I See Reality: Twelve Short Stories About Real Life
Bibliographic Information:
Authors: Jay Clark, Kristin Elizabeth Clark, Heather Demetrious, Stephen Emond, Patrick Flores-Scott, Faith Erin Hicks, Trisha Leaver, Kekla Magoon, Marcella Pixley, James Preller, Jason Schmidt, and Jordan Sonnenblick. Compiled by Grace Kendall
Title: “I See Reality: Twelve Short Stories About Real Life”
Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers
Copyright:2016
ISBN: 9780374302580
Summary: This book contains twelve short stories about real life situations that teenagers sometimes may find themselves experiencing. There is definitely a story within this book that everyone can relate to in some way, shape, or form. Whether it is dealing with high school relationships and trying to figure out the best decision for you, coming out as gay or lesbian, grief, difficult conversations, domestic violence in the home, school shootings, coping with being a family member of a shooter (school shooting) illness, and more. Each story contains the underlying silent message, that you are not alone in what you may have experienced and there isn’t anything to be ashamed about.
Critical Evaluation: This book is compiled of twelve short stories centered around the tough issues and situations that teens experience in today’s society. Each story is different, and they each contain a variety of themes including: grief, joy, pain, love, high school relationships, coming out as gay, school shootings, and more. Laurie Halse Anderson offers a quote that is the perfect description of this book: “You can tell if a book is real when your heart beats faster. Real books make you sweat. Cry, if no one is looking. Real books tell it true, don’t hold back, and make you stronger”. This by Laurie’s definition is a real book. Even though this book has twelve stories in it, each story was so well written that each evoked a strong emotion out of me. Sometimes it was sadness, sometimes laughter, sometimes a deeper inside understanding, sometimes confusion, sometimes it really made me think as far as empathy and what would I do if I found myself in a particular situation etc. The reason that these stories were able to make me as a reader feel so many emotions is because it is written in a brutally honest fashion, exposing both harsh truths during difficult situations as well as taking a glimpse at thoughts, feelings, and situations, that are often not publically discussed due to their sensitive nature. Being able to both capture real situations as well as the teenagers’ perspectives as they try to navigate through these situations proves the books authenticity and accuracy. Openness and honesty were prevalent themes in each story.
Reader’s Annotation: Have you ever felt that you were the only one going through a tough time as a teen? This book contains twelve stories that will make you laugh, cry, think and everything in between; most of all this book confirms that we are never alone in our experiences whether they are good or bad.
Author Info: Jay Clark, who wrote “Coffee Chameleon”, is also a random blogger who lives in Columbus Ohio. He has also written “How to Stop Hating People in 15 Minutes”, “Finding Mr. Brightside”, and “The Edumacation of Jay Baker”. Kristin Elizabeth Clark, who wrote “The Downside of Fabulous” has worked as a child advocate within the justice system, and lives in northern California. Her book “Freakboy” was her first YA novel, which went on to receive three starred reviews and made it to ALA Rainbow Project Top Ten Best Fiction for Young Adults reading list. Heather Demetrios, who wrote “Three Imaginary Conversations with You”, is the founder of Live Your What, a project dedicated to creating writing opportunities for underserved youth. Stephen Emond, who wrote “The Night of the Living Creeper”, is the creator of the Emo Boy comic series. Patrick Flores- Scott, who wrote, “The Good Brother”, used to work as a public school teacher for a long time before he became a stay at home dad and writer in Ann Arbor Michigan.
Faith Erin Hicks, who wrote “Gone from This Place” has written many other books including “the Adventures of Superhero Girl”, The War at Ellsmere, and “Brain Camp”. Trisha Leaver, who wrote “Blackbird”, has also co-wrote the books “Creed”, “Sweet Madness”, and “Hardwire”. Kekla Magoon, who wrote “Makeshift”, is also a Vermont based writer, editor, speaker, and educator. Marcella Pixley, who wrote “Hush”, is a middle school language arts teacher whose poetry has been published in various literary journals. James Preller, who wrote “The Mistake” has written several other books including “Six innings”, “Bystander”, and “The Fall”. Jason Schmidt, who wrote “Things You Get Over, Things You Don’t”, has a law degree and lives with his family in Seattle, Washington. Jordan Sonnenblick, who wrote “The Sweeter the Sin”, is also the author of the “Dodger and Me” series.
Genre: Fiction
Curriculum Ties: Real Life Situations
Book Talk Ideas: Teens dealing with real life situations
Reading /Interest Level: Grade 9-12
Challenge and Defense Preparation:
Challenge Issues: Drugs; Grief; High School Relationships; Coming Out As Gay; School Shootings
Selection Policy: http://ccclib.org/policies/CollectionDevelopmentAccess-1999-11-16.pdf
Library Bill of Rights: http://www.ala.org/advocacy/sites/ala.org.advocacy/files/content/intfreedom/librarybill/lbor.pdf
Right to Read: http://www2.ncte.org/statement/righttoreadguideline/
Rationale:
Bibliographic Information: Authors: Jay Clark, Kristin Elizabeth Clark, Heather Demetrious, Stephen Emond, Patrick Flores-Scott, Faith Erin Hicks, Trisha Leaver, Kekla Magoon, Marcella Pixley, James Preller, Jason Schmidt, and Jordan Sonnenblick. Compiled by Grace Kendall
Title: “I See Reality: Twelve Short Stories About Real Life”
Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers
Copyright:2016
ISBN: 9780374302580
Intended Audience: The intended audience is young adults specifically the upper grades of 9-12. This particular book would be beneficial for an English or social studies class. Primarily the book will be used for individual study in which every member of the class should read the book, and then afterwards there can be a group discussion of what transpired in the book as well as observations and thoughts concerning the book. “I See Reality: Twelve Stories About Real Life” can be utilized as a way to open up a talk about different experiences that the students have gone through and how they can identify with the book.
Summary: This book contains twelve short stories about real life situations that teenagers sometimes may find themselves experiencing. There is definitely a story within this book that everyone can relate to in some way, shape, or form. Whether it is dealing with high school relationships and trying to figure out the best decision for you, coming out as gay or lesbian, grief, difficult conversations, domestic violence in the home, school shootings, coping with being a family member of a shooter (school shooting) illness, and more. Each story contains the underlying silent message, that you are not alone in what you may have experienced and there isn’t anything to be ashamed about.
Relationship to the Program: The relationship of the book to school objectives would be helping 9th graders develop their literal and inferential understanding skills and comprehension skills. Through reading this book they would learn SLE # R.9.9.1 Connect own background knowledge, including personal experience and perspectives shaped by age, gender, class or national origin, to determine author’s purpose. R.9.9.5. Draw inferences from a sentence or a paragraph (including conclusions, generalizations and predictions) and support them with text evidence. Concerning summary and generalization students will utilize R.9.9.8 Summarize and paraphrase structures in informational and literary texts, including relationships among concepts and details. Concerning analysis and evaluation students will utilize R. 9.9.11 Recognize and define various points of view (e.g., omniscient narrator, third person limited) and R. 9.9.13 Identify and discuss a position using concepts gained from reading (e.g. debate, discussion, position paper, etc.).
http://www.fayar.net/edvision/language/09_reading_0405.pdf
Impact of the book: This book certainly has the potential to change both student behavior and attitudes for the better. A lot of the issues that were covered in the book are things that teens experience every day in today’s society. By reading this book the students will be able to see that they aren’t alone. Also, they will learn that it is okay express your feelings concerning these matters, and healthy coping mechanisms can also be introduced in order to promote healing.
Why Included: I like that this book takes a huge risk and discusses many of the issues that we as a society try to sweep under the rug. Sometimes teens don’t discuss what is really going on with them because they are embarrassed, think someone will think badly of them if they hear their truth, or assume that no one will understand or care what they are going through. This book gives teens a voice by revealing the difficult things that may be taking place in their lives; it could even potentially inspire a teen to speak out about their issues as well as get some type of therapy.
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