LANDSCAPE WITH INVISIBLE HAND BY M.T. ANDERSON
Landscape with Invisible Hand
Bibliographic Information:
Author: M.T. Anderson
Title: “Landscape with Invisible Hand”
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Copyright: 2017
ISBN: 9780763687892
Summary: In this story, aliens called the Vuvv invade the world; however, they come in peace, bringing with them higher level technologies and the ability to cure illnesses. Unfortunately, the world takes a turn for the worst when the Vuvv take over everything, making the human economy crash including jobs. With his mother out of work, and his father gone Adam needs a solution and fast. Because the vuvv appear to be obsessed with 1950s style “romance”, Chloe Adam’s girlfriend figures it would be easy money to participate in “hookups”( recording dates/interactions with boyfriends or girlfriends) to sell to the Vuvv to make some money. However, everything comes at a price, and what comes easy doesn’t always last. Will Adam and Chloe be able to make their “love” last forever?
Critical Evaluation: This story has quite a few unique features. Having the Vuvv invade the world and make humans completely dependent on them as well as forced to meet their demands and requirements was a very interesting part of the storyline. Adam, an aspiring artist, narrates the story as he tries to navigate this Vuvv world and help take care of his family. Making the main character Adam have a digestive disease was actually what made me like him and be interested in the story. Giving him this disease made him more realistic as well as added more depth to the character for me especially since I myself can relate to having digestive issues that often arise without warning. I appreciated that the author included this characteristic of Adam also because people often have medical conditions all the time that aren’t noticeable by just looking at them. Some people may feel that incorporating illness in the story made it depressing, but I disagree I just made the story more authentic. All the chapter titles were descriptions of paintings which were distracting. I was never really sure what the next chapter was going to be about so I had to ignore them eventually. The author’s use of the Vuvv’s obsession with 1950s romance is very similar to the constant displays of affection on social media in today’s society. It appears that the author has a few underlying messages including: money isn’t everything, money can’t buy happiness, you can always start over and everything isn’t always what it looks like despite the happy images portrayed. The ending wasn’t exactly a happy one, but it was very realistic which is what made it appeal to me.
Reader’s Annotation: Chloe and Adam have come up with a fool proof plan of recording their “love” to sell to the Vuvv to make money. But often what comes easy doesn’t last; can they make their “love” truly last forever?
Author Information:
As a teenager, M.T. Anderson had dreams of becoming a writer. Even in his teenage years he would write novels, stories, and ball point comics. One of his earlier works “The Game of Sunken Places” was actually published fifteen years after he first wrote the story. After graduating from high school, he applied for boarding school in England.
While he did attend college in the U.S, as a freshman, he dropped out. A few years later he went to Cambridge University in England and studied English literature; he graduated with his M.F.A. After graduating he went on to Writing for Children and Young Adults at Vernon College. In the midst of his interesting life, M. T. Anderson has written many books that have received awards.
http://mt-anderson.com/blog/about/
Genre: Fiction; Sci-Fi
Curriculum Ties: English; Social Studies
Book talk Ideas: Alien invasion
Reading/Interest level: Grades 9-12
Challenge and Defense Preparation:
Challenge Issues: Alien invasion; Social Media Perceptions; Illness
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:
Author: M.T. Anderson
Title: “Landscape with Invisible Hand”
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Copyright: 2017
ISBN: 9780763687892
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. “Landscape with Invisible Hand” can be utilized to discuss social media perceptions, technology, and the concept of love that is portrayed publicly.
Summary: In this story, aliens called the Vuvv invade the world; however, they come in peace, bringing with them higher level technologies and the ability to cure illnesses. Unfortunately, the world takes a turn for the worst when the Vuvv take over everything, making the human economy crash including jobs. With his mother out of work, and his father gone Adam needs a solution and fast. Because the vuvv appear to be obsessed with 1950s style “romance”, Chloe Adam’s girlfriend figures it would be easy money to participate in “hookups”( recording dates/interactions with boyfriends or girlfriends) to sell to the Vuvv to make some money. However, everything comes at a price, and what comes easy doesn’t always last. Will Adam and Chloe be able to make their “love” last forever?
Relationship to 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 and develop the following skills: SLE #R. 9.9.2. Identify specific ways an author accomplishes purpose, including organization, narrative and persuasive techniques, style, literary forms or genre, portrayal of themes, tone and intended audiences; R.9.9.4 Recognize how works of a given period reflect author’s background, historical events, and cultural influences; and 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 and R. 9.9.13 Identify and discuss a position using concepts gained from reading (e.g. debate, discussion, position paper, etc.). 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).
http://www.fayar.net/edvision/language/09_reading_0405.pdf
Impact: Of course, the main impact of the book is that it will open new perspectives to its readers. But in this book, it definitely gives the students subjects to think about concerning love, messages portrayed on social media, illness, and how money isn’t everything. It will force them to take a critical look especially at the images and messages on social media, and confirm the fact that not everything you see on there is real.
Why Included: Normally I don’t like sci-fi, I probably wouldn’t go out of my way to read anything that contained aliens in the storyline, but this was an interesting book. I like that the author makes the story real from the very beginning by making Adam have a digestive disease. This unique feature doesn’t make the story depressing, it just makes the story more authentic. Having parents out of work or disappear, having a high school relationship that doesn’t last, having a difficult relationship with a parent, entering a contest and not winning are all things that teens most likely experience more often then they care to admit. While all these scenarios are certainly unpleasant, that is just life and sometimes things don’t turn out the way we want them to. But the good news is as long as you are living, you can start over, and that is what I would want the students to get out of the story.
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