology is included, even if in a limited way to make this version less dated. The problem with putting some technology in is that it opens doors for questions in the story. I think the savvy teens of social media today wield their power  in very anonymous ways that give even the voiceless power. That would make this a very different story.

Still, I think this graphic novel can stand on its own. It is not a graphic story I would use to introduce reluctant readers to the original text. I think it is just a story that needs to be told and it will appeal to the reluctant reader who would otherwise just not read. 

Going Places

Description:

Everyone had high expectations for Hudson Wheeler. His fourth grade teacher even wrote to his parents that Hudson was "going places." But everything went downhill after his father died on the battlefield of Iraq one year later. Now facing his senior year of high school without his two best friends by his side and with his teacher's letter still haunting him, Hudson seizes homeschooling as an opportunity to retreat from the world.

What happens during this year will prove to be anything but a retreat, as Hudson experiences love and rejection for the first time and solves the painful mystery of the “girl in the window”—an apparition seen only by the WWII vet whose poignant plight forces Hudson out of the comfort zone of boyhood.

Going Places is a peek into what male adolescence looks like today for those who don't follow traditional paths as they strive to find themselves.

My take:

There are a lot of stories like this in one way, but not enough in another. Hudson Wheeler chooses to forego his senior year and home school himself, not because he is angry or bullied or painfully awkward. That makes him different because he is not angsty or depressed. He actually is set on not  falling into the trap of post high school expectations but he does this with a  proposal to his mother to both take two classes at the high school (yoga and AP art), work at his two businesses that he creates (dog walking and Distress Dial for seniors with emergencies just below 911), and work on his graphic novel. He does that, but that is just one small part of a very convoluted and bustling story line. I think we need more stories like this about what home schooling might look like. Hudson's life is more about choosing an alternative path than dropping out, hiding out, religious zeal or disappointment and fear about the public school system

What also makes this different from other YA is that he is not the strong female protagonist, and as an 18 year old, he is pretty wimpy, but his commitment to his work and the maturity he shows to do what needs to be done is unusual. Sigh, unfortunately, he is still a doofus in the love department, just that he is not clueless as to how much of a doofus he is, he just cannot help it. 

Hudson, by the end of the book, becomes the heroic lead but not because of what he does. More because of the cast of side characters that he holds on to: Fritzy, Mr. Pirckle, his mom, his dead father, even Jennifer the pink male poodle. This book is not a fast read because the characters are eccentric and shooting off in different directions, but they are going places and the journey, not the destination is the adventure. 

A digital advanced copy provided by Net Galley and the publisher for an honest review.