Just some brief notes on a few middler/young adult novels I’ve finished reading lately:

Near Hit:  Here Today by Ann M. Martin

Realistic Fiction and Historical Fiction (sort of) rolled into one.  It is 1963 and Ellie has a dysfunctional family due to a self-absorbed beautiful mother who splits before the novel is over.  Well told story of the situation where the child has to be the parent.  The Dad does step up before the novel ends.  Also interesting is the neighborhood of Witch Tree Lane – a diverse community which cares about one another, but suffers derision from the wider world.  (Especially the “two elderly ladies…who lived together for years and were not related” as Ellie explains.) Well told story.  Limited audience.

Near Miss:  White Sands, Red Menace by Ellen Klages

Sequel to The Green Glass Sea which I loved, this novel tries to hard.  Dewey is still living with the Gordons.  The big plot line is Dewey’s mother’s appearance on the scene.  The book details the early opposition to nuclear weapons.  Klages obviously did a lot of research for the book and I painfully felt every bit of that research as I read the narrative.  I also found it hard to care about the characters in this sequel.  Not particularly recommended – even for fans of Green Glass Sea.

Hit! : The Hero by Ron Woods

This narrative surprised me – and after all the novels all these years that is not easy to do.  Not as strong as Cummings’ Red Kayak, never less this is a excellent look at a main character exhibiting character under tough circumstances.  Good hearted narrator Jamie, bossy cousin Jerry, and misfit neighbor Dennis make up the threesome of boys building a raft.  There is disaster coming – you can feel it through the entire novel.  But The Hero will surprise you.  He isn’t who or what you think.  Highly recommended!

Miss:  All Shook Up by Shelley Pearsall

Great premise to this novel – Dad is an Elvis impersonator.  Unfortunately there is no interesting plot nor any character development in evidence.  Not recommended.

Near Hit:  Sparks fly Upward by Carol Matas

Set in turn of the century Saskatchewan and Winnipeg, this is the story of a Russian immigrant family and their struggles and disasters.  The author’s family history provides the inspiration for the story, and it is rich with details of life in a Kosher household with a huge extended family.  Insight into the cultural challenges and prejudices from within and without the family, this book is interesting reading.  This narrative is unique.  For better readers who enjoy historical fiction.

How do you explain a genre to students when it is can sometimes be subjective?  What is the difference between mystery and suspense?  Science fiction and fantasy?  When you look at individual titles, the lines can be well defined or can sometimes get blurry.  So when I’ve already read a book in question and have a difficult time deciding, how can I expect the students to sort it out?

OPAC you say?  Subject headings?  This IS what I teach my students to use.  But there is one annually assigned genre (assigned by our language and reading department to all 7th and 8th graders) which is impossible to identify via a collective subject heading – Realistic Fiction. 

Definitions of Realistic Fiction vary:

• Stories and novels that mimic the real world.
• Fictional stories that take place in modern time, right here and now.  The characters are involved in events that could really happen.
• Realistic fiction is stories of life in the real world (the world as we know it) and governed by the laws of the natural world as we understand them. Realistic fiction intends to provide a believable verisimilitude or plausibility to life as we experience it.
• A book is considered realistic fiction if events in the story did not really happen but could have. Fantastic elements such as magic, aliens, talking animals, or ridiculous exaggerations move a book out of this category and into other genres. Biographies or true stories, even if written in novelized form, are considered non-fiction.

To find Realistic Fiction you have to consult a variety of subject headings.  One library solved the problem with this guide:  http://www.uiowa.edu/~crl/infohawk/help/contemporaryfiction.htm  But notice their caveat – there are hundreds of other possibilities!  Expecting students to use hundreds of subject headings which may or may not occur to them is unreasonable.

Since I am a school library one of my main priorities must be supporting curriculum.  Because there is an annual assignment to read from the genre of Realistic Fiction, and because locating Realistic Fiction is obnoxiously difficult, my former solution was to pull displays of Realistic Fiction books for the students.  But that is a time-consuming nightmare which just repeats itself each year….  So this year I decided I would label the spines. 

I hesitate to put genre labels on everything because, as a library teacher I want the students to learn to locate Science Fiction, Fantasy, or the many other genres by using subject headings and the OPAC.  But when student needs are not being met, I know the priority!  Unfortunately I discovered that none of the vendors sell a genre label for Realistic Fiction, so I created my own!  A simple “RF” in large letters with smaller print below reading “Realistic Fiction”.  (The small print is for the user… How do they know what RF means? … and how many times do I want to explain it?  Using the library should not be an exercise is confusion for the user with only library staff knowing the secrets!)

I was able to get our 4-6 fiction section labeled during the school year, but the last day of school this June found me in the 7-8 fiction section labeling Realistic Fiction.  It was a cummulative task, unfortunately, as combing through the shelves to identify Realistic Fiction led to weeding.  Weeding led to a big pile on my aide’s desk.  And both of us stayed longer than we originally intended on the last day of school.

The Realistic Fiction project was time consuming and not convenient.  The paperwork on my desk was untouched and I would return AFTER school was out, as usual, to finish that work.  But labeling the books is easiest just after inventory when they are all on the shelf!  And my aide and I both love a good job well done.  (As she is the one who shelves the books she was estatic about the space my weeding created.  I continue to be thankful for aides who get excited about labeling and weeding books!) 

But the best part of this Realistic Fiction labeling project?  It is DONE!

Resources on Realistic Fiction… in case you want to tackle this project in your library:

Varied overviews of realistic fiction as a genre: 

• http://www.southernct.edu/~brownm/Grea.html
• http://www.mindspring.com/~stct42/edu/cont_his.html

Resources for Realistic Fiction: http://www.kimskorner4teachertalk.com/readingliterature/genres/realistic/realisticfiction.htm

Examples/bibliographies of Realistic Fiction:

• http://www.monroe.lib.in.us/childrens/realbib.html
• http://www.literatureplace.com/bookfolios/info/core_realistic_fiction.asp

For a good overview on all genre definitions:  http://www.kent.k12.wa.us/staff/SusannaTaylor/genre_definitions.htm

Yet ANOTHER first novel!  (I’m going to have to create a category!)  A Crooked Kind of Perfect by Linda Urban is straight up good writing.  An excellent realistic fiction middler novel, at 211 small-sized pages it is not overwhelming.  Chapters are often only a page or two long, so the pace is fast.  Chapter titles such as “What’s Weird” followed by “What’s Really Weird” are kid-friendly.  The story is uncomplicated and humorous and POSITIVE! 

Urban is gifted at creating flawed characters for which the reader cannot help but be sympathetic.  The mathematical work-a-holic mother is often absent, but shows up when it counts.  The father is in charge of “domestic affairs”, has overwhelming apprehension when leaving the house, and seems to have “sucker” written in invisible ink on his forehead.  (The invisible ink is clearly seen by zealous salespeople!)  And Wheeler Diggs keeps following her home.

The narrator, eleven-year-old Zoe Ellis, has a dream to be a concert pianist (like Horowitz) and someday play Carnegie Hall.  But when her dad is suckered into buying an organ instead of a piano, her la-dee-da dreams instead go boompa-chucka, boompa-chucka on the Perfectone D-60.  But Zoe continually makes the best of things and ends up entered in the Perform-O-Rama.  But even this opportunity is complicated by her parents and their quirks…and Wheeler Diggs.

I think President Barack Obama would like Zoe.  She exemplifies the challenge he issued in his Jan. 20, 2009 Inaugural address. 

“What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.” 

Indeed it is Zoe’s optimistic, can-do attitude – her “all to a difficult task” - coupled with her quirky and humorous outlook that made the book enjoyable for this reader.  Zoe is a character with character – I shall happily recommend this to my students.  No book is perfect, but this is A Crooked Kind of Perfect!