Wintergirls

For all the intensity that Laurie Halse Anderson's famous book, Speak, provides, I have to say that Wintergirls provides more. Words that flashed through my mind while reading this book - which explores the world of teenage anorexia, cutting, and suicide - include heartbreaking, frustrating, haunting, and shocking. Anderson gives the reader a window into the mind of her main character Lia in a way that surpasses nearly every other fictional book that I've read. I know that's a bold statement, but let me put it this way: while reading this book, I caught myself turning down a muffin fresh out of the oven because I could be strong and resist. I am not exaggerating and I am not speaking lightly; this book gets inside your head as you get inside Lia's, and it's more than a little disturbing.

Lia and her best friend Cassie have been competing to be the thinnest for years; Lia's chosen method is anorexia while Cassie is bulimic. When Cassie kills herself, though, in the first few pages of the book, and Lia is left alone. Battling against her parents, doctors, teachers, and potential friends, Lia tries her hardest to cheat the systems set in place to protect her and continue spiraling downhill towards the "goals" she's set for herself, even though her best friend is no longer with her. Another small hiccup is that Lia and Cassie had abruptly gone their separate ways months before Cassie's death, creating a world of guilt and inner turmoil for Lia that she doesn't share with anyone but you are an eyewitness to. Just like Speak - and so many of Anderson's books, as I'm finally learning - this book immediately draws you in with its unique writing style, beautiful vocabulary choices, and heartbreaking honesty. I can't even begin to imagine the research that must have taken place in order to write from inside the mind of a girl struggling with anorexia and cutting, but it definitely paid off.

Despite its incredible positives, I am hesitant to bring it into my classroom, not because it's inappropriate but because it's so deeply disturbing and troublesome that I think it would be difficult for many 7th graders to read and appreciate fully. (By the way, I'll be teaching 7th grade this Fall...just found out!) There are definitely 7th graders who could handle it, but I wouldn't want to have it on a community shelf for anyone to pick up. It's deep, it's painful, and it seriously messes with you. I wasn't exaggerating at all about me starting to pay attention to what I ate and how often I was working out...I would never in a million years want an impressionable middle school girl to pick this book up and interpret the wrong message, leading to the development of an eating or exercise disorder. I may, however, consider having a "behind the teacher's desk" bookshelf, which contains books such as this that may be fine for some but not for all, and that, with teacher's and parent's approval, be specially checked out. I've seen 8th grade teachers do that and it worked well. That all being said, this book is excellent, and highly - if not cautiously - recommended by me.

Tears of a Tiger

I'm back! It's been a while, but grad school's got to get finished somehow and jobs don't get applied to for you. Graduation is tonight and the interviews are finally starting, though, so I'm back to casually reading on occasion. And the first one I picked up was Tears of a Tiger, written by Sharon Draper. I'd heard about this series for the first time during student teaching in the fall; the English department had been given sets of the trilogy and my Cooperating Teacher used the second book in the series as a Read-Aloud. I only got to hear some of the second book during my time in her classroom, but I was hooked and knew that I would want to read all three books at some point. So...here we go:

Andy and his good friends - including his best friend Robbie - are out celebrating that night's basketball victory over a rival school. They're riding around in Andy's car - after many drinks each - when the car crashes and Robbie is killed almost immediately. The other three boys, including Andy, manage to escape much physical damage but the emotional damage is endless. This becomes especially true for Andy, who was driving the car the led to his best friend's untimely death. Although many characters remain focal points throughout the story, the bulk of the plot surrounds Andy and the rest of his school year.

I think what I really appreciated about Tears of a Tiger is that even though Draper deals with realistic and heartwrenchingly mature themes, she does so in a really classy and appropriate way. I've read "Young Adult" books that focus on the same issues and same subgroup of adolescents and they were virtually unreadable because of the profanity and sexual content. Even if those elements are realistic of true life, we don't always need that level of reality in our faces when we're reading books aimed at young audiences. It really bothers me and has completely eliminated books from my teaching arsenal because I can't support or recommend them. This one, though, deals with traumatic storylines such as underage drinking, accidental death, teenage relationships, abusive parents, and suicide but manages to remain profanity and sex-free. Sometimes the effect is a little similar to watching the movie Remember the Titans: you know that these boys yelling at each other would be cussing each other out like crazy, and the lack of cussing seems a little corny but you appreciate the fact that you're not having to hear it. I truly do appreciate that. Beyond that, though, the plot is also really interesting and engaging. The end is fairly traumatic - even more so than the beginning - and I will say that it wouldn't be a light and fun Read-Aloud, but it would definitely provide good conversations about deeper subject matter than most books. The fact that it's written in a unique prose-ish format makes it easy to zip through as well (I read it in one day. I know I'm not a middle school student, but still). I highly recommend this one, and I'm excited to see what happens next in Forged by Fire!