More than your "Bunny Rabbit"

The summer before sophomore year at her elite boarding school, Frankie Landau-Banks blossomed. She went from being an awkward girl to a fully-fledged beautiful woman. Her transformation turns the head of Matthew Livingston, a popular and good-looking senior, who she soon starts dating. Frankie, however, is much more than a pretty face and the little girl her family nicknamed "Bunny Rabbit". Behind those beautiful eyes lives a clever, devious, and underestimated intelligence, one that will one day make her head of the CIA, Secretary of State, or the next great American writer. When Matthew keeps secrets from Frankie about a secret society, Frankie decides to show him and his friends that she is more than worthy to be a part of their club and their world. What follows is a story of pranks, deception, and longing to be recognized in E. Lockhart’s The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks.

Recently my friend and I discussed an article about strong female characters. This is a bit off topic, but the article basically talks about how a strong female character is annoying and too boxed in. Male characters are never called strong male characters, but a strong female character puts an exact picture in your head of a bad ass, emotionless (other than anger), beautiful woman. We want 3D women who can be realistic. Back to Frankie, Frankie is a great example of a multi-dimensional character. She’s insecure, massively intelligent, inventive, beautiful, athletic, worried, brave, unsure, and still figuring herself out. I truly enjoyed her even when she thought about impressing her boyfriend a bit too much. This is what we do. We want someone we really like to think we’re astonishingly wonderful, and in Frankie’s case, what she did sure was astonishing.

From the dust jacket, I expected Frankie to be a confidant and already snarky, devious minded lady, but this is her story of becoming that girl. I looked forward to snuggling up with this book and reading about Frankie’s plotting. My biggest complaint is that there isn't a sequel. I enjoyed the novel. It was easy to read, thought provoking, and introduced a fresh character.

Here’s some other titles you might enjoy:

• Into the Wild Nerd Yonder by Julie Halpern. Jessie is trying to figure out which group she belongs in. Everyone seems to be changing ship, so where does she belong?
• Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork. Marcelo is autistic and always attended a special school where he was understood. This summer, however, he must work at his dad’s law firm meets several new friends and experiences what the “real world” is like.

"Speak"ing about Banned Books

Perfect timing for a banned book seeing as September 30-October 6 is Banned Books Week!

As a high schooler, one is forced to read all sorts of books; textbooks, classics, assigned reading, and papers/articles galore. It gets tiring and you resent all these books, even if, like me, you adore reading. So when you grow up and you see an assigned reading book that you never had to read, a little light goes off in your brain: DO NOT READ. The book was probably boring or preachy. There’s a reason it was on a syllabus and it wasn’t because teachers thought kids would want to read it.

While having a small competition between myself and my coworkers on who read the most books off of several different reading lists (top banned books, top YA novels, etc.), I noticed that Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson was on a couple lists. Now I’m a secretly competitive person (I lose a lot, so I pretend that I don’t really care about competitions) and I was upset that I missed out on marking this book off while everyone else got it because it was assigned. It also sounded like an interesting book, so I decided to read it. A coworker lent me her copy and I dug in.

Imagine walking in to a high school cafeteria and having no one to sit with. Not only do you have no one to sit with, but your best friends hate you, and other high schoolers who don’t even know you hate you, all for the wrong reasons. If only they knew the truth. Melinda is not about to tell anyone the truth about that terrible night she was raped and no one is reaching out to her anyway, so she stays clamed up. While other ninth graders are making new friends, getting asked out, and figuring out the rest of their lives, Melinda is trying to keep herself together by disconnecting from her old life. She observes , hides, and keeps quiet. Her grades fall, her parents get mad at her, and yet none of it fazes her. She has greater demons to deal with.

Speak is a darkly humorous, poignant piece that addresses a horrific event through the eyes of the victim. Anderson creates a character who is real, scarred, eccentric, confused, hurt, and haunted. Melinda is not a melodramatic character. She deals with the rape as many people deal with tragic events they don’t know how to address; she holes up inside herself.

The novel was well done. It was a very quick, compelling read. The book is meant for the YA audience and does a great job of not skirting around the issue. Speak has been challenged at high schools and libraries across the nation for the reference to the rape. An associate professor from Missouri State University called this book “soft porn” because of the scene dealing with the rape. That statement is completely outrageous to me. There is nothing pornographic about the way Anderson writes about the rape and it is disgusting that anyone would think of the rape as “soft porn”. This isn’t a lurid romance novel with details about everything that happened. And if this man thinks that addressing the issue of rape and talking about assault is “soft porn” he needs help. Denying children and teens books that talk about subjects that are uncomfortable or unhappy is to deny them those emotions. We are supposed to feel hurt, let down, depressed, enraged and you cannot shield a person from tragedy. It is a part of life and at least fiction gives children a way to see how others deal with these emotions and lets them know they are not alone and it is natural to have emotions.

I’m a librarian, so my responsibility is to give the public the freedom to explore, seek their interests, do work, and gain access to the world of information and keep their pursuits private. Shutting down avenues for people to explore denies the public freedom of information and I’m against that. Do I think that certain materials don’t belong in the library? Sure. Porn has no place in a public setting. But I don’t believe that novels and information that some people disapprove of should be taken out to please those few. If we suddenly start denying entrance of materials because of challenges to them, where would the library be? Where would the public go to seek information? Religious books and writings would be banned because one religion disagrees with the other. All sorts of novels would be taken away, books about sexuality or even anatomy because they show nudity, biographies about controversial people, etc, etc. There is no end to the banning and challenging once you open that door.

I just ranted for a while there. So deep breath! All in all Speak was a great example of powerful young adult literature. I highly recommend it.

 Now go practice your right to read! Happy Banned Books Week!

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Wow. I finished this book and just thought how good it was. Humorous, heartbreaking, hopeful. You think you got it bad? Read about Junior's life and think again.

Junior is an Indian living on the reservation with his father, mother, loving grandma and sister. Although his family is a bit dysfunctional, his dad is an alcoholic, his sister hardly ever emerges from the basement, and he's a pretty strange kid himself, they love each other. Being an Indian on the reservation is a hard life. Booze hold sway over a lot of the people, and life is difficult and everyone is poor. Junior is a smart kid though and at the high school on the rez that he has just started freshman year at, he's not getting the education he wants. That's when he decides to transfer to the local town's high school that's twenty-two miles away. This decision throws all sorts of screws into his life. His best friend, Rowdy, who used to protect him against bigger guys on the rez now hates him, he's the only Indian at an all white racist school in the country, the rest of the tribe thinks he's a traitor, and getting to school is always an issue.

Just when things start looking up, Junior makes the basketball team and kids at his school are starting to notice him, all sorts of problems occur. Death is a part of Junior's life, but it hits way too close to home now.

Interspersed throughout the novel are cartoons that Junior drew. These add some life and humor to the story. Although a lot of this novel is dark, philosophical, and deals with heavy depressing issues, it maintains its humor and hopeful spirit the entire time. Junior is a kid that most can relate to and his story is inspirational and engaging.

Sherman Alexie won the National Book Award for this novel and he deserved it. I would recommend this to anyone 13+. There is profanity and some talk about the male anatomy...to put it lightly. Junior is a kid with courage and enough sense to make the best of terrible situations. We can all learn something from his attitude and this story.