Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Before I Fall

www.laurenoliverbooks.com         

Watch the Before I Fall book trailer!
Book trailer from www.laurenoliverbooks.com 


Title: Before I Fall
Author: Lauren Oliver
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 496




Sam's life is seemingly perfect. She is popular and has a free pass in doing whatever she wants with her peers' approval. Her friends are popular and rich. They get invited to the best parties, date the cutest boys, and always get the most roses on Cupid Day. 

The story begins with Sam waking up and getting ready for school on Cupid Day (February 12). Her friend Lindsay arrives in her Range Rover, or the Tank as they refer to it, with coffee and bagels. And girl talk about Sam finally losing her virginity to her "to die for" boyfriend Rob Cokran. The day proceeds with girls competing against each other to see who gets the most roses and deciding they will attend a party hosted by Kent McFuller. Kent is no where near popular but his parents won't be there, and there will be beer.

Cupid Day is suppose to be the most exciting perfect day out of the school year. Sam didn't know it would also be her last. Now she is forced to relive her last day and forced to reexamine her life. She gets seven chances to make things right. Read Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver and discover Sam's understanding of her death and how far she goes to rescue her life.

Before I Fall is the first book on CD that I have listened to. It was a different experience listening to a book and hearing how the narrator depicts different characters and emotions. I have to say that out of the four books I read for this project, Before I Fall was my absolute favorite. The plot was original, the characters cruel and obnoxious yet realistic, and the message--You just never know--hauntingly beautiful. I immediately fell in love with Sam's character. Yes, she is a "bitch," but she is a bitch out of necessity to preserve her popularity. She is young naive and clueless. . . like most teenagers.  However, Sam soon realizes after her death that there are more important things than popularity and her character transforms to the type of person she should have been. 

Run to your nearest book store or library and grab Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver!!

Overall Grade: A+

Awards and Reviews

"a must-have for public libraries and high school collections"- School Library Journal
  • New York Times Bestseller
  • Publishers Weekly Bestseller
  • New Atlantic Independent 
  • Booksellers Association Bestseller
  • ALA/YALSA--Best Fiction for Young Adults
  • YALSA Teen's Top 10

Teachers' Corner

Related Resources


Odd Girl Out 2005 TV Movie

A well-adjusted teenager becomes depressed when she's bullied and ostracized by her friends at school.



Hate List. 2010. By Jennifer Brown. (0606151230).

Five months ago, Valerie Leftman's boyfriend, Nick, opened fire on their school cafeteria. Shot trying to stop him, Valerie inadvertently saved the life of a classmate, but was implicated in the shootings because of the list she helped create. A list of people and things she and Nick hated. The list he used to pick his targets.

Now, after a summer of seclusion, Val is forced to confront her guilt as she returns to school to complete her senior year. Haunted by the memory of the boyfriend she still loves and navigating rocky relationships with her family, former friends and the girl whose life she saved, Val must come to grips with the tragedy that took place and her role in it, in order to make amends and move on with her life.




Thirteen Reasons Why. 2011. By Jay Asher. (159514188X)

Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a strange package with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker - his classmate and crush - who committed suicide two weeks earlier. Hannah's voice tells him that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he'll find out why. Clay spends the night crisscrossing his town with Hannah as his guide. He becomes a firsthand witness to Hannah's pain, and learns the truth about himself-a truth he never wanted to face.

Thirteen Reasons Why is the gripping, addictive international bestseller that has changed lives the world over. It's an unrelenting modern classic.  




Lesson Plan for 10th Grade Students

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

Teachers can use Lauren Oliver's Before I Fall and related resources such as Hate List by Jennifer Brown, Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher, and the movie Odd Girl Out to explore issues such as bullying, depression, suicide, and choices.

21st Century Learner Standards

4.1.2  Read widely and fluently to make connections with self, the world, and previous readings.

4.1.7 Use social networks and information tools to gather and share information.

Objective: Students will form an electronic/social networking book club and discuss themes from the resources selected. Students should use knowledge gained from the literature as well as connecting it with their previous experiences. Teacher will set up questions to guide student discussion.

Sample Discussion Questions:

What are similar themes we see in all three novels?

How are the characters Sam and Lindsay from Before I Fall similar to Stacey and Nikki from Odd Girl Out?

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Monday, June 25, 2012

Girl in Translation


JeanKwok.com




















Watch Jean Kwok talk about Girl in Translation









Title: Girl in Translation
Author: Jean Kwok
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 320




Jean Kwok's Girl in Translation is a modern-day immigration story.  Kimberly Chang and her mother emigrated from Hong Kong to Brooklyn, New York on a trip funded by Kim's Aunt Paula. They are thus indebted to Aunt Paula and work in a Chinatown clothing sweatshop that barely pays them enough to survive.  Kim and Ma are forced to bear New York's blistering winters in a roach and rat infested apartment with no heat.


Kim, although the brightest student in her former school in China, struggles academically and socially in America. She only half understands her teachers' lectures and doesn't understand American teenagers at all! Despite this, Kim forms a close friendship with Annette who helps her learn English and equally as important makeup.  With time, Kim perfects her English, improves her grades, and eventually earns a spot in a prestigious private high school. Yet, Kim still struggles to hide her sweatshop job from her friends and classmates.


Kowk's Girl in Translation is a beautifully told story of the struggles of poverty, immigrants, and heart break. It is also a story of perseverance, success, and sacrifice. The story begins by vividly describing Kim's disgusting apartment and the horrid working conditions where the elderly and young work side by side. The author then clearly conveys Kim's frustration and confusion in not understanding her new American classmates, teachers, and language.  Matt's character, Kim's love interest, is well-developed and adorable. Their love story is touching and heartbreaking all at the same time. Readers will get to experience first love mature into adult reality. Young immigrants--and adolescents alike--will love Girl in Translation. A must read!


Rating: A+

Reviews

"Part fairy tale, part autobiography... what puts this debut novel toward the top of the pile is its buoyant voice and its slightly subversive ending that suggests "happily ever after" may have more to do with love of self and of family than with any old Prince Charming."-O, The Oprah Magazine


"Writing in first-person from Kim's point of view, Kwok cleverly employs phonetic spellings to illustrate her protagonist's growing understanding of English and wide-eyed view of American teen culture. The author draws upon her own experience as a child laborer in New York, which adds a poignant layer to Girl in Translation."-USA Today


"The astonishing - and semi-autobiographical - tale of a girl from Hong Kong who, at age eleven, shoulders the weight of her mother's American dream all the way from Chinatown sweatshop to the Ivy League."-Vogue




Teacher's Corner


Related Resources


Movies


Real Women Have Curves (2002) This coming-of-age film captures the life of a Mexican-American girl who must choose between going off to college and staying behind to help her family make money.
Spanglish (2004) Cultures clash when an Anglo-American suburban family hires a Mexican maid who takes great pride in her heritage.

Books

Red Hot Salsa: Bilingual Poems on Being Young and Latino in the United States. Ed. by Lori Carlson. 2005. (0-8050-7616-6).
The poets collected here illuminate the difficulty of straddling cultures, languages, and identities. They celebrate food, family, love, and triumph. In English, Spanish, and poetic jumbles of both, they tell us who they are, where they are, and what their hopes are for the future.


A Step from Heaven. 2001. By An Na. (0-886910-58-8)

A first novel in which a Korean-American girl tells the story of her acculturation into American life beginning from the day she leaves Korea as a young child and ending when she is a young woman. While going up into the sky on the flight from Korea to America, four-year-old Young Ju concludes that they are on their way to heaven-America is heaven! After they arrive, however, Young Ju and her parents and little brother struggle in their new world, weighed down by the difficulty of learning English, their insular family life, and the traditions of the country they left behind. An Na’s striking language authentically reflects the process of acculturation as Young Ju grows from a child to an adult.


Lesson Plan for 10th Grade Students



Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok
Teachers can use Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok to explore issues of Americanization, immigration, and assimilation.

21st Century Learner Standards

1.1.4    Find, evaluate, and select appropriate sources to answer questions.

2.1.3    Use strategies to draw conclusions from information and apply knowledge to curricular areas, real-world situations, and further investigations.

3.1.6    Use information and technology ethically and responsibly.

Objective: After reading Girl in Translation, students will research topics of Americanization and assimilation across cultures. They will be instructed to look for primary and secondary sources to discover similarities and differences of assimilation across cultures and time periods. Students will be required to submit an annotated bibliography prior to starting their research reports. 


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Delirium

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Author: Lauren Oliver
Genre: Fiction/fantasy
Pages: 401

Lauren Oliver's Delirium is your typical Romeo and Juliet story. Girl meets boy. Girls falls in love with boy. Girl's family tries to keep the two apart. However, this Romeo and Juliet story has a twist. Lena, the story's protagonist, lives in a future where love, or amor deliria nervosa, is considered the most deadly disease. Love is an infection that must be prevented in order to protect society from chaos and instability. Every person is mandated to be "cured" from the deadly disease when they turn 18, and only after this they are able to be matched with a pre-screened partner who has also been cured.


Lena is your average girl who conforms and doesn't question adults or the government. That is until she meets Alex, an uncured from the Wild. Now, Lena wants nothing more than to love Alex. Even if it means death!


Delirium is slow-paced dystopian read that picks up speed toward the second half of the book.  I can't say that I loved this book and was a little disappointed with the book's lack of action and suspense. I felt the story draged at times and couldn't help but feel this was in part because the author wanted to make Delirum into a trilogy. Despite the book's shortcomings, Oliver makes up for it with an irresistible plot line. Who can resist a story about a girl falling in love in society where love is forbidden and considered a deadly disease? Not me!


Teen readers will enjoy reading the blooming relationship between Lena and Alex and connect with Lena's frustration of being constantly controlled and told what to do and think.


Overall Grade: B+
Watch Lauren Oliver talk about Delirium

Reviews and Awards

“In [Oliver’s] dystopian America, love has been outlawed as the life-threatening source of all discord. Lena’s gradual awakening is set against a convincing backdrop of totalitarian horror. The abrupt ending leaves enough unanswered questions to set breathless readers up for volume two of this trilogy.”-Kirkus Reviews
“Strong characters, a vivid portrait of the lives of teens in a repressive society, and nagging questions that can be applied to our world today make this book especially compelling and discussable.” -School Library Journal


“Oliver’s deeply emotional and incredibly well-honed prose commands the readers’ attention and captures their hearts. With a pulse-pounding tempo and unforeseen twists and turns, Lauren Oliver has opened the door on a fantastic new series; the second book can’t come soon enough.” -New York Journal of Books
  • New York Times Bestseller
  • New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association  bestseller  
  • #2 Spring Indie Children's Pick
  • Amazon's Best Teen Book of the month for February 2011
Teacher's Corner

Related Resources

Books


Wither.  2011. By Lauren DeStefano. (1442409061).

By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males born with a lifespan of 25 years, and females a lifespan of 20 years--leaving the world in a state of panic. Geneticists seek a miracle antidote to restore the human race, desperate orphans crowd the population, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and young girls are being kidnapped and sold as polygamous brides to bear more children.
When Rhine is sold as a bride, she vows to do all she can to escape. Yet her husband, Linden, is hopelessly in love with her, and Rhine can’t bring herself to hate him as much as she’d like to. He opens her to a magical world of wealth and illusion she never thought existed, and it almost makes it possible to ignore the clock ticking away her short life. But Rhine quickly learns that not everything in her new husband’s strange world is what it seems. Her father-in-law, an eccentric doctor bent on finding the antidote, is hoarding corpses in the basement; her fellow sister wives are to be trusted one day and feared the next; and Rhine has no way to communicate to her twin brother that she is safe and alive.
Together with one of Linden's servants, Gabriel, Rhine attempts to escape just before her seventeenth birthday. But in a world that continues to spiral into anarchy, is there any hope for freedom?



Article 5: Compliance is Mandatory. 2012. By Kristin Simmons. (0765329581).

The Bill of Rights has been revoked, and replaced with the Moral Statutes.
There are no more police—instead, there are soldiers. There are no more fines for bad behavior—instead, there are arrests, trials and maybe worse. People who get arrested don’t usually come back.
Seventeen-year-old Ember Miller is old enough to remember that things weren’t always this way. Living with her rebellious single mother, it’s hard to forget that people weren’t always arrested for reading the wrong books or staying out after dark. That life in the United States used to be different.
In the three years since the war ended, Ember has perfected the art of keeping a low profile. She knows how to get the things she needs—like food stamps and hand-me-down clothes—and how to pass the random home inspections by the Federal Bureau of Reformation. Her life is as close to peaceful as circumstances allow. That is, until her mother is arrested for noncompliance with Article 5 of the Moral Statutes. And what’s worse, one of the arresting officers is none other than Chase Jennings…the only boy Ember has ever loved.




Movies

The Hunger Games (2012)

Every year in the ruins of what was once North America, the Capitol of the nation of Panem forces each of its twelve districts to send a teenage boy and girl to compete in the Hunger Games. A twisted punishment for a past uprising and an ongoing government intimidation tactic, the Hunger Games are a nationally televised event in which “Tributes” must fight with one another until one survivor remains. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen volunteers in her younger sister’s place to enter the games, and is forced to rely upon her sharp instincts as well as the mentorship of drunken former victor Haymitch Abernathy when she’s pitted against highly-trained Tributes who have prepared for these Games their entire lives. If she’s ever to return home to District 12, Katniss must make impossible choices in the arena that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

Pleasantville (1998)

Pleasantville is a 1950s sitcom enjoying cult status on a contemporary cable channel. David loves it, but his sister Jennifer is too hip. When a mysterious TV repairman gives them a new remote control, the pair are transported into the world of Pleasantville like it or not. They find themselves trapped in an alternate reality where the town exists in black and white–in a white bread world without passion or violence.




Lesson Plan for 10th Grade Students

Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Teachers can use Delirium by Lauren Oliver and related resources to expose students to elements of creative writing such as character development, setting, plot, dialogue, style, theme, as well as figurative and descriptive language.

21st Century Learner Standards

2.1.6    Use the writing process, media and visual literacy, and technology skills to create products that express new understandings.

3.1.3    Use writing and speaking skills to communicate new understandings effectively.

3.1.4    Use technology and other information tools to organize and display knowledge and understanding in ways that others can view, use, and assess. 

Objective: After reading Delirium and/or related resources, teacher should review elements of creative writing such as character development, setting, plot, and figurative and descriptive language. Working in pairs, students will come up with their own dystopian short story and then visually present it in Xtranormal, a Web 2.0 tool that turns words into 3D movies. 








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