Reblog

Shakesville: Educate the People - But Not So Much That Corporations Can't Still Exploit Them, Obviously

One of the topics at the Clinton Global Initiative Conference was on Education, specifically in relation to corporations.   Shakesville's creator and several other writers attended the Conference and this is one of their summaries on this topic.

"After more than an hour, I was left wondering: Who is education meant to benefit, and whose interests is educational reform meant to serve in this country? ... Strange how that works. One group—those making millions (billions? Bieberillions?) of dollars think education is important because at the end of the day, it benefits them. The other group—those slogging away, educating children, doing the so-called "dirty work" on the ground think education is important because it empowers the individual receiving the education to have some control over hir life's destiny. "

Unfortunately it's the model of children being future workers for corporations that dominates in many schools right now.  Jonathan Kozol's Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America discusses this at length, and provides many examples.  Many children, especially those in inner city, predominately POC, schools are taught to follow directions without question, recall, recitation.  They're not taught how to actually read and write and develop and explain their own thoughts.  They pick out vocabulary and understand it only in the exact was they were taught.  They summarize, but never critique.  So few students learn higher order thinking skills, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that pencil pushers and factory workers don't need to know how to critique and judge the worth of things.  They don't need the learning levels of Synthesis and Evaluations, in fact, it's easier for corporations if their workers don't have these skills.

Book Review - The Demon's Surrender by Sarah Rees Brennan

The Demon's Surrender is the last book of the Demon's Lexicon Trilogy (reviewed here).  The trilogy follows the adventures of Nick and Alan Ryves, siblings Jamie and Mae, and Sin (Cynthia Davies) as they struggle with and against magicians and demons.  Each book has a different narrator, the first is Nick, second is Mea, and Sin is the narrator in The Demon's Surrender.

The whole trilogy emotionally focuses on family, especially siblings as each main character has at least on parent who has died or they're emotionally distant from.  This continues with Sin who is the main caregiver for her two younger siblings and partway through the book has to chose between staying with her sister or her place in the Goblin Market, of which she is the main demon dancer and presumed heir.

The content and reading level is still Young Adult, but The Demon's Surrender is a little bit more sexual then the previous books.  A lot of this comes from Sin having to use her beauty to attract clients.  Some also comes from Sin being mixed race and therefore having to deal with more street harassment and objectification then Mea.  I really liked how Rees Brennan addressed this in the book.  It's, realistically, a daily part of Sin's life, but her race is by no means her defining characteristic. 

This book also most closely addressed Alan's limp with Sin being more bothered by it (because of her career as a demon dancer) then Nick or Mea is.  It also is better about showing Alan's own relationship with his disability since he and Sin have several conversations about it.   

There are also two scenes of graphic violence that could easily be disturbing to readers.  Both involve torture and one includes self mutilation.  I think Rees Brennan handled them well, but they were a bit more intense then other scenes with violence in The Demon's Surrender or other books in the trilogy.   There is a bit more violence in the book over all as it has the final battle between the main characters and magicians, and Sin, like Alan and Nick, has basically grown up fighting.

Anyway, I completely loved this series and think it's a great book to introduce boys and girls to fantasy.  Also Sarah Rees Brennan has written several short stories in the Demon's Lexicon universe.  You can find them here.

Book List - Gay Pride Month

June is Pride Month in the US and in honor of that here is a list of books featuring gay characters and themes.  As with other book lists I wanted the themes/morals of the stories to be secondary to the characters.  After all if books have well developed gay characters then they'll naturally raise awareness about gay people and the issues they face.  Some of the books listed with have a primary focus of gay characters and issues while other's will be stories that happen to have gay characters.  Also a lot of the gay rights movement and Pride focus on white men to the extent of silencing or ignoring women, people of color, and other people on the LGBTQ spectrum.  The counter this I tried to find several books that focused on or included characters that were POC and LGBTQ.

Book's I have read are marked with an *.

P-K/Kindergarten
* And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell  (The charming story of Roy and Silo, two boy penguins who fall in love and are given an egg to foster by their zoo keeper.)

Daddy, Papa, and Me by Leslea Newman (A Pre-K boardbook about a young toddler playing and daddy and papa and the activities they get up to.  The writing is in short rhymes.  It also has a companion Mommy, Mama, and Me.)

King & King written and illustrated by Linda de Haan and Stern Nijland.  (This is a story of a prince who is supposed to find a princess to marry, but falls in love with a prince instead.  This book has been translated into several languages and has a sequel King & King & Family.)

The White Swan Express by Jean Davies Okimoto and Elaine M. Aoki.  (This is the story of four Chinese baby girls and the people who adopt them. One family is a lesbian couple, and another person is a single mom. )

1st - 2nd Grade
Anna Day and the O-ring written and illustrated by Elaine Wickens and Alyson Wonderland. (Evan, his two mom's, and their dog Anna Day are getting ready for Evan's birthday party when the O-ring for the tent goes missing.)

Mom and Mum Are Getting Married! by Ken Setterington.  (Rosie's mom's are getting married and she wants to be the flower girl and take care of the wedding rings.  But are Rosie and her brother Jack mature enough?)

One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dad, Blue Dads by Johnny Valentine.  (A Dr. Seuss like rhyming book about a brown boy, Lou, answering his friend's questions about Lou's two blue dads.)

3rd - 5th Grade
* The Skull of Truth by Bruce Coville.  (Charlie, a chronic lier, finds a skull (that used to belong to Shakespeare!) that makes everyone around it tell the truth.  A sub-plot of the book has to do with the revelation that Charlie's favorite uncle is gay)

Young Adult
* Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan.  (Jamie, one of the main characters of the series, is gay.  Several secondary characters are as well.  The main focus of the story is on magic and family, though additional content on Rees Brennan's web-page shows more from Jamie's, or the secondary characters, perspectives.) Reviewed by me.

The House You Pass on the Way by Jacqueline Woodson.  (Bi-racial Staggerlee has felt even more confused and different ever since she kissed her best friend Hazel.  Luckily she has a kindred spirit in her cousin Trout.)

The Pride Pack by R.J. Hamilton.  (A mystery series about gay teens and adults.  The first two books in the series are Who Framed Lorenzo Garcia? and The Case of the Missing Mother.)

* Rainbow Boys by Alex Sanchez.  (The story of Kyle, Jason, and Nelson, three gay teens growing up and falling in love in a conservative town. There are two sequels Rainbow High and Rainbow Road.  All of the books have some sexual content. Not the best written series ever but it really focuses on gay characters and themes and the later books have other LGBTQ characters.)

Awareness and Aid

Last month the Book List was for Autism Acceptance and I wish this event was happening then.  On May 12 at 7:30 pm Wretches and Jabbers will be shown in 100 cities across the United States.  The movie is about two men with autism, who were excluded from public schools as children, who travel the world and meet other people with Autism Spectrum Disorder.  Here's the web page with city listings.

The PepsiRefresh Project gave a grant to a gentleman who is using it to provide books to public schools in Chicago.  People can vote for the PepsiRefresh Projects they like and the more votes the projects get the larger their grant funding.  You can vote for this project here.

A friend of mine, Elizabeth Handel, runs a literacy program for inmates and their children in Massachusetts.  It's called A Book from Mom/ABook from Dad and was started in 2004.  They take donations of used books to prisions for parents to give to their children when they visit.  If parents can't meet with their children some prisions allow them to record themselves reading the book and then send the book and recording to their child.  It's very local with Handel sorting and delivering most of the books herself, some information about the program is available here.  Sadly A Book from Mom/A Book from Dad is not set up for internet donations.  But if you're in MA look out for bookstores and schools who work with this organization and donate through them

Book Review - The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is the first book in the Mockingjay Trilogy which follows the story of Katniss Everdeen as she attempts to survive in the post-apocalyptic world of Panem.  Panem is the remains of a war torn North America and is separated into twelve districts and the Capitol.  It experiences class and wealth divides with the Captiol having a extreme wealth and plenty of resources, while many of the districts surviving on little.  Approximately 100 years ago a war was fought over this set up.  This civil war resulted in District 13 being "obliterated" and the yearly gladitorial Hunger Games where two children of each district fight.  Katniss volunteers to take the place of her younger sister and immediately becomes a figure of interest in the year's Hunger Games.  Her attempts to survive and save the lives of other children in the games leads to political instability which becomes the major plot points of Catching Fire and Mockingjay.

I devoured the Mockingjay series in about a week.  The writing is good, most of the characters are well developed, and the themes, sometimes shown only by small details, are deep and relevent.  They are also rather adult.  This book is considered Young Adult, but I think part of that classification comes from the ages of the characters.  Katniss starts the series as the age of 16. 

However the book portays the brutal death of multiple children and teenagers.  It also deals with PTSD, alcohol and drug addiction and contains multiple cultural critiques such as classism, racism, and an entertainment obsessed culture.  It's incredibly deep. 

While I think teenagers can read and appreciate The Hunger Games and the rest of the trilogy I think they have to be emotionally mature to do so.  A twelve-year-old might understand the words and follow the story, but this series is more on the sixteen-year-old end of the YA classification. 

This is certainly a series that leads to discussion.  It's great for a book club or for parents and teens to read and discuss together.  This is also a way for younger teens to read the book and gain understanding of the more mature themes in the book.

As a YA book The Hunger Games is for Self Extending Readers and ones at the higher end of the level.  Readers definately need some background knowledge on Roman history and the geography of North America to understand the layout of Panem and the significance of gladitorial games.  To catch the classism and racism that is portrayed readers obviously need to have some understanding of these issues and how the manifest in small ways.  Even then some readers are likely to miss that the poorer discricts and people are more likely to have darker coloring as this is something that Collins portrays through character descriptions, but doesn't explain the significance of.

As a side note there is a movie of The Hunger Games and I imagine it will be very popular.  It will still be some time before the film comes out.  I'm always in favor of reading a book before seeing the film and I think it's good to see how the different mediums seek to tell the same story. The Hunger Games will be especially interesting in this regard as Suzanne Collins is helping to write the script.