Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Title: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Author: J. K. Rowling
Director: Alfonso Cuaròn
Publisher: Warner Home Video


Media Format: Movie
Genre: Fantasy
Selection Source: It's Harry Potter!
Recommended Audience: All YAs
Recommendation: 4 ****


Summary
I arrived at the Harry Potter universe quite late. Most people had read the last book before I had read the first one. I finally read the first two, and enjoyed them. Like most people, I didn't want to set them down. Unfortunately (not really) I have so many things to read that I cannot justify spending a month (probably more) reading nothing but Harry Potter, so I thought I would cheat a little bit, and watch HPATPOA rather than read it.


This movie is often cited as the best of the Harry Potter movies, and I can see why. As most people who are readers know, recreating a novel on the big screen is a serious challenge. It's so often a poor facsimile of the novel. This is not the case with HPATPOA.


In this movie, Harry runs away from home after a fight with the Dursley's and he's picked up by a magical bus for stranded witches and wizards. He soon finds out that an escaped convict is on the loose, and that convict is in all likelihood trying to find and kill Harry. After learning some new spells from Hogwarts' new Defense of the Dark Arts teacher, Harry along with his two friends figure out that the convict isn't the person people think he is, and he can shed some light on the death of Harry's parents.


Evaluation
The best thing this movie does is create a great atmosphere. It's often said that movies cannot compete with the imagination, but I'll be the first to say that the Hogwarts of this movie kicks my imagination's ass. It also works as a workable replacement to the novel. I feel confident moving onto the fourth novel without reading the third (some other time we can debate whether or not that is a good thing). I think the most important thing about the Harry Potter books is that they make being an elite student a cool thing. It's not going to inspire everyone who watches it to dedicate themselves to scholarship, but there is something to be said about a movie that can make knowledge look powerful, and Harry Potter does indeed do that.

Flush: Carl Hiaasen

Title: Flush

Author: Carl Hiaasen

Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers

Media Format: Book

Genre: Coming of Age, Mystery

Selection Source: YALSA 2006 Best Books for Young Adults

Recommended Audience: Young YAs

Reading Recommendation: 3 ***

Curriculum Connections: Ecology

Summary

Flush is Hiaasen's second young adult novel. It's a readable eco-mystery, adventure story, which is typical of Hiaasen's adult works as well. Someone as young as ten could probably read it, but it's suitable reading for older YAs as well.

Noah Underwood is 14 years old, and his father is in prison. Not only is his father in prison, but he's proud of the actions that got him there. His father, Paine, sunk a casino ship, because he believed the owner was dumping sewage into the ocean. Noah looks up to his father and believes him, so he wants to do a little detective work to prove his father right (if not innocent). With the help of his sister, a barmaid, and a mysterious pirate, who always shows up at the right time, Noah searches for the truth. He has to fight bullies and escape from people capable of murder in order to uncover the truth.

Evaulation

At it's heart, this is a novel about family. It's about how a family can love each other, but still do things to alienate each other. I think that's why it's best for young YAs, the lessons put forth are transparent and easy to follow. The good guys are good, and the bad guys are bad. It doesn't wade into complex arguments about environmentalism. This isn't about cap and trade versus carbon tax, people of all political stripes can agree (you would hope) that dumping sewage into the ocean is an abominable offense that should be punished. It does challenge the reader to question ethics versus legality. What Paine did was illegal, but was it unethical? It brings to their attention the possibility of civic disobedience as a form of protest. But, the reader has to read between the lines to find those arguments. All readers will be able to discern the message of the importance of family, and sticking together to do the right thing.

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing

Book Title: The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the nation, Volume I

Author: M. T. Anderson

Publisher: Candlewick Press

Media Format: Book

Genre: Historical Fiction

Selection Source: National Book Award: 2006

Recommended Audience: High School and above, because of complex themes and sophisticated use of language.

Reading Recommendation: 4

Curriculum Connections: History

Kindness, humility, piety, respect for other human creatures--these are the great desiderata of all who pursue virtuous action and it matters not whether those who preach them heed their own advice (p.12)

-----Octavian Nothing

Summary

Octavian is an African prince turned slave, turned sociological experiment. Octavian has always been aware of his royal blood, but has been emersed in an experimental bubble to hide his slave status from him. The members of the Novanglian College of Lucidity, who have created this condition are interested in discovering the negroes' abilities to achieve a classical education. The unbiased observer who witnesses Octavian's mastery of languages, the classic Greek works, and his virtuosity on the violin would, at the very least be forced to admit that some negroes are indeed capable of achieving an elite level of scholastic achievement, but as the College of Lucidity's funds dry up, and their new benefactor has motives in the experiment that are less pure than science, Octavian's position becomes all too apparent to him. As he says after witnessing the death of his mother, "I cannot fight--nor can I refrain--without imputations of savagery."

Evaluation

This is the second book I've read by M. T. Anderson, who is known for writing uncompromisingly intellectual works for YAs. While The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing(winner of the National Book Award for Young People) lacks the profanity and sexual situations of some of his other works, it is certainly a work intended for a mature YA audience. It's probably ideal for a classroom setting that forces students to confront and examine the complex social issues and political/philosophical quandaries presented.

Some of the questions that confront the reader while reading this book include, What makes a slave different from a prince? How should one respond, when one's fate seems so predetermined? How could people fight for the idea of liberty, while enslaving others? Like all great authors, Anderson does not provide us with the answers to these questions. He puts the questions in our heads like an irritating gadfly, with the hope that it will provoke us to ponder the hypocrisies and wonders of the human condition.

Feed: M.T. Anderson

Book Title: Feed
Author: M.T. Anderson
Publisher: Candlewick Press


Media Format: Book
Genre: Sci-Fi, Dystopian, Satire, Shocker
Selection Source: ALA Best Books for Young Adults; 2003 (among many others)
Recommended audience age: Mature Young Adults; strong language, sexual situations, complex themes
Reading Recommendation : 5
Curriculum Connections: Sociology, leisure reading

The only thing worse than the thought that it may all come crumbling down is the thought that we may go on like this forever.----Violet

Summary

Feed captures the experience of a teenager named Titus and his relationship with a girl named Violet in a futuristic world where the internet has morphed into a chip inserted into our brain giving us access to the feednet. The feednet is not drastically different from the internet we are used to. People can use it to look up information, chat with their friends, watch videos, and shop. Furthermore, corporations can use it to track consumer behavior in order to target adds to people based on their shopping patterns and thoughts.

Titus is a relatively typical American teenager. He's had the feed implanted for as long as he can remember, and he's relatively content (in a perpetually discontented consumeristic fashion) with his and his friend's lifestyle. Violet on the other hand, had a much more experimental upbringing. She did not have her feed implanted until she was well into childhood, and she was home schooled by her eccentric father rather than attend school ™. She is thus conflicted by her desire to have a normal life with her ability to look at the current state of affairs with the critical eye of an outsider. Titus's feelings for his new girlfriend see-saw between superiority and inferiority as he

is impressed by the breadth of her archaic knowledge, but finds her inability to fit in with his friends to be her own fault, because she's always showing off.

The real story in Feed, is how information technology is shaping the characters. While people have access to infinite quantities of information, their vocabulary has devolved in a manner reminiscent of the movie Idiocracy, where parental figures and even the president regularly make use of the words "ass" and "dude." Also, the speed at which trends change the girls changing their hairstyles multiple times in the same night, and sometimes trends from earlier eras catch up to the current era confusing the feed and freezing it. Most importantly, the feed keeps everyone looking for the next best thing, so they are unable to see how the world is collapsing around them.

Evaluation

I once heard Cory Doctorow say something like science fiction should be read to understand the technology of the era in which it was written, not to understand the technology of the future. I think that's what is so compelling about Feed. It's not warning us about some future that might happen, it's about letting us know what is happening right now. It's about the difficulty of living an authentic existence in an environment in which we are constantly being told that we are unwhole or unhappy, and if we buy this product we will be just a little bit closer to becoming that complete person.

Feed should only be recommended to the mature YA reader. It uses a lot of strong language, and just as importantly, it offers complex social criticisms that not all young adults will be able to make sense of and integrate into their own world view, but for the young adult who is ready, YA fiction doesn't get much better or relevant than this.