A friend at work had this exchange with a middle-aged, middle class woman who came into the library with her teenage son. The son needed a historical fiction book his class was required to read before taking a trip to D.C.
Library Patron (the parent): What’s the book Killer Angels about?
MBC’s co-worker: The Battle of Gettysburg in the Civil War.
Library Patron: The Civil War? What was that?
MBC’s co-worker (hesitantly): The war in the 1860s between the North and South?
Library Patron: What, like North and
Really? Really!? Even if you didn’t study
Let your head stop exploding and then consider these book recommendations.
Books for adults who love clean young adult titles and have read everything by Shannon Hale:
Keturah and Lord Death - maybe my favorite ya book of the last few years; National Book Award finalist in 2006
Mira, Mirror and The Princess and the Hound both by Mette Harrison - fairy tales
The New Policeman - British award-winning fantasy
I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You - spies. great spies.
Anahita's Woven Riddle - historical fiction set in Iran
Midnighters series - by the author (Scott Westerfeld) of the more popular Uglies series; I like the overall storyline of this series better
Books for adults who love young adult titles and don't mind a little grit:
Speak - my favorite ya book of all time
This Lullaby - contemporary by Sarah Dessen; love Sarah Dessen
The Year of Secret Assignments - also love Jaclyn Moriarty; epistolary; FUNNY
Girl at Sea - I can't remember if this one has any potentially objectionable content; good; read it
True Believer - written in verse; 2001 National Book Award winner; there's this section about an abstinence program the protagonist joins that always reminds me of these billboards advertising "Abstinence for Singles" that some friends and I saw on the way to Chicago once (because Abstinence for Marrieds just wasn't taking off)
9 comments:
Heard that here in Knoxville, high school students were defending Hitler for the ethnic cleansing, because " After all, he was mad because we dropped the bomb." Dumb.
Aaah! The stupidity of people these days. Every high school history class should at least make it to the Civil War. We usually made it to World War II. How can you not know about the Civil War? I wonder if they know who the current president is.
Whatever happened to your idea of "Abstinence for Tacos?" (Not that the tacos were supposed to practice abstinence, but that being abstinent got you free tacos.)
I really loved that idea. I think it would catch on big time.
Oh my goodness... that child has NO chance if their parent doesn't even know about the Civil War. WHO doesn't know about the Civil War??? The stupidity astounds me. It's like people who don't know that certain states are actually states. My brother Bryan was getting his hair cut in Provo once before he and Michelle moved to Vermont and the girl cutting his hair was like, "Where are you moving?" and he said, "To Vermont." and she said, "Now, what state is that in??" and he said, "It IS a state." and she said, "GET OUT!! I didn't know that." DUMB.
Emily--That WAS a great idea. Maybe I can work it into the teen summer reading program this year.
Annie--That reminds me of a roommate I had. I said something about New England, and she said, "Oh, I didn't know we had that one." She thought it was a state. You know, New Hampshire, New York, New England, New Jersey . . .
And these people will be voting for the next president. Scary.
Do you think this lady knows that we are currently at war? If it had been me helping this person, I would have blinked once, shook my head to make sure I wasn't in the twilight zone and then turned to her son and started to address him, hoping against hope that he was possibly more informed than his mother. I would have concluded the interaction by telling the son to move away from his parents as soon as he possibly can.
This is right up there with my twelfth grade US Government student who insisted-to the point of YELLING at his entire class-that there were 52 states. He even very angrily got up and pointed at the map-"SEE! CANADA and MEXICO are on the MAP! They are the 51st adn 52nd STATES."
I, too, think Keturah and Lord Death is one of the best books I've read all year. It was a pleasant surprise, slightly reminiscent of Bergman's Seventh Seal, although more approachable.
Post a Comment