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From: Hollis Rudiger <hmrudiger>
Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 10:31:42 -0500
I was really looking forward to this topic. September, for all of us who work with children, is a time drenched in change and the complicated combination of anxiety and excitement that a new school year brings. Plus, childhood is nothing if not a series of transitions. Sometimes this bothers me-- It seems like we spend so much time preparing our pre schoolers to go off to kindergarten, that they never get to be preschoolers. Fifth grade teachers are under so much pressure to prepare their kids for middle school, that they often must worry more about what their students will need to know the next year rather than what they need to be thinking about right now. And high school, for many, is one long 4 year college prep experience.
I wonder if children and YA literature is reflecting that as well? Is the fact that the YA edge is getting sharper younger related to kids' impatience with what they perceive to be a too-slow transition? And then do we as repsonsible adults try and slow that down for them, or give them what they want?
One book I read this summer really embodies the themes of change and growth: Bucking the Sarge, by Christopher Paul Curtis. The main characters are right at that point where they are leaving childhood and entering adolescence, and yet each has life experiences which make that turn unique. For Luther, who has been managing very adult reponsibilities for years, growing up means making the conscious choice to be a man who lives his life in opposition to what his mother has tried to teach him. His buddy Sparky, also 15, is so far from making any deliberate choices, he needs at least the three years he has left in high school to learn how not to self destruct. And then there's Chester X, another main character, whose transition is from living independently to living as a client in the assited living home that Luther's mother owns. He struggles to spend the next few years his way, and not as the Sarge (Luther's mother) dictates.
I loved how Luther and Chester interact, and Curtis develops their friendship with perfect pace. They have so little in common it appears at first, but the novel ends in a way that reveals that they have a lot more in common than just being unhappy in their current "stage."
I won't spoil this book-- I can't wait to hear what others think about this book as students start to read it thsi fall.
Hollis Margaret Rudiger, Librarian Cooperative Children's Book Center University of Wisconsin-School of Education 4290 Helen C. White Hall 600 North Park St. Madison, WI 53706
hmrudiger at some.place Voice: 608&3930 Fax: 608&2I33 www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/
Received on Tue 14 Sep 2004 10:31:42 AM CDT
Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 10:31:42 -0500
I was really looking forward to this topic. September, for all of us who work with children, is a time drenched in change and the complicated combination of anxiety and excitement that a new school year brings. Plus, childhood is nothing if not a series of transitions. Sometimes this bothers me-- It seems like we spend so much time preparing our pre schoolers to go off to kindergarten, that they never get to be preschoolers. Fifth grade teachers are under so much pressure to prepare their kids for middle school, that they often must worry more about what their students will need to know the next year rather than what they need to be thinking about right now. And high school, for many, is one long 4 year college prep experience.
I wonder if children and YA literature is reflecting that as well? Is the fact that the YA edge is getting sharper younger related to kids' impatience with what they perceive to be a too-slow transition? And then do we as repsonsible adults try and slow that down for them, or give them what they want?
One book I read this summer really embodies the themes of change and growth: Bucking the Sarge, by Christopher Paul Curtis. The main characters are right at that point where they are leaving childhood and entering adolescence, and yet each has life experiences which make that turn unique. For Luther, who has been managing very adult reponsibilities for years, growing up means making the conscious choice to be a man who lives his life in opposition to what his mother has tried to teach him. His buddy Sparky, also 15, is so far from making any deliberate choices, he needs at least the three years he has left in high school to learn how not to self destruct. And then there's Chester X, another main character, whose transition is from living independently to living as a client in the assited living home that Luther's mother owns. He struggles to spend the next few years his way, and not as the Sarge (Luther's mother) dictates.
I loved how Luther and Chester interact, and Curtis develops their friendship with perfect pace. They have so little in common it appears at first, but the novel ends in a way that reveals that they have a lot more in common than just being unhappy in their current "stage."
I won't spoil this book-- I can't wait to hear what others think about this book as students start to read it thsi fall.
Hollis Margaret Rudiger, Librarian Cooperative Children's Book Center University of Wisconsin-School of Education 4290 Helen C. White Hall 600 North Park St. Madison, WI 53706
hmrudiger at some.place Voice: 608&3930 Fax: 608&2I33 www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/
Received on Tue 14 Sep 2004 10:31:42 AM CDT
