'Chains' by Laurie Halse Anderson

Anderson, Laurie Halse. Chains. New York, Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2008. Print.

cover image:
www.simonandschuster.ca

I'm a sucker for good historical fiction.  I noticed Chains and its sequel Forge on library shelves in 2013, and was intrigued by them, especially the cover artwork.  I had to set them aside in my "to-read" pile until I was done with library school, because well, unless you're enrolled in a children's literature class, outside reading in an MLS program tends to fall by the wayside.  I just so happened to enroll in my program's advanced YA literature class, and needed to do a booktalk.  Historical fiction is generally a hard sell to teenagers, but I like a challenge, and I jumped at the opportunity to read something in my ever-growing pile.  So...

Picture it.  New York City.  1776.  The Colonies are in the early throes of the Revolution.

Thirteen-year-old Isabel and her five-year-old sister Ruth are taken from their late owner's farm outside Newport, Rhode Island and sold to Elihu and Anne Lockton, visiting from New York City.  The Locktons, with Isabel and Ruth in tow, arrive to a New York City that's currently under the control of the Patriot army and General George Washington.  At this point, the tension in the novel is already quite palatable.  As soon as the Locktons, Isabel, and Ruth set foot in New York City, the stakes go up a few notches in a book with already incredibly high stakes.  Anne Lockton engages in an extremely public battle of wills with Mr. Bellingham, the harbormaster.  You see, the Locktons are staunch Loyalists, while Bellingham is a fierce Patriot, which echo the sharp divisions of New York City between Patriots and Loyalists.

Almost from the first moment Isabel arrives in New York, she finds herself in a tug-of-war between needing to stay on her owners' good side and an offer made by Curzon, a slave owned by Bellingham. If Isabel spies on her Loyalist master, Curzon promises the Patriots will give Isabel and Ruth their freedom.  Therein lies the central conflict of the novel: how far will Isabel go to gain freedom for herself and Ruth?

In Chains, Anderson presents her finest writing since Speak exploded onto the scene in 1999.  Every decision Isabel makes is fraught with dire consequences, creating layer upon layer of complexity.  Curzon neatly pinpoints the source of Isabel's initial hesitation in spying on the Locktons: she is dependent on them for everything -- food, shelter, clothes.  They literally hold Isabel's life in their hands.  That the Locktons view Isabel as something less than human is presented, ironically, as an advantage.  Curzon states, "You are a small black girl...  You are a slave, not a person.  They'll say things in front of you they won't say in front of white servants...  It happens all the time to me" (Anderson 41).  Isabel's position as a slave in the Lockton household puts her in a position to hear an all sorts of Loyalist plots, as Elihu and his cronies freely speak of a plot to assassinate George Washington while Isabel serves them food and wine.

Anderson presents a view of the American Revolution in all its shades of grey.  Nothing -- and I do mean absolutely nothing -- in this book exists as a simple binary of good versus evil.  As a villain, Anne Lockton is as chilling in her utter ruthlessness as they come.  Becky, the Locktons' paid servant, warns Isabel of Anne's temper through an anecdote about a former slave who displeased Anne.  Anne beat the previous slave so badly with a fireplace poker, she broke the girl's arm and it never healed properly, so Anne sold her. But even Anne is caught in a prison created by the social structure that gave women few rights of their own.  Early in the novel, Isabel notices an old bruise around Anne's wrist, a quick nod to the abuse Anne suffers at the hands of her husband, something Anderson explores a bit more later in the novel.  Isabel first tries to persuade the Patriot Army to purchase her away from the Locktons, if only to escape from Anne Lockton's cruelty.  When that fails, she tries to give information about the movements of the Patriot Army to the British, in the hopes that they will free her, as they've offered to other slaves.   Isabel's hopes are dashed to bits when the officer to whom she speaks informs her the British would only free her if she had been the slave of a rebel Patriot, and since she's the property of a Loyalist, they cannot free her.  There are Patriots who experience no cognitive dissonance at the idea of fighting for their freedom, while keeping other human beings enslaved.  There are also Loyalists, like Elihu Lockton's aunt, Lady Seymour, who are clearly uncomfortable with slavery, but for reasons known only to them, don't fight harder to free the slaves they can help.  People often switch sides from Patriot to Loyalist and back, depending on the fortunes of each side.  Or, like the Locktons, they act like Patriots in public while New York is occupied by the Patriots, but are dyed in the wool Loyalists behind closed doors.  All of these layers of moral complexity serve to create vivid, three-dimensional characters that a reader can easily imagine.

Anderson's language in Chains is vividly descriptive.  She -- in Isabel's voice -- describes New York as a "ball tossed between Loyalists and Patriots" (Anderson 39-40).  Even her description of New York in the summer is enough to make a reader wrinkle their nose in sympathy when Isabel says it "smelled like a garbage pit mixed with a fresh mountain of manure" (Anderson 125).  The dialog between Isabel and Curzon crackles as they butt heads, both equally stubborn and convinced what each is doing is the right course of action.

The text for the chapter headings and epigrams that begin each chapter is reminiscent of the printing style of the late eighteenth century.  Even the touch of using Roman numerals (which might make a reader want to brush up on those elementary math lessons) hearkens back to a more distant era.  It's the epigrams that really give the book the feel of the eighteenth century.  Anderson quotes sources various sources, like Abigail Adams' famous "Remember the ladies" letter to John Adams, letters from various Patriot and British army officers, and Thomas Paine's pamphlet Common Sense.  The epigrams cleverly offer a bit of a preview of the content of the following chapter.

The cover illustration perfectly encapsulates the theme of the novel.  A silhouette of Isabel, with her raised hands seemingly chained by a strip of parchment or paper that has the title on it.  On each side of the "chain" are birds that represent both the Colonies and Great Britain. Isabel rather vividly describes herself as being "chained between two nations" (Anderson 182).

Any history class that's studying the American Revolution should read this book.  Or even excerpts.  It gives such a unique point a view that usually isn't seen in tales of the Revolutionary War.  And, as noted earlier, it avoids separating characters into neat "good" or "evil" boxes.  The book is so good, that adult readers would enjoy it.  I've even recommended it to my history-loving dad.

Chains is part of Anderson's Seeds of America trilogy, which includes Forge and Ashes.  Fans of the trilogy have been waiting for years for Ashes.  It finally (!) has an expected publication date: October 4, 2016.

Chains was a finalist for the National Book Awards in 2008, and the winner of the Scott O'Dell award for historical fiction in 2009.

In April 2014, Anderson participated in a Reddit AMA.  In it she discusses Speak, as well as other books, and mentions the illness that prevented her from writing for a couple of years (hence the delay for Ashes).  Especially funny is her explanation of why she refers to her historical novels as "historical thrillers" not "historical fiction"  (Too many bad memories of Johnny Tremaine.)  There's another Reddit AMA where Speak features heavily, but it's also a wonderful conversation with Anderson.  Read them both.  She's an engaging conversationalist.  :)  And she loves librarians.


Works Cited

Anderson, Laurie Halse. Chains. New York, Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2008. Print.

'Monster' by Walter Dean Myers, Illustrated by Christopher Myers

Myers, Walter Dean. Monster. Illus. Christopher Myers.  New York: HarperTeen, 1999.

There is a mirror over the steel sink in my cell.  It’s six inches high, and scratched with the names of some guys who were here before me.   When I look into the small rectangle, I see a face looking back at me but I don’t recognize it.  It doesn’t look like me.  I couldn’t have changed that much in a few months.  I wonder if I will look like myself when the trial is over (Myers 1-2).

This is our first introduction to Steve Harmon, a sixteen year-old boy on trial for murder in New York City.  Walter Dean Myers’ acclaimed novel, Monster, follows Steve through his trial, where he wrestles with the question of whether or not he is, as labeled by the prosecuting attorney, a monster.  At first glance, it seems as if Steve was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but flashbacks interspersed through the trial testimony, reveal small details that aren’t discussed in the trial, nor in the journal Steve keeps during the trial, a journal his lawyer admonishes him “not to write anything in… that [he does] not want the prosecutor to see” (Myers 137).  The small disparities between the journal entries and the testimony call into question Steve’s declared innocence and leads the reader to ponder the question: is he truly innocent of the crime or guilty?

Monster, the winner of the inaugural Printz Award, is a searing indictment of the justice system, the prison system, and the social structure that “links the credibility of males to displays and postures of toughness, physical strength, and the threat or use of violence” (Earp and Katz qtd. in Groenke, Maples, and Henderson 34).  The novel also questions the morality many of the prisoners employ in their ability to “separate themselves from their acts that permitted them to commit those acts in the first place” (Goodson 28).  Myers noticed a common thread in the stories he heard from various prisoners he interviewed as part of the research for Monster.  In an interview with Lori Atkins Goodson, he states,

I was shocked to find out how many of the inmates whose stories I was hearing were surprised to find themselves in prison… They uniformly thought of themselves as good people who had made some mistake, which had taken them afoul of the law… It was a common occurrence to find an interviewee speaking of himself… in the first person when talking about their upbringing, and then switching to the third person when speaking of the crime of which they had been convicted (28).

Myers states that it was this disconnect from their actions that formed the backbone of Monster  (Goodson 28).  Myers writes the novel as a hybrid of Steve’s journal entries and a screenplay that Steve also writes as the trial progresses. (Steve also happens to attend a magnet school where he studies filmmaking.)  The different formats represent Steve’s ability to separate himself from the scene of the crime.  The journal is written in first person, but the screenplay places Steve firmly in the third person, although it shows, in Steve’s words, his experience of the trial (Myers 4).  As Steve is the director, screenwriter, and star of his movie, he is able to shape the audience’s perception of the other members of his “cast” though the use of stage directions and camera angles or descriptions of the other cast members that focus on details, like Osvaldo’s gang tattoos (Schneider 20).    

This disconnect is also evident in the testimony of the witnesses called by the prosecution.  Many of them have been accused of crimes themselves, but have finagled a deal with the prosecution to exchange their testimony for a lighter sentence or a plea deal.  It is not always clear whether or not the witnesses are actually telling the truth, other than their testimony that claims they are.  The witnesses exemplify a central tenant of the novel: how do we know when someone is telling the truth?  Furthermore, the witnesses could very well be truthful, but their status as an inmate colors the reader’s (and jury’s) perceptions of their testimony.  Osvaldo, one of the prosecution’s witnesses, is timid and in fear of his life on the stand, but Steve’s flashback of an encounter with Osvaldo reveals a very different persona, one that scoffs at Steve for his reluctance to engage in the kind of lifestyle accepted by the other males in the neighborhood and has a confrontational attitude.

One of the other themes of the novel centers on the idea that all young men of color are the same in the eyes of a jury.  Kathy O’Brien, Steve’s lawyer, spends much of the trial attempting to make the jury see Steve as separate from his co-defendant, James King.  It is a task made more difficult by the fact that both Steve and James are African-American and “look like most of the other prisoners in the jail, so how is the jury to tell that he is any different from the unsavory witnesses and other defendants?” (Schneider 20). Steve even notes in more than one instance that his own lawyer is unsure of his guilt or innocence, perhaps subconsciously grouping Steve with James because of Steve’s race and a belief that a person will say or do anything to avoid a lengthy jail sentence.   

Part of Steve's journal
Photo by: L. Propes

Susan Groenke and Melissa Youngquist classify Monster as a postmodern novel due to Myers’ use of the following characteristics of postmodern literature: identity in flux as a theme, genre eclecticism, interplay between word and image, and active readers (506-507).  Steve’s identity is never settled during the novel, and even at the end, he is not able to definitively answer who he really is (Groenke and Youngquist 506).  Groenke and Youngquist characterize Steve as in a constant struggle to “understand who he is as an African American male, a star student, and a loving son and brother in a society that tells him he can only be one of two things: a thug or a sellout” (506).  As discussed earlier, the novel employs multiple formats to expose the reader to Steve and his personality.  The epistolary sections provide a glimpse into Steve’s inner thoughts and feelings, revealing his terror at the thought of spending the next twenty years behind bars.  The rest of the text of the novel employs a conventional screenplay format that serves to distance Steve in the journal from the Steve in the trial.  Flashbacks that show Steve in scenes with his family, James King (the other person on trial), and other people from his neighborhood provide a level of ambiguity that contributes to the questions of Steve’s innocence.  Christopher Myers’ illustrations show photographs of Steve in various places: the prison, the drugstore (presumably the day of the robbery and murder), and even a courtroom drawing of Steve and his attorney when his verdict is read.  The photographs, which are paired with relevant text, also aim to create an image of Steve that leads the reader to further question Steve’s motives and innocence (Groenke and Youngquist 507).  All of these elements combine together to force the reader to “fill in the gaps and pull together discrete parts or narrative strands” in order to come to a conclusion about Steve (Groenke and Youngquist 507). 

A page of screenplay format
Photo by: L. Propes

Myers comments in an essay at the end of the novel, “kids don’t think about things until after they happen… That’s typical of kids -- you do things first, then you think about it.  By the time you think about it, you’re in big trouble. I think the problem with so many young people is that violence gets to be a resource.  When nothing else works for you, violence always does, and you’re always drawn to it” (292).  Those fingerprints, so to speak, are all over Monster.  Steve does something (although it’s left ambiguous in the novel just what he does) that implicates him in the robbery and murder, but doesn’t think about the ramifications of where he was at that specific moment until well after the event and he’s sitting in jail.  At the end of the novel, Steve is still examining his actions.  The other characters -- Osvaldo, James, Bobo, and the other inmates in the prison -- personify the second part of Myers’ statement.  They have grown so accustomed to committing acts of violence and getting what they want out of it, that it’s become their go-to method of coping with life.  Steve comments on the level of violence within the prison in his journal: “Violence in here is always happening or just about ready to happen.  I think these guys like it -- they want it to be normal because that’s what they’re used to dealing with” (Myers 144). 

One of Christopher Myers'
illustrations
Photo by: L. Propes

Monster is an interesting novel that presents “kids that were not ‘good’, ‘smart’, and growing up in the perfect home” (Blumenstetter 39).  It gives students, especially minority students, a character who looks like them, their friends, or family members and shows a “world they live in every day” (Blumenstetter 39).  One level of difficulty students might have with it lies in the postmodern structure of the novel, as displayed in Groenke and Youngquist’s experience teaching Monster to a ninth-grade English class (508-510).  The novel is largely linear in its structure, but the flashbacks are not conspicuously set apart from the trial testimony, so it might be confusing to some readers to see an event that isn’t directly related to the trial in the middle of a trial. If students are not familiar with the structure of a screenplay or a script, they might have a bit of an adjustment period with the technical terminology Steve uses in the stage directions and camera angles.  There are small bits of dark humor scattered through Steve’s journal entries when the inmates discuss their cases.  One anecdote in particular exemplifies this in which a man who was charged with armed robbery, assault, and menacing, among other things, claims that because the jewelry store had an automatic locking system, he wasn’t able to actually steal anything and didn’t have a gun anyway, he shouldn’t be charged with a crime. The text is rich with bits and pieces like this that can instigate debate in a classroom apart from the main question of the novel.  Students who are fans of Law and Order marathons will probably love this book. 

Teachers who choose to offer Monster as either a whole-class reading or an option in a literature circle can have their students research statistics for the incarceration rates of minorities and the crimes for which they’ve been convicted.  They can also debate Steve’s guilt or innocence, using evidence gleaned from the novel.  Students can also present ideas to help students like Osvaldo before he becomes part of the system.  Some classes might need structured guidance to read this novel, given its unorthodox format. 

Monster not only won the Printz Award, it also won a Coretta Scott King honor and was a National Book Award finalist. 

If a teacher wants to compare the relative merits of the Printz winner and honor books from 2000, the honor books were: Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, Skellig by David Almond, and Hard Love by Ellen Wittlinger. 

Myers is also the author of: Fallen Angels, Sunrise Over Fallujah, Scorpions, Slam!, Bad Boy, Autobiography Of My Dead Brother, Riot, and Darius & Twig, just to name a few.  For a complete list of his published works, please visit his website.  Myers is a prolific author of award-winning fiction and nonfiction.

 *******************************************

Works Cited

Blumenstetter, Kerri Gallagher. "Walter Dean Myers Writes for Inner-City Students." Social Science Docket 12.2 (2012): 39-40. Web. Education Research Complete. 16 June 2014.

Goodson, Lori Atkins. "Walter Dean Myers: A Monster of a Voice for Young Adults." The ALAN Review. 36.1 (2008): 26-31. Web. Free E-Journals. 16 June 2014.

Groenke, Susan L., Joellen Maples, and Jill Henderson. "Raising “Hot Topics” through Young Adult Literature." Voices from the Middle 17.4 (2010): 29-36. Web. National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). 16 June 2014.

Groenke, Susan Lee, and Michelle Youngquist. "Are we Postmodern Yet? Reading Monster with 21st-Century Ninth Graders." Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 54.7 (2011): 505-13. Web. Education Research Complete. 16 June 2014.

Myers, Walter Dean. Monster. Ills. Christopher Myers. New York: HarperTeen, 1999. Print.

Schneider, Dean. "The Novel as Screenplay: Monster and Riot by Walter Dean Myers." Book Links 19.2 (2010): 20-3. Web. Academic Search Complete. 16 June 2014.

'Speak' by Laurie Halse Anderson

Anderson, Laurie Halse. (2000). Speak. Narrated by Mandy Siegfried. New York: Random House Audio Publishing Group.  ISBN 9780739336724

Photo by: L. Propes

Being a teenager is difficult.  Cliques.  An unspoken demand for conformity.  Attempts to live up to a nearly impossible standard of femininity and masculinity.  Countless rules and regulations regarding behavior.  The seemingly inevitable and subtle bullying that occurs when one doesn't fit in.  And that's just within the halls of high school.  Even though Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak is set in the age just before social media exploded into students' lives, rumors still manage to rapidly burn through the ranks of students, leaving Anderson's main character, Melinda Sordino, in an isolated bubble.

Speak begins on Melinda's first day of high school.  It doesn't begin well.  Someone throws a Ho-Ho wrapper at her head on the bus.  No one wants to sit with her.  Melinda's best friends have suddenly diverged into new cliques now that they're in high school.  Melinda informs the reader, "I am clanless.  I wasted the last weeks of August watching bad cartoons.  I didn't go to the mall, the lake, or the pool or answer the phone.  I have entered high school with the wrong hair, the wrong clothes, the wrong attitude.  And I don't have anyone to sit with" (Anderson 2000, 4).  Melinda goes on to compare herself to a wounded animal, seeking succour anywhere she can find it.  Her former best friend, Rachel, openly detests her, and this is only the beginning of the book.

Things only go from bad to worse for Melinda.  Her grades drop.  Her parents constantly hound her about her grades and attitude.  Her new friend Heather can't decide whether to be friends with Melinda or drop her for one of the "cool" groups.  Melinda avoids speaking as much as possible.  Her social studies teacher, who already doesn't like Melinda, is unyielding and dictatorial.

Plus, Melinda's assigned subject for her year-long art class is a tree.  Trees remind Melinda far too much of what happened to her.  Not to mention the winter in Syracuse seems to last forever to Melinda.

The reason for Melinda's silence, depression, and isolation slowly reveals itself, and Anderson sprinkles hints throughout the book until Melinda tells the audience exactly what happened to her in August.  After Melinda refuses to attend a pizza party with her lab partner, David, and some of his friends, she forces herself to examine what happened to her.  Even though the word "rape" doesn't form part of Melinda's vocabulary until much later, it is very obvious that she was raped at a party a few weeks before school began.  Slowly, Melinda begins to emerge from her self-imposed shell, eventually reconnecting with Ivy, her other junior high friend, and Rachel.  Inspired by the anonymous, yet highly effective message board format of the girls' restroom walls, Melinda scrawls a message to stay away from her rapist.  The responses overwhelmingly affirm Melinda's statement, and she realizes she's not alone.  More importantly, she concludes the rape was not her fault.

Anderson allows Melinda the opportunity to find her voice, just as the school year draws to a close, and she decides to tell Mr. Freeman, the art teacher, about the events of the past several months.  Anderson does tie up some plot threads here, but there are others that she leaves as open-ended questions.  Speak arguably falls into the category of a problem novel, but Anderson never sends the narrative into moralizing territory.

Much of the narrative of Speak occurs as Melinda's internal monologue.  It contains Melinda's often wry, pointed observations of high school as well as displaying a dry, sardonic sense of humor.  Those flashes of humor prevent the book from becoming bogged down in desolation.  Melinda has a perfect foil in Heather, the new girl from Ohio.  In contrast to Melinda's retreating silence, Heather talks too much, is far too eager to please, and somewhat disingenuous.  The adults in the room often come off as one dimensional -- clueless father, waspish mother, befuddled principal, etc. -- but given that the story is narrated by Melinda, it's to be expected.  There comes a point where you want to shake Melinda's parents and make them really look at their daughter and see the roiling waters below the surface.  They do know something is wrong with Melinda, but there's little effort beyond making token statements about doing anything about it.

Melinda is a believable character, as is her narration.  The language off all the teenage characters is exactly what one would expect to hear in the mouth and head of a teenager, especially ones who are still on the cusp of childhood and adolescence.  The other teenaged characters are also realistically portrayed, confident in their place in the school's social fabric or driven to insecurity by the lack of it. Anderson shines in her descriptions of high school, especially when she writes Melinda's running commentary on cheerleaders.

So much of high school involves attempting to fit in to a facet of its society.  Anderson illustrates this perfectly through several methods.  The high school changes mascots no fewer than three times during the school year.  Heather's overeager attempts to find the right extracurricular club.  Rachel's integration with the foreign exchange students as she tries on a variety of different identities under their influence.  Finally, there's Melinda -- standing on the edges of the social scene, belonging to none of the cliques, but surprising tendrils of what she could become poke through her psyche, offering glimpses of where she might fit.

Speak is rife with symbolism.  It's found in the theme of Melinda's English class. (The teacher loves teaching symbolism.)  It's found in the stuffed bunnies Melinda collects and the trees she doggedly attempts to draw.  The silent bunnies are Melinda's lost voice.  The endless pile of failed and more successful trees represent Melinda's struggle to come to grips with the rape.

Even the word rape itself comes laden with portent.  Melinda' can't even bring herself to admit it out loud, and the the first time she tells someone she was raped, she has to write it out.  Rape in of itself is a difficult topic.  It's a psychological and physical violation, and in Melinda's case has caused far more psychological damage than physical.  Until the moment Melinda sees the restroom walls covered with confirmations from other girls about the boy who raped her, she feels nobody will believe her.  Even more so, Melinda feels the less she speaks about the rape, the more she will forget what happened.

Anderson is careful to present Melinda's rape as an act of dominance.  There is nothing titillating about it.  It's about the rapist's ability to take advantage of a vulnerable situation, regardless of Melinda's repeated refusals.  Anderson treats Melinda's recovery from her assault in a mostly realistic fashion, showing the audience the depths of her PTSD following the rape.

Mandy Siegfried does an admirable job providing Melinda's voice in this audiobook.  Her voice perfectly captures the sardonic tones of Anderson's written narrative and credibly sounds like an average fourteen year-old girl.  The performance falters just a little at the end when Melinda begins to sound more hopeful in Anderson's narrative, but Siegfried's voice still carries the acerbic tones.  It doesn't quite suit the shift in the tone of Melinda's narration.

The unabridged audiobook is five hours long on four CDs.

Photo by: L. Propes

Speak offers schools a tool to begin discussions about sexual assault and rape.  It also allows them to discuss bullying in the context of the way Melinda is treated at the beginning of the novel.  Speak can also be used to open a dialogue about depression in teenagers and learning to handle the immense stress they often feel.  Anderson has stated in interviews that she's heard from hundreds of readers -- both male and female -- who have shared their experiences as a victim of sexual assault.  A poem at the beginning of the current print publication contains lines from letters and e-mails Anderson has received.  The last pages of the print publication also contains some chilling statistics regarding rape and sexual assault of girls, boys, men, and women.  Anderson includes several sources for help for rape victims as well.  Some websites offer alternative texts to use with anti-bullying here and here.  Readers might also want to read Leverage by Joshua C. Cohen, which also deals with bullying and rape, but from a far different perspective.

Speak turns fifteen this year.  You can read an interview with Anderson about it here.  RAINN (Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network) and Anderson have teamed up to raise money for RAINN in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness & Prevention Month and Speak's fifteenth anniversary.

The websites Anderson lists at the back of the book are:

www.rainn.org (RAINN -- Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network)
www.soar99.org (Speaking Out Against Rape)
www.nsvrc.org (National Sexual Violence Resource Center)
www.911rape.org (Rape Treatment Center)

Anderson also includes the number of the National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-HOPE.

Anderson is the author of Wintergirls, The Impossible Knife of Memory, Fever 1793, Forge, Chains, Twisted, and Catalyst (which features a cameo of Melinda several months after the events of Speak).  Speak was a Printz Honor book and Chains won the 2009 Scott O'Dell award.  Speak and Chains were both National Book Award Finalists.  Anderson has also won the 2009 Margaret A. Edwards Award.

Students and teachers might want to have  a look at Anderson's blog Mad Woman in the Forest. The page for teachers includes information about how Anderson approaches writing and research.  She also has information about arranging a visit to the school via Skype.
_________________________________________________________________________________

"Anderson's powerful debut YA novel... makes for a gripping, enlightening audiobook.  Ninth-grader Melinda Sordino begins her first year of high school as a veritable pariah.  Her friends have dropped her 'like a hot Pop-tart on a cold kitchen floor' as payback for her actions just days before... and Melinda is so traumatized, she cannot muster the voice to tell anyone; she pretty much stops speaking altogether.  Youthful actress Siegfried makes a believable teenage protagonist, effectively expressing Melinda's humorous sarcasm, wit, and pain." -- Publishers Weekly, 2000

"[Melinda's] early silence about an unspeakable act turns her toward harmful isolation and self-hatred... Her silence is almost palpable.  It stands between the adolescent girl and any useful, caring contact with those who inhabit her world of school and family... Anderson contrasts Melinda's awareness of and resistance to pressures to learn the correct, feminine, sanctioned ways of speaking with the behavior of her one friend, Heather, whose pathetic attempts to please and be attractive come at great personal cost." -- Sally Smith, Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 2000 

"Speak is the powerful story of the aftermath of rape, brought to life by narrator Siegfried, whose youthful-sounding voice is 'right on' in terms of inflection, pacing, and portrayal of teenage character Melinda's thoughts." -- Jean Hatfield, Booklist, 2001

"Melinda's voice is distinct, unusual, and very real as she recounts her past and present experiences in bitterly ironic, occasionally even amusing vignettes.  In her YA fiction debut, Anderson perfectly captures the harsh conformity of high-school cliques and one teen's struggle to find acceptance from her peers.  Melinda's sarcastic wit, honesty, and courage make her a memorable character." -- Debbie Carton, Booklist, 1999

_________________________________________________________________________________
References

Anderson, Laurie Halse. 1999. Speak. New York: Square Fish. 

Carton, Debbie. 1999. Speak. 09/15; 2014/4, http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2216/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA56063651&v=2.1&u=txshracd2583&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w&asid=69fcd4e212c077b9295fa3b54c424cc7.

Hatfield, Jean. 2001. Speak. 03/15; 2014/4, http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2216/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA73891032&v=2.1&u=txshracd2583&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w&asid=950ff0b68eb36e9ae2f80fd256bfb85c.

Reviews: Spoken word. 2000. Publishers Weekly 247 (32) (08/07): 31, http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2048/login?url=http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2060/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=3441349&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Smith, Sally. 2000. Speak (book review). Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 43 (6) (03): 585, http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2048/login?url=http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2060/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=2864940&site=ehost-live&scope=site. 

'Okay For Now' by Gary D. Schmidt

Schmidt, Gary D. (2011). Okay For Now. Boston: Sandpiper.  ISBN: 9780544022805 (paperback)

Photo by: L. Propes

Doug Swieteck has problems.  His father's abusive.  He's the youngest of three boys.  The middle brother is a bully.  His oldest brother is overseas, fighting in a war.  And on top of it all, his family is forced to move.  For Doug, a Long Island boy, born and bred, the move to Marysville in upstate New York might as well be to another planet.  Ostensibly a fresh start, the problems from their working-class Long Island neighborhood have followed them to Marysville.  For Doug, Marysville marks the place where everything comes to a head, and he -- and the other members of his family -- must confront their personal demons.  It's a situation that will either destroy Doug or help him find out who he really is.

Okay For Now is a companion book to Schmidt's The Wednesday Wars.  Written from the perspective of Doug, Schmidt examines a fraught family dynamic that initially seems as if it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Mr. Swieteck takes out his frustrations on his wife and sons, leading Doug and his middle brother to wonder if the same fate awaits them.  Mrs. Swieteck shows Doug that there is room for compassion and sympathy in the world, often managing to thwart Mr. Swieteck's stated wishes in small acts of passive resistance.  While the initial relationship between Doug and his brother is antagonistic, they manage to find common ground in their shared fears of turning into their father.  Their oldest brother returns home from the war, wounded and seemingly broken.

Doug's struggles are legion and almost seem too much for a fourteen year-old to bear, let alone endure.  His early views of Marysville as a prison slowly change as he finds refuge, first in the local public library, then later when he begins to make friends at school.  Doug's friends introduce him to a way of thinking about life, art, and music in ways that he could never have imagined.  His first positive male influence is Mr. Powell, one of the librarians who notices Doug's rapt fascination with their original volume of John James Audubon's Birds of America.  Mr. Powell takes Doug under his wing and teaches him how to draw, using the Audubon prints on display as a teaching tool to explain the finer details of art.  More positive influences emerge in Doug's life: some of his teachers at school who help Doug tackle and cope with some of his bigger problems; neighbors who grow to trust Doug, in spite of a spate of thefts that implicate Doug's brother; and Lilian Spicer, the daughter of the owner of the local grocery and deli, who becomes Doug's ally and best friend.

Schmidt's voice for Doug is a little disjointed in the beginning, jumping from thought to thought.  As Doug gains more and more confidence, the prose becomes more fluid.  The more Doug comes out of his defensive shell, the more he is able to see the world and his own family with more clarity, and that things aren't always how they seem on the surface.  It is at this point that Schmidt allows Doug to see his middle brother's humanity.  For most of the first half of the book, Doug's middle brother has no name.  It isn't until Lucas, their oldest brother, returns home from Vietnam, wounded and disabled, that we learn his name.  Christopher.  The Christopher that we see in the second half of the novel is a revelation.  Schmidt allows his characters' deep-seated emotions to burble to the surface at unexpected moments.  It is like receiving a small gift, wrapped in a bundle of conflict and hostility.

The other characters in the book are almost stock characters: the eccentric playwright, the odd science teacher, the bullying P.E. teacher.  As lovely as the character of Lilian Spicer is, she almost crosses the line into Manic Pixie Dream Girl territory.  With the exception of his immediate family, the other characters in the book are merely players in the stage of Doug Swieteck's memory.  Like all characters, they serve their purpose in giving Doug a glimpse at what his life can become.  The saving grace for many of the characters is that Schmidt offers a peek at the person beneath the facade.  This prevents them from becoming caricatures.

Schmidt frames each chapter with an Audubon print.  Events and characters in that particular chapter are often described in terms of the birds in the print and insights gained from Doug's discussions with Mr. Powell.  The title of the book even comes from one of Doug's observations about the snowy heron in one of the plates.  A hunter lurks in the background, gun poised to shoot the bird.  However, in that moment, just before the gun goes off, Doug realizes that the snowy heron cannot see the hunter, and in that particular moment, his life is okay for now.  Sharp-eyed readers will be able to read between the lines when Doug talks about certain events.  Doug isn't always forthcoming with some of the more painful or embarrassing episodes of his life, and Schmidt withholds details, letting the reader figure them out as the plot unfolds.

The Vietnam War is something relegated to the background, but its presence is a shadow that hangs over the Swieteck family, brought to flesh when Lucas comes home.  Schmidt's depiction of Lucas' homecoming matches the manner in which many Vietnam veterans were greeted as they disembarked from airplanes, trains, or buses.  In age before the Americans With Disabilities Act, Lucas' struggles to just get in an out of buildings or find a job is hampered by buildings and people who cannot accommodate his wheelchair.  Coach Reed, Doug's P.E. teacher is also a veteran of the Vietnam War, but his wounds are much more hidden than Lucas'.  Now, veterans would have access to mental health services, but the lack of such services available to Coach Reed and his attempts to deal with his personal demons neatly describe how veterans were expected to bury the past and move on with their lives.  Mr. Spicer's efforts to pay the medical bills when Lilian becomes ill are timely in an era before health insurance was a given.  Doug's voice sounds just like you might imagine an adolescent boy from a working-class Long Island neighborhood might sound.  The vocabulary and attitudes are also accurate for the late 1960s.

There are a few quibbles with the book.  Late in the novel, Mr. Swieteck undergoes a radical personality change that seems a little too pat and rapid.  Some plot points are wrapped up and tied neatly with a bow at the end.  Sometimes Doug seamlessly integrates himself into his friends' lives, but in all honesty it doesn't take anything away from the book. They are basically minor issues.

As a teacher, I've seen many boys like Doug come into my classroom. Sometimes we can help, like Mr. Ferris and Miss Cowper.  Sometimes we cannot.  The book hearkens back to an time in education where a teacher would have had the time to commit to reaching out to a boy like Doug, to give him time to settle into place, and work through some of his issues with school, without standardized tests hanging over their heads like the Sword of Damocles.  The book also illustrates how easy it would have been for a boy like Doug to slide through the cracks at the time.

Excerpts of this book could be used in an art class, in conjunction with the Audubon images, to teach the concepts Mr. Powell explains to Doug.  Students studying the Vietnam War, or indeed, the effects of any war on its service members, could use this book to examine the issues veterans face when they return from the war front.  Students in a creative writing class can use this book as an exemplar text for writing historical fiction.  While the history forms the backdrop of the novel, it doesn't beat the reader over the head.

Students can also use the book as an entry point to become involved in veterans' groups.  The Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans,  Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, or the Wounded Warriors Project might be good places to start.

Okay For Now was a finalist for the National Book Award for Young People's Literature in 2011 and the audiobook version (read by Lincoln Hoppe) was an Odyssey Honor audiobook in 2012.  You can find an interview with Schmidt from the National Book Awards Dinner here and a video of Schmidt reading an excerpt from Okay For Now here.

Schmidt is also the author of the Newberry Honor book The Wednesday Wars and the Newberry and Printz Honor book Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy.  Schmidt has also written Trouble and What Came From the Stars.

Students might also want to read Walter Dean Myers' Fallen Angels, Dean Hughes' Search and Destroy, or Lt. General Hal Moore's We Were Soldiers Once... and Young.  Readers can try Laurie Halse Anderson's The Impossible Knife of Memory if they would like to read a novel that deals with a family coping with a loved one returning from a more recent war.

_________________________________________________________________________________

"It's the summer of 1968 and Doug Swieteck has just moved to Marysville, New York.  His father is a mean drunk, his older brother seems to be a juvenile delinquent, and his mother his just trying to hold the family together.  Before the summer ends, Doug has a friend (Lil), an obsession (the work of John James Audubon), and a job (delivering groceries).  Over the course of the school year, Doug begins to change from a wary, closed boy into an open, engaged young man, despite the challenges he faces... The book closes on a bittersweet note, with hope tempering a character's serious illness; but a really happy ending would have felt out of place.  There are laugh-out-loud moments here, and passages that will move a reader to tears; it's brilliant, and beautiful, and very nearly a perfect book." -- Susan A. M. Poulter, Library Media Connection, 2011

"Schmidt incorporates a myriad of historical events from the 1968 setting (the moon landing, a broken brother returning from Vietnam, the My Lai massacre) that makes some of the improbable plot turns... all the more unconvincing.  Still, Doug's story emerges through a distinctive voice that reflects how one beat-up kid can become a young man who knows that the future holds 'so much for him to find.'" -- Betty Carter, Horn Book Magazine, 2011

"Fans of The Wednesday Wars will find that this companion novel has more in common with it than just a charismatic narrator and pitch-perfect details of daily life in the 1960s. In addition to a mix of caring adults and comically unreasonable authority figures, Schmidt also revisits baseball, theatrical escapades, and timely preoccupations like the Moon landing and the Vietnam War.  But Doug's blue-collar story is much darker than Holling's in the earlier novel, and, as a narrator, he more psychologically complex...through study of Audubon's [Birds of America]... the volume itself becomes a metaphor for  his journey from fragmented to whole self.  Schmidt manages a hard balance of relatable youth-is-hard humor and nuanced family trauma." -- Riva Pollard, School Library Journal, 2011

"We slip conventionally enough into "Okay For Now" when a city kid behind a whole rack of metaphorical eight balls heads to a new school in a Catskill backwater.  He's Douglas Swieteck, an eighth grader last seen in Gary D. Schmidt's much praised "Wednesday Wars"... In the literature of outsiders, Doug is as far out there as any... But beneath the jumble of tragedy and tragicomedy is a story about the healing power of art and about a boy's intellectual awakening... The story takes place in 1968, with Doug's family driving their pickup down to Port Authority to collect a brother, home from Vietnam.  But centered on lives badly balanced on the ragged edge of survival and uprooted by poverty, with a distant war rumbling in the background... this is a novel that could easily have been set in the present." -- Richard Peck, The New York Times Book Review, 2011 

_________________________________________________________________________________
Works Cited:

Carter, Betty. 2011. Okay for now. Horn Book Magazine 87 (3) (May): 102-3, http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2048/login?url=http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2060/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=60126141&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Peck, Richard. 2011. The comeback kid. 05/15; 2014/3, http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2216/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA256390002&v=2.1&u=txshracd2583&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w&asid=fb2de0db339be62d6d6a93023f360969.

Pollard, Riva. 2011. Okay for now. School Library Journal 57 (4) (04): 184-, http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2048/login?url=http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2060/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=59966743&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Poulter, Susan A. M. 2011. Okay for now. Library Media Connection 30 (1) (Aug): 78-, http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2048/login?url=http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2060/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=82154646&site=ehost-live&scope=site.