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Parrot in the Oven
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From: Ginny Moore Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 1998 15:57:54 -0600
Stephen Engelfried asked for help. His memory of reading Parrot in the Oven leaves him blank as to why it merits the award attention it's received. Thanks, Stephen, for your candid remarks!
He's right about the attention. Even a quick glance at the formal acknowledgment of this first published novel by Chicano poet Victor Martinez tells me that Parrot in the Oven = mi vida won the 1997 Americas Award for outstanding Latino fiction written by any writer and published during 1996. It was the winner of the National Book Award in 1996, and it won the 1998 Pura Belpre Award. That's three big awards, not to mention that it was named to the Horn Book Magazine's annual
"Fanfare" list and was cited as one of the best books of 1996 by Publishers' Weekly.
Hmmm... Let's hear from some enthusiasts who have a perspective on adolescence or adolescents, people who teach teenagers or otherwise work with them and who know thie book Parrot in the Oven - mi vida. At this point in time, the Pura Belpre Award is conferred in alternate years. Parrot in the Oven - mi vida has been out long enough for quite a few of you to be familiar with it. What do you say?
Meanwhile, here's what this time at CCBC Choices 1996 to see what Megan Schliesman wrote about Parrot in the Oven = mi vida: Manny is smart; sometimes he thinks he might be smart enough to make it out of his struggling neighborhood to a life beyond poverty, beyond the threat of apathy and violence. In his emotionally torn family, the tension of racism and economic oppression plays itself out: his father drinks to combat frustration, his brother can't keep a job, his sisters are experiencing too much too soon, and his mother strives to hold them all together even as she sometimes seems close to unraveling herself. But despite the strain in his family, Manny finds home is a place of refuge compared to the uncertainty of the outside world. The Mexican-American teenager's observations of a life filled with tnesion and fagile possibility are not without humor or hope, but it is his honesty in describing the experiences that unfold that gives powerful shape to his narrative voice. (I'm laughing to myself as I write this: Kathleen Horning and I also write annotations for CCBC Choices each year. However, by coincidence, the two books I've looked up in CCBC Choices this afternoon happen to have commentary written by our colleague Megan who especially enjoys reviewing fiction for children & poetry young adults and poetry.) ... Ginny Ginny Moore Kruse (gmkruse at ccbc.soemadison.wisc.edu) Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) A Library of the School of Education University of Wisconsin - Madison
Received on Mon 16 Mar 1998 03:57:54 PM CST
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 1998 15:57:54 -0600
Stephen Engelfried asked for help. His memory of reading Parrot in the Oven leaves him blank as to why it merits the award attention it's received. Thanks, Stephen, for your candid remarks!
He's right about the attention. Even a quick glance at the formal acknowledgment of this first published novel by Chicano poet Victor Martinez tells me that Parrot in the Oven = mi vida won the 1997 Americas Award for outstanding Latino fiction written by any writer and published during 1996. It was the winner of the National Book Award in 1996, and it won the 1998 Pura Belpre Award. That's three big awards, not to mention that it was named to the Horn Book Magazine's annual
"Fanfare" list and was cited as one of the best books of 1996 by Publishers' Weekly.
Hmmm... Let's hear from some enthusiasts who have a perspective on adolescence or adolescents, people who teach teenagers or otherwise work with them and who know thie book Parrot in the Oven - mi vida. At this point in time, the Pura Belpre Award is conferred in alternate years. Parrot in the Oven - mi vida has been out long enough for quite a few of you to be familiar with it. What do you say?
Meanwhile, here's what this time at CCBC Choices 1996 to see what Megan Schliesman wrote about Parrot in the Oven = mi vida: Manny is smart; sometimes he thinks he might be smart enough to make it out of his struggling neighborhood to a life beyond poverty, beyond the threat of apathy and violence. In his emotionally torn family, the tension of racism and economic oppression plays itself out: his father drinks to combat frustration, his brother can't keep a job, his sisters are experiencing too much too soon, and his mother strives to hold them all together even as she sometimes seems close to unraveling herself. But despite the strain in his family, Manny finds home is a place of refuge compared to the uncertainty of the outside world. The Mexican-American teenager's observations of a life filled with tnesion and fagile possibility are not without humor or hope, but it is his honesty in describing the experiences that unfold that gives powerful shape to his narrative voice. (I'm laughing to myself as I write this: Kathleen Horning and I also write annotations for CCBC Choices each year. However, by coincidence, the two books I've looked up in CCBC Choices this afternoon happen to have commentary written by our colleague Megan who especially enjoys reviewing fiction for children & poetry young adults and poetry.) ... Ginny Ginny Moore Kruse (gmkruse at ccbc.soemadison.wisc.edu) Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) A Library of the School of Education University of Wisconsin - Madison
Received on Mon 16 Mar 1998 03:57:54 PM CST
