SPEAK

Anderson, Laurie Halse. 1999. Speak. New York: RR Donnelley & Sons Company. 

Melinda Sordino is a typical happy teen, full of joy and friends, right up until the summer before entering Merryweather High School.
One night while at a party she is raped by a charming senior named Andy Evans. She calls the cops, but is unable to actually say what happened to her and looses her friends. The ordeal causes her to become withdrawn, depressed and unable to speak. Her only friend seems to be a new student named Heather. The only place she seems to find peace is in Mr. Freeman’s art class. Though not easy, she admits she was raped after seeing the interest Andy is showing Rachel, one of her former friends. Not being believed she continues her recovery and focuses on other things like drawing a tree for her favorite class. Towards the end of the year, Melinda learns about others that have also been hurt by Andy. When Andy tries to hurt her again the Lacrosse team overhear her screams and is able to stop the attack.
This book shows Havighurst’s developmental tasks when Melinda’s relationship with her parents change from having good grades to please them to ignoring their yelling as they try to get an explanation from her for poor academic performance. Melinda doesn’t seem to care and just goes to her room. Her only outlet is Mr. Freemans art class, where she can express herself artistically and eventually helps her face what happened.

High school is can be very cruel at times, former friends calling her “Squealer” because she called the cops, not knowing the real reason. The topic is very relevant to what is going on in high school today, sexual assault happens and the girls are afraid to report it. My sister is a social worker at a high school and adds that there is often backlash from friends or the sexual assault survivors are not believed.
I like that Anderson shows how Melinda fought back by telling her story, empowering her and others who are or have been in similar situations. Even though this is a YA book it’s realism is perfect for older readers. This book is on the required list for YA novels to read.

While reading the book this link may provide activities that could help recognize signs of problems in others and be there to support them:

ThematicUnit- Novel "Speak" by Dr. Lee Brown

Here’s an article for a new approach to teaching “Speak”:
NYT "Text to Text/'Speak' and 'Waking Up to the Enduring Memory of Rape'" by S. Gross & K. Schulman

Another book by 
Laurie Anderson dealing with high school
Twisted

SISTERS

Telgemeier, R. (2014). Sisters. New York, NY: Graphix.

This graphic novel is about Raina who when she was little wanted a sister, but once she had her she didn't feel the same.

 Raina, Amara, Mom, brother go on a road trip across country to Colorado to visit family, what’s odd is that dad takes a plane and meets them there.  They bicker and fight all the way but eventually get there.  Once there the cousins aren’t how they used to be and isn’t old enough to hang with them and too old to hang with the little ones, plus the aunts and uncles are discussing grown-up stuff, so she is left feeling like she doesn’t fit in anywhere. 

I absolutely love the animation in this book, the faces make you feel exactly what they are going through.  The two sisters are complete opposites and remind me of my sisters, being 4 years apart we hardly had anything in common, we realized how we needed each other as we grew up.  The genre of the book comes through as graphic memoir because it’s about her relationship with her sister. The added photo album at the end of the book is a great peek of their childhood.   Raina’s notices her parents are having problems of their own when the dad says “I’d just drive your mother crazy.”  Her mom tries to cover it up and say that everything will be okay.  This shows the reader that everyone has problems and cope with them in different ways. 

On the way back Raina and Amara are left alone while their mother and brother hitchhike, something that would be too scary for me to actually do.   While they wait a long four hours, they have a run in with a lost pet snake and they work together to capture it.  As they drive home, they did what my sisters and I do when things are okay between us again, give each other “the ok I know you’re on my side look”, no words needed.  Sisters is from the authors YA list assigned to read. 

Here’s a trailer from Scholastic https://youtu.be/SsEXPhq0aIU

 These are a couple of other books written by Raina Telgemeier.

GABI: A GIRL IN PIECES

Quintero, I. (2014). Gabi: A Girl in Pieces. El Paso, Texas: Cinco Puntos Press. 

Gabi Hernandez is a Mexican American 17-year-old girl who lives in California. She is starting her senior year with her best friends are Cindy, who thinks she’s pregnant and Sebastian who’s gay.

Cindy turns out pregnant and what’s worse is that she confesses to Gabi and Sebastian that German raped her.  Cindy fears that no one will believe her because she had been drinking and he didn’t hit her or treat her bad, just held her down. 

Sebastian on the other hand is kicked out of his house after confessing to his parents that he’s gay and has gone to live with an aunt.

Gabi is trying to figure herself out, she loves to eat, is self-conscious about her weight, calls herself “gordita,” or “fatgirl.”   She has a father who’s an addict, a controlling mother who hates that Gabi's fat and is pregnant after 16 years, a judgmental aunt that’s not true to herself, and Beto, her brother that gets away with bad behavior, because “boys will be boys.”

Gabby puts her thoughts in a journal her last year of high school.  As soon as I start reading this book, I didn’t want to stop.   Being Hispanic, I can relate to the language and traditions that Gabi mentions in her journal.  Gaby writes about how it was a sin for her mother to have a baby at 16 and unwed.  This YA realistic fiction novel contains some inappropriate language along with issues that we still face today like weight issues, pregnancy, addiction, rape, and being gay.  I love the part where she says, “the thing about being fat is that you spend too much damn time worrying about being fat and that takes time away from having fun.”  I, myself am guilty of worrying about being fat.

Through poetry she expresses feelings about developing her own confidence, and often wonders if she should she go away to college and leave her family behind.

We see that Gabi going through the pre-conventional stage of moral development as Haveghurst states, she always wants to be a good girl, trying not to get pregnant, one who follows her mom’s house rules and her cultural beliefs. 

We also see post-conventional stage when she unleashed the “hammer of Thor” or rather she sat on German and slapped him and gets suspended for it, but is rather hilarious every time I think about how that might have looked.  We see Gabi go through high school, graduation, to leaving for college.  
This book is on the list of required YA novels.

These are links that contain more information on some of the issues written in the book:

• Huffington Post, "Stop Saying 'Boys Will Be Boys'" by Jennifer Hicks

• HealthyPlace, "Supporting Someone who Has Been Raped or Sexually Assaulted" Reviewed by Harry Croft, MD

• Slate, "How to Have the Consent Talk With Your Kids" by Amanda Hess

Here is a great book trailer by Darcy Davidson Armstrong: https://youtu.be/P4NwPawLGwA

Isabel Quintero's latest book
Ugly Cat & Pablo

DOLL BONES

Black, H. (2013). Boll Bones. New York, NY: Margaret K. McElderry.

Alice Magnaye, Poppy Bell, and Zach Barlow are best friends who love to play a make-believe game of pirates, thieves, mermaids, and a bone-china doll, the Great Queen, that is forbidden to be touched because according to Poppy’s mother, she is going to be worth a lot o. The thing is they’re in middle school now and Zach’s father throws his dolls away in an effort to get him more focused in basketball.

Zach is so upset and quits the game, and refuses to tell the girls the reason. They end up going on one last adventure in which Poppy is adamant that they must lay the queen to rest in her empty grave.

They travel to Ohio to find Eleanor Kerchner’s grave which is about three hours away.  They find that Eleanor’s father was wrongly accused of murdering his beloved daughter and apparently used her ashes and bones to make a china doll.

Creepy things and weird events are happening along the way, they fight with each other, doubting if Poppy is making this story up, they escape shady people, some treat the doll as a real person, which makes the hairs on my arms stand up. 

The three end up in a library where they fall asleep, when they awake the doll is gone and a librarian makes them call their parents.  They eventually complete their quest as they find Eleanor’s grave and put her to rest so she doesn’t haunt them. 

Even though their friendships are tested over their spooky adventure, they still trust and comfort each other. Havighurst talks about how adolescents change as they get older and we see how at the beginning the three friends get along because they have similar interests (make-believe game and dolls) and their relationship is easy going.  As they grow older and start middle school, not only does their relationship with their parents change (Zach lost trust in his dad when he left him and his mom, but believes that he will be there to pick him up in Ohio) so do changing relationships with peers (Zach asks Alice on a date and Poppy feeling left out).  This spooky story is perfect for a younger adult audience since the characters are 12 years old. Holly Black was one of the authors on the YA list that had an interesting cover.

• Here’s a link to a curriculum guide I think would be of help when working with this book, it includes vocabulary, pre-reading & post-reading activities, and discussion questions http://cfmedia.btsb.com/TitleLessonPlans/387.pdf

I found a lot of trailers and the following two don't scare students off from reading this book.

• https://youtu.be/vKOsvXxkUmk Random House Children’s Publishers book trailer
• https://youtu.be/0xqXfGOepQE  Melissa P. McAvoy trailer

• It's great to know a little about the author, Holly Black, this includes writing advice for all ages, take a look: http://blackholly.com/about/

The Spiderwick Chronicles:
The Complete Series is also great
for students looking for a series.