Juno

Reitman, Jason. Juno. 20^th Century Fox, 2007. PG. DVD. 96mins. ASIN: B000YABYLA 

Plot Summary

In Minnesota, sixteen-year-old Juno MacGuff and her best friend, Paulie Bleeker, have one sexual encounter in a chair in the Fall, when school starts. They like each other, but they don’t consider themselves exclusively in a relationship, much less parents. When Juno is at the abortion clinic, she decides she cannot go through with it and chooses to have the baby and give it up for adoption instead. When she tells her parents, they are supportive of her decision. Juno searches the local Pennysaver and finds an adoptive couple in the suburbs, Mark and Vanessa Loring. Mark and Juno become close as they bond over horror movies and music. Juno continues to attend high school as her belly continues to grow, and she takes it all in stride as she has always marched to the beat of her own drummer. Paulie is clearly in love with her, but is too passive to tell her while she maintains an indifferent toward him until he asks someone else to the prom. Meanwhile, as her friendship with Mark deepens, problems develop between Mark and Vanessa, who seems to want a baby more than he does. When the baby boy is born, he is ultimately in the hands of someone who loves him.

Evaluation
Juno received four 2008 Academy Award nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress for Ellen Page, and Best Original Screenplay for Diablo Cody, which she won. There was much talk about the movie being pro-life and anti-abortion propaganda, while many others saw it as pro-choice. Ellen Page herself commented, “What I get most frustrated at is when people call it a pro-life movie, which is just absurd... The most important thing is the choice is there, and the film completely demonstrates that.” The character of Juno shows this throughout the movie in all her decisions. Likewise, Juno has been labeled feminist because of its portrayal of the main character as an intelligent and confident teenage girl. The dialogue and actions support this assertion, as Juno’s wit is sharp and original. The setting takes place over three seasons beginning at the beginning of high school, which mirrors the three trimesters of pregnancy. Furthermore, Juno’s struggle with adulthood provides the audience with an opportunity to question their own values and decisions in their lives.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juno_%28film%29)

Readers Annotation

Offbeat, sixteen-year-old Juno sleeps with her best friend, Paulie, only once but gets pregnant. When she decides to place the baby with an adoptive couple, she learns about true love and friendship.

Information about the Director
Director Jason Reitman, who also directed Up in the Air and Thank You For Smoking, is known for making comedy films that touch on serious subjects that have highly subjective narration by the main characters. His films usually contain a theme of some kind of generational gap between older and younger characters, and his films often center around characters who are self-confident but who also begin to rethink their lives.

He was born October 19, 1977 in Montreal, Quebec, he is the son of director Ivan Reitman. He graduated from Harvard-Westlake School in North Hollywood, CA in 1995 and then graduated from the University of Southern California (USC) with a major in English. He frequents STK, a steakhouse restaurant in Los Angeles.

Information for Jason Reitman was found at imdb.com.

Genre
Comedy; Drama; Romance; Teen movie

Curriculum Ties
Sex education, teen pregnancy

Why Included?
This movie is hilarious. Juno is such a strong female character who defies stereotypes. This movie is an example of how an unplanned teen pregnancy can be handled in a pragmatic way that ends with love all around.

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

Frank, A. (1952). The diary of a young girl. New York: Doubleday.

ISBN-13: 978-0-553-29698-3

Plot Summary

The diary begins on Sunday, June 14, 1942. Anne Frank and her family live in Holland after emigrating there to escape Nazi persecution of Jews. Anne calls her diary Kitty because she wants to treat it as a friend who she can confide in and “bring out all kinds of things that lie buried deep in (her) heart.” She had received the diary as a present from her parents for her thirteenth birthday on June 12. The Frank family had believed they would be safe in Holland, but that proved otherwise as rules and laws took away their freedoms when Holland was invaded. Then, when her older sister, Margot, receives the call-up notice instructing her to report at the train station for deportation, the family virtually disappears. Otto Frank, Anne’s father, had prepared for this event by setting up an apartment above his jam company in advance. They have everything they need to survive there, and Anne calls it the Secret Annex. Soon after, the Van Daan family moves in. Their son Peter is shy, but after some time, he and Anne develop a romantic relationship. Meanwhile, years pass as they rely on Miep and a few other helpers for food, toiletries, entertainment, and news. Anne describes the daily life and the frequent scares in her diary entries as she herself is maturing into adolescence. They are hopeful that they will finally be able to leave the Secret Annex when the Allies storm the beaches of Normandy, but their luck tragically runs out. Anne’s last diary entry is Tuesday, August 1, 1944.

Critical Evaluation

Anne Frank’s words are those of a young girl on the verge of womanhood. Each entry is dates, which provide readers with a chronology of events and is made even more significant when readers can identify important moments of WWII. The passage of time is poignantly marked by the ringing of church bells, the changing of seasons, and the New Year’s celebration cakes. Anne’s entries are replete with typical adolescent girl drama, to which readers can relate. She does not get along with her mother, she feels as if she is in the shadows of her older sister, and she longs for the affection of her father. Readers will also relate to the stumbling relationship between Peter and Anne; feelings of excitement, doubt, and anxiety wax and wane as their relationship grows from friendship to romance. In her diary entries, Anne also contemplates what she wants to do when she grows up, and that is to be a writer; because the reader undoubtedly knows her fate, the tragedy is made even greater. With this diary, Anne’s voice serves as a voice of millions of Holocaust victims whose story we will never read. When Anne says that she still believes that people really are good at heart, readers can’t help but evaluate their own lives as they wonder what could have been. Because of Anne’s words, the world will never forget her, nor will they forget the injustices done. For all its tragedy, Anne’s diary is a story of hope, faith, and love.

 

Reader’s Annotation

 

Anne Frank and her family live in the Secret Annex for two years. During that time, Anne writes in her diary about life, love, and growing up.

 

Author Information

 

Annelies Marie Frank was born June 12, 1929, the second daughter for Otto and Edith Frank (Margot was their first daughter). They lived a peaceful life in Frankfurt, Germany, until Hitler took over; then they moved to Amsterdam, the Netherlands in the fall of 1933, where they believed they would be safe from anti-Semitism. However, the Nazis invaded the Netherlands on May 10, 1940. As in Germany, the Jews suffered persecution and were required to wear a yellow star on their clothing. Anti-Jewish laws made life difficult and Jews were forced to attend segregated schools. Jews were given summons to report for deportation to Nazi concentration camps, and Anne’s father began making preparations for his family to go into hiding. On July 5, 1942, a few weeks after Anne’s parents gave her the red and white checkered diary for her birthday, Margot received the letter to report, and the Frank family went into hiding the very next day.

Otto Frank was the only survivor in his family. On August 4, 1944, German soldiers raided their hiding place. Anne hid her diary, and later Miep Gies found it and kept it for when she returned. Of course, Anne never did. After the raid, the family was shipped to Westerbork, a concentration camp in northern Netherlands. Then, they were transferred to the Auschwitz death camp in Poland on September 3. There, the women and men were separated and Otto never say his wife or daughters again. Later, Edith became ill and died at Auschwitz on January 6, 1945. Her daughters were transferred to Bergen-Belsen work camp, but conditions were terrible and soon the girls became sick with typhus. They died with a day of each other in March 1945. A few weeks later, Russian troops liberated the camp. Anne was fifteen years old.

Otto survived and returned to Amsterdam where Miep gave him Anne’s diary. As he read it, he was surprised to learn things about his daughter he never knew and was amazed by her depth of thoughts and feelings. Honoring her wishes to someday be a writer, he published her diary on June 25, 1947.

Information was obtained from Bio.com:

 http://www.biography.com/people/anne-frank-9300892?page=1

Genre

Young adult

Nonfiction

Diary

Curriculum Ties

WWII, Holocaust

Book Talking Ideas

How does writing help sort emotions? What would it be like to be trapped for two years, never being able to go outside?

Reading Level/ Interest Age

Appropriate for ages 14 and up

Challenge Issues

N/A

Challenge Defense

N/A

Why did I include this title?

When you read Anne’s words, you enter her world. It is amazing how someone so young can have such depth of thought and feeling. It is impossible not to be affected by her words. She believes that peace and tranquility will return. Maybe someday her dream will come true.

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 Body of Christopher Creed by Carol Plum-Ucci

Plum-Ucci, C. (2000). The body of christopher creed. New York: Harcourt, Inc.

ISBN-13: 978-0-15-206386-3

Plot Summary

Torey Adams spends his senior year away from his hometown of Steepleton, and away from his friends, at Rothborne, a boarding school. He could not bear to face the people there after what happened in the woods. During his junior year, a socially awkward classmate whom he had punched out in the sixth grade and had not spoken much to since, disappeared. That was the year Christopher Creed, after sending an email to the school’s principal indicating his either running away or suicide, went missing. Now, in the aftermath, most of Torey’s friends at school, including his girlfriend, take Christopher’s disappearance lightly, too lightly for Torey who feels bad for Christopher. Torey befriends Ali and her boyfriend, Bo, and together they launch a plot to find out more information about Christopher and find him. When their plan backfires, Torey explores the woods behind his house because a psychic had told him he would find Christopher in the woods. Torey enters an ancient Indian burial ground, breaks his leg, and stumbles into an underground cave. There are wrapped Indian bodies as well as an unwrapped body that is newer. At first, Torey believes it to be Chris, but then realizes it is Bob Haines before the air causes it to disintegrate. Christopher Creed remains missing.

Critical Evaluation

Told in flashback and first person narration, The Body of Christopher Creed begins with Torey in his new school recalling events that occurred the year prior and still searching for information. The flashback creates a frame of the story with the beginning and ending taking place in the same location; perhaps the significance is that a person’s past will always affect them and you cannot truly get away from it as Torey wanted to do by finishing high school somewhere else. The reader sees the world through Torey’s eyes and watches as he changes. Torey is a well-developed, dynamic character. In the beginning, he is judgmental of the “boon,” those students from the wrong side of town, but later, he begins to see them in a different light and ultimately changes his idea of who his friends are. Other labels the high school students apply to each other, such as jock and nerd, are common in real life as well. Perhaps readers will be able to see how being labeled affects a person’s actions; the primary example is, of course, Christopher Creed, labeled as an outsider, who essentially creates a separate, imaginary identity for himself and ultimately is pushed outside of reality by disappearing. Readers will be able to recognize a Christopher Creed in any school they attend. The framework of the story also adds a touch of irony: in searching for the missing Christopher Creed, Torey himself goes missing by attending the boarding school. Readers might see how people’s actions affect others in ways they might not be aware of and that what people believe to be true is just that, their perception. Torey, as well as the reader, will see that some mysteries will never be solved. The trick is in discovering how we get over them once they have changed our lives and move on.

Reader’s Annotation

 

High school junior Torey Adams seems to have a perfect life. When Christopher Creed, the socially awkward school outcast, mysteriously disappears, he struggles with doubts and questions that lead him to a dramatic realization. Her father and paternal grandmother operated funeral homes and much of her imagination can be attributed to lying awake at night above the funeral parlor and wondering what the noises were downstairs.

 

Author Information

 

Carol Plum-Ucci was born August 16, 1957 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. As she was growing up, she always knew she wanted to be a writer. Her father and paternal grandmother operated funeral homes and much of her imagination can be attributed to lying awake at night above the funeral parlor and wondering what the noises were downstairs. In fact, one of her favorite memories was of taking her friends down into the funeral home and telling them there was a body there to scare them when, in fact, there really was a body down there (I love her humor). Plum-Ucci attended Purdue University where she received her BA in communication in 1979 and then received her Masters degree from Rutgers. She worked as Assistant Producer to the Miss America Pageant in 1984. She has also been a ghostwriter, critic, speechwriter, and essayist. Her most famous work is The Body of Christopher Creed, for which she won the Printz Honor Book Award in 2002. It was also named as a finalist for the Edgar Allen Poe Award.

Plum-Ucci very actively communicates with her readers. She strongly encourages them to contact her for help writing. She welcomes students and teachers to Skype her. She speaks at many schools. Plum-Ucci also takes local school interns during the summer months.

For more information about Carol Plum-Ucci, including what her favorite songs are, please visit her website:

http://www.carolplumucci.com/index.html

If you enjoyed The Body of Christopher Creed, you will be happy to know that there is finally a sequel. Following Christopher Creed was published September 6, 2011.

ISBN-13: 978-0-15-204759-7

Yay!

Genre

Young Adult

Mystery

Running away

Suicide

 

Curriculum Ties

Lenape Indians, burial grounds

Book Talking Ideas

Mental illness, burial grounds

Reading Level/ Interest Age

Characters are in high school; appropriate for grades 9 and up

Challenge Issues

Has been challenged for age-appropriateness.

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.

Book Report 11/01/00

Notable/Best Books (A.L.A.) 01/19/01

Booklist 03/15/01

Publishers Weekly 05/22/00

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books 04/01/00

School Library Journal starred 07/01/00

Kirkus Review 05/15/00

Voice of Youth Advocates (V.O.Y.A.) 08/01/00

Why did I include this title?

I first read The Body of Christopher Creed and was moved by it. I recognized many of the characters as the same types of people I went to school with, and Christopher Creed could have been any number of outcasts I knew. It made me think about my own actions towards them. This book is a great mystery and the scene in the Indian burial ground still replays in my mind even today.

Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher

Crutcher, C. (2001). Whale talk. New York: Greenwillow Books.

ISBN-13: 978-0-688-18019-5

Plot Summary

T.J. Jones is the articulate mixed-race son of white ex-hippie parents who adopted him after his biological mother got caught up in drugs when he was two. Now a senior at Cutter High School, he is persuaded to form a swim team for his teacher, Mr. Simet, who would rather coach a swim team than be the school’s next wrestling coach. With a group of seemingly misfits, the swim team beats the odds and is successful. Each member of the team is subject to his own conflicts, and each member brings to the team a unique strength. T.J. faces many conflicts along the way including making the team eligible for letter jackets, dealing with racism, and facing bullies. During this time, he meets Heidi, a small, mixed-race girl living in an abusive household. T.J. learns about life with the encouragement and support of his parents and his therapist, Georgia. When tragedy strikes his family, T.J. learns one of life’s most important lessons from his father.

Critical Evaluation

The location of the setting is significant to the plot and characters. Cutter is a fictional town set near Spokane, Washington, which is well known for its white-supremacy attitude. The fact-paced plot is adrenaline packed with swim meets and emotional episodes that cause the reader to think about what it means to be a family. Classic, one-dimension high school characters such as the oppressive bully and worshipped athlete contribute to the conflict. T.J. and his friends are more fully developed, each having their own back-story, conflicts, and motivation. Readers might associate with the feelings of being an outsider and an underdog in school and sports and the need for camaraderie and connection. Furthermore, the language in this first-person narration told by T.J. does not shy away from what could be considered offensive by some. The story is rich in themes, one being, as T.J. says, “to be loud when I run into racism” (3). Other themes include “we take what the universe gives us, and we either get the most out of it or we don’t, but in the end we all go out the same way” (20), and that revenge is never the answer.

 

Reader’s Annotation

 

 T.J. and his diverse group of swimmers must overcome odds and obstacles on their road to victory. Meanwhile, T.J. learns some valuable lessons about how to get by in this world despite what life might throw at you.

 

Author Information

 

Chris Crutcher was born July 17, 1946 in Dayton, Ohio. His parents were a WWII bomber pilot and a homemaker, and Crutcher credits the loving relationship he had with them for his ability to think and feel. He was not good in school, however, and the only novel he had read by the time he graduated Eastern Washington State College was To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. He received a BA in sociology and psychology, earned a teaching credential, and became a popular, although not very good, teacher. He currently works as a therapist and child protection advocate and uses his life experiences in rural Idaho, urban Oakland, and in the education and mental health fields as inspirations for his writing.

Crutcher currently lives in Spokane, Washington, and enjoys swimming, basketball, running, and music. He often speaks at schools and conferences. Crutcher has won many awards for his writing, and his writing is frequently challenged for its content and language. In a response to a parent’s challenge in 2010 of his novel, Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, Crutcher writes:

            To paraphrase Kurt Vonnegut, one of the tough things about standing up against censorship is some of the (crap) you have to stand up for. (And yes, I edited myself - or Mr. Vonnegut - in deference to the complainant.)  But I have been an educator and I have been a therapist for families in particularly tough circumstances and the characters and situations in this book come from real places.  When we ban books about kids who feel marginalized and diminished, we ban the kids themselves.  We say, "Your life is not worth examining, not worth being brought into the light.  You don't matter."  I would want to think long and hard before allowing my school to be perceived in that way. (emphasis mine).

Information was obtained from Chris Crutcher’s website. For more information, please see:

http://www.chriscrutcher.com/

Genre

Young Adult

Reality Fiction

Sports
Swimming
High school
Racially mixed people
Adoption

Racism

Abuse

Curriculum Ties
N/A

Book Talking Ideas

High School sports culture, racism, bullies, adoption

Reading Level/ Interest Age

Characters are high school seniors; appropriate for ages 14 and up.

Challenge Issues

Language, racism, content

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.

Book Links (A.L.A.) 12/01/02

Notable/Best Books (A.L.A.) 01/21/02

Book Report starred 09/01/01

Publishers Weekly starred 03/12/01

Booklist 04/01/01

Books for the Teen Age (NYPL) 05/01/04

Why did I include this title?

This was one of the first Chris Crutcher books I read and it remains one of my favorites. I admire Crutcher to bring to the forefront issues of racism and abuse in a sort of “in your face” kind of way. I have handed Chris Crutcher books to many of my reluctant reader boys and they always ask for another one.

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.