My Reading Slump

Since the end of my semester teaching 8th grade, I've been in a reading slump. I don't know what caused it, but I've been having a hard time finding a book that I have really gotten into. And that makes me sad.

I went on an excursion today with my school's Rockin' Librarian and came home with two books: Okay for Now by Gary Schmidt and  Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride. Rockin' Librarian read Okay for Now, and if I recall correctly, she liked it. I've seen that title, along with Hold Me Closer, Necromancer on many Centurion's reading lists, so I decided it might be time to give them a go, even though I have a box full of books just waiting to be read.

My choice for first: Hold Me Closer, Necromancer because of what Sherman Alexie said on the cover: "This is a SCARY funny book OR a FUNNY scary book. In either case, it is a GREAT book. I LOVE iT" (capitalization in original). It's the funny that's a draw for me. I think it's time for a funny book and since I have to wait until August for Beauty Queens by Libba Bray, Hold Me Closer, Necromancer it is. I'll let you know what I think.

Happy reading & DFTBA

Books Read in April

We're now well into May and it was brought to my attention this morning that I haven't posted in a while. The best way to get back into things is to share the books I read in April. I think this list might be longer than usual.

This is the second book in Jeff Stone's Five Ancestors series. This one follows Malao, master of Monkey kung fu, as he is trying to find himself and help his brothers, and keep the one rogue brother who burned his home and killed the grandmaster, from keeping the Dragon scrolls he stole from the temple. 

Skeleton Creek and Ghost in the Machine by Patrick Carman are a different take on the thriller genre of storytelling. Ryan, the narrator, is laid up because of an accident. He and his friend do research in order to figure out what is going on in the town. Sarah, Ryan's best friend, takes video of different places/people in the town and secretly sends it to Ryan. The forward movement of the novel, and the fact that the videos that Sarah sends Ryan need to be viewed by the reader may get the reluctant reader interested enough in the story to read both novels. (Or it might be the same cliffhanger at the end of Skeleton Creek that made me go buy Ghost in the Machine the next weekend...)

 Jeff Smith's graphic novels, Bone Volume 1: Out from Boneville and Bone Volume 2: The Great Cow Race, I read because they're so popular in our school library (Out from Boneville has been checked out 37 times and The Great Cow Race has been checked out 47 times, which doesn't count the times that they've been lent to friends or read simultaneously by more than one reader. Completely unrelated, The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things has been checked out 34 times, but I haven't read it yet.) The Bone books are rather amusing, but, as I learned since I had the second and not the first initially, they don't stand alone. They're also quick reads, which may account for my impatience in regards to discovering the motivation of the antagonist in this series (I don't own Volume 3 yet).

I think this is my second copy of Street Pharm by Allison van Diepen, the first having not been returned when I taught 9th grade. This one I read because three of my students read it at the beginning of the semester and said that I should. I have to admit that my expectations weren't that high; the last book I started that had anything to do with drugs was Smack by Melvin Burgess and I couldn't get into it. The language, and the African-American protagonist, drew me in. Street Pharm is a story of redemption, but not done in a way that's near as heavy-handed as novels like Go Ask Alice.

In the NCTE/IRA podcast Text Messages in the episode "Connecting with the Classics," Jennifer Buehler talks about books that adolescents can read to make connections between the classics they're required to read, and the YA literature that they're more likely to read. Perfect Chemistry is another modern look at the Romeo & Juliet story along the lines of West Side Story but without all the singing and with significantly more angst. Perfect Chemistry is the first novel in a trilogy, but it's not one of those trilogies that I feel like I need to continue. Kind of like how The Prophet of Yonwood doesn't follow the characters from City of Ember and The People of Sparks, the second novel in the series, Rules of Attraction, follows one of the main character's brothers, not the characters I came to root for in Perfect Chemistry. More than likely, though, I'll get over my bias sooner or later.

I love Neal Shusterman, but I hate (and avoid most of the time) buying books in hardcover. So when Everwild was added to our school library, I was excited. Everwild is the second book in the Skinjacker Series, after Everlost and to be followed by Everfound. In this installment, Nick, the Chocolate Ogre, is being taken over by his chocolate, he and Mary are now going head-to-head, and Allie is still trying to find her way home. and for those who are the McGill fans, he makes a return. Not bad, but I'm really looking forward to the release of Bruiser at the end of June. (And yes, I preordered this one in hardcover.)

This read isn't in the YA lit category, but I read it because my friend read it. I don't have a lot to say about this one, but I like Jodi Piccoult. My reaction to The Pact was very different from my reaction to My Sister's Keeper. With the latter, there was a lot of crying. When I read The Pact, the reaction was primarily visceral, and I ended up being pretty angry. Anger does not a bad read make, however.

The other non-YA lit book I read this month was Her Sister's Keeper. This one was given to me to read by my niece. It reminded me of the books I read in high school--closer to the John Grisham category. It was tough to get into at first because I'm so used to YA and because the stigma behind Harlequin novels. No skin in this one folks. For the record, there's only one review of this book on Goodreads (no, it's not mine) and it doesn't give a lot of insight into the novel, just like my comments here. 

This is the second novel I've read by S.E. Hinton, and I have to say I like it better than The Outsiders. A few of the characters from Hinton's first novel make cameos, which will help some readers make connections between the two novels. What I really liked about That Was Then, This Is Now is that the ending is real. It's not--all loose ends are sewn up nicely--it's the reality of some friendships and growing up.

Kissing Kate was Lauren Myracle's debut novel, and because of the subject matter, I'm impressed. This is my LGBT read for the month--a coming of age story about a girl whose best friend gets drunk and kisses her, and then the drama that spills out from there--from ignoring that the event happened, to confrontation, to growing apart.

Last but definitely not least... My obsession with John Green continues...

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green. This is like Big Bang Theory in novel format. When I read my first two John Green novels Looking for Alaska and Paper Towns, I asked myself, "Does John Green write anything where the boy gets the girl?" With An Abundance of Katherines, I got my answer to that question. For the sake of spoilers, I won't tell you what that answer is. What I can say is that the footnotes really make this novel. And I was one of those readers who went to the end of the book first, only to be told in a note from John Green (written into the text) that I should go back and read the novel from front to back like normal. 

*All book covers from Goodreads (and they should link back there if I did this right).

Final Thoughts on Skeleton Creek

I wasn't sure how I'd feel about the novel as a whole, especially since my memories of the Blair Witch Project weren't the most pleasant. I am going to have to admit that I did get a little frightened by the story and decided that I'm wasn't going to read any right before bed, even though the story kept me engaged the entire time. This is another one of those titles (along with I, Q: Independence Hall and Quantum Prophecy: The Awakening, that I bought last year at the New Mexico Library Association Conference and just got around to reading).

I thought quite a bit about the difference the videos make to the story, and I came to the conclusion that it was the videos that pushed this novel to the edge of the thriller category. The only other author I've read that has made me feel that much nervous anxiety is Stephen King. I was completely freaked out when I read It.

When I was hunting for the videos, or rather, trying to get the website to work, I stumbled upon a couple other websites that are related to the Skeleton Creek universe. On the companion website, Sarah Fincher's webpage, there's a link to the Skeleton Creek Investigations fan page on Facebook. I was slightly surprised by this, though I shouldn't have been. I'm not an avid Facebook user--there are a few friends I keep track of through this interface, but it's not something I check regularly. Skeleton Creek Investigations has 4,867 fans. This may not seem like a huge number, but think about the viral influence of sites like Facebook and MySpace. 

The character Sarah Fincher has a MySpace page, but it hasn't been active since September 2009, which is near the time Ghost in the Machine was released. Unlike the Facebook group, Sarah Fincher's page only has 55 fans. Makes me wonder if kids are making the move away from MySpace and toward Facebook. Or the production people realized that the MySpace page didn't get many hits and moved their efforts toward Facebook, where there were more followers.

On the Skeleton Creek Is Real website, the author claims that Patrick Carman's book and the events therein really happened. I haven't had the opportunity to read through the blog that goes along with this website, but I plan to. I think the Skeleton Creek following is significantly bigger than the 4,867 people who are following on Facebook. I can't help but wonder if Skeleton Creek will have a following (possibly more short-lived) similar to the MuggleNet fandom for Harry Potter. Comments on Skeleton Creek include links to other sites of interest to fans of the show. One comment links back to the Facebook page, which apparently continues the story by giving clues to fans, and the fans have to figure out a piece to the puzzle. 

The final link that I found particularly interesting (and posted on my Twitter feed earlier this week) is Skeleton Creek Analytics. I couldn't find any information about the author of this website, but he took the passwords to the videos and analyzed the choices the author made in the context of the larger picture of the novel. I've read two of the postings thus far (and they're only for the first book so far) and the author makes some interesting connections. The site was only started a month ago, so I'm guessing the author isn't done yet. I'll be interested to see what else he has to say.

Carman did a fantastic job of keeping readers from one novel to the second. There is no resolution at the end of Skeleton Creek. In fact, the characters are left in the most precarious of predicaments that I'm going to get made fun of when my family and I travel to Las Cruces on Monday and I have to pick up the second book so I know what happens. So you'll be hearing about The Ghost in the Machine here soon, dear readers because I am a book addict and cannot help myself.

The final thing I'm interested in is how this book would play out as a read-aloud. Would the integration of video help hold the attention of reluctant readers? Many of mine didn't really care for When You Reach Me, and many of the novels that have recently made my Top 10 list are too long to function as good read alouds.

Initial thoughts on Skeleton Creek

Skeleton Creek, by Patrick Carman caught my interest at the NMLA conference in 2009 because it's a novel that integrates video. Not a novel that was made into a film, but a novel where the video is (supposed to be) integral to the continued understanding of the plot.

This novel, though I hadn't read it yet, was the starting point for my dissertation topic: roughly--a discussion of how change in book presentation changes students' literacy needs. Skeleton Creek is supposed to be a scary story. When my students ask for a scary novel, usually whatever I give them isn't scary enough for their tastes. Maybe it's because they don't visualize. Maybe it's because they're so desensitized by the visual media they've grown up with that the pictures they form in their heads don't compare to what a filmmaker can do with camera angle, actor positioning and music. I don't know. But I've watched one of the videos that goes along with Carman's book already. It reminded me of the Blair Witch Project, which is a movie that creeped me out.

A drawback to presenting a book like this is that if you don't watch the video, you can't move on. Well, I'm on my second day stuck where I am in the novel because of testing and no computers on, and class and homework. It's unfortunate because I really want to continue. I'm thinking about reading on and seeing how important the video is to the story. Especially since my district doesn't like to stream video and blocks everything (rightfully so, they just found an undetectable virus).

More to come.

Carman, Patrick. (2009). Skeleton Creek. New York: Scholastic Press.