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Making up Megaboy
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From: Ginny Moore Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Thu, 08 Jul 1999 16:35:29 -0500
Ed wrote that boys in his book discussion group liked "Megaboy" but wanted more, and this gave him a brief opening for an exchange.
Judith found "Megaboy" to be "frustrating, incomplete" but considers this a reason why it's thought-provoking and discussible.
The "Book Links" article (May, 1998) quotes editor Richard Jackson as saying that "the artfulness of books can do more for truth than a two-minute sound bite on the network news. It can give us something permanent to ponder, to return to, so share, to shock us into recognition of our neighbors and ourselves."
Just as all books are completed by their readers and viewers - and we know each of us reads a different book - "Megaboy" seems to require an additional level of completion. How do we begin to make sense of what seems to be random, unless we talk about it with family, friends, co-workers? Dick Jackson also refers to a "statement of mind" used in a documentary way...reportorial but once-removed from the look of the evening news - just as Robbie is himself once-removed from his own life."
In the same article, author Virginia Walter indicates she "had no agenda. I had for years wanted to write about a young person who kills, hoping that I could make sense of a series of apparently senseless crimes I had read about. I found myself feeling profound empathy for the young killers as well as for their victims, and I was disturbed by the moral ambiguity of that position."
Has anyone else had the opportunity to discuss "Making Up Megaboy" with young readers? with other adults? Have you or any of "Megaboy's" readers seemed to complete this "once-removed" story through the process of discussing it?
Ginny Moore Kruse (gmkruse at ccbc.education.wisc.edu) Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) A Library of the School of Education (www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/) University of Wisconsin - Madison
Received on Thu 08 Jul 1999 04:35:29 PM CDT
Date: Thu, 08 Jul 1999 16:35:29 -0500
Ed wrote that boys in his book discussion group liked "Megaboy" but wanted more, and this gave him a brief opening for an exchange.
Judith found "Megaboy" to be "frustrating, incomplete" but considers this a reason why it's thought-provoking and discussible.
The "Book Links" article (May, 1998) quotes editor Richard Jackson as saying that "the artfulness of books can do more for truth than a two-minute sound bite on the network news. It can give us something permanent to ponder, to return to, so share, to shock us into recognition of our neighbors and ourselves."
Just as all books are completed by their readers and viewers - and we know each of us reads a different book - "Megaboy" seems to require an additional level of completion. How do we begin to make sense of what seems to be random, unless we talk about it with family, friends, co-workers? Dick Jackson also refers to a "statement of mind" used in a documentary way...reportorial but once-removed from the look of the evening news - just as Robbie is himself once-removed from his own life."
In the same article, author Virginia Walter indicates she "had no agenda. I had for years wanted to write about a young person who kills, hoping that I could make sense of a series of apparently senseless crimes I had read about. I found myself feeling profound empathy for the young killers as well as for their victims, and I was disturbed by the moral ambiguity of that position."
Has anyone else had the opportunity to discuss "Making Up Megaboy" with young readers? with other adults? Have you or any of "Megaboy's" readers seemed to complete this "once-removed" story through the process of discussing it?
Ginny Moore Kruse (gmkruse at ccbc.education.wisc.edu) Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) A Library of the School of Education (www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/) University of Wisconsin - Madison
Received on Thu 08 Jul 1999 04:35:29 PM CDT
