Young adult literature has been a popular, abused category of books in the past twenty years. Writers cling to the adolescent and pre-teen market as a way of making a living. The books are often written poorly while adding science fiction elements meant to capture the imagination of our overly stimulated, technology obsessed youth. The YA badge has become a successful marketing avenue that feeds the need for parents to see their children reading while boosting the sales of book publishers who feed savagely on the spend habits of adolescents. In the way music over emphasizes markets towards teens obnoxiously, books have followed the same path.

Perks of Being a Wallflower is for pre-teens in style, vocabulary, and age of protagonists. It is the coming of age novel of Charley, who is suffering from the suicide death of his recent friend. He is withdrawn, ridiculed and hurting as he enters high school. He finds his place with an older crowd who are experiencing sex, drugs, and alcohol as a tight knit group. The crowd provides a place for him as his family begins to break from their traditional roles. The mother and father are little more than landlords. The oldest brother has gone away to college. The sister is getting ready to graduate from high school and has an abusive boyfriend. Charley is trying to pick up the pieces of his childhood, clinging to the good memories, and trying to forget the pain encroaching on him.

The book does not leave any adolescent issue unturned. We have sexual and physical abuse. We have homosexuality and unprotected sex. We have an abortion. In fact, we have every stereotypical high school kid and adult in America in the 200 pages. Nothing is dealt with in depth and nothing is resolved. This is the danger of thinking minors should read this book. While the scope is impressive and challenging, the book leaves the reader numb and hopeless in dealing with each issue. They are stacked into Charley’s sensitive mind as society moves right along. We leave Charley where we found him, yes with some important realizations emerging from his past, but no healthier and probably heading towards depression and addiction.

The book is told in a series of letters as Charley recounts his first year of high school. While the letters do move fast, you never gain complete understanding of Charley. He is a normal kid because the distance the author keeps from the audience. It is a dangerous distance for a teen reader because they will see themselves. A teenager, especially a pre-teen, will think this is the normal melodrama and behavior existing in this age group. Though it does occur, Charley’s freedom, painful situation, and choices exist beyond the normal scale. Without the proper adult guidance in dealing with the questions this book proposes, it becomes a self-guide for someone who struggles, as all teenagers do, with adjusting to the demands and temptations of becoming an adult.

The book offers many issues to ponder and weigh as we remember our youth and we try to understand the behavior of teenagers. But in the same way librarians and parents were scared of Huck Finn and Catcher, the book must be handled with stark discussion and sensitivity. It is not developed in character to fully capture the realism of the 1990s, especially using letters as the mode of expression. But like the teenage years themselves, it is an in between book addressing the themes of dangerous behavior, dealing with pain alone, and trying to fit into a society not quite ready to accept you.

The movie may develop the narrative more, allowing for character development and stronger attachment to Charley and the other characters. But the book is just an expose of bad teenager behavior told through a sensitive protagonist who is neither a child or adult. The Perks of Being a Wallflower is written for teens but with adult realism. It is a dangerous combination without an adult there to provide discussion and understanding.

Michael J Shay is the author of What Baseball Teaches: A Poetic Odyssey into the 2008 World Series Champions: Philadelphia Phillies and Thirst. You can follow him on facebook and on twitter at @michaeljshay1

Billy Lynn is a 19 year old decorated soldier home from Iraq with his Bravo squad. His team, led by Dime, is hoping to land a movie deal with their valor displayed in an intense fire fight against insurrgents. The taped footage of Bravo has left all of America cheering. They have spent two weeks prior crossing America on a victory tour arranged by their publicist and movie producer Albert. The novel is mostly spent in Dallas Cowboys Stadium as Bravo is celebrated for their American loyalty and bravery through cheerleaders, Beyonce, food, etc. 

The novel works on many levels, but it is best as a satiric modern version of Gulliver's Travels. Through the eyes of a young soldier who is reeling from the battle death of his mystic friend Shroom, Billy questions the value of everything with a wisdom that only the fear and pain of war can offer. His sister is pulling for him to go AWOL and save his life. His Bravo friends are pulling for him to get drunk. He is uncomfotable in this America he has discovered with his new, poignant perspective that will not allow him to escape into the superficial dreams of wealth, hope, sport, and patriotism. 

This novel is anti-war in the same way Johnny Got Your Gun is. You understand the war only through the eyes of an extremely damaged veteran. He is no longer a teenager and yet he has no ability to survive this complex American society dominated by wealth and power. He doesn't know how to handle frustration with his team of soldiers around him and he seeks only their protection as he judges their worth more than anyone else. We as readers want him so bad to leave the war and regain the optimism and hope that should come with his age. We want him to be the hero and the epitome of justification for the war on terror and why we support the troops. We need him not to be damaged but to uphold the principles we think we understand when we say our pledge of allegiance. In the end, Billy makes the only choice he can and we must live with it and we as a society breathe a sigh of relief. 

The novel dissects our American fantasies of incredible wealth, our national obssession with sports, and our shallow understanding of our military. It is rather a good comparison between sports, specifically the NFL, and the military machine. The government and Americans spend most of our time, effort, and money building both organizations. They are so big we have to support them and yet this novel mocks the value and purpose it serves for the common good. In fact, most of the characters involved in the novel exists for these two organizations and they come off looking like controlled zombies who are afraid to think for themselves.

Billy is a character you will not forget. His fear and desire to do what is right bumps up against his duty and friendship. He can only exist in one world and he will choose the one he feels most protected, even if it means going back to war. Billy is the only character Ben Fountain gives the reader in full, but it is plenty and well worth exploring. The language and writing in the book is well done. The insights into American culture should not be missed. And most of all, the vibrancy of life and its struggle for recognition and authenticity is one we can all relate to.

I was given this book by a friend who dislikes sports, especially football. She told me it was one she could not put down.  As a life long Eagles fan, I can not believe I spent a few days in Cowboys stadium. Ben Fountain should be celebrated in bringing the dialogue of our political decisions to our consciouness as it reveals the depth of war against our shallow responses. He uses a creative setting that explores our relationships with many of our society's flaws. You could do worst than walk with Billy Lynn with the last liberal in Texas, even if it is through Cowboys Stadium.  

Michael J Shay is the author of What Baseball Teaches: A Poetic Odyssey into the 2008 World Series Champions: Philadelphia Phillies and Thirst. You can follow him on facebook and on twitter at @michaeljshay1

Wolf Hall is a 500 page book that moves with the quickness of mud. Yet even with the tedious language and plot that has very little action or intrigue, the value of the experience is the character development and the multi demensional portrayal the rich history. King Henry is done with his Queen Katherine after she fails to born a male heir for his throne. Anne Boylne manipulates her way into the consciousness of the King and thus creates the battle between England and Rome for legal suprememcy. The King will have Anne and his kingdom’s lands and money back from Emperor of Rome. It is Cromwell that makes this happen with both furtive and overt action to manipulate and then destroy the Catholic church's advocates in England.

Cromwell is a self learned lawyer who has used his connections with the deceased and disgraced Cardinal Wosley to acquire the deception to create and keep power. He keeps grudges and accounts of everything in his England and becomes famous with power and wealth. This secular powerful man rises from the ash heap of childhood abuse and neglect and stands as a example of new modern man breaking the medieval chains of divine authority dominating and controlling the people.

The most powerful part of the book is in the relationship between Cromwell and Thomas More, who will suffer and die because of his refusal to support King Henry’s divorce.  The two most intelligent and highly idealistic men of their time discuss life, loyalty and legacy with all the display of learning, admiration and dislike of two champion fighters. It is truly one of the best interactions of historical characters you can come across.

On the hand, King Henry and Queen Anne look like selfish children. The bickering of the lords and cardinals create the great air of detachment that deserves their demolishment. The idealism of their righteousness is gone in the shallow need to be accepted, loved, and admired as they feel their relativity and importance diminish against the growing tide of anger spread by poverty and of knowledge by printing press.

The Kings do not interest me. Crowell on the other hand fascinates me. I admire his belief in education and law. His toughness and devotion to his family's well ebing. He also has a keen eye for the poor that allows the reader to appreciate and cheer for him. I was taught to despise Cromwell, but Mantel paints his in the most glorious fasion in her novel Wolf Hall.

Michael J Shay is the author of What Baseball Teaches: A Poetic Odyssey into the 2008 World Series Champions: Philadelphia Phillies and Thirst. You can follow him on facebook and on twitter at @michaeljshay1

Pierre-Oliver

One of the most important parts of enjoying and reading fiction is to suspend your disbelief. You must have an open mind to the author’s creative universe and give yourself over to their control, regardless of how ridiculous the use of Deus ex Machina is. Harbach’s offering will offer you its readable and accessible treasure if you let go of logic and just enjoy the story.

The story examines the precocious and gifted shortstop, Henry, who is found on an obscure baseball diamond and offered a scholarship to play baseball by Mike Schwartz, the catcher of Westish College.  Westish is a private Midwestern liberal arts school whose claim to fame was that Herman Meville once visited the lake bound campus. We follow Henry as he is trained with the drill sergeant discipline of Mike into a major league caliber player. Henry is challenging the all time record of consecutive games without an error when uncanny events challenge his confidence and the normalcy of his small circle of friends on campus.

President Affenlight of Westish College has returned to his alma mater in successful triumph of a Harvard academic career to steer the school into prosperity. In his happy cabin as a leader sailing towards retirement, the storms of passion for his forbidden lover and the welfare for his estranged and newly separated daughter challenge the peace of his bucolic setting. Societal obstacles meet the novel’s characters’ Melvillian quests for personal greatness and happiness, as each one must learn the realities of the encroaching importance of real world beset by consequences.

Chad Harbach is best when he is writing about baseball. Parts of this book seem to be written as effortlessly as Henry, the phenom, fielding and throwing the baseball. His language flows over the field and connects with the reader the way literature can to reveal universal truths. He interweaves literature from the Romanticism period making the mundane relationships seem larger, more important, than a few domestic omnipresent relationships. Harbach reels us in and his potential for writing is evident as he lifts the reader from realism.

The book fails in revealing any depth to the characters. I did not find any of the characters admirable in their humanity or quests for happiness. They are staged characters within a forced plot. It is dangerous when a writer has the ending planned and that control stunts character growth and development. It is not that nothing happens in the 500 pages, there is plenty of interaction, but no one is transformed by the experience. The lack of depth in character and controlling plot limit the reading experience.

In this season of believing, The Art of Fielding will be a perfect gift to bring fiction back into your household. The book is attractive for men and women, in both sport and relationship, as the pun of the title works well. You have to believe in fiction for it to have its potent spell melt your cynicism and allow you to escape into imaginative literature. Harbach’s offering gives us a compelling narrative to read and believe in fiction again.    

simononly

In Erik Larson’s In the Garden of Beast, we learn about the trials, tragedy and frustration of US Ambassador William Dodd’s appointment to Germany during the Hitler and the Third Reich’s rise to power. Appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt to this burgeoning time bomb of Germany’s economic hardships and radical nationalism, Dodd is thrown into a swamp of violence, suspicion, and racism that would later erupt into the Holocaust and WWII. In this book, Larson illuminates the signs of the Germany’s failing democracy being manipulated by Hitler as he seizes power with the world watching.

This non-fiction tome begins with William Dodd, a Virginian life-long academic, being chosen to represent American interests in the war-torn but rebuilding Germany. An outsider of Washington politics, his idealism in Jeffersonian democracy makes no friends with United States diplomats or Germany’s strong handed political coercion. An outsider with his lifelong goal of finishing his book on the Old South, the ambassador does not have the courage or hubris to make his voice loud enough to make America aware of the violence and the cracking of a free Germany. In his defense, America was set in an isolationist mindset with its goal being to recover the money lent to Germany to rebuild. The alienation and terror of 1930s Germany would ruin Dodd’s whole family while America ignored the clear signs of coming atrocities.

In the Garden of Beasts is a frightening look at the futility and danger of being an ambassador in a country fueled by terror and violence. The work has none of page turning suspense of Larson’s The Devil in the White City, which is one of the most gripping and powerful non-fiction works in the last decade. The book is plagued by political repetition and the reader grows as frustrated as Ambassador Dodd in dealing with the backstabbing German government, the malaise of the public, ambivalent US politics, and the self-obsessed characters of the daughter and her lovers. The worst part, and probably the truest insight into the almost 400 pages, is that there are so many historical figures that you are unable to keep track of who is good and who is bad. It is not an easy read in one of the most intriguing periods of world history.

We lament the loss of Christopher Stevens and the tragedy of the violence that disgraced America in Libya. The confusion of the Obama administration and the CIA is unacceptable with its lack of security and multiple explanations that followed. Whether you are Republican or Democrat, we must hold our President accountable for our foreign policy, the safety of the chosen diplomats, and the prestige of American democracy around the world. In the Garden of Beasts, we view with a historical perspective of the danger that played out again last month in Libya because of the confusion of state-side policy over the dangerous reality. It is an important book to share because tragedy and violence are rarely if ever a spontaneous event.  

pwbaker

A friend who grew up in Southwest gave me this book. She said I would enjoy the many correlations between my youthful activities and the author’s. I was thinking Green Grace Grace, not Philadelphia Fire. The book she offered me was a Philadelphia long buried in the generation of my uncles and father. I did not know the Rizzo city of racial discord. I grew up in lower Northeast where people lived for years. No one ever wanted to move in, only move out. Kensington was a place of high unemployment, bad schools, alcoholics, hookers and drugs. What we did not have was race violence. After reading Philly War Zone, the world of my father and uncles’ Philadelphia was a much scarier and angrier place.

This is a story about five brothers growing up in a racially changing neighborhood brought on by the redlining tactics of realtors that led the city into the drugs and poverty of the 80s and 90s. Kevin and his brothers, as well as the mostly white neighborhood of Most Blessed Sacrament Parish, experienced their neighborhood change from Irish Catholic to African American. As the white families watched their way of life and home values fall, they fled to the suburbs. They fled even faster when the violence made the streets dangerous. The powerful story accounts the friendships, the basketball, and safety of youth and how easily it turns into violence, alcohol and fear. You are given no easy answers, and a city kid learns that first. You are left with protecting what is most valuable: your friends, family and pride.

Mr. Purcell gives a rare and truthful glimpse into the ambivalent mind of whites who must choose flight; a choice that will forever brand them racist. The mother deserves a book to herself. The summer nights of basketball games and the fights were depicted with such clarity, my youth of twenty five years ago was brought back. Though I grew up in a later time, the values of friends, family and pride were often the catalyst of fights. My favorite part was when he fought Dwight, a black friend and basketball player when they were younger, and they both tried not to hurt each other. The humanity in those pages gives our city hope.

Philadelphia is not a perfect place, but it is filled with powerful stories never revealed in history books and never told by our relatives (until you reach the age when you can go to the bar and sit with your Dad and uncles). There you may start to understand their racist rants though you can never agree. Their world of place and safety was one they lost to the Black Movement, Vietnam, and out-sourcing. Philly War Zone tells their story in a captivating manner with parts that all city residents will remember. He also exhibits our uglier side that all of us should never forget. You will be lucky to share that beer as Kevin Purcell recants his glory and tragedy on the bar stool next to you.

You can follow James Dugan on facebook and on Twitter @jamesduganlb. Purchase his new book through Amazon What Baseball Teaches: A Poetic Odyssey into 2008 Season of the World Champions Philadelphia Phillies  

Ed Yourdon

I have read Tim O’Brien innovative style and storytelling in The Things They Carried and his voice struck an anti-war and humane chord through his narrator and characters. If I was to gain a new perspective of war, then I would have to enter his novels. History books do not prepare you for the crushing fear that fiction can produce in just one paragraph. I learned well about the Civil War, Korea, WWI, and Vietnam in my education. Yet I have read few war books written by Americans who actually experienced war. Catch 22, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and Slaughterhouse 5 leave gaping holes in how they use narrative techniques, such as sarcasm and silence, to coddle the reader into emotional detachment.

I wanted the experience of war, of Vietnam, and the emotional impact on the citizens involved. O’Brien’s novels render a world of cold steel that does not bend to the desires, needs, and dreams of humanity. The individual leaves broken and confused but understanding that blame and guilt are not associated with experience. We are given a place to plod while circumstance and luck, ill or otherwise, molds our character until they enter an understanding of weakness and helplessness in their persistence to live. This is what O’Brien has taught me this summer.

The Things They Carried

It is not where, who, or what that defines us, but it is what we carry on our shoulders, pockets, and minds each day. For us to live, we must realize that the man next to you carries just as much and the similarities of the objects connect us in our humanity.  War makes us forget the humanity of the man across from us. We forget what they carry; we forget what we carry when we are carrying guns. As it falls to a favorite line: “War is the lack of the imagination.”

Going After Cacciato

Dreams define us. They are possible even if the imagination must make them happen. Going to Paris is the opposite of going to war. The city celebrates life in its finest expression and human’s highest ideals of food, art, music, architecture and love. When one man believes strong enough in his vision, his strength is enough to pull everyone with him. Salvation will come from the individual who helps others believe just as strongly.

In the Lake of the Woods

The impact of war and its scars will not be erased. It is normal for humanity to bury their pain and secrets until there is time to understand and forgive. You can be blamed for doing your duty because it is always the individual who makes the final decision; not a country, not a philosophy, not a friend.  We must deal with pain and tragedy and guilt without silence for its weight grows with time until it drowns all the good in the self.

Tomcat in Love

The obsession with self can only be combated with selfless giving. Empathy is the truest ideal of humanity. If we close ourselves to feel only our emotions, understand only our perspective, and experiences only our senses, we ruin the chance to be happy and complete. Man needs society for its companionship and forgiveness more than society needs each individual man. Only man has the power to alienate himself; an action society distains and condemns with impunity.

July, July

Time does not change us, but our willingness to forgive impetuous actions and uncontrollable circumstance. We cannot reclaim what is lost or ask others to retreat back before the pain and sadness of living. We can only accept the weakness in our character as universal and accept others as they are. We are never what we wanted to be, as you will find others, but it does not mean we have failed. There is time to be forgiven, to heal, and to accept.

I was looking to learn about war, but O’Brien teaches humanity as it faces its mortality and how we try to distract ourselves from the question of Why. He paints the landscape of American characters in war and out and the reader is enriched by their struggle to be loved, appreciated, safe and free. I learned about war’s impact on the individual from a closer lens of reality. It would have been a successful summer if I just gained that sensitivity. But O’Brien is a modernist with a minimalist style and his realism explores the greatest of the individual motive to persist against nature, society, and even himself. For O’Brien, humanity clings to life through the individual and advances the world even in the face of society and nature’s grimmest horrors. The individual will be the last voice and because of it, there is hope and optimism even in realism.

You can follow James Dugan on facebook and on Twitter @jamesduganlb. Purchase his new book through Amazon What Baseball Teaches: A Poetic Odyssey into 2008 Season of the World Champions Philadelphia Phillies   

matthew_reames

Rafe Esquith is a 5^th Grade teacher in Los Angeles with over 20 years of experience. As a teacher in a high poverty and low achieving elementary school, Rafe Esquith uses all his physical and mental strength to make the lives of children better in all academic areas. The book is filled with ideas for elementary teachers in approving reading, problem solving and raising math scores. He does not use tricks or flashy, new pedagogy in child development, but the classic techniques of hard work, accountability, and enthusiasm to bring learning to the children.

For elementary teachers and parents of primary grade children, he explores all the academic areas with passion to give a child confidence and a well-rounded academic experience. He uses common sense games to expand the children’s learning, to make smooth transitions from subject to subject, and to encourage outside the school day learning experiences on class trips. If you ever have a question on what you could do to make a student’s life more enriching from physical education to financial education, you will find a good path in this book.

Rafe is not shy to admit the problems with public education and the overzealous nature of schools to test kids. He deals with a lack of materials, especially in science, and must supplement his classroom with books, movies, and materials. He challenges schools and teachers to remember the whole student is not a test score and we must reach what is personal in them. Inside Room 56, Rafe makes learning about character building, holds cooperative and collaborative learning as essential, and makes individual behavior the center of the classroom behavior.

The strongest part of the book is his 6 Levels of Behavior that has made his classroom successful. As parents and teachers, we would do well to implement and look for chances to raise the level of our children. A first level student is one that conforms because he Does Not Want to Get in Trouble. The second level is the student who Wants a Reward. The third level student will behave and try because they are trying to Please Someone. The fourth level student starts the path to maturity as they want to Follow the Rules. Rafe tries to get his students beyond this into Level 5: I am Considerate and Show Empathy. The final level, as Rafe admits that not even many adults have reached on a consistent level, is to Follow Your Own Code of Personal Behavior. It is in level six we have reached the maturity of Atticus Finch who does the right, moral thing even if it is against societal rules.

We always have a lot to learn. The best way to learn, as Rafe stresses, is to be lifelong readers who improve each day in our goal to be Level 6ers. Teach Like Your Hair’s On Fire is a teacher’s story who believes in the mission of education to transform our society into a utopia, just like in Room 56.

You can follow James Dugan on facebook and on Twitter @jamesduganlb. Purchase his new book through Amazon What Baseball Teaches: A Poetic Odyssey into 2008 Season of the World Champions Philadelphia Phillies