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aristotle and dante discover the secrets of the universe
aristotle and dante discover the secrets of the universe
Benjamin Alire Saenz
Benjamin Alire Saenz
"Another secret of the universe: Sometimes pain was like a storm that came out of nowhere. The clearest summer morning could end in a downpour. Could end in lightning and thunder."
"Another secret of the universe: Sometimes pain was like a storm that came out of nowhere. The clearest summer morning could end in a downpour. Could end in lightning and thunder."
Aristotle is an introverted, frustrated teen, living in New Mexico with his parents. Without many friends, and with all of his older siblings already grown up, he feels pretty lonely. While he gets along with his mother, his father, a Vietnam veteran, is taciturn and hard to connect with, and their family never talks about Ari’s older brother, who is in jail, but whom Ari wants to know more about. At the public pool where Ari goes swimming to forget his troubles, he meets Dante, who offers to teach Ari how to swim better. Dante is an intellectual, poetic sort of young man, unlike anyone Aristotle has ever met. They become best friends, eventually forging an unbreakable bond and learning through their relationship who they really are--and what they really love--the secrets of the universe. Driving out to the desert in his red pickup truck, dancing in the rain, building a relationship with Dante and connecting more closely with his mother and father, Aristotle learns the most important secret of all.
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Simon & Schuster Stonewall Book Award (2013)
Book trailer by Emily Yates
If you come softly
If you come softly
Jacqueline Woodson
Jacqueline Woodson
If you come as softly
as the wind within the trees
You may hear what I hear
See what sorrow sees
--Audre Lorde
If you come as softly
as the wind within the trees
You may hear what I hear
See what sorrow sees
--Audre Lorde
Ellie (Elisha) is white, a Jewish girl dealing with some difficult family history, and it's her first year at Percy Academy. Miah (Jeremiah) is Black, the son of a famous film director and one of the few Black students at Percy. Crashing into one another in the hallway that first day at their new school, Ellie and Miah feel something they have never felt before. In spite of the obstacles, they end up taking a chance with one another, fighting against the odds for their newly blossoming relationship. Woodson paints their story in deft water-color style, tenderly presaging the tragic forces that threaten the delicate and sweet love between a Black boy and a white girl.
Goodreads Reviews Woodson's description of the novel
An ALA Best Book for Young Adults (1999)
Jacqueline Woodson discusses If You Come Softly with a caller on
C-SPAN
"If You Come Softly" by Audre Lorde
On the come up
On the come up
Angie Thomas
Angie Thomas
"You'll never silence me and you'll never kill my dreams. Just recognize when you say brilliant that you're also saying Bri."
"You'll never silence me and you'll never kill my dreams. Just recognize when you say brilliant that you're also saying Bri."
Bri has a native talent for laying down hip-hop rhymes and creating the catchy rap riffs that go viral in her neighborhood. It’s her dream to be like her late dad--to transcend the local battle ring and get a recording deal. With her mom falling on hard times, bills coming due, and not enough to eat in the house, she feels pressured more than ever to make it big. Facing racial injustice at her school, the dangers coming from her late father’s enemies, the need to make money being pitted against the need to rap authentically, and the troubles that attend just being a teen, she must overcome some very serious obstacles to make her dream a reality. On the Come Up, Angie Thomas’s follow-up to her breakout debut The Hate U Give, treats readers to more than just a story. In it, readers will come to understand the world that Bri inhabits and root for her and her family and friends to make that world a place where people can speak, true and free.
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Regarding Film Development of On the Come Up
Angie Thomas raps lines from On the Come Up (Must Watch/Listen!)
Angie Thomas discusses On the Come Up
Jackpot
Jackpot
Nic Stone
Nic Stone
"Forgive the interruption, dear reader, but I'll have you know this is going to be an adventure for me, too." --the Winning Ticket
"Forgive the interruption, dear reader, but I'll have you know this is going to be an adventure for me, too." --the Winning Ticket
Rico is a high school senior who works at the local Gas 'n' Go, a teen who's put her dreams on permanent delay to earn money to help her mom keep up with non-stop bills and take care of her little brother. It's Christmas Eve, and Rico sells what may be the winning ticket for a $212 million jackpot. When no one comes to claim the prize, Rico sees a chance to free herself, her little brother, and her mom from the desperate financial straits they're in, and she sets her sights on the richest white boy at her school to help track the winner down. Together, Rico and Zan embark on a wild sleuthing adventure in search of the ticket. They end up finding each other, and so much more. But will the money come between them? Nic Stone's talents for plotting classic romantic comedy shine in this story of collaboration--and possible calamity--between the rich and the poor (with cameos by a receipt, a wallet, a wish list, some $100 bills, a taxi cab, some high thread count sheets, and a winning lottery ticket).
Book trailer by Get Underlined
Naya Reads and Smiles Preview Jackpot (Delightful!)
Looking for Alaska
Looking for Alaska
John Green
John Green
"...and I leaned in toward her, suddenly overwhelmed with the feeling that we must kiss, that we ought to kiss right now on the dusty orange couch with its cigarette burns and its decades of collected dust."
"...and I leaned in toward her, suddenly overwhelmed with the feeling that we must kiss, that we ought to kiss right now on the dusty orange couch with its cigarette burns and its decades of collected dust."
When his father asks Miles why he has decided to attend Culver Creek Boarding School for high school, Miles replies, “So this guy...Francois Rebelais. He was this poet. And his last words were ‘I go to seek a Great Perhaps.’ That’s why I’m going. So I don’t have to wait until I die to start seeking the Great Perhaps.” Driven by this desire for the excitement of a mysterious unfolding (ideally to be pursued with close friends made along the way) Miles lands at Culver Creek. Bonding with his roommate the Colonel, he is soon nicknamed Pudge, and gets in with a small group of friends including Takumi, Lara, and the titular character, Alaska Young. As soon as Miles meets Alaska, he is smitten. She is brash and bold and wild, and he and she and their group of friends find plenty of ways to make mischief together, playing pranks on the hated “Weekday Warriors” (rich students who don’t live on campus), smoking, drinking, and drumming up in-group drama--albeit of a rather understated variety. Throughout these adventures, Miles observes everything he can about Alaska, and the two grow closer. But naturally, something very serious arises which turns Miles’s pursuit of the Great Perhaps into a genuine moral dilemma and introduction to grief--”a labyrinth of suffering” which Miles and his friends must find a way through.
Goodreads Reviews Common Sense Media Review
A Michael J. Printz Award Winner (2006)
John Green interviews the cast of the Hulu production of Looking for Alaska (Charming and fun!)
Book trailer by Bailey Smyre
Punkzilla
Punkzilla
Adam Rapp
Adam Rapp
"I mean these are serious problems P! Serious serious problems and issues and they make me feel like I'm on meth again even though I am definitely not. Meth is about the last thing I want to be on right now but I do wish I had some of my medication because I'm having trouble focusing P focusing on anything right now is so hard so I decided to write to you again because it's the only thing that makes me feel better."
"I mean these are serious problems P! Serious serious problems and issues and they make me feel like I'm on meth again even though I am definitely not. Meth is about the last thing I want to be on right now but I do wish I had some of my medication because I'm having trouble focusing P focusing on anything right now is so hard so I decided to write to you again because it's the only thing that makes me feel better."
Adam Rapp has created an authentic and gritty, poignant and bold epistolary work in Punkzilla. The novel's main character, fourteen-year-old Jaime, aka Punkzilla, is a run-away, having gone AWOL from the hated military academy his parents had forced him to attend. He is heading from Portland, by Greyhound and by hitchhiking and by however else he can get there, to his dying older brother, Peter, in Memphis. Along the way, Jaime recounts his adventures and his inimitable observations of the people he's hung with, of those who harm him and who help him in a series of letters to Peter, or "P." Rapp holds nothing back in this Michael J. Printz Honor winner. It's an important work of realism, but many would probably agree it's pretty graphic in its depictions of crime, drugs, assault, and sex, and thus geared toward older teens, although Publisher's Weekly says it for 14 and up.
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A Michael J. Printz Honor Book (2010)
Book talk by Just Steve's Channel
Book trailer by Becky Standal
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