To Dance - for Tween Tuesday

Tween Tuesday was started over at Green Bean Teen Queen as away to highlight awesome books for the 9-12 yr olds or Tweens. Any book highlighted on Tween Tuesday also counts for the In the Middle Reading Challenge!* This week's book is:

Siegel, Siena Cherson. To Dance: A Ballerina's Graphic Novel. Illustrations by Mark Siegel. New York: Aladdin Paperbacks - Simon & Schuster, 2006. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/1604483]

Awards:
NPR's Complete Holiday Book Recommendations (2006)
School Library Journal Best Book of the Year (2006)
ALA Great Graphic Novels for Teens (2007)
ALA Notable Children's Book (2007)
Booklist's Top 10 Graphic Novels for Youth (2007)
Sibert Honor (2007)

Booktalk:

Big empty spaces always made me dance. A long hallway or a parking lot just begged for dance ... like it wanted to be filled ... and I wanted to put dance in it.

(unpaged)

So young Siena decides, like so many others, that she wants to be a ballerina. And then, for a time, she is.

Review:
To Dance tells the familiar story of a young girl, in this case Siena when she was a child, who wants to grow up to be a ballerina. She starts ballet lessons, shows a real talent, and makes it to New York City where she trains in a feeder school for a big ballet company, in this case New York City Ballet’s School of American Ballet, where she is discovered. Mark Siegel’s illustrations allow the reader to share in Siena’s wonder and sometimes confusion with this whole new world in which she finds herself. He is also a kind of translator for the “uninitiated” in ballet lore and jargon, providing illustrations and examples of being en pointe and or dancing a pas de deux to name a few. For this reason, the format of the graphic novel works very well here. It elevates the reading level beyond that of a picture book without wordy explanations that detract from the story. Those who are more familiar with ballet will find the illustrations amusing and beautiful with gorgeous renditions of the varying levels of ballet classes and some “cameo appearances” of the big names of the New York City Ballet in the 1970’s to early 1980’s.

This basic story has been told many times. Two examples that jump out from my reading history are Ballerina Dreams, an easy reader by New York City Ballet’s Diana White and Gelsey Kirkland’s only-for-grown-ups memoir, Dancing on My Grave. The big difference between these books and To Dance, aside from format, is that even those well-versed in the recent and current ballet world will not recognize the name Siena Cherson Siegel; she is not a ballerina. As chronicled in this graphic novel, Siegel dances in a few performances with the New York City Ballet in pre-professional roles, but then goes on to attend college at Brown and dance for her own enjoyment rather than dance professionally. The ending to this story is very rarely told, though much more common. To Dance emphasizes how dance can mold one’s life while at the same time, showing how Siena takes the time to be a “normal” kid as well as positively showing her choice not to dance professionally. By sharing her story in To Dance, Siegel is affirming anyone who wants to use anything that they are talented at or simply enjoy as a hobby, an enjoyment, rather than a career choice. For this reason, along with the beauty of the illustrations and Siegel’s writing, I highly recommend this book.


Book source: Birthday present, years ago, from Nanna. :)

*Except that I'm not counting this one, as it's a re-read. I'm posting this review so that I'll have a complete list of reviews for my Unsung YA Heroes post.

auf Wiedersehen

Ocker, Christa Holder. auf Wiedersehen: World War II Through the Eyes of a German Girl. Austin, TX: Plain View Press, 2009. Print.

[Book cover credit: amazon.com/auf-Wiedersehen-Christa-Holder-Ocker/dp/193551427X/]


Booktalk:

Caught in a battle between good and evil, we children of the Nazi generation - children of fathers who sang with zest "Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles" while doing the devil's work, children of mothers who stood by powerless to stop the evil from raging, children ignorant of other children condemned to gas - played and laughed and formed a strong bond. A bond broken the day we said auf Wiedersehen."

p65

Review:
This slim memoir chronicles the years between Christa's family's evacuation before the advancing Red Army towards the end of WWII and their immigration to New Jersey. During this time, Christa, her sister, her parents, and, at times, her aunt and cousins, must pick up and move at a moment's notice on multiple occasions. Christa, who is an outgoing 7 year old at the opening of this memoir, makes many friends as she goes along: a horse named Lottie, an American soldier who gives her Hershey bars, the once-cranky owner of the villa where she and her family were placed during the evacuation, and the multitude of children who are also in some state of homelessness like she is. Every time her family moves, she must say goodbye, auf Wiedersehen, to her friends. It is hard enough, even with the help of the Red Cross, to keep track of family members during this upheaval. Christa is under no illusions that she will ever see any of these friends again.

Still, this is an uplifting memoir about how, even in the depths of war, life goes on. Christa and her friends play, put on puppet shows, and generally make do. The horrors of WWII are not kept out of this book, but they are kept out of the children's consciousness. Overheard conversations covering everything from the atrocities of the SS to how Christa's friend Gunter managed to get a little brother even though she wished for one more are present, but not understood by Christa. Readers will know what is going on, how it is affecting the lives of adults, and how much trouble they go to in order to keep the worst of it from their children.

This was published as an adult book, but I could definitely see even young teens reading it as part of a WWII or memoir unit. Content wise, auf Widersehen shows a lot less of the atrocities than current populars for young adults dealing with this subject matter, The Book Thief and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, and it is a very un-prohibitive 142 pages short.


Book source: Provided by publisher for review

hole in my life

Gantos, Jack. Hole in my Life. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002.

[Book cover credit: www.librarything.com]

Awards:
American Library Association Notable Children's Book (2003)
Sibert Honor (2003)
ALA Best Books for Young Adults (2003)

Massachusetts Book Award - Children/Young Adult (2003)

A Horn Book FanFare Best Book (2002)

Summary:
Jack Gantos started living on his own and making his own decisions, for better or worse, before graduating high school. He lives in his own world of literary splendor, physical squalor, and weed induced fascination/boredom with it all. To make money, Jack takes a job sailing a boat full of marijuana to New York City, where he is caught by federal agents. He recounts his trial, stay in prison, and how both change his lifelong dream to become a writer.
Review:
With the mugshot on the front and all they hype about this being a "prison memoir," readers may be a bit mislead. While Gantos does indeed talk about his unique prison experience, that is not the content that makes up the bulk of this book. Because the reader knows that a stint in prison is in store for Gantos, he uses it as the shadow that darkens everything leading up to his capture by federal agents. This leaves the reader feeling that this path was completely inevitable, rather than something that happened to Gantos because of a series of choices he himself made.
With an essentially uplifting ending, Hole in my Life fails to give the reader a true look into Gantos' life experiences or mind. His extended use of literary allusions a wide variety of sources keeps the reader either in the dark or on a goose chase looking for Gantos' meaning in other people's work. The overall effect is that of a watered down version of a story we have all already heard, with a large dose of "if I only knew then" on the side.