Module 9 - What Happened to Cass McBride?

Bibliography

Giles, G. (2006). What Happened to Cass McBride? New York: Little, Brown and Company.

Summary

Cass McBride is a 17-year-old girl who has been kidnapped by Kyle Kirby and buried alive. Kyle is the older brother of David Kirby, a boy who committed suicide after being rejected by Cass.  Through walkie-talkies, Kyle is able to communicate with Cass as he recounts David’s pathetic life with a manipulative and verbally abusive mother, who, Kyle comes to realize, is the true cause of David’s suicidal end.  As this is happening, detective Ben Gray is unraveling the mystery behind Cass’s kidnapping, which eventually leads him to Kyle Kirby. 

My Thoughts

What I liked about this book is that it challenged my first opinions about both Cass and Kyle.  Cass was not so innocent and perfect as she seemed in the beginning.  She turns out to be quite manipulative and self-serving.  And Kyle is not quite so maniacal and twisted.  He’s guilt-ridden over his brother’s suicide and wants someone else to blame. 

I especially liked how this book was not written in a traditional narrative from one perspective, but rather three different perspectives: 1^st person Cass, 1^st person Kyle, and 3^rd person Ben Gray.  Cass and Ben’s narratives exist on the same time line during the kidnapping, but Kyle’s narrative is after the fact. 

Reviews

“What happened to Cass McBride? Well, she has been buried alive by Kyle Kirby, who blames her for his brother David’s suicide.  After asking Cass out, David finds a not she leaves for a friend in which she laughs about an invitation from someone so low on the food chain.  Then David hangs himself.  Told in alternating voices, including that of a police officer, this intense story has some horrifying moments; readers will feel as terrorized as Cass as she struggles to survive, both physically and mentally.  At the same time, there are plenty of psychological thrills as Cass tries to win her release by outwitting Kyle.  In the teens’ dialogues, it becomes clear that both have parents who have withheld love, and the brothers, especially David, have suffered extreme verbal abuse.  The depiction of Kyle’s mother goes over the top, but overall this packs a wallop.  Readers won’t forget David’s suicide not, pinned to his skin: ‘Words are teeth.  And they eat me alive.  Feed on my corpse instead.’”

Cooper, I. (2007). [Review of the book What Happened to Cass McBride? By Gail Giles]. Booklist, 103(9/10), p. 80

Ideas for Use

This would be a good book to use for a character study.  How much of the character traits of Cass and Kyle and even David are shaped by parental influence.  I think it would be very insightful for teens because they are at that age when they are trying to find their own identity.

Module 8 - The Adoration of Jenna Fox

Bibliography

Pearson, M. E. (2008). The Adoration of Jenna Fox.  New York: Henry Holt

Summary

Seventeen-year-old Jenna Fox has just awoken from being in a coma for a year.  To help her gain her memory back, she watches home videos all devoted to each year of her life leading up to the accident.  As her awareness of her surroundings deepens, Jenna catches on to little discrepancies in what her parents have told her and what she hears from others – such as the amount of time they’ve been living in the house in California.  This along with little remarks from Jenna’s grandmother Lily, being told she walks funny by a fellow student, and listening to her new friend Allys’ views on the medical ethics of transplants (and the use of Bio Gel created by Jenna’s own father), creates questions that Jenna is determined to have answered.  And what she finds is that she is well over the legal percentage of allowable transplantation.  With only 10 percent (although the most important 10 percent) of her brain, Jenna wonders if she can even be considered human, but through Lily’s honest assessments and schoolmate Ethan’s firm assurance, Jenna finds her true identity she had been searching for long before the accident, an identity that causes her to stop trying to be the perfect daughter her parents want her to be.

My Thoughts

I thought it was kind of weird.  Not a book I would normally be interested in, but kind of enjoyed nonetheless.  I think hearing the story through Jenna’s perspective really forged a connection between reader and narrator in a way that creates empathy for Jenna’s situation and her discovery of identity.  I liked the style in which the book was written, mixing narrative with a little free verse and providing definitions of certain ambiguous words as Jenna comes across them in her attempt to define herself.

Reviews

“Jenna Fox wakes up from a coma and finds she has lost a year of her life.  Her memories of her life before the accident are barely a whisper and she has to learn how to be Jenna Fox all over again.  Her mother gives her video recordings to watch, one for each year of her life, and it is clear that Jenna has been her parents’ whole world.  As she gets stronger, she senses that something is very wrong.  Readers will be on the edge of their seats as, through this first-person narrative, Jenna unravels her own mysteries.  The California setting is brilliantly created as a future that has enough connection to present-day issues and events that it makes readers believe it all just might be possible.  The questions raised surrounding bioethics, what makes us human, and the potential direction of science and medicine lend themselves perfectly to classroom discussions in both science and civics.  Jenna’s voice will appeal to all readers, even those who don’t typically read science fiction.  The book’s Web site has a trailer to share with reluctant readers which, along with the beautiful cover, should have them hooked.”

Gallagher, G. (2008). [Review of the book The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson]. Library Media Connection, 27(3), p. 79

Ideas for Use

This would be a good display book because of the attention-grabbing cover art.  Also, I think this book would be great for a teen book club as it deals with finding your own identity as many teens today can relate to.  It would also be a great basis for a debate about current medical advancements, cloning in particular.

Module 7, part 2 - No Safe Place

Bibliography

Ellis, D. (2010). No Safe Place. Berkeley: Groundwood Books.

Summary

No Safe Place follows the story of Abdul, a 15-year-old Beatles fan from war-torn Baghdad, as he tries to find a way from Calais, France to Liverpool, England.  He faces many obstacles as he finally boards a boat owned by a ruthless smuggler and begins the dangerous journey across the English Channel.  The smuggler’s uncaring actions toward his unwanted nephew result in the smuggler falling overboard.  Abdul and the other passengers, including the nephew, band together in mutiny against the tyrannical smuggler, and prevent him from coming aboard the boat, thus being presumably drowned at sea.  Because of the broken motor and the dense fog, the passengers in the boat float aimlessly until they come to a yacht which together, they overtake, sending the two men on the yacht overboard.  As Abdul and the other passengers work together to get to England, we learn more about their backgrounds and the circumstances that led each of them to their present situation.  In the end, Abdul gets to Liverpool – to Penny Lane where he and his brutally-murdered friend from Baghdad had dreamed of realizing their musical ambitions. 

My Thoughts

I really liked that this book took three teenagers who were alone in this world and brought them together through circumstances that led them to come together in the end.  But what I liked the most about this book was that it was so real.  It brought up issues that a lot of people would probably rather ignore, such as Abdul’s experiences living in Baghdad with a war waging around him and the resulting loss of his family members and friends.  This, along with the description of the harsh living situations for migrants in Europe, the conditions Rosalia suffered as she was sold into prostitution, and the hard facts of Cheslav’s life in Russia, has really increased my awareness of problems and concerns that I really hadn’t dwelt on before because they didn’t affect me.  This book is an eye opener.

Reviews

“This novel moves fast and furiously as readers follow the plight of three teen orphans who are attempting to escape from their troubled homelands to England.  Rosalia, a Roma girl; Cheslav, a Russian boy; and Abdul, an Iraqi boy are all fleeing the cruelties of their war-torn cultures.  The exciting and moving story manages to pull in the threads of our global history in the making – bombings in Baghdad, sex trafficking, and the harsh lives of underage conscripted soldiers.  Violence is a big part of the teens’ short lives as a result of the injustices in the world around them; it includes beatings and deaths as a result of racism and sexism.  The story line revolves around their experiences as they come together in Calais and make the crossing to England.  Ellis deftly uses flashbacks to fill in the backstories of each character, reminding readers of how they can never really know where people are coming from emotionally.  Her writing is highly accessible, and yet understated.  Orphans of the world and victims of human trafficking need all the press they can get, and this book does a great job of introducing the topic and allowing young people to see beyond the headlines of ‘Another illegal accidentally dies in Chunnel.’”

Toumayan, M. (2010, Sep). [Review of the book No Safe Place by D. Ellis]. School Library Journal, 56(9), 152.

Ideas for Use

This would be an excellent book to read as a precursor to a unit of study on current affairs.  Kids can take one of the many current world issues presented in this book to focus a report on.

Module 7, part 1 - As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth

Bibliography

Perkins, L. R. (2010). As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth.  New York: Greenwillow Books.

Summary

Fifteen-year-old Ry has one mishap after another when he gets stranded in the middle of Montana with less than $100 cash and a near-dead cell phone.  Hiking to the nearest town, Ry meets Del who gives him food and a place to sleep for the night.  At the end of the next day, Del decides to drive Ry home to Illinois and they set out on the road together in Del’s altercated truck/jeep.  One hilarious situation after another finally leads them back to Ry’s home, but his grandpa is nowhere to be found.  On a whim, Ry and Del continue their journey south to try to find Ry’s parents who are on vacation in the Caribbean.  A smashed floor, a bumpy pot-hole strewn detour, a terrifying homemade-airplane ride, a boat ride that takes them far off course due to a mistaken error in direction, an accident that puts Del in the hospital, and another boat ride in which Ry’s boat goes under, finally leads him to his parents just in the nick of time.

My Thoughts

I have mixed feelings about this book.  While the situations Ry found himself in were truly hilarious and had me chuckling nearly all the way through the book, there came a point when it started to become exaggerated and I found myself wondering when it was going to come to an end.  I liked the book and I liked the writing.  But I think I would have loved it if it hadn’t gone on and on and on and on.  This week is realistic fiction and every disaster and calamity that happens to Ry is realistic, but everything taken together isn’t very probable, which to me, takes away from the reality of it.

Reviews

“This is a story of one misfortune after another.  As the book opens, Ry, a 16-year-old Wisconsin resident en route to camp, is left behind in Middle-of-Nowhere, MT, as his stalled train pulls out and he recounts the events that led him to leave the train in the first place.  Bad goes to worse: he loses a shoe and his phone charger, his grandfather back home is injured, and his parents are having their own misadventures in the Caribbean.  A superhero of a fix-it guy named Del helps Ry to put his life back together.  Along the way, readers learn that there is more to Del than initially meets the eye.  The story is told in a traditional episodic style, bounding from one calamity to the next.  The narration occasionally switches perspective to include the grandfather’s tale of woe as well as well-drawn graphic-style portrayals of the family dogs’ mishaps.  The style is reminiscent of Chris Crutcher’s, and the action is evocative of Gary Paulsen, but the freewheeling prose, quirky humor, and subtle life lessons are all Perkins’s own.  This novel is not going to be every teen boy’s cup of tea, but its charms are undeniable.”

Krippner, L. (2010, Jul). [Review of the book As Easy as Falling off the Face of the Earth by Lynne Rae Perkins]. School Library Journal, 56(7), p. 95.

Ideas for Use

I think this would be a great book to use as a creative writing assignment for kids and teens.  It could be a create-your-own adventure story.  You could read just the first part of the book where Ry gets stranded out in the middle of nowhere, and then the kids could write what they think would happen next and sort of make their own story.