Books

I didn't really put 2 & 2 together until I was an adult, but I firmly believe my current love of reading comes directly from my parents always reading when I was a kid. Honestly, I don't necessarily remember us reading together a lot--although we do have a lot of great kids books that I had memorized as a kid and somebody had to read them over & over to me! I mostly remember my parents having books all around the house. Usually my dad was reading 2 or 3 at a time. Then, when I was in college my mom really picked up reading even more and reads constantly--sometimes in the winter, almost a book a day.

Joel is also an avid reader, although he doesn't have any time to read for fun these days. Mostly he reads kids' essays from school and textbooks for his own graduate classes. But, he is still a reader at heart. I'm so glad about that.

As an adult, I love reading and find I don't have enough time to do it. I find time whenever I can and sometimes am able to just read through an entire book in one sitting. Sometimes. For the first time, I am part of a great book club. We read 1 book a month and meet to talk about it over lunch. It has been a great experience I have found that I've been missing a lot by reading so quickly.

I thought I would take a minute and review a few of the books I've read recently. Over the past year, I've really tried to break out of my typical reading genre--fiction novels with mostly female protagonists. I've started ready nonfiction--last summer it was about China--and then one about the crisis in Rwanda. My more recent genre has been young adult fiction (YAF).

The librarian at my school has been trying to build our YAF section, but in order to do that, she really felt like she needed to pre-read the books to make sure they were appropriate for our library. Mostly they had to pass the "PG-13" test...if the book was made into a movie, would it be PG-13 or less? If not, it doesn't belong on our shelves--not that it's not a good book, just that it doesn't fit our demographic. So, I've read three books for her...

Inventing Elliot--a great coming of age book about a boy who is constantly beat up at school. But when he attends a new school, he is accepted into a secret society called The Guardians--based on Orwell's book 1984. Longing to be cool, he joins the "gang", only to find out they may not be the best group to be a part of. Violent, but very good.

The next two did not pass the PG-13 test, but were great stories none the less.
Sweethearts and Looking for Alaska. Both were great stories but had constant foul language and sexually explicit material. That's right, you read that correctly. Sexually explicit material (Alaska more so than Sweethearts).

Here's what I learned: authors of YAF have agendas. They are pushing ideas and controversial issues on to kids who don't have a way of discriminating what they really believe. It's really quite sad.

I think it's great that YAF can include some ideas about coming of age issues--let's face it, kids are having sex and drinking and doing drugs--but does it have to be so in-your-face in every book they read? Why can't there be good books about cool kids who don't have to do those things to be cool? Or, better yet, why can't there be books about kids struggling with these issues and coming to an honest conclusion about them--not to do them at all?? Or facing the consequences of their actions??

Anyway, I'm hoping to read a few more books in this genre...anyone have any suggestions?

On a lighter note, I'm currently reading Prince Caspian in preparation for the movie coming out in May. What a great story. Why couldn't we have more CS Lewis-type writers? Or JRR Tolkien? Great books. Awesome stories. No foul language and certainly no sexually explicit material. See? I knew it could be done!

Next up? Three Cups of Tea--another non-fiction book about a man who decided to help build schools in rural Pakistan. I can't wait to get it from the library!