The 12 Books I Read This Summer, Part II: Novels I might have used for class (but didn't)

The account of my summer reading continues!

If you made it through my first entry regarding my indulgence in graphic novels, you may be sorely disappointed in this post. I mean, at some point, every adult needs to go back to work and I really did prolong that as long as I could. Heck, I thought summer reading itself would delay the feeling of "work" (and in large part, it did). And although I thought about pitching a graphic novel unit to the power that be at my school, I decided that it would be better to shift to the novels and start hunting for one that could work in place of Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson.

So, once again, here are (the next three of) the 12 books I cracked open during summer 2015!



4) Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli
     After a couple weeks of reading whatever I felt like, Stargirl was my first foray into the search for a replacement to Speak. It was recommended to me because it has themes in common with Speak, namely the isolation of the protagonist. However, where Speak includes a journey into the darker causes of that isolation, Stargirl was able to maintain a much more whimsical approach to the topic.
     The story is told from a boy named Leo's point of view. It follows Leo, but the story is really about this enigmatic Stargirl. She's a new student at Leo's high school and she quietly, distinctly comes onto the scene, first by setting out a tablecloth and a flower in a vase on her desk at school. There are other things that make her stand out at Mica High School, like how she sings "Happy Birthday" with her ukulele to students in the lunchroom; students who she has not met before, and yet somehow she knows all their birthdays and all their names. But as the story goes on, Leo makes it very clear that standing out like this is just not something that happens in Mica.
     As the story goes on, I found it almost endearing the way that Stargirl flitted through her life and time at Mica High School. I understood how her charm was attractive to Leo and how they ended up dating. I really thought that she was the definition of a "free spirit." But she was totally unaware of her isolation and she completely ignorant of social customs. While I appreciated the freedom that that gave her, I also found myself (my logical, systematic self) becoming irritated with a protagonist without any compelling motivation, not to mention that she was unaware of the conflict in her story. So as an English teacher, I knew that this story has been used in classrooms before and now I know why. But as a reader on my own, I found this book interesting but without anything really compelling.

5) The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
     Let me start off by saying that Neil Gaiman is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. I've read American Gods and The Graveyard Book (which you will read about later in this post). I've seen the movie adaptations of Stardust and Coraline and I've read a number of the comic books that Gaiman either wrote or collaborate on, including Sandman, Marvel 1602, and Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? So this summer, reading The Ocean at the End of the Lane turned out to be another resounding accolade for me in support of this man's work.
     The short summary of the book is that it follows a boy, who is our narrator. It's very interesting that he is never named and, while it's possible to infer that Gaiman was drawing on his own childhood for this fantastical book, he's said that that's not strictly true (if you get your hands on a copy of this book, there is an interview with Gaiman at the end of the book that I would also recommend you read). Our narrator lives in an old house in the English countryside with his mother and father, and younger sister. Down at the end of the lane there is a family of women: grandmother, mother, and daughter. The daughter's name is Lettie Hempstock and she seems to be just older than the narrator (though, as a reader, you begin to sense early one that Lettie has existed far longer than she seems). After the narrator awakes one night with a coin stuck in his throat, he learns from Lettie that something supernatural has come into their world, trying to help by leaving money for people, even though the money is left in unpleasant ways.
     As the story develops, that something supernatural begins to become more powerful and it begins to exert power over the narrator's family, but the only one aware of it is the narrator himself. He enlists the help of the Hempstock women and, in true Gaiman fashion, the supernatural means to deal with this supernatural something not welcome in this world are described in fascinating, matter-of-fact terms. This, of course, is much of the reason why I enjoy Gaiman's work and would recommend it to anyone else interested in such fantasy.

6) The Lovely Bones by Alice Seabold
     At this point in the summer, I had tried a couple of novels that look promising initially, but ultimately I determined that they weren't what I was looking for with my next novel in class. So I decided to go back to something that I had read before.
     I must have picked up The Lovely Bones when I was around 10th or 11th grade. It was one that I had read on my own and I knew that it featured a protagonist who died early in the story (don't worry, that isn't actually a spoiler) and then spent years watching her family try to move on without her. That's a pretty effective means of isolation, which was one of the themes I had highlighted in Speak, and that I was still looking to pull in from my next novel.
     As I read this one, I was moved just like I was the first time; I enjoyed Seabold's artistry, just like I was the first time I had read it. But I also knew that this book is surrounded by controversy. Now, I don't usually shy away from controversy when it comes to books, but I also don't want to pull that into the mix prematurely. Controversy can be a great component of a book, but it will often eclipse other elements of the storytelling. And so, ultimately, even though I would still recommend this book to anyone willing to engage with the heartache it describes, I still decided that this one was not the choice I wanted to make for my students in the upcoming school year.

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Any of these books intrigue you? Want to make an endorsement or add to what I've shared about them? Let me know in the comments below!

This post is the second in a series of four that describe what I read this past summer in hopes of finding a new book to use in my class. If you're interested in reading more, here is part i, and here are parts iii and iv. Otherwise, you can use the tags in the right sidebar to search through topics that you're interested in. Thanks!