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[CCBC-Net] time frame in Criss Cross
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From: Kathleen Horning <horning>
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2006 12:44:47 -0600
To answer Elliott's question: there are several cultural/fashion references that set the book in the 1970s. See, for example, the diagram of acceptable bellbottoms on page 49, and the mention of platform shoes a few pages later. Also, when Debbie is going through the box of her mother's "life before marriage" mementos, we learn that her mother grew up during the Depression and went to a premiere screening of Gone with the Wind which would have been 1939. These things resonate clearly with many of us who grew up in the 1970s, but it's good to hear that they do with other readers as well.
KT
Kathleen T. Horning, Director Cooperative Children's Book Center University of Wisconsin-School of Education 4290 Helen C. White Hall 600 North Park St. Madison, WI 53706
horning at education.wisc.edu Voice: 608-263-3721 Fax: 608-262-4933 www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/
>>> "Elliott BatTzedek" <ebattzedek at cliontheweb.org> 02/20/06 12:26 PM
>>>
I didn't think Criss Cross was set in the past, or at least not more than a few years, so this conversation has been very surprising to me. What elements led everyone to read it as set in the 80s or even 70s?
This book really spoke to me as someone who grew up in a tiny rural town in the midwest. At the end of each summer, if someone were to ask,
"What happened this summer?" I could easily have answered, "Nothing." Yet, as in the novel, all kinds of internal changes were happening, and I was always learning more about the world and my place in it, within a life that even I considered plot-less and boring. That Perkins caught and pinned to the page the fragile connections of the internal life of teenagers is astounding to me, especially in a world where so many teen coming-of-age books are loud and confrontative, with drugs and violence and drastic, sometimes brutal, life changes. I think these books speak to a lot of tween and teens because their internal experience feels so big even when their external lives seem so boring, so to finally have a book where the internal life is more dramatic than the external is wonderful.
Maybe, just maybe, it doesn't need to be put on reading lists and taught to death, but offered as special jewel.
Elliott batTzedek Curriculum and Collections Development
-----Original Message----- From: Meg Robertson [mailto:mroberts at ramsey.lib.mn.us] Sent: Monday, February 20, 2006 1:11 PM To: ccbc-net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu Subject: [CCBC-Net] time frame in Criss Cross
At our mock Newbery discussion, anachronistic elements in Criss Cross were also brought up. The older sister doing data entry for a computer company as a summer job was one, another was the mention of the casual poses of senior photos in the yearbook. We all agreed that if this were the 1970s as we thought it was, that senior yearbook photots were still very straightforward studio portraits.
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2006 12:44:47 -0600
To answer Elliott's question: there are several cultural/fashion references that set the book in the 1970s. See, for example, the diagram of acceptable bellbottoms on page 49, and the mention of platform shoes a few pages later. Also, when Debbie is going through the box of her mother's "life before marriage" mementos, we learn that her mother grew up during the Depression and went to a premiere screening of Gone with the Wind which would have been 1939. These things resonate clearly with many of us who grew up in the 1970s, but it's good to hear that they do with other readers as well.
KT
Kathleen T. Horning, Director Cooperative Children's Book Center University of Wisconsin-School of Education 4290 Helen C. White Hall 600 North Park St. Madison, WI 53706
horning at education.wisc.edu Voice: 608-263-3721 Fax: 608-262-4933 www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/
>>> "Elliott BatTzedek" <ebattzedek at cliontheweb.org> 02/20/06 12:26 PM
>>>
I didn't think Criss Cross was set in the past, or at least not more than a few years, so this conversation has been very surprising to me. What elements led everyone to read it as set in the 80s or even 70s?
This book really spoke to me as someone who grew up in a tiny rural town in the midwest. At the end of each summer, if someone were to ask,
"What happened this summer?" I could easily have answered, "Nothing." Yet, as in the novel, all kinds of internal changes were happening, and I was always learning more about the world and my place in it, within a life that even I considered plot-less and boring. That Perkins caught and pinned to the page the fragile connections of the internal life of teenagers is astounding to me, especially in a world where so many teen coming-of-age books are loud and confrontative, with drugs and violence and drastic, sometimes brutal, life changes. I think these books speak to a lot of tween and teens because their internal experience feels so big even when their external lives seem so boring, so to finally have a book where the internal life is more dramatic than the external is wonderful.
Maybe, just maybe, it doesn't need to be put on reading lists and taught to death, but offered as special jewel.
Elliott batTzedek Curriculum and Collections Development
-----Original Message----- From: Meg Robertson [mailto:mroberts at ramsey.lib.mn.us] Sent: Monday, February 20, 2006 1:11 PM To: ccbc-net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu Subject: [CCBC-Net] time frame in Criss Cross
At our mock Newbery discussion, anachronistic elements in Criss Cross were also brought up. The older sister doing data entry for a computer company as a summer job was one, another was the mention of the casual poses of senior photos in the yearbook. We all agreed that if this were the 1970s as we thought it was, that senior yearbook photots were still very straightforward studio portraits.
-- Meg Lloyd Robertson Assistant Branch Manager Maplewood Library mroberts at rclreads.org (651)704-2033 -- _______________________________________________ CCBC-Net mailing list CCBC-Net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu Visit this link to read archives or to unsubscribe... http://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccbc-net _______________________________________________ CCBC-Net mailing list CCBC-Net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu Visit this link to read archives or to unsubscribe... http://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccbc-netReceived on Mon 20 Feb 2006 12:44:47 PM CST
