WEETZIE BAT BY: FRANCESCA LIA BLOCK
Bibliographic Information:
Author: Francesca Lia Block
Title: Weetzie Bat
Copyright: 1989
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 978-0060736255
Summary: Weetzie Bat is the story of a teenage girl living in LA during the hipster scene of the 1980s. She and her best Friend Dirk enjoy their favorite hobby of hanging out and looking for “ducks”. When Dirk’s grandmother Fifi gives Weetzie a shiny “thing” it turns out to be a lamp with a genie inside that can grant three wishes. While the wishes do indeed come true, there were a few things that Weetzie didn’t want to happen in order to make these wishes come true. Join Weetzie, Dirk, Duck, and My Secret Agent Lover Man as they make their way through life their way and on their terms.
Critical Evaluation: To be honest I really didn’t like Weetzie Bat at all if anything it just seemed like a really weird book. Weetzie, with her bleached blonde flattop, is weird to me with her name, her life is weird: school is mentioned briefly in relation to her by saying Dirk saw her in art class; however, it seems like all she does is just hang out, find people to sleep with her best friend Dirk, and hangout at Grandma Fifi’s house. Oh and of course going where she and Dirk want to go which feels like seventy percent of the book is focused on their little adventures of doing nothing. It is almost as if the setting, and their activities are characters also in the book due to their large descriptions. If she was in school, then she must be a dropout because real life isn’t like that. There is so much focus on Weetzie and Dirk’s appearance as well as where they hang out and what they do when they hangout which is really essentially nothing. It was weird that she went home with some weird rando (Buzz) that she met at a gig at Cathay de Grande, it was even weirder that they barely had a real conversation before she went home with him. I know she was drunk when she met him but still it is super weird. The genie and granting the wishes thing was dumb and played out, very unoriginal. Her thought process that if My Secret Agent Lover Man didn’t want to have a baby, then she could just have a baby with Dirk and Duck was absolutely crazy. There is so much focus on them having a good time that the characters lack any depth. Also, no one’s grandmother is going to leave her house to her grandson AND his best friend no matter how much the best friend comes over or is liked by the grandmother. Everything was just way too ridiculous to even really be fantasy.
Reader’s Annotation: Grandma Fifi gave Weetzie a lamp with a genie inside that can grant her three wishes. Will these three wishes bring her, her happily ever after?
Author Information: Francesca Lia Block is a well-known author. Some of her books are written as a reflection of her own life, for example “The Thorn Necklace” discuses Francesca’s relationship to her parents as well as her divorce from the father of her children. Weetzie is actually a character that she created when she was sixteen years old. People are so tied to the character of Weetzie, that she has actually walked into rooms where people say: “Weetzie is here!”
Overall Francesca has written over twenty five books under the different genres of short stories, poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Some of the awards that she has won include: the ALA Rainbow Award; the 2005 Margaret A. Edwards Lifetime Award, the Spectrum award, and the Phoenix award. In 2014, she was named the Writer in Residence at Pasadena City College. Some of the various languages that her work has been translated in includes: Danish, Finnish, Portuguese, German Japanese, Swedish, French, Italian, and Norwegian. http://www.francescaliablock.com/about
https://lithub.com/francesca-lia-block-is-a-lot-more-than-weetzie-bat/
Genre- Fiction
Curriculum Ties: English
Book Talking ideas: Living as a teenager in the 1980s
Reading Level/Interest Age: Grades 9-12
Challenge Issues and Defense Preparation:
Challenge Issues: Sex; Mature Content: Drug Abuse; Witchcraft;
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: Francesca Lia Block
Title: Weetzie Bat
Copyright: 1989
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 978-0060736255
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. “Weetzie Bat” can be utilized to introduce the genre of fantasy.
Summary: Weetzie Bat is the story of a teenage girl living in LA during the hipster scene of the 1980s. She and her best Friend Dirk enjoy their favorite hobby of hanging out and looking for “ducks”. When Dirk’s grandmother Fifi gives Weetzie a shiny “thing” it turns out to be a lamp with a genie inside that can grant three wishes. While the wishes do indeed come true, there were a few things that Weetzie didn’t want to happen in order to make these wishes come true. Join Weetzie, Dirk, Duck, and My Secret Agent Lover Man as they make their way through life their way and on their terms.
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 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: Honestly, I wouldn’t recommend this book to be read by teenagers. I think it would more so confuse them if anything. A lot of controversial and difficult issues are mildly touched on such as sex, AIDS, young parenthood, prescription abuse etc.; however, the true consequences behind engaging in these behaviors or having a disease are glossed over and covered up. The teens might try to copy Weetzie Bat’s actions and find themselves in a world of trouble.
Why included: This was one of the books for our required reading. While I don’t like it, if anything Weetzie Bat is a perfect example of what not to do. Her whole life seems to be some very very unrealistic fantasy. It kind of half addresses some important issues concerning teens so it may not be the best book to give a teen to read.
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