Hurricane Song: A Novel of New Orleans by Paul Volponi

Volponi, P. (2008). Hurricane Song: a novel about New Orleans. New York: Viking.

ISBN-13: 978-0-670-06160-0

Plot Summary

Miles has been living with his jazz-playing father, Doc, in New Orleans for two months. The only thing Doc cares about is playing jazz in clubs, but Miles is looking forward to having a father figure in his life. School is about to start, and Miles is excited playing football. However, it is the end of August 2005, and Hurricane Katrina is barreling toward New Orleans. Miles, Doc, and Uncle Roy get in the car to stay in a motel inland, but they are directed to stay in the Superdome instead. Miles had hoped the first time he saw its grass would be when he played on it, not running from a storm. Miles, Doc, and Uncle Roy must survive the hurricane, the impatient and angry crowds, and the oppressive National Guard soldiers. When the rain finally passes, this small family realizes what is truly important to them.

Critical Evaluation

The setting of Hurricane Song is the backdrop and the catalyst for everything that occurs within the plot. Each chapter opens with a stanza of the song “When the Saints Come Marching In,” which cleverly sets the stage and foreshadows the events of the chapter. Of course, the significance of this song must not be overlooked: it is the Saints football team that calls the Superdome home. Now, though, it is home to the thousands of people seeking refuge from the storm. Also, each chapter begins with the date and time; tension builds as the hurricane approaches. The language of this first-person narration told with the voice of Miles is full of Southern dialect, which adds to the realism of the place and the characters. For example, Miles says, “Mom would bust on me whenever I complained about it” (4). Furthermore, the dialogue is rich with expletives and while some might be offended, it would be unrealistic to have anything other than that. Explicit language and derogatory terms bring to the forefront the racism and terrible experience endured by the people trapped in the Superdome. Through it all is Doc and Uncle Roy’s love of jazz, which exemplifies the strong culture of music that lives in New Orleans. Readers will be able to relate to the complicated father-son relationship. At the end, the theme of hope and perseverance will inspire readers.

Reader’s Annotation

 

When Miles chooses to live with his jazz musician father permanently, his relationship is put to the test when Hurricane Katrina threatens New Orleans. Struggling to survive in the Superdome, he realizes what is important and what people need to get through the storms of life.

 

Author Information

 

Paul Volponi is a teacher, a writer, and a journalist who lives in New York City. Between the years of 1992 and 1998, he was a teacher to incarcerated adolescents on Riker’s Island, New York City’s main jail facility. There, he taught teens how to read and write. During another six year period of time, Volponi taught teens in drug day-treatment centers. His work with teens influenced much of his writing, and his particular experience working on Riker’s Island inspired his first young adult novel, Black and White, which won the 2006 IRA Young Adult Book Award and an ALA Best Book Young Adult. Volponi holds a BA in English from Baruch and an MA in American Literature from the City College of New York.

 

Paul Volponi is available for contact through his website. He also enjoys visiting schools and libraries, and he offers to chat with students in classrooms via a video or speakerphone conference.

 

For more information or to contact Paul Volponi, please visit his website:

http://www.paulvolponibooks.com/index.htm

 

Genre

Young adult

Historical Fiction

Survival

Curriculum Ties

Hurricanes, weather, flooding, jazz music

Book Talking Ideas

What do you remember about Hurricane Katrina? How did it affect people’s lives?

Reading Level/ Interest Age

Appropriate for ages 14 and up

Challenge Issues

Language, racism

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:

Booklist 05/01/08

School Library Journal 08/01/08

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

Voice of Youth Advocates (V.O.Y.A.) 06/01/08

Horn Book 10/01/08

Wilson's Junior High School 01/09/10

Kirkus Review 05/01/08

Wilson's Senior High School 06/01/10

Why did I include this title?

This is the first historical fiction novel I have seen about Hurricane Katrina. The story is incredibly moving and often frightening. It sheds light on something I only saw from the safety of my couch watching television and while I knew it was bad in the Superdome, this novel shows me how horrible it really was. Hopefully, once people read this book, they will think twice about how they treat people during difficult times like natural disasters as well as on a daily basis.

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.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

Foer, J. (2005). Extremely loud and incredibly close. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

ISBN-13: 978-0-618-32970-0

Plot Summary

Nine-year-old Oskar Schell is an amateur inventor, tambourine player, and Shakespearean actor who is playing “Yorick” in a school presentation of Hamlet. His father, whom Oskar worshipped, tragically died in the World Trade Center on 9/11. A year later, Oskar has found a key inside of a vase in his father’s closet. The vase is labeled “Black.” The key does not open anything in the apartment, so, determined to find the lock that the key will open and the answers to his questions, Oskar sets out on a quest to ask every person in the New York phone book with the last name of Black about the key. In doing so, he meets colorful characters who each have their own story to tell and who have a lasting impression on Oskar. Oskar has a mute grandfather, who survived the bombing of Dresden, and in the end, the two stories weave together. When Oskar finally finds the answer, he finds the meaning of life.

Critical Evaluation

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is told in the first person narration of Oskar; he is nine, but he does not always sound like he is nine, which is reasonable given that Oskar himself is quite a unique child. The narration is often beautifully poetic and more than often quite humorous. Foer enhances the narrative with frequent surprises for the reader. For example, there are graphic illustrations, over-written text, and photographs. Booklist (February 2005) refers to Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close as “the most beautiful and heartbreaking flip book in all of literature.” The humor balances the tragedy in a healing way. The setting of post-9/11 New York City significantly shows the emotional aftermath of the terrorist attacks that affected the entire country. The gaping holes at Ground Zero are nothing compared to the gaping holes in the lives of those who lost loved ones that day. Foer’s account of a boy searching for clues about his father will appeal to anyone who has lost a loved one. The theme that “in the end, everyone loses everyone” is a reminder to all readers about the meaning of life.

 

Example of Oskar’s vivid, imaginative narration:

 

“What about little microphones? What if everyone swallowed them, and they played the sounds of our hearts through little speakers, which could be in the pouches of our overalls? When you skateboarded down the street at night you could hear everyone's heartbeat, and they could hear yours, sort of like sonar. One weird thing is, I wonder if everyone's hearts would start to beat at the same time, like how women who live together have their menstrual periods at the same time, which I know about, but don't really want to know about. That would be so weird, except that the place in the hospital where babies are born would sound like a crystal chandelier in a houseboat, because the babies wouldn't have had time to match up their heartbeats yet. And at the finish line at the end of the New York City Marathon it would sound like war.”

 

Reader’s Annotation

 

Nine-year-old Oskar has found a key in his father’s closet. His father died in 9/11, and the key does not open up anything in the apartment, so Oskar sets out on a quest to find the lock and, as a result, unlocks the truth of life.

 

Author Information

 

Jewish-American Jonathan Safran Foer was born in 1977 in Washington D.C., and earned his degree from Princeton University where he won awards for creative writing all four years. Under the guidance of Joyce Carol Oates, who was teaching a creative writing course there, he finished a manuscript for Everything is Illuminated before graduating with a degree in psychology in 1999. Oates was also his senior thesis advisor; Foer wrote about the life of his maternal grandfather, a Holocaust survivor. He later went to expand on his thesis in the Ukraine. Everything Illuminated was published in 2002.

Foer refers to himself as an occasional vegetarian as he has dabbled in vegetarianism most of his life, yet still eats meet. These notions led him to write his first nonfiction book, Eating Animals (2009). He has taught writing as a visiting professor at Yale University and is currently a professor in the Graduate Creative Writing Program at New York University. Foer lives with his wife, Nicole Krauss, and two children in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York.

His very interesting website is somewhat difficult to navigate:

http://www.theprojectmuseum.com/

Genre

Cross-over

Mystery

Curriculum Ties

Holocaust, 9/11 

Book Talking Ideas

9/11, grief

Reading Level/ Interest Age

High School, adults

Challenge Issues

N/A

Challenge Defense

I cannot think of why this book would be challenged, and I did not find any challenges to date. If it were challenged, I would consult ALA's Strategies and Tips for Dealing with Challenges to Library  Materials.

I would also include that it is listed in ALA’s Outstanding Books for the College Bound Literature and Language Arts 2009

http://www.ala.org/yalsa/booklistsawards/booklists/outstandingbooks/2009/literature

Why did I include this title?

This book made me cry. At first, I couldn’t put it down. I was tearing through pages, reading as fast as I could. Then I realized that if I kept up that pace, I would finish it quickly. And I didn’t want it to end. So I slowed down. I feel guilty enjoying such a book that would not have existed had 9/11 not happened.

“I hope that one day you will have the experience of doing something you do not understand for someone you love.” (one of my favorite quotes from this novel)

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