From: Ginny Moore Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2001 10:33:07 -0600

Before we leave the 2001 Printz Discussion, let's remember that four Honor Books were named: Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging: Confessions of Georgia Nicolson by Louise Rennison. (U.S. edition: HarperCollins); The Body of Christopher Creed by Carol Plum-Ucci
(Harcourt); Many Stones by Carolyn Coman (Front Street); and Stuck in Neutral by Terry Trueman (HarperCollins).

If you've read any of these four books, you're welcome to share your response or that of any young adult reader(s). Apologies for not specifically inviting your comments about the Honor Books before this. Although I've probably missed some of your previous CCBC-Net messages about some of these books, I copied comments below about the novel Many Stones by Carolyn Coman (from the brief discussion in January of books nominated for the 2000 National Book Award):

Dean Schneider (1/3/01) - Carolyn Coman has a knack for putting the reader in the head of her main character, so we're not just reading about the character, we're in the character, thinking and feeling our way along with her. This is a sophisticated and delicate novel you keep thinking about long after you've finished it. It handles tough themes with a sensitive touch.

Angela J. Reynolds (1/8/01) - My favorite in the NBA short list was Many Stones. There were so many connections: the rocks that comforted the main character and the rock that killed her sister; the healing and grief she experienced so well balanced with the healing and grief of a whole country; the distant father but the just as distant daughter. Coman's language was nicely matched with the feeling of the book--- it was beautiful at times, dreamy at others. I really felt that the reader was put into the character's mind and life. I also appreciated the fact that the daughter/father reconciliation was not mended overnight, all was not perfect by book's end, but the reader could hope that their relationship was at least on the mend.

Dean Schneider (1/8/01) - When I think of teaching Many Stones, I don't think of a unit on South Africa studies. I think: "Excellent novel. Students will care about this character and her story. In order to teach the novel well, I'll need to teach the relevant history of South Africa." South Africa is the context for part of the novel, and apartheid and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission must be understood in order to understand Berry's experience. The novel does not pretend to be more than it is; it does not presume to be about the whole history and culture of South Africa. It is about, as Hazel Rochman says in her Booklist review (Novemebr 1, 2000), connecting
"the anguish in one family with the struggle of a country to come to terms with its savage past." It is about grief and reconciliation -- personal and national
-- and a subtle connection between the two is made. Coman does a good job of showing that apartheid is not simply a thing of the past, that racism is a continuing, current presence in South Africa. My students, when reading Mildred Taylor's Road to Memphis, often think of racism as something that was "back then." We read Suzanne Fisher Staples's Dangerous Skies as a counterpoint: racism in the 1990s on the eastern shore of Virginia. Carolyn Coman does that in her novel, too. I would teach Many Stones as an excellent novel in its own right or as part of a unit on racism or the Holocaust or other various manifestations of prejudice, power and its abuse, and good versus evil. I could see including it in my unit in which we read various Holocaust books such as Gentlehands, Night, and Tell Them We Remember, and books on American slavery, including Frederick Douglass's Narrative. Reading Carolyn Coman's story of an American girl caught up in the legacy of apartheid in South Africa would be another dimension to my unit. As Edward Sullivan says in his excellent resource, The Holocaust in Literature for Youth, "The primary goal of Holocaust education is not, and should not be, teaching students about the Holocaust. The Holocaust is merely the means, not the end, of Holocaust education. The goal should be to teach the student about him or herself. Specifically, it should be about hate, the hate that is within all of us, and the hateful acts of which we are capable. We can do that only if we look at many instances of genocide, prejudice, and persecution. If we teach students only about the Holocaust and do not connect it to similar events at other times in history in different parts of the world, then they are left with the impression that the Holocaust was an isolated moment in history when some members of humanity went mad."
 Now that's a heavy connection to make for a small book, and as I say it can easily be taught as a good book by itself, but if I were looking for a context in which to put the book, that would be it...

Anyone else, about Many Stones, or about any of the other three 2000 Printz Honor Books? - Ginny





Ginny Moore Kruse gmkruse at education.wisc.edu Director, Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/ A Library of the School of Education, University of Wisconsin Madison 4290 Helen C. White Hall, 600 N. Park Street Madison, WI 53706, U.S.A.

Phone: 608&3721 or 720 Fax: 608&2I33

The Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) is a noncirculating library for adults with an academic, professional or career interest in contemporary or historical literature for children and young adults.
Received on Wed 28 Feb 2001 10:33:07 AM CST