Snotgirl Vol. 1

Snotgirl Vol. 1: Green Hair, Don’t Care

Bryan Lee O’Malley

2017, Image Comics

9781534300361

Graphic Novel, Fiction

snotgirlvol1

Reading Level: Not available

Interest Age: 14-17

Annotation: Lottie is famous on social media, but her life is less perfect than it seems.

Plot Summary: Lottie is a famous social media model who seems to have a perfect life. But everything is not what it seems. Her boyfriend dumped her and is now dating her old assistant. She doesn’t really care about any of her friends; they all just hang out to gossip. She finally met someone who she actually liked, and then something really strange happened when they hung out, but she can’t remember any of it. Worst of all, her allergies are so disgusting that people have started calling her Snotgirl.

Critical Evaluation: The art of this comic is really beautiful, but I think that’s the only thing about it that I liked. There was very little story to it. It was pretty shallow, which I feel might have been an attempt at satire but if it was, I don’t think it accomplished anything. Lottie is not a likable character, and her friends are even worse. There is something going on with the mystery of Lottie waking up in the bathroom with blood, but it is not only left unresolved, it seems to be completely forgotten after a point. I wonder whether it will be resolved in a future volume. I think that some teens may enjoy this, but there are other comics with equally good art that have much better stories.

Author Biographical Information: Bryan Lee O’Malley is a Canadian cartoonist. His first original graphic novel was Lost at Sea, and he best known for the six-volume Scott Pilgrim series. He is also a songwriter and musician. In 2005, O’Malley won the Doug Wright Award for Best Emerging Talent and was nominated for 3 Harvey Awards. In 2006, he was nominated for an Eisner Award for ‘Best Writer/Artist – Humour’, and won ‘Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Cartoonist (Writer/Artist)’ in the Joe Shuster Awards. He was also nominated for two Eagle Awards and for a second Doug Wright Award. (source: http://comicbookdb.com/creator.php?ID=2597)

Ties to Curriculum Units: none

Booktalking Ideas:

Talk about Lottie’s attitudes toward others

Challenge Issues: Violence, sexual themes

Challenge Defenses:

Mention awards the item has won or been nominated for
State the library’s collection development policy
Reference the ALA’s Library Bill of Rights
Provide rationale for the item being in the collection
As a last resort, offer the patron a “Request for Reconsideration” form

Scythe

Neal Shusterman

2016, Simon and Schuster

9781442472426

Science Fiction

scythe

Reading Level: 830L

Interest Age: 14-16+

Annotation: Citra and Rowan are apprentices to a Scythe, the only people who can take lives in a world that has cured death.

Plot Summary: In a world where all illnesses and injuries can be cured, death is almost nonexistent. In order to keep the population under control, there are people called Scythes who have the ability to take lives, and are required to kill a certain number of people. Scythes must take apprentices who they can train to take over their position. Citra and Rowan are chosen to be apprentices, and the council of Scythes think that the best way to handle this double-apprenticeship is to make it a competition. Whoever does the best job will become a Scythe, and their first official job will be to kill the other.

Critical Evaluation: The concept of this book is really strong. It is not the most scientifically sound premise, but I don’t think most YA science fiction books focus on the actual possibility of the science very much. Still, it is a great premise for a book. Citra is a strong character. think the author did a good job portraying the emotions that the Scythe felt, the guilt and conflict over killing, and the obsession over killing exactly the right amounts of the right people. Citra and Rowan are similarly conflicted and I think their emotions are also well portrayed. The actions of the scythes who like to kill are really disturbing, but in some way the killings by those who hate to kill are worse, because you know that they feel sad and guilty about what they have to do. While this book is not particularly hard to read, I think it requires a mature reader to understand the complex emotions and to process the disturbing material.

Author Biographical Information: Award-winning author Neal Shusterman grew up in Brooklyn, New York, where he began writing at an early age. Neal has made his mark as a successful novelist, screenwriter, and television writer. As a full-time writer, he claims to be his own hardest task-master, always at work creating new stories to tell. His books have received many awards from organizations such as the International Reading Association, and the American Library Association, as well as garnering a myriad of state and local awards across the country. (storyman.com)

Ties to Curriculum Units: none

Booktalking Ideas:

Discuss the different types of Scythes
Talk about the implications of the science in this society

Challenge Issues: Violence

Challenge Defenses:

Mention awards the item has won or been nominated for
State the library’s collection development policy
Reference the ALA’s Library Bill of Rights
Provide rationale for the item being in the collection
As a last resort, offer the patron a “Request for Reconsideration” form

The Summer I Wasn’t Me

Jessica Verdi

2014, Sourcebooks Fire

9781402277887

Fiction

thesummeriwasn't

Reading Level: HL730L

Interest Age: 13-17

Annotation: When Lexi’s mom finds out that she likes girls, she sends her to a camp intended to change her.

Plot Summary: After Lexi’s mom reads her journal and finds out about her feelings toward other girls, she sends Lexi to a camp designed to help her stop being gay. Lexi is determined to make her mom happy by changing, but she realizes after a time that she can’t change who she is, and she becomes more focused on getting through camp safely.

Critical Evaluation: There are some really good things about this book. I think the setting is an important thing to write about. These kinds of camps are incredibly damaging, and I think the book does a good job of portraying that. However, there are also things that I thought were not covered well enough. The sexual abuse by the camp director is not necessarily something that I thought should have been removed from the book, but I don’t think it was fully explored. It might leave some readers with a lot of questions and even misconceptions. The boys he abused likely experienced a lot of trauma, and that wasn’t really addressed. The exorcism scene was very disturbing, but it feels like Matthew gets over the emotional trauma pretty quickly even though he is left with physical injuries. Carolyn was kind of a flat character, and her reason for being at the camp didn’t seem realistic to me at all. Lexi was a pretty strong character, but some of her friends were also a little flat, though I felt that Carolyn was the worst. I think this book is important, but it’s not the best book on the subject. Luckily, there are other options for readers looking for portrayals of religious oppression of gay people.

Author Biographical Information: Jessica Verdi is an author of young adult novels about identity, family, acceptance, and love. Jess received her MFA in Writing for Children from The New School and is a Senior Editor at a “big five” romance novel publisher. She lives in Brooklyn, NY with her partner Paul and dogs Billie and Gloria. (source: Jessicaverdi.com)

Ties to Curriculum Units: none

Booktalking Ideas:

Talk about Lexi’s journey to acceptance

Challenge Issues: LGBTQ themes, violence, profanity, sexual themes

Challenge Defenses:

Mention awards the item has won or been nominated for
State the library’s collection development policy
Reference the ALA’s Library Bill of Rights
Provide rationale for the item being in the collection
As a last resort, offer the patron a “Request for Reconsideration” form

Mean Girls

Written by Tina Fey

Directed by Mark Waters

2004, M.G. Films

Movie, Fiction

mean girls

Interest Age: 13-17+

Annotation: When Cady starts public school for the first time, she soon becomes part of the Plastics, the group of popular mean girls.

Plot Summary: 16-year-old Cady and her family return to the United States after her parents’ 12-year research trip in Africa. Cady is attending an American public school for the first time. She quickly becomes friends with Janis and Damian, who are outcasts but immediately accept her. Soon, the group of popular girls, known as the Plastics, take interest in Cady. She is not initially interested in hanging out with them, but Janis and Damian encourage her to spend time with them in order to spy on them and get revenge on the leader, Regina. Cady gets sucked into the world of the Plastics and starts to act like them without even trying to, and her friendship with Janis and Damian, as well as her grades, start to suffer.

Critical Evaluation: I think this movie is a great look at an extreme version of high school clique culture. It is almost satire, but I’m not sure if it quite achieves that—it’s more like caricature. Still, it’s important that the viewers understand this is not meant to be a literal representation. It is obvious to me, but it might not be to some. I think this movie could be effectively used in a classroom curriculum, with discussions about how it is exaggerated. One great thing about this movie is that no one is entirely good or entirely evil. Everyone has flaws, but everyone also has elements that you can feel sympathetic about. The adults in this movie are mostly useless, so the teens are forced to solve their problems with minimal help. I think that is inspiring to teens, because no matter how helpful adults are, I think they prefer to solve their own problems when they can. In general this movie has a great message, especially since the cliques are largely dissolved by the end of the movie.

Author Biographical Information: Tina Fey is an American actress, comedian, writer and producer born on May 18, 1970, in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania. She broke through in 1995 on Saturday Night Live as a writer and actress. Since leaving the show, Fey has written hit movies, written and starred in the Emmy Award-winning television series 30 Rock, and is the creator of the Netflix hit, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. (source: https://www.biography.com/people/tina-fey-365284)

Ties to Curriculum Units: Bullying awareness

Booktalking Ideas:

Discuss how Cady gets sucked into the “Plastic” way of thinking
Compare the cliques at the beginning of the movie to how they are at the end

Challenge Issues: LGBTQ characters, profanity, sexual themes, underage drinking, violence

Challenge Defenses:

Mention awards the item has won or been nominated for
State the library’s collection development policy
Reference the ALA’s Library Bill of Rights
Provide rationale for the item being in the collection
As a last resort, offer the patron a “Request for Reconsideration” form