Skim by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki

Tamaki, M. (2008). Skim. Illustrations by Jillian Tamaki. Toronto, Ontario. Groundwood Books.

ISBN-13: 978-0-88899-753-1

Plot Summary

Asian-American Kim is called Skim by her friends because she’s not. Skim attends an all girls private school and is not part of the “in crowd.” She and her only real friend, Lisa, explore Wiccan goth culture, consult tarot cards, and smoke outside school. When their classmate Katie is suddenly dumped by her boyfriend and then kills himself, the entire school mourns and wonders about his true sexual orientation. Counselors arrive and the popular girls start a Girls Celebrate Life! club. Skim sinks into depression as she appears to the others as someone to be concerned about. She develops a close relationship with her eccentric English teacher, Ms. Archer, and is devastated when Ms. Archer unexpectedly leaves school to teach at another. After Lisa persuades Skim to attend the school dance, which is a fundraiser for a service for depressed people, Katie and Skim become better friends as Skim begins to see Katie in a new light. Her friendship with Lisa changes when Lisa begins dating a boy from another school, and as a result, Skim learns about the many forms of love.

Critical Evaluation

Skim is a graphic novel and is written in first-person narration, often in a diary-type format, from the point of view of the main character, Skim. The diary entries, internal narration, and dialogue are seamlessly woven together and give the characters a realistic voice that is self-aware and often deprecatingly humorous. The setting of an all girls private school is significant because it magnifies the relationships they have with each other and brings attention to how Skim stands out: she is not thin like many of the other girls and it is evident in the graphic drawings. The pen line drawings are expressive and add dimension to the characters and setting. They are often in contrast with the narration and the effect can be ironic. The illustrations and narration work together to bring the characters and story to life with all the confusion of a teen-age girl’s thoughts. The last full-page illustration is especially significant. Two small pullouts show Skim walking away. These illustrations are laid on top and to the left of the larger image of a dark and tangled wooded area. There is a theme here; life only gets more complicated as you go on. Readers will also appreciate and connect with all the confusion of being a young adult.

 

Reader’s Annotation

 

Kim, a.k.a. “Skim,” goes to an all-girls high school where a classmate’s ex-boyfriend commits suicide, throwing the entire school into grief overdrive. Skim must navigate through depression, Wicca, friendship, crushes, and sexual orientation and learns that everything you do leaves a mark on other people.

Author Information

 

Mariko Tamaki is a performer and writer in Toronto. She has appeared on stage with a variety of troupes including PPPO (Pretty, Porky, and Pissed Off), which was founded in 1997 and lasted eight years. The women of PPPO performed productions of stories about large women with large attitude; “Move it Fatty” and “Wide Side Story” are some of their plays. Members of the troupe still enjoy occasional guest appearances and performances. Tamaki has also starred in a solo production of her graphic novel, Skim, in which she herself played the main character.

Tamaki is also a columnist for two Toronto magazines as well as a graduate student of Linguistic Anthropology at the University of Toronto. There, she also studies language, performance, and gender. Her humor shines through her webpage as she lists things she thinks are fantastic including dinner parties, music with a good beat, and documentaries about people growing older.

More information about Mariko Tamaki can be found on her website, where you can also contact her:

http://www.marikotamaki.com/

Genre

Young adult

Graphic novel

Alternate format

Coming of age

Suicide

High School

Depression

Friendship

Curriculum Ties

N/A

Book Talking Ideas

How does a school react when something tragic happens?

Reading Level/ Interest Age

Appropriate for ages 14 and up

Challenge Issues

Language, homosexuality

Challenge Defense

If it were challenged, I would consult ALA's Strategies and Tips for Dealing with Challenges to Library  Materials.

I would also cite these reviews:

Book Links (A.L.A.) 01/01/10

New York Times 11/09/08

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books starred 05/01/08

Publishers Weekly 02/04/08

Horn Book 10/01/08

Wilson's Junior High School 01/09/10

Horn Book starred 07/01/08

Wilson's Senior High School 06/01/10

Why did I include this title?

I haven’t read very many graphic novels, and after doing a little research, I sought out this book. I’m glad I did. The illustrations make the text so poignant and meaningful. I remember in particular one scene where Katie “smiles the smallest smile on the planet” and in the illustration, you can just make it out. The subject matter is handled with layers of humor, honesty, and depth that seems only possible with the illustrations. I am hooked and I look forward to reading more graphic novels.

Dark Dude by Oscar Hijuelos

Hijuelos, O. (2008). Dark dude. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers.

ISBN-13: 978-1-41694-804-9

Plot Summary

Fifteen-year-old Rico is the “palest Cubano who ever existed on the planet.” He loves comic books and dreams of being a writer. However, his New York City neighborhood increasingly makes life difficult. His family is struggling to survive, and Rico must attend a dismal Harlem public high school. When his “big brother” Gilberto miraculously strikes it rich playing the lottery, he makes a huge impression on Rico by showing him the peaceful landscape picture of the college he enrolls in as a way of getting out of the neighborhood without going to Vietnam. On the other hand, Rico’s other good friend Jimmy, an artist, turns to drugs as a different means of escape. Deciding to leave the inner city and a hopeless life behind, Rico and Jimmy hitchhike their way from Harlem to the promising pastures of Wisconsin, the land of milk and honey. Rico compares his new life to his life in New York and wonders if he made the right decision.

Critical Evaluation

The setting of Dark Dude is important to the story. Rico lives in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. New York City itself is rich with many ethnicities that historically are in constant conflict with each other: Peurto Rican, Cuban, African-American, Jewish, and Irish. When Rico’s best friend displays the Wisconsin college brochure, the stark contrast between the dirty inner city New York and the rolling green hills of Eden-esque Wisconsin are obvious. The book’s division into Rico’s first person narration of his life is dotted with humor throughout Dark Dude. One example is when he decides to stay away from his Harlem school, which they referred to as Jo Mama’s (demonstrating total lack of respect), as much as possible: “I just couldn’t go back to Jo Mama’s on a regular basis. It was like an antimagnetic thing, and I was a piece of metal” (115). This kind of humor balances out the conflicts he faces with stride. Many of the conflicts are a result of his skin color. He is Cuban, but instead of having dark skin and eyes, he is pale with freckles and hazel eyes. As a result, he does not fit in with any group. Readers will connect with Rico’s desire to be accepted as part of a group and his conflict of identity. Readers will also appreciate Rico’s desire to get out of the problems that plague his life through whatever means it takes. Readers will also understand the theme that it doesn’t matter who you are or where you are, everyone has problems; it’s how you deal with them that counts.

 

Reader’s Annotation

 

Fifteen-year-old Rico feels out of place in his Harlem neighborhood because of his light skin and his aspirations to be a writer. Hoping to find a better life, he runs away and finds his life’s purpose.

 

Author Information

 

Oscar Hijuelos was born August 24, 1951 in New York City. He is the son of Cuban immigrants and his experiences influence his writing; his books explore life as a Hispanic in America. His first novel, Our House in the Last World (1983), is about a Cuban family living in 1940s America and received much critical praise. However, it was The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love (1989) that earned him international recognition. In 1990, Hijuelos received the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for Mambo Kings.

Hijuelos has been a National Book Award nominee, has received the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Rome Fellowship and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation as well as the National Endowment for the arts. He currently lives in New York City but spends part of his time in Durham, North Carolina, where he is a visiting professor at Duke. Dark Dude is his first young adult novel. Of it, Hijuelos says, “This is the kind of book I wish I’d read when I was a teen.”

More information about Oscar Hijuelos can be found where I found this information at Biography.com:

http://www.biography.com/people/oscar-hijuelos-188849

Genre

Young adult

Coming of Age

Historical Fiction

Curriculum Ties

Vietnam War, Cuban immigration to the United States

Book Talking Ideas

What are your goals for the future? What do you want to be?

Reading Level/ Interest Age

Characters are in high school; appropriate for ages 15 and up

Challenge Issues

Drug use, language

Challenge Defense

If this book were challenged, I would refer to these reviews and consult ALA's Strategies and Tips for Dealing with Challenges to Library  Materials.

Booklist starred 11/01/08

Publishers Weekly starred 09/01/08

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books 10/01/08

School Library Journal 11/01/08

Horn Book 04/01/09

Voice of Youth Advocates (V.O.Y.A.) 10/01/08

Kirkus Review 09/01/08

Wilson's Senior High School 06/01/10

Why did I include this title?

I enjoy reading anything about New York City. Having lived there for a short time myself, I can appreciate the tension between the ethnic groups. I enjoyed reading about the Harlem neighborhood with the street numbers and bodegas. This novel paints a vivid picture of Harlem life, yet it does so in an endearing way. Anyone reading this novel will be able to connect with Rico’s struggle to find his way in life.

The Truth or Something: A Novel by Jeanne Willis

Willis, J. (2002). The truth or something: a novel. New York: Henry Holt and Company.

ISBN-13: 978-0-8050-7079-8

Plot Summary

World War II is over, but scrappy, nine-year-old Mick is fighting his own fight in working-class England. His mother is taking them to live by the sea with Harry, who Mick is made to believe is his father come back from the war. Mick frequently has nightmares, which often result in his wetting himself. Through a series of events as Mick grows up, he is forced to live alone, with friends, or with different relatives including Nan, his maternal grandmother. He begins to learn the unsettling truths about his family and the little sister he remembers and whom he once believed his mother sold to the “rag-and-bone man.” Then Mick goes to live with his biological father who is kind at first but then does the unspeakable to Mick. Mick’s bloody revenge on his father forces him to run away from home, which is where the novel actually begins with this gripping first line: “I don’t know if I’ve killed my dad or not.”

Critical Evaluation

This novel, which is based on true events, takes place in working class post-war England. It is depressing and gray, and the bleakness of the land and times creates a melancholy mood, which is mirrored in the mood of the adult characters. In the beginning, Mick seems to be a carefree boy as shown through the child-like first person narration. However, as he grows older and is more aware of circumstances, the narration’s tone changes accordingly, even with humor, to represent his adolescent maturity and understanding. Characterization and setting are further enhanced through the dialect: “I realize my feet are cold but my arse is steaming. Wet myself again” (12). Readers unused to British dialect will quickly become acquainted with words like bloke and wellingtons. Readers will be able to connect with Mick’s changing from a young boy to an adolescent and trying to make a world for himself despite an insecure family, constant change and moving, and damaging events. Mick is determined to not be beaten in life, no matter what. The inconclusive ending is a dose of reality to readers; not everything in life is neatly tied up at the end.

Reader’s Annotation

 

Mick does not know where he fits in in the world. When tragic events happen to him, he is determined to make his place in the world.

 

Author Information

 

Jeanne Willis is most known for her award winning children’s books in the UK. Born in St. Albans, Hertz, United Kingdom, on Bonfire Night in 1959 (that’s November 5^th for those of us on this side of the pond), Willis always had an active imagination. In fact, her teachers and mother were so worried about her that her mother took her to see a doctor. Her creativity helped her with a career in advertising, which ended with her short stay in a psychiatric ward due to stress. It was a very stressful time in the 1980s. The Truth or Something is based on a friend’s triumphant childhood despite his growing up in a very troubled family.

Jeanne Willis currently lives in London, England, with her husband, son, and daughter. She is happy to give speeches, author talks, and workshops in schools, libraries, and bookstores.

For more information about Jeanne Willis, please visit her website. She has an entertaining biography made up of a picture collage:

http://jeannewillis.com/index.html

Genre

Young Adult

Historical Fiction

Coming of Age

Curriculum Ties

1940’s Post WWII Great Britain

Book Talking Ideas

How do you define family? How does a person’s environment affect him? How did WWII affect England?

Reading Level/ Interest Age

Appropriate for ages 15 and up.

Challenge Issues

Sexual Abuse

Challenge Defense

In defense of a challenge, I would cite these reviews as well as ALA's Strategies and Tips for Dealing with Challenges to Library Materials.

Booklist 06/01/02

Publishers Weekly starred 05/20/02

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books 06/01/02

Why did I include this title?

This coming of age story grabbed my attention when I first saw the cover (again, judging a book by its cover?). The little boy looks so downtrodden, yet still hopeful. The time period also grabbed my attention. So much of what I have read during this time period has to do with the Holocaust and survival, but this story was about a different kind of survival. So many children are sexually abused, and this story presented it in a very real way. You can’t just get over it. I also appreciated that it has a phone number and website for a helpline for children offering free, confidential counseling service for any child with any problems at any time of the day: www.childhelpusa.org

Matched by Ally Condie

Condie, A. (2010). Matched. New York: Dutton Books.

ISBN-13: 978-0-525-42364-5

Plot Summary

Cassia lives in the Society where everything is planned: where you work, when and what you eat, how you play, what to wear, who you marry, and when you die. Everything about the past has been eliminated except for 100 poems, songs, pieces of art, and historical moments. The Society does not make mistakes. However, Cassia is confused when, at her Match Banquet, she receives her Match, the boy she will marry at 21. She is Matched with her best friend Xander, but it is not his face she sees; it is Ky’s, a creative boy she often wonders about and who is prohibited from Matching. Then, her grandfather hands her an illegal poem by Dylan Thomas, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” just before his scheduled death at age 80. These events cause conflict and doubt in Cassia. Life gets more difficult as Cassia learns the truth behind the Society’s perfection.

Critical Evaluation

Matched grabs the reader’s attention in the first chapter; Cassia is on her way to her Match Banquet where the person she will marry will be revealed to her and to the Society. Reminiscent of Lois Lowry’s The Giver and George Orwell’s 1984, this first person narration, told from the point of view of the protagonist, Cassia, creates a world in which the government controls everything. Through Cassia’s thoughts, readers experience her struggle with her feelings and with the Society. While the effects of the Society are clearly evident, the writing lacks description of its setting. Unlike other dystopian stories, Matched is more introspective than action-driven. Its plot is strong, however, as it encourages readers to think about their relationships with people, authority, and technology: “You never know when technology might fail. That’s what happened to the society before ours. Everyone had technology, too much of it, and the consequences were disastrous” (31). Readers will recognize that the freedom of choice does not come without sacrifice, and that nothing is ever completely good or completely bad. As the first book of a trilogy, the story remains unfinished. The second book, Crossed, is due to be published November, 2011.

 

Reader’s Annotation

 

Cassia’s entire life is laid out for her, but when she experiences a computer glitch during her Match Banquet, she begins to have doubts. Is the Society really perfect?

 

Author Information

 

There is not much information about Ally Condie. She received an English Teaching degree from Brigham Young University in Utah and spent many years teaching high school English in Utah before leaving teaching to become a writer.

 

She still resides outside Salt Lake City, Utah, with her husband and three sons. She enjoys writing, reading, and running. Condie regularly communicates with her fans by posting to her blog on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and often “tweets” on twitter (@allycondie).

 

More about Matched can be found at this website:

http://www.allysoncondie.com/bio/

 

To find your own perfect Match, please go to

http://matched-book.com/matched.html

 

Genre

Young Adult Fiction

Dystopian future

Fantasy

Science Fiction

Romance

Interpersonal relations

Coming of age

Curriculum Ties

N/A

Book Talking Ideas

What role should a government have in people’s lives? What are arranged marriages and how would you feel if a marriage were arranged for you?

Reading Level/ Interest Age

Appropriate for ages 14 and up.

Challenge Issues

N/A

Why did I include this title?

I enjoy dystopian stories and I have taught The Giver to eighth graders. I enjoyed this more mature version of The Giver and wanted to encourage others to read it as well.