One of the 6th grade booktalkers was pulling books for an April classroom visit and was disappointed to find that we were all out of the book Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah. Nay problemo - I suggested she try Ties That Bind, Ties That Break by Lensey Namioka - a similar but fictional account of a girl in China. Alas, that one was already in use at the school. At that point I started suggesting other books set in Asia where the main characters were girls with miserable lives. Homeless Bird by came to mind, as did several others. And we got talking together about how so many books for young teens and teens in general could all be placed in one shelf called Miserable Lives, if Dewey had created such a cataloging section.
In the weeks that come we hope to review many of the titles in our 6th grade book collection that could be placed on that special sad, lonely, desperate, sagging, dusty, miserable shelf of paperbacks.
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Seems like half the books in our 6th grade fiction section are about young teens with miserable lives. Maybe we should just move them all onto one shelf and be done with it.
Growing up in the Silicon Valley before it was known as that, when prunes and 'cots grew everywhere, my school did not have a librarian and we had to rely on neighborhood moms for reader's advisory. For girls it was always the Little House books, for boys Homer Price. If you're looking for those books, you've come to the wrong place.
1 comment:
Love the sculpture you included. It seems to capture misery in all its aspects.
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