CLICK ON EACH BOOK BRIEF EPISODE LINK TO HEAR THE PODCAST
The Fault in Our Stars by John Greene
Cassius:
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings."
The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves. . ."
John Green cleverly chooses lines from Shakespeare to frame his story of love, persistence, and courage. The antagonist of this well-crafted novel is an age-old enemy-- cancer, and when cancer takes up residence in the lives of teens, it is particularly devastating. Although these title lines come from The Tragedy of Julius Caesar; this novel is not consumed by the tragic reality of this disease.
I recall the first time I saw one of my students fully immersed in the book. I asked her, "What is the storyline?" She explained, "It is about two young people who meet in a cancer support group." I immediately responded, "That sounds depressing." My student, Julia, looked me straight into my eyes and said, "Oh, Mrs. Flores, this is not a book about dying; it is a book about truly living." I purchased a copy and read the book in less than two days. Julia was correct. The story was fascinating and filled with a passion to "truly live."
Green immediately introduces us to the witty, realistic and unique Hazel Lancaster. Despite the fact that Hazel has been coping with cancer for years she has made peace with her life and looks to help those she cares about come to terms as well. She is benefitting from an experimental medication. She is compassionate, yet painfully honest. At one point she comments, There is only one thing in this world shittier than biting it from cancer when you're sixteen, and that's having a kid who bites it from cancer. (Green 128).
She worries a great deal about how her parents are coping with her illness.
Hazel attends the support group primarily to appease her parents; she does not seem to be gaining from the weekly experience-- that is until she meets newcomer, Augustus Waters. Augustus is a cancer survivor attending with a friend. He is immediately drawn to Hazel. Although intrigued with both his outer and inner qualities, Hazel pushes away his initial attempts to make her acquaintance, despite the fact she is undeniably attracted to him.
Quickly their relationship flourishes. Both are intelligent, well-read, and captivating. Their conversations often seem more like those of adults than teenagers, but this has more to do with experiencing life than the number of years they each have lived.
Emotions race as one turns the pages. The journey takes the reader into the heart of the struggle, and into the inner circle of the support group itself. We are witness to both the losses and the triumphs.
Be prepared: The journey is both heart-wrenching and beautiful.
Also by John Green:
Looking for Alaska
Paper Towns
An Abundance of Katherines
All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven
Violet Markey is grieving the death of her sister, Eleanor, from a car accident in which Violet walked away. Now she is counting the days until her high school graduation and her escape from her small, Indiana town and the wintery reminders of her loss.
Theodore Finch has been labeled a freak. He is struggling to find a reason to chase away his obsessive thoughts of death. Each day finds Finch searching for a new purpose to propel his life forward. These two lives cross paths on the ledge of the high school bell tower, six stories above the ground. It is assumed that Violet is the one who saves Finch, but it is Finch who talks Violet away from the edge.
The pair meet again in U.S. Geography class, where Finch chooses Violet as his partner for a class project. The project will require them to seek out various natural wonders of their state. Together they explore and search, both their natural surroundings and the depths of their hearts. They seek out the highest summit (Hoosier Hill at just over 1,200 feet, but they also journey to the bottom of their own anguish-- her grief and his illness, "I am in pieces," he notes.
Niven alternates the chapters, and the viewpoints, so that the reader is able to follow both the heart and the mind of each character. Violet and Finch will both steal your heart, and break it. We see Finch beyond the loser he has been labeled. His heart is open to see the compassionate, honest, bold, and witty young man that Violet falls in love with. Finch in turn tells her, "ultraviolet remarkey-able, I think I love you."
We are also privy to the girl behind the perfect cheerleader persona that others see when they look at Violet Markey. She is grieving and broken, but with Finch, she stops counting the days until she can leave, and learns to live again in his arms. Exploration and time with Finch finds her behind the wheel of a car for the first time since the accident that took her sister. Violet begins to grow and blossom.
As Violet's world grows, Finch is still struggling to stay awake. Who will save whom from the ledge above? Are there enough "bright places" in life?
All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven is both poignant and heart wrenching.
This is Niven's first book for Young Adults
Also by Jennifer Niven:
American Blonde
Becoming Clementine
Velva Jean Learns to Drive
Nonfiction
The Ice Master
Ada Blackjack
The Aqua Net Diaries
Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings: by Margarita Engle
Enchanted Air is a poignant and beautifully crafted memoir. The author reveals herself through heartfelt verse spanning from 1951 to 1965. She puts a face and a heart to the struggles of The Cold War.
Margarita's mother comes from the tropical and beautiful Cuba, a place of vibrant color, distant family, and joy. Her father is from America and Los Angeles is her home. It is a noisy and congested city, lacking the enchanted air Margarita longs for, as she describes here----
The Dancing Plants of Cuba (P. 12)
In California, all the trees and shrubs
stand still, but on the island, coconut palms
and angel's trumpet flowers
love to move around,
dancing.
Fronds and petals wave
in the wild, wild wind. . . .
When the Revolution breaks out in Cuba, the door is closed to visits to her family and her tropical paradise. Margarita and her mother fear for their faraway family and fear too, the hope of ever visiting again.
The anxiety and anger of Cuba's turmoil reaches the shores of the U.S. and into Margarita's life, yet she finds refuge in books and her own poetry.
Refuge (P. 54)
The ugliness of the war photos
and the uncertainty of the TV news
join the memory of FBI questions
to make me feel like climbing into
my own secret world.
Books are enchanted. Books help me to travel.
Books help me to breath.
When I climb a tree, I take a book with me.
When I walk home from school, I carry
my own poems, inside my mind,
where no one else can reach the words
that are entirely
completely
forever
mine.
As a reader, we travel Margarita's journey alongside her, through her thoughts, struggles, her growth, and joy.
Wondering (P. 144)
I don't understand Communism
or capitalism, or presidents
or premiers or nuclear
radiation.
I do know that aire means both
spirit and air.
Breath.
Inhalations.
Dangerous.
Precious.
Radioactive! How Irene Curie and Lise Meitner Revolutionized Science and Changed the World: by Winifred Conkling
Radioactive is the true story of two brilliant female pioneers in the field of physics. Though often marveled by their peers (even the men--Albert Einstein included), the two women were both not duly credited at the time for their theories and discoveries.
This biography takes the reader through the separate lives of each of the two women and their individual drives find answers. Irene Curie, more privileged and recognized in her field, with her husband and fellow scientist, Frederic Joliot altered science s it was known with their discovery of artificial radioactivity. They developed the use of X-rays to a model that could be used during times of war. They proved that atoms could be altered within their very structure. This earned the pair a Nobel Prize in 1934. Despite the prize, Curie was denied many forward advances in her field, including admission to the prestigious French Academy of Sciences, due to her gender.
In 1912, the German government set up an independent, state of the art academic research facility, founded by private companies. It was called the Kaiser Wilhelm Society. Otto Hahn was hired as the head of the radioactivity section of the Chemistry Institute. He was paid a generous salary for the time. At this same time Lise Meitner was also asked to join the institute-- as an unpaid "guest". She had no choice but to turn down the position for a paid one at the University of Prague. Here her research and her place as a physicist flourished. She later noted, "It was the passport to scientific activity in the eyes of most scientists and a great help in overcoming many current prejudices against academic women." (Conkling, 2016, P. 83). Otto went on to accept the Nobel Prize without crediting Meitner, despite the fact that her research had led him to this award.
In 1938 Meitner, along with fellow physicist Enrico Fermi announced their discovery of fission, but still no Nobel Prize. With the ending of the First World War and the unrest that would lead to the Second World War found government officials searching out those individuals that could lead them to the foundations of an atomic weapon. The historic times were tense, so too does this biography often read like a spy novel or action thriller. The Curies and Meitner both for see the potential dangers in their life work.
Both women wanted to see their discoveries lead to collective good and advancements in nuclear energy, but neither could have initially imagined, nor promoted, their research to be used in the creation of an atomic bomb that would take countless lives.
Irene Currie suffered from tuberculosis for a good portion of her life. Despite the physical setback, she pressed forward with her research, often working seven days a week. She benefitted for years from the first drug know to cure tuberculosis, which was tested in the U.S. in the late 1940s. However, years of working with radiation caught up with her; she was diagnosed with leukemia and died at the age of 58. Ironically, the same radioactivity that caused her leukemia later became, and remains, a treatment for this disease and other forms of cancer.
No comments:
Post a Comment