Book Review 3 - Genre 6 - Rapunzel's Revenge by Shannon and Dean Hale

Bibliography

Hale, Shannon and Hale, Dean. 2008. Rapunzel’s Revenge. Ill. By Nathan Hale. New York: Bloomsbury. ISBN 9781599902883.

Plot Summary

Rapunzel’s Revenge is a fantasy graphic novel in which the protagonist Rapunzel is separated from her “real” family as a little girl and taken in by the evil mother Gothel. At age 12, Rapunzel decides to look over the wall and see what it beyond. What she sees is desolate and ugly. Beyond the wall, she meets the woman who is her real mother and is separated again from her as she is taken back to Gothel who punishes her by locking her up in a tall tree for four years. During this time, Rapunzel’s hair grows to incredible lengths, and she eventually escapes her prison vowing to find and free her mother. This vow takes her on an adventure where she meets Jack. Jack and Rapunzel become good friends and work together to find a way to free Rapunzel’s real mother from the evil Gothel.

Critical Analysis

Shannon and Deal Hale use the “everything but the kitchen sink” recipe for this fantasy graphic novel. They start with a heavy portion of fairy tale, add a little myth along with morals, and add a Wild West motif. Middle school students will love the strong sense of justice, adventure, and first love. For older students, the overuse of blending so many stories and cultures together may be tiresome.

Since most of the characters are spin-offs from other tales, it does not take long to figure them out. Rapunzel of fairy tale fame has the same advantage of long hair that helps her out except that this Rapunzel is a risk-taker who is not going to sit around waiting for a prince to rescue her. In fact, when a prince shows up, she tricks him. Rapunzel’s sidekick Jack is also of fairy tale fame better known as Jake and the beanstalk coincidentally has the goose who lays golden eggs. The evil mother character embodied in Gothel is a collective of all the evil mothers and stepmothers from various fairy tales. The other characters are an interesting assortment of various cultures. There are Indians, Mexicans, Asian, a French woman and European woodsmen to name a few. The oddest group of characters is some bandits where one is wearing pirate apparel and one of the others looks like a version of Mr. T. These are all familiar characters pulled from various stories.

Most fairy tales are set a long, long time ago, so using the Wild West makes for an interesting twist. Rapunzel starts out as a perfect child in a perfect villa until she decides to see what is beyond the wall. This is very reminiscent of the old adage “the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence” or in this case wall. Rapunzel finds the other side of the wall is not greener but instead dirtier and uglier. When she finally escapes from the tree that imprisons her, she heads out into unknown territory. The map on page 73 helps the reader understand the landscape that Rapunzel and Jack must travel. The illustrations also help establish the setting. At the villa, the pictures are filled with green and lilac, and then, dark and lots of brown colors in the other areas where Gothel has withered everything away. The illustrations are essential to the setting.

Additionally, the plot follows the usual fairy tale format. There is a quest for Rapunzel. She must escape from prison in the tree and find her “real” mother to set her free. Along the way, Rapunzel meets up with many challenges and obstacles to overcome. She must overcome the obvious ones like hunger and sleep, but also magical ones of sea serpents and overly huge wild boar. As soon as she completes one task, then something goes wrong, and she has one more thing to overcome. Her desire to complete a task is always based on her wanting to right a wrong. This pattern continues until she finally subdues the evil mother Gothel, and everyone lives happily ever after. The plot is very predictable and formulaic especially for older readers.

Shannon and Dean Hale’s style for this story seems manufactured. Using all the usual motifs, characters, and themes from tales makes the story feel retold. Furthermore, the language is an odd combination of Wild West dialect and more modern word usage. In some places the readers hears Wild West words like “swigger-jiggered,” “yep,” “dag-nabit” and “scared spitless,” and in other places more modern words and phrases like “avatar,” and “That’s just wrong” (p. 66). This lack of consistency could be a problem for older readers, which seems to lend itself to an intended audience of middle schoolers. There are jokes about passing gas and embarrassing first kisses that would appeal to this age group. Overall, it is an entertaining twist on old material for younger readers, but maybe too predictable for older readers.

Review Excerpts

Publishers Weekly – “With its can-do heroine, witty dialogue and romantic ending, this graphic novel has something for nearly everybody.”

Alan Review – “This is definitely not your grandmother's Rapunzel—the quietly submissive, longsuffering princess, waiting for the prince to rescue her.”

School Library Journal – “The dialogue is witty, the story is an enticing departure from the original, and the illustrations are magically fun and expressive.”

Kirkus Review – “A dash of typical fairy-tale romance, a strong sense of social justice and a spunky heroine make this a standout choice for younger teens.”

Connections

* Share picture book versions of the following stories (there are many versions available) and discuss how they connect to Rapunzel’s Revenge. In addition, a compare/contrast of the illustrations would be interesting.

• Rapunzel
• Jack and the Beanstalk
• The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg
• Samson and Delilah
• Pied Piper of Hamelin
• Pandora

*Create reader’s theater scripts for students to perform.

*In groups, have students select a fairy tale and rewrite it in a different setting.

Book Review 2- Genre 6 - Looking for Alaska by John Green

Bibliography -

Green, John. 2005. Looking for Alaska. New York: Dutton Books. ISBN 9780525475064.

Plot Summary –

Pudge (Miles Halter) is a high school junior from Florida who decides to go to an Alabama boarding school to find the “Great Perhaps” in this contemporary young adult realistic fiction novel. Miles, a lanky geek, had given up on having friends in the seventh grade, which sparks his curiosity about his soon to be roommate Chip at Culvert Creek Preparatory School. Pudge completes a group of misfits in which he becomes friends with some and falls in love with one, Alaska Young. Alaska has a terrible accident, and Miles, driven largely by guilt, tries to discover the truth of her accident. In his quest for the truth, Miles learns to forgive and finds his way “out of the labyrinth of suffering.”

Critical Analysis –

This unforgettable story of a group of high school friends and their first year at a boarding school captivates the reader through Green’s lifelike characters, impressive style, and poignant adolescent themes. Green’s realistic depiction of teenage friendships, love, pranks, and language may cause some to challenge this novel for public schools; however, it is a powerful story that older readers will benefit from experiencing. While some may feel that Green’s handling of teenage sex, drug use, and alcohol may be treated in a nonchalant way, in the end, the seriousness of choices along with their consequences is fully explored.

Green’s characters are vivid and real. He provides the reader with an up close and personal look at each one of the main characters. The group of four misfits and later five are all brought together through their differences. Each one does not fit in with the regular students who Miles calls “Weekday Warriors.” The Weekday Warriors are the local rich kids who go home every weekend. Miles and his friends are outside the norm, and therefore naturally gravitate to one another. Miles Halter, nicknamed ironically Pudge, is a lanky geek who loves to read people’s last words. His roommate Chip, nicknamed the Colonel, is extremely intelligent and extremely poor. Takumi perhaps the dorkiest of the bunch loves to run with a fox hat on his head. All three boys adore Alaska Young who is full of energy, emotionally moody, and loves to read. These four bond together because they feel no one else can understand their idiosyncrasies. Later, another misfit, Lara joins the group as Miles’s sort of girlfriend. She is a wealthy Romanian girl with a strong accent.

Green’s style is striking to the young adult reader. Most engaging is the almost journal like format told in first person point of view. There are two main sections of the novel – “Before” and “After”. The reader immediately realizes that something happens that changes their lives forever. In the “Before” section, the days countdown to the great tragedy, and in the “after” section, the days count away from it. In either direction going toward that day or away from that day, the days contract and then expand focusing the reading into the catastrophic event. Since Green writes first person in a conversational tone, Miles (Pudge) compels the reader to become part of the story. For example on page 186, the Colonel is relating the events on the night of Alaska’s accident as he recorded them from his conversation with Alaskas’s boyfriend Jake. The Colonel reports that Jake asks her what she is doing and she says, “Nothing, just doodling,” and then starts cussing and crying. At this point, the reader wants to yell at them, “Look at the doodling! It has to help explain what happened that night.” Unfortunately, it does not strike them yet, and the reader has to wait for Miles’s thoughts to catch up.

Additionally, the language of this conversational tone brings the story to life. Green uses dialect when appropriate especially the Southern dialect of Alabama. In addition, he uses particular speech patterns like when Takumi, who is Japanese, says, “I think we run now (p. 63)”. While Green uses this language pattern of dropping the helping verbs, which gives the reader an early hint that Takumi is of Asian descent, it is not done in a stereotypical manner. It is merely how Takumi speaks. Another instance of his conversational tone is when Lara enters the story. She is a Romanian girl who speaks with an accent. She explains that she has trouble with certain vowel sounds. The story is more realistic since Green has everyone speaks in a manner expected for their unique upbringing.

Green’s greatest accomplishment is his handling of profound themes in a way that is not moralizing. He addresses feminism, immortality, and the afterlife all of which are ever-present in the mind of young adults. Green uses Alaska Young as the one who makes sure young woman are treated equally to men. She never misses an opportunity to point out to the guys when their words or behavior is sexist. In fact, after her death, Miles remembers her efforts in this matter when he says, “I almost told him that Alaska wouldn’t want him to call any woman a bitch…” (p. 169). The most pronounced example is the final prank the junior class decides to pull in memory of Alaska. Its name says it all, “Subverting the Patriarchal Paradigm,” (p. 199). Young adult males have a way of objectifying women, and Green causes them to rethink this behavior.

Two other intense and closely linked themes for the young adult are immortality and the afterlife. As Miles says, “Teenagers think they are invincible,” (p. 220). Green fully explores this idea through the heartbreaking death of Alaska. Through Alaska’s death, Miles realizes not all teenagers are invincible and spirals into deep dark depression in large measure to his overwhelming sense of guilt. He thought that he should have realized just how drunk and upset she was and not let her drive. He and his roommate spend all their emotional, mental, and physical efforts into determining if her death was an accident or suicide in their attempt to come to terms with immortality may not be reality. Before Alaska’s death at the end of the first semester, Miles’s religion teacher gives the class a topic for their final exam to ask one question and answer it based on what they had learned about religion. Miles’s question is “What happens to people after they die?” (p. 78). He had no idea that he would have to live through the realization of the answer.

During the process of coming to terms with Alaska’s mortality, Miles comes to realize his true thoughts on the afterlife Very insightful, Mr. Hyde the religion teacher uses Alaska’s question from the first semester as the question for the second semester exam. The question is “How will you—personally—ever get out of this labyrinth of suffering?” This probing question leads Miles to his own enlightenment based on his life changing experiences over the past months. He realizes three things: 1. to survive the labyrinth of suffering, one has to forgive (p. 218); 2. “…see the endless string of consequences that result from our smallest actions,” (p. 218); and, 3. the meaning of Thomas Edison’s last words, “I don’t know where there is, but I believe it’s somewhere, and I hope it’s beautiful” (p. 221). This powerful young adult contemporary realistic fiction will leave the reader thinking about the “Great Perhaps.”

Review Excerpts –

School Library Journal – “This novel is about real kids dealing with the pressures of growing up and feeling indestructible.”

Children’s Literature – “This is an amazing first novel by a writer who is young enough to vividly remember his poignant years of high school and skillful enough to turn his memories into story.”

Kirkus Review – “What sings and soars in this gorgeously told tale is Green's mastery of language and the sweet, rough edges of Pudge's voice.”

Awards:

• Michael L. Printz Honor Book

• Finalist, 2005 Los Angeles Times Book Prize

• 2006 Top 10 Best Book for Young Adults

• 2006 Teens’ Top 10 Award

• 2006 Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers

Connections –

* Share poetry of W.H Auden and Edna St. Vincent Milay. Discuss why Green might have chosen these poets to use.

*Share excerpts from The General in His Labyrinth by Gavriel Garcia Marquez.

*Have students read A Separate Peace by John Knowles. How are these two novels quite similar even though A Separate Peace is set during WWII?

*Have students discuss whether they find the ending satisfying. Have them suggest alternative endings.

*Have students create multimedia book trailers.

*Set up a blog to spark discussion on and interest in the novel.

Book Review 1 - Genre 6 - Joey Pigza Loses Control by Jack Gantos

Bibliography -

Gantos, Jack. 2002. Joey Pigza Loses Control. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 9780374399894 .

Plot Summary –

Joey Pigza, a boy who has severe attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), goes to visit his dad one summer and discovers that he and his dad are not as alike as his mother thinks. Joey is anxious to get to know his father and to please him. Unfortunately, Carter Pigza, his alcoholic father, is more concerned about being a winner through his son than with his son. Joey is torn between what he knows is right and an overwhelming desire to win his father’s love. In order to win his father’s love, he must win the baseball championship on his dad’s terms even if those terms are destructive. In the end, Joey realizes that it is in his mother’s arms he prefers to be because to her Joey is “the right kid.”

Critical Analysis –

Gantos explores the sensitive issues of ADHD and other dysfunctional issues facing today’s families in this contemporary realistic fiction novel. The plausible plot and credible characters crafted through non-stereotyping the stereotypical traits combine to create an enjoyable story for young readers; however, the overuse of figurative language particularly simile and hyperbole may be tedious to older readers.

The plot is extremely plausible to anyone who knows a child of divorced parents. The children go visit their fathers and the struggle begins. The children try to win their father’s affections, and the father tries to make up for lost time with the children. From this general plot line, Gantos adds the complications that Joey is severely ADHD requiring medication, and Joey’s father is also ADHD, among other things, but self medicates with alcohol. Most satisfy and real-life is the fact that despite all the storybook references, this tale does not have a happy ending yet it is hopeful. Joey returns to the security of his mother’s arms with a new realization of what “being normal” means for him.

Gantos creates credible characters through an interesting use of non-stereotyping the stereotypical. At first, the fact that Joey is a boy with ADHD might sound stereotypical until the reader realizes that Grandma and Joey’s mother also display symptoms of ADHD, which may account for Joey’s severity with the disorder. Grandma shows symptoms in her obsessive smoking behavior and the hilarious golfing incident. She is hitting one ball after another when the oxygen tube on her tank caught on her golf club. She does not realize it and swings through causing herself to fall. She quickly hops up even though she is physically weak. In addition, she talks continually jumping from subject to subject just like Joey.

Although a little more subtle, Joey’s mother also has symptoms of ADHD. Joey comments in the second paragraph that although he had asked a “hundred” questions, she is “not really listening.” Additionally, facts that point to her having attention deficit problems are that her driver’s license is “slightly expired,” “driving too fast,” “don’t have insurance,” and “she could never do two things at once.” In isolation these may not add up to attention deficit, but adding Joey into the equation can get the reader to this conclusion. Also, apparently ADHD, is the Chihuahua named Pablo. Stereotypically small dogs are considered hyper, but Pablo has a fewer added traits in case there is any doubt. He gets carsick, yaps nonstop, chews stuff up when he gets nervous, and “gets hysterical at the sight of blood.” The non-stereotypical use of the stereotypical adds humor to this otherwise serious story.

While younger reader may not notice, older readers may find the overuse of figurative language as the only drawback to this otherwise delightful story. Since everything about Joey is extremely “hyper,” it makes sense that it also manifests itself in his speech as hyperbole. It is difficult to find an example of Joey speaking without hyperbole, yet that is not bothersome. The problem comes in when all of the other characters are using many similes most of which are hyperbole. After a while, the reader gets weary when the word “like” appears yet again. Some are carefully placed and add humor, gravity, or deep insight to the text, but most seem to be there just to be there with no added meaning. Besides this one shortcoming for older readers, Gantos has crafted an excellent work that gives the seriousness of ADHD and its effects on the family without leaving the reader depressed.

Review Excerpts –

School Library Journal – “Readers will be drawn in immediately to the boy's gripping first-person narrative and be pulled pell-mell through episodes that are at once hilarious, harrowing, and ultimately heartening as Joey grows to understand himself and the people around him.”

Children’s Literature – “Gantos still gives us what we love best about Joey—neither medicine nor a bad situation can take away his comic responses..”

VOYA – “Gantos's style of writing and the subject matter make this book a great middle school read-aloud.”

Kirkus Review – “A tragic tale in many ways, but a triumph too.”

Publishers Weekly(starred) – “Like its predecessor, Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key, this high-voltage, honest novel mixes humor, pain, fear and courage with deceptive ease.”

Awards:

· A Newbery Honor Book

Connections –

* Share the poem “Whatif” by Shel Silverstein and then read the first paragraph of Joey Pigza Loses Control. Have students make of a two-column chart listing the “Whatif” questions from both selections under “Serious” and “Not so serious.” Discuss why they made those choices.

*Use to explore figurative language particularly simile, metaphor, and hyperbole.

*Encourage the reading of other Joey Pigza books by Gantos such as:

• Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key – ISBN 9780064408332

• What Would Joey Do? – ISBN 9780060544034

• I Am Not Joey Pigza – ISBN 9780374399412

*Demonstrate reader’s theater with an excerpt, then group the students and have them write their own scripts of their favorite part and share them with other class members.

*Group students and have them research and share the effects on families of the following:

• ADHD

• Alcoholism

• Lack of Anger Management

• Illnesses of elderly family members

• Divorce