It's Eleven Eleven somewhere

I may as well rename this blog JB yells about YA books written on or about the two world wars. Something about me: I did my undergraduate history colloquium on the First World War, so I have some minor expertise. There's so much to this war in the run-up, combat (not military strategy, gross!) and aftermath that bears careful study, and it's one of my favorite topics to cover in world studies. Therefore, to find a YA book that covers this territory is both exciting and nauseating. If it really captures the essence of the time period and the socioeconomic outcomes, let the party begin. Should it fall short in any way, it's going in the bottom of the fireplace and coming out the top. So, I approached Paul Doswell's Eleven Eleven with trepidation. 

Three lives. No second chance. One ring to rule them all.

PLOT

It's November 11, 1918, so you know what that means - NO SCHOOL! Not so fast, kiddos. This is the day in which 11/11 became a holiday, SO LISTEN UP. Enough of that. It's the last day of the Great War. Three teenage boys, on the front somewhere in Belgium try, to survive the waning hours of combat before the armistice officially takes hold at 11 a.m.; a German infantry, a British scalliwag, and an American hotshot pilot converge and must help each other in order to escape alive. Now thaaat's INTRIGUE!

WRITING

Glance at Dowswell's bibliography and you'll see that he's churned out half a dozen YA war novels in the last decade after years of writing non-fiction. Good for you, Paul; facts are hard! The prose is clear, and Dowswell mixes sentence lengths, throws in plenty of military slang and German terms to lend some authenticity to the proceedings, and generally does well to describe the mucky, wracked setting of the tale. HOWEVER (oh boy, it's gonna get good!) I saw the term "dummkopf" and thought, "COPYKOPF." Anyone who regularly reads YA knows that Scott Westerfeld essentially took ownership of the term through his Leviathan series, another bunch of books set around WWI, but steampunked up in a dazzling style. Sorry Paul late to the party on that one. Worse: this guy obviously has a hard-on for aviation, to the point that it's detrimental to the story. He spends SO LONG describing Eddie, the suave American, joyriding in his tinderbox of a plane. Air combat during the First World War was new, unpredictable, and deserves to be noted, but after reading two solid pages describing banking maneuvers, slamming joysticks around (gross) and daring turns to evade enemies, I thought I'd mistakenly picked up the Red Baron's diary. Get me out of here. Get back to the story. DO SOMETHING. Oh, finally, he was shot down, and all because he was out looking for one more enemy plane to shoot up in order to officially be a flying ace. Why? TO IMPRESS A GIRL. Come. on. 

CHARACTERS 

Naturally, the American is the most detached and selfish of the lot, at first. I suppose that stands to reason, as the USA entered the war at late stages, and didn't have a cultural horse in the race. Nice touch when Eddie, first generation American of German descent, speaks Deutsche to Axel, the German soldier, who questions why these two German boys are fighting one another. But ONCE AGAIN, it is too reminiscent of another's work - in this case the almighty Vonnegut, who recounted a similar anecdote when he was taken prisoner during WWII. The British kid is William, I think. I'm not going to look it up. He was duped into volunteering for military duty by the father of a girl he courted. It's established that YA readers in general question the motives of adults, but to demonstrate such cynicism, yeeouch! Some pointed truth, brother. 

Overall, the characters function as vessels of fear and survival. they all long for something at home and clearly have no idea what they're doing in the middle of this war that long ago lost its meaning, congruent to their decision to drop nationalistic urges of violence in favor of surviving the waning hours of combat and shelling.

THE FINAL VERDICT 

It's not what I would imagine the standard WWI novel to be for YA readers, but it can do in a pinch. It's no All Quiet On The Western Front, (Copykopf alert! The ending of Eleven Eleven is A LOT LIKE All Quiet's), but it does belong in the clump of books to offer students to enrich their understanding of WWI, the horrors of warfare, delusions of nationalism, putting differences aside to work together, and the whims of fanatic heads of state. Or, they could try on these tunes:

This is what Eddie puts on his Walkman before every flight. 

Everything I know I learned from metal. And 20+ years of school/work experience. Mostly the latter.

Decent book. I'm not repulsed by it, but it won't be the first WWI fiction recommendation. 

Below are a couple non-fiction WWI books that have plenty of visuals and describe in detail the atrocious human condition and cost. I have used these in my WWI curriculum with great success:

The Experience of World War I by J.M. Winter

Eye Deep in Hell by John Ellis

NEXT TIME, I YELL ABOUT

A wordless book, sporting the same title as a forgettable Charlie Sheen movie, which doesn't narrow it down for you guessers. Let's just say this Arrival is better than this Arrival. 

BORING STUFF

Eleven Eleven

Paul Dowswell

2012 Bloomsbury

BANNED!

Not Appearing In Chicago:

Whoops! We recommended a book with real-world experiences to kids!

Well, sort of. Persepolis, which I've previously reviewed, has been ruled unfit for consumption by 7th graders in Chicago schools. Which is fine, because as we all know, when a book gets this kind of attention, lots of people will protest, bring attention to the matter, and many readers will find it on their own. It's encouraging to see parents and students protesting a decision they see as censorship, but the establishment has a point in keeping the book out of 7th grade classrooms. Persepolis does contain mature content that may be too much for 12- and 13-year old students to handle. But should that possibility be reason enough to prevent teachers from giving other students the option of pursuing this book in class? Would it hurt for a CPS student to wait a year to read this book in class? Will I stop asking questions that end with the words in class?

First of all, the book was recommended to 7th graders by Chicago Public Schools, as stated in the article. MAKE UP YOU MIND, CPS. This is now a case of hindsight, and is most damning in demonstrating that the school district does not know what it recommends (dictates?) the literature used in the classroom. Forget censorship - who oversees the material that is pumped into Chicago's schools?

I wore this to Guy Montag's house. Now I'm dead.

Author Marjane Satrapi, of course, is beside herself, and has plenty to say about free speech and democracy, and rightfully so - the irony of her book about individualism, rebellion, and oppressive cultural values being removed from a classroom in the Unites States speaks for itself. However, the school district has only removed the book from classrooms; it's still available in school libraries. Regardless, it's an act of denying a book to a certain age group by a public official. Is the CEO justified? Maybe. Overreacting? Possibly. This is more complex than standard censorship; irresponsibility and short-sighted planning are the real issues here.

Can I get on my soapbox and castigate the school district for assuming that a class of (probably 40) students would all want to, or be willing to read, any one book? Persepolis is an outstanding work of literature and art, but even this work won't capture everyone's imagination. Let's reform our classrooms! DOWN WITH UNIFORMITY! UP WITH CHOICE! DOWN WITH CONFORMITY! UP WITH...LETTING TEACHERS HELP STUDENTS FIND BOOKS TO READ TO MEET CURRICULUM GOALS!

Now, chant that for 6 hours.

The boy who harnessed the wind and made the rest of us feel like we're wasting our lives

I'm struggling with whether to put a fart joke here

Yeah well, I didn't invent a damn thing before I was 20, other than lies about my homework. 

I have nothing but praise. This guy has the goods. 

The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind is my-life-so-far book by a William Kamkwamba, who spent much of his adolescent years determined to bring free electricity and irrigation to his family's home in poverty- and drought-stricken Malawi. If you can point out Malawi on a map without labels, congratulations. It's a story of overcoming stiff odds and one person's drive to succeed and should rightfully be celebrated. At the same time, it strikes me as a cautionary tale for people in developed countries who take for granted the comforts of their lives, and to never stop thinking.

William pursued something that would improve his life, but also would teach him to put faith in science and human ingenuity over the "magic" purported to hold sway over the people in Malawi, and that he once believed to be a legitimate source of power. Further, he was ridiculed by others in his village for his pursuits, labeled a wacko pothead, which for a time brought shame to his family. There are heavy lessons in here for anyone willing to put in the time, e.g. my world studies class next term. SUCKERS! It's important, too, to read the final pages on being recognized for his achievements by the international scientific community, which goes to show that hard work and ingenuity will not go unrewarded. The guy got a free ride through college and on The Daily Show for crying out loud. 

I categorize this book as YA non-fiction for the following reasons:

1) It was a written by a young adult

2) Deals with concepts around self-improvement and self-discovery to which YA readers can relate

3) It reads smoothly, and the 960 Lexile means that is well within the range of high school readers. 

4) YOU CAN'T STOP ME.

5) We need more realistically uplifting non-fiction for our kiddos, and this one does the job, with the added benefit of supplementing the book with social studies content and all of the media around William and other inventors like him. I can see using this book in the classroom for years to come. 

Boring Stuff

The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind

William Kamkwamba (with Bryan Mealer)

2010 Reprint William Morrow

Next time, I yell about

a book about three teenage boys mired in a never-ending war, with one chance to get out alive. Let's just say  THE NUMBERS DO THE TALKING!

F-

There goes the damage deposit.

Dear Theodore Taylor,

I am writing to you today about your YA novel, The Bomb. You may be dead, but I have watched that X-Files episode in which a paranoid computer genius uploaded his consciousness to the internet about 19 times, and I dreamed that my great-grandmother has been trying to find security holes in latest version of Java so she can nag me. Also, I can't find my Ouija board. Let's assume this finds you.

"Oh look, another book about World War Two," I said to myself as I flipped through listings of YA books set in and around the Second World War. I am constantly looking for action-oriented stories for reluctant boy readers, and yours looked like the cover of a Megadeth album, bringing to mind the metal mania of Mustaine, Marty, Menza, and the other band members whose names don't start with M. Explosions! Destruction! Chaos! Sold.

But wait, it's not an action novel. Damn you, Theodore Taylor! It's a tale of dubious morality and value-based conundrums as the imperialist modern era barges into formerly isolated outposts of humanity! There's even a list of discussion questions at the end of the book. YOU TRICKED ME, THEODORE TAYLOR. Instead of rip-roaring fight scenes, I spent 195 pages on painful inevitability reading about Sorry, the teenage Bikinian hellbent on rescuing his home from the most destructive man-made force: ego. Ha ha! I kid. I mean, of course, atomic weaponry. In a matter of days he's ripped from the cocoon of tropical island solitude and tossed aside for an arms race that both befuddles and angers him. As if that weren't fascinating enough, you include chapter interludes that chronicle the birth of the bomb and the process of bringing the bomb to Bikini. A brilliant stroke; as the two narratives come closer and closer to their final confrontation, I was jumping up and down screaming at Sorry to get the h-e-double-hockey-sticks out of there and fold in the face of powers much bigger than him.

The name Sorry: a linguistic coincidence? Cultural oddity? Cheap apology? Does Taylor see himself in Sorry's situation and feel...empathy for him? I don't get it. Last time it was a girl named Capable, now a boy named Sorry. If they had a kid, I guess the logical name choice would be Mediocre. Sure, the name Sorry is memorable and has some significance to the author, but I question the choice. Still, you could have done much worse, such as writing a book about super heroes called Heroes and naming one of the main characters Hiro. That would just be overt pandering, too self-evident, would completely alienate readers, who would laugh it off as hack work, and the venture would tank completely. Right? Answer: Not in television!

The characters are meh, with the exception of Uncle Abram. I get that Sorry is a confused teenager, but he's just not that interesting or sympathetic; for his people as a group, readers may develop feelings, but Sorry is bland, and his life-altering decision seems forced, as does the sentimental moment with his sister, who barely appears in the book, and her favorite doll. Auxiliary characters are there to simply move things along. That's no major detraction, as the plot drives this book all the way home and doesn't even ask for gas money. 

The last fifteen pages are unspeakably intense. The buildup was worth it. Any YA reader craving action will flip their lid at this climax. You can't possibly top this, can you, Theodore Taylor? No way. 

**SPOILER ALERT**

[Not for you, Theodore, you wrote the thing. This is for all two of my readers who may not want to read on for fear of substantial detail ruining the mystery of your book. It's a common term used on the Internet. That this has entered the lexicon vexes me]

Yes way. Mere moments after finishing the story, I picked up the book again to read the afterword, and you hit me in the chops: HE WAS AT THE BIKINI ISLANDS TO ARRANGE THE BOMB TEST. Theodore, I threw the book across the room. It's as close as I've ever come to a KHAAAAAAN! moment. Here was a nice little story about the infamous bomb test and its effect on people who never had a horse in the race, and you throw on top of it the authenticity and credibility of BEING THERE WHEN ALL OF THIS HAPPENED. All of my issues with characterization and narrative flow seem trivial in comparison to this story having churned inside of you for fifty years, waiting to be told.

Okay guys, the scary spoiler is gone!

Interesting Factoid From This Book That May Interest Only Me:

Sorry regards the albatross fly-by as an ominous sign of approaching danger, whereas in European maritime tradition, an albatross sighting is an omen of good luck. 

Thank you for this book with a misleading cover, somewhat flat characters, intense plot, clever structure, and bonus discussion questions so I don't have to think of any. A truly unforgettable work, which asks questions for which we still do not have answers.

Best,
JB

Boring Stuff

The Bomb

Theodore Taylor

2007 Graphia (reissue)

Next: I yell about a boy wonder in Africa. Let's just say it's going to be a BREEZE!

George Saunders: Badass

False Start

I don't know how to begin

What is this I don't even

What else can be said for

WHY CAN'T I THINK OF A

*Clears Throat*

Okay, those are out the way, and I'm ready to write about George Saunders and his book, The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip. First and foremost, I'm legally obligated to notify readers that this story is not about legendary guitarist Robert Fripp, nor makes any reference to him, other than to praise his virtuosity and to exhort you (extort if you're nasty) to purchase the entire King Crimson catalog. 

Except for this.

I was introduced to George Saunders (the concept) by a college classmate, about fifteen minutes before seeing George Saunders (the man) give a live reading, mini-lecture, and Q&A about George Saunders (the author). He read some pieces that were eventually published in In Persuasion Nation, which takes great umbrage with consumer culture and so sadistically subverts it through unremarkable, largely unsympathetic protagonists*, trapped so deeply in the world of brand-naming and advertising that they're unable to think clearly for themselves. This is a recurring theme* throughout his works, which are difficult to categorize, if you're into that sort of thing. They're not quite futuristic fantasies, nor cautionary tales of dystopia* and social satire*. Yet, it's all of that. Some of the plots are absurd, yet not far-fetched.

Saunders's work has had a major impact on my reading interests and my writing. Anything off-kilter immediately captures my interest, but what he writes is so convincing, the dialogue in particular. He's so tuned into our spoken language that when it's on the printed page it looks foreign - yet this is how we talk. Many of his characters engage in up-talking*, that is, ending every sentence on a rising tone, as if asking a question. And I think, wow, this guy can't be stopped. Why can't I write like this? So I try, and turns out this is really hard, mom! Saunders has this down. Check it out:

"Being a man who knows something about grandfatherly disapproval, having  had a grandfather who  constantly taunted me for having enlarged calves - to the extent that even today, when bathing, I find myself thinking unkind thoughts about Grandfather - what I prayed on both occasions was: Dear Lord, he is what he is, let me love him no matter what. If he is a gay child, God bless him; if he is a non-gay child who simply very much enjoys wearing his grandmother's wig while singing Edelweiss to the dog, so be it, and in either case let me communicate my love and acceptance in everything I do." - from "My Flamboyant Grandson".

That's two sentences. TWO. But that's how we talk! If I received this in a language arts class I'd probably say to the kid, "Hey, that's some really complex sentencing you've created, but I think, because you're a young writer, that these long sentences with all the fancy punctuation marks like the semicolon* and dashes? Not to sound mean, but those should go, because you're not a famous author so you can't get away with that kind of thing yet, which is too bad, but that's how it goes, kid; so here's what you do: break them up into smaller chunks. Do you even know what a dependent clause* is?" - from my really bad impression of George Saunders just now.

*LANGUAGE ARTS TERMINOLOGY ALERT!

GET ON WITH IT!

What do you mean, you "forgot to pick up eye drops"?

So, the guy wrote a book for kids. As with the best kids books, this one works for YA and adult readers. While George tones down the complex sentences and keeps the story simple, there is enough strangeness and subtext for the older crowd. It's 84 pages, with gorgeous, fractured illustrations by Lane Smith, who most notably did the art for The True Story Of the Three Little Pigs.

The plot: In a seaside community of goat keepers, the gappers, spiny baseball-sized creatures with multiple eyes, are irresistibly drawn to goats. When they reach the goats, they issue high-pitched shrieks of joy that stress the goats, who won't produce milk. It's up to a little girl named Capable to find another way to make a living for her family when the goats won't give and the neighbors refuse to help.

The illustrations do well to augment the story, but it's all in the words. Sure, sure, the main idea is sharing and caring for one's fellow humans, but the themes can be applied to social studies discussions of forms of economy, how people interact in the marketplace, and how one's value system dictate their actions - and how those values contradict themselves with circumstance. Pretty heady for my four year-old, but perfect for the YA crowd, who, despite what education "experts" would believe, actually do want to think and form their own opinions on the BIG QUESTIONS in our contemporary society: In a land of plenty, why do so many people go without(?); Who moved my cheese(?); and other such classic queries. Highly recommended.

Boring Stuff

The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip

George Saunders

2006 McSweeney's 

Next time: It's the second straight book whose main character has an obviously loaded name. Let's just say, this book is THE BOMB!