we were here - but you'd never know

INVISIBLE KID

My favorite students (to torment) are the ones who want to go unseen. They sit as far away from the instructor as possible, hunker down in their hoodies, and try to sneak the earbuds in and drift off to where they want to be. First, I want to know where that is, because 95% of the time it's a time or place they can never reclaim. There is a story I want to hear and help the boy (it's always a boy) comes to terms or generate a new understanding, using what they know, or want to have. Second, I move in their direction and passive-aggressively engage them. Oh, the joy on my face as I see the anguish on theirs. Sorry, buddy, you won my attention by attempting to avoid it; I'm about to draw you in, make you my go-to guy; You're too young to disappear.

Dark Dude 2: Another light-skinned Mexican boy soul-searches. This time with more swearing.

We Were Here by Matt De La Pena, tells the story of three invisible kids. The story is narrated by Miguel, who enters juvenile detention and immediately instigates conflict with Rondell and Mong, who, like Miguel, carry their own emotional baggage. Mong inexplicably recruits Miguel and Rondell to break out and head to Mexico, to freedom! And, presumably, tacos, as the boys consume dozens on their journey. I say freedom - not just from juvy, but from their personal demons. In true YA novel fashion, the boys are a diverse group from varying backgrounds/ethnicity, who each have their unique personal issues with which readers might identify.

This takes the form of an epic adventure, but quickly derails, as the escapees run into trouble everywhere they go, despite staying off the grid and hiking along the California coast on their way to Mexico. The situations are all believable and grounded in the boys' own desires and pet peeves; anyone who was burned by a crush in high school will identify with Miguel over the Flaca episode. I'm most impressed by their many nights spent on the beaches; Miguel revels in the solitude, and De La Pena ingeniously captures teenage escapism and desirous invisibility at its finest. There are some hidden elements to the plot that I won't reveal here, but they combine with his want of getting away to drive Miguel's actions. 

Caveat: This book is long. Too long. Long like the end of Invictus. The story drags in too many parts for my liking, but not so for the many rave reviews on Amazon. The story is full of wacky slang and salty language that I enjoy, but at the same time it'll turn off the curmudgeons who won't read this book anyway. So, good job, Matt! Write for your target audience. Then get them to read books that aren't yours.

CLASSICS ALERT!

I need to keep a running tally of naked advertisements of "classic" YA books. De La Pena has Miguel read Catcher in the Rye, The Color Purple, and Of Mice and Men. This time, the inclusion of the classic novels is quite clever, as the plot of each book echoes the character traits of one of the boys. Miguel is Holden Caulfield, Rondell embodies Lennie, and Mong is Oprah. Ha! Ha! But seriously, Mong does represent the abused Celie (and everyone else) in the Walker novel. I haven't seen this much overt courtship of readers since Dark Dude. I suppose the kids need their classics spoon-fed to them. For me, see the brilliant Book-a-minute Classics website. Ultra-condensed versions of the all-time greats!

UNDERSTANDING THE LATINO PERSPECTIVE

I wrote something in the Dark Dude post about learning more about the culture/perspective of Latino boyhood. Yeah, well, I haven't done much studying other than my own anecdotal conversations with my students and watching Stand and Deliver to get amped for the school week every Sunday night. ((I don't actually do this.) I should.) However, the population of my location and my line of work demands that I read, study, and develop my own approach to these Latino boys. For the most part, the girls take care of themselves and make an honest effort. The boys seem lost in comparison. Reading this fiction is a good start, but I'd appreciate input on journals, scholarly articles, documentaries, or any media related to this issue. I could expand this request to all minority groups, but I feel like the most urgent (and my least-understood, or so I feel) is the Latino perspective. That's right, I'm a Ukranian-American YA genius. (No.)

So that's where I am. I want to know more, always THIRSTING for KNOWLEDGE. And if you're young and demonstrate this trait, it will never go unnoticed.

If Miguel had a camera, and got lost and walked to Seaside, Oregon, it would have looked like this. Flickr photo from Oregon State University special collection. 

NEXT TIME, I YELL ABOUT

I'm sort of trying to read a book I found for a quarter at a library sale. So far, it's terrible, meaning I will put on a brave face and plow through an awful YA book one more damn hell ass time, as my boy Miguel would say. I'll just say that this book might BREAK YOUR MOTHER'S BACK!

BORING STUFF

We Were Here

Matt De La Pena

Delacorte 2009

Donnie Dark Dude

 I HONESTLY THOUGHT THIS WAS GOING TO BE A STARGATE FAN FICTION

You might think that a book with a cover like this: 

would not inspire such a thought. Clearly, my line of reasoning is nonsense, but when the author so closely resembles the departed Don S. Davis, I get my hopes up. 

Don S Davis

Oscar Hijuelos, I am disappoint. 

So it wasn't to be. HOWEVER, I am bound by the code of this blog, which dropped off my radar for a couple of weeks thanks to the pesky intercession of EARNING A LIVING, to comment upon Dark Dude, the latest of my YA conquests.

SHOW DON'T TELL

For a book written in the first person, Hijuelos does lots of showing. For example, I didn't figure out that this book was set in the 1970s until after page 100. He showed me, but I wasn't looking. Shame on me. 

Rico, our hero, is a Cuban boy living in a rough Hispanic neighborhood in NYC, but there's one problem: he looks like a gringo. White skin, dirty blond hair. So right away, we're shown  that Rico doesn't fit in anywhere. Add fuel: he spent much of his childhood hospitalized and didn't grow up with a core group of friends. I feel I've been shown too much. Take it away, Rico, it's HIDEOUS.

So Rico takes us through his pasy, his family, his hobbies, his daily life, and it's no mystery why he hitchhikes to rural Wisconsin to find a friend who won the lottery and moved there to start a farm. Because the first thought in anyone's mind when they win $75,000 is, "I want to live where it smells like cow poop." 

Anyway, through hard work, socialization, lots of beer drinking, and saving a friend from drug addiction, Rico learns a lot about life, love, and fitting in. Good for him. Kid needed it.

OKAY, NOW STOP

Perhaps I'm growing jaded by YA, but the plot structure was just too rigidly predictable, as is much of the standard symbolism and the "wave a classic book into the story to get kids to read it" trend, of which John Green is the most notorious offender. This time, it's Huck Finn. Rico compares his own hitchhiking adventure with his junkie pal Jimmy to Huck and Jim's float down the Mississippi. Ugh, really. Jimmy and Jim. Write their names on an iron skillet and smash my face in with it, because I DIDN'T SEE THE PARALLELS. But wait, there's MORE. JIMMY is a SLAVE to DRUGS. It all makes sense now. Then, THEN! Rico develops the idea for a comic book about a guy who can change his skin tone to be Caucasian or Hispanic at will. While the symbolism is so laughably overt, it does demonstrate the depths of Rico's loneliness and feelings as an outsider.

So, not a read to avoid, but it is long. I will soon read We Were Here, which is of a similar bent, and I'll probably be better prepared to discuss identity among Latino boys in the United States. 

 NEXT TIME, I YELL ABOUT

The works of John Green. I'm struggling with my own assessment of his writing. He's worshiped as the voice of the 21st Century YA but there's something askew, and I just can't find it. Let's just say I might find fault...IN OUR STARS!

BORING STUFF

Dark Dude

Oscar Hijuelos

2009 Atheneum