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Tenderness
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From: LEvarts at aol.com <LEvarts>
Date: Tue, 5 Aug 1997 20:56:41 -0400 (EDT)
Even months after reading Tenderness, it continues to haunt me, the way very few books have. The reason that I found the book so disturbing was because the two main characters were so realistic. Cormier takes us into the minds of these young people...young people rather like the young people we see every day, in many respects. They are searching for acceptance or release. They are each looking for their own kind of "tenderness". Cormier shows us some of the motivations that drive people to destruction, but in it, there is a little bit of what we see every day. Parents that don't care or, worse, are abusive; students that are sexually assualted by those they are supposed to trust; all manners of violence in our society that are visited upon them. And, in the end, all each is searching for is tenderness. Rather ironic, isn't it?
I gave this book to my favorite student reviewer right after I read it and urged her to read it. Interestingly enough, this student's leaning are very right wing, but she is someone who thinks deeply about everything she reads, and I knew she would give me an accurate read on what the students would think. The next morning, she came rushing in as I opened the library door at 7, placed herself down in the chair in my office and spent the next hour talking with me about her reactions to what she read. She commented, more than once, how real the characters seemed to her, even though she was pretty certain she had never known a serial killer. That told me how very accurate Cormier's portrayal was of these young people. They were disturbed, yet oddly close to people we've all known. My student reviewer proceeded to make the book so popular, I had to go out and buy three more copies. Every student who brought it back had the same reaction. A disturbing book, yes...but one that is very important because it shows us all the varying interpretations of tenderness, and how we learn what that is in our lives through our experiences as children and young people. Something we all should give more thought to...
Lynn Evarts Sauk Prairie High School Prairie du Sac, WI
Received on Tue 05 Aug 1997 07:56:41 PM CDT
Date: Tue, 5 Aug 1997 20:56:41 -0400 (EDT)
Even months after reading Tenderness, it continues to haunt me, the way very few books have. The reason that I found the book so disturbing was because the two main characters were so realistic. Cormier takes us into the minds of these young people...young people rather like the young people we see every day, in many respects. They are searching for acceptance or release. They are each looking for their own kind of "tenderness". Cormier shows us some of the motivations that drive people to destruction, but in it, there is a little bit of what we see every day. Parents that don't care or, worse, are abusive; students that are sexually assualted by those they are supposed to trust; all manners of violence in our society that are visited upon them. And, in the end, all each is searching for is tenderness. Rather ironic, isn't it?
I gave this book to my favorite student reviewer right after I read it and urged her to read it. Interestingly enough, this student's leaning are very right wing, but she is someone who thinks deeply about everything she reads, and I knew she would give me an accurate read on what the students would think. The next morning, she came rushing in as I opened the library door at 7, placed herself down in the chair in my office and spent the next hour talking with me about her reactions to what she read. She commented, more than once, how real the characters seemed to her, even though she was pretty certain she had never known a serial killer. That told me how very accurate Cormier's portrayal was of these young people. They were disturbed, yet oddly close to people we've all known. My student reviewer proceeded to make the book so popular, I had to go out and buy three more copies. Every student who brought it back had the same reaction. A disturbing book, yes...but one that is very important because it shows us all the varying interpretations of tenderness, and how we learn what that is in our lives through our experiences as children and young people. Something we all should give more thought to...
Lynn Evarts Sauk Prairie High School Prairie du Sac, WI
Received on Tue 05 Aug 1997 07:56:41 PM CDT
