Module 7 * Realistic Fiction * Feb. 24- Mar. 2

The Fault in Our Stars

by
John Green

Bibliography: Green, J. (2012). The fault in our stars. New York, NY:Dutton Books.

Summary: Augustus and Hazel meet at a support group for kids with cancer.  They are both equally sarcastic and unconventional (to the group leader and other adults at least) in their thoughts toward the group, the process and the disease.  Hazel is living with cancer that medication has stopped the progression of and Augustus is in remission.  The two have a funny, sarcastic, quirky way between them and their eye-cancer friend Isaac.  The things they discuss are deep and difficult related to living with and dying from cancer, but the way they discuss them is so frank, honest and wholesomely sarcastic that it becomes palatable to the reader, once you get used to it.  They also share a love for a high-brow, fictional book written by a pretentious American who now lives in Sweden.  Augustus uses his "wish" to take Hazel to meet him and the mess created with that visit spills over into life in America.  Once Hazel allows herself to fall in love with Augustus and quit worrying about being the time bomb in his life, fate steps in and reverses that worry.  Augustus' cancer returns with a vengeance and Hazel must face life without him.

My Take: I love this book.  It touched me and made me think.  It made me laugh and cry, sometimes in the same sentence.  It broke my heart, for Hazel and as a parent, when Augustus died.  The storyline that has to do with the Swedish author was so odd, but it really gave you insight into both characters.  I can't wait to see the movie that comes out in June based on this book!  

Reviews:

At 16, Hazel Grace Lancaster, a three-year stage IV–cancer survivor, is clinically depressed. To help her deal with this, her doctor sends her to a weekly support group where she meets Augustus Waters, a fellow cancer survivor, and the two fall in love. Both kids are preternaturally intelligent, and Hazel is fascinated with a novel about cancer called An Imperial Affliction. Most particularly, she longs to know what happened to its characters after an ambiguous ending. To find out, the enterprising Augustus makes it possible for them to travel to Amsterdam, where Imperial’s author, an expatriate American, lives. What happens when they meet him must be left to readers to discover. Suffice it to say, it is significant. Writing about kids with cancer is an invitation to sentimentality and pathos—or worse, in unskilled hands, bathos. Happily, Green is able to transcend such pitfalls in his best and most ambitious novel to date. Beautifully conceived and executed, this story artfully examines the largest possible considerations—life, love, and death—with sensitivity, intelligence, honesty, and integrity. In the process, Green shows his readers what it is like to live with cancer, sometimes no more than a breath or a heartbeat away from death. But it is life that Green spiritedly celebrates here, even while acknowledging its pain. In its every aspect, this novel is a triumph.

HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Green’s promotional genius is a force of nature. After announcing he would sign all 150,000 copies of this title’s first print run, it shot to the top of Amazon and Barnes & Noble’s best-seller lists six months before publication. 

Cart, M. (2012). The Fault in Our Stars [Review of the book The Fault in Our Stars by J. Green].  

Booklist Online, January 1, 2012. 

He's in remission from the osteo-sarcoma that took one of his legs. She's fighting the brown fluid in her lungs caused by tumors. Both know that their time is limited.

Sparks fly when Hazel Grace Lancaster spies Augustus "Gus" Waters checking her out across the room in a group-therapy session for teens living with cancer. He's a gorgeous, confident, intelligent amputee who always loses video games because he tries to save everyone. She's smart, snarky and 16; she goes to community college and jokingly calls Peter Van Houten, the author of her favorite book, An Imperial Affliction, her only friend besides her parents. He asks her over, and they swap novels. He agrees to read the Van Houten and she agrees to read his-based on his favorite bloodbath-filled video game. The two become connected at the hip, and what follows is a smartly crafted intellectual explosion of a romance. From their trip to Amsterdam to meet the reclusive Van Houten to their hilariously flirty repartee, readers will swoon on nearly every page. Green's signature style shines: His carefully structured dialogue and razor-sharp characters brim with genuine intellect, humor and desire. He takes on Big Questions that might feel heavy-handed in the words of any other author: What do oblivion and living mean? Then he deftly parries them with humor: "My nostalgia is so extreme that I am capable of missing a swing my butt never actually touched." Dog-earing of pages will no doubt ensue.

Green seamlessly bridges the gap between the present and the existential, and readers will need more than one box of tissues to make it through Hazel and Gus' poignant journey. (Fiction. 15 & up)

The Fault of Our Stars [Review of the book The Fault in Our Stars by J. Green] 
Kirkus Reviews. (2012) p. 59. 

Use in a school library: In a Middle School or High School Library (or a YA program in a public library) it would be fun to use this book in a book vs. movie study.  Perhaps as a summer program?  Read the book, then watch the movie from the book and compare through discussion.  The kids could do a secret ballot vote for which they prefer- book or movie.  The results could be posted at the end of the program or of that book study.

Wonder

by

R.J. Palacio

Bibliography: Palacio, R.J. (2012). Wonder. New York, NY:Alfred A. Knopf.

Summary: Auggie is a kid who has facial deformities but other than that is just like anyone else.  He is finally well enough and done with surgeries and can go to a real school.  He is worried about how kids will react to his strange looks and sounds.  He finds some friends right away but has to show his courage against outsiders to win others over.  He is smart, lovable and friendly- and most see that by the end. The story is told not just from Auggie's perspective but from his sister's and friends' points of view as well.

My Take: This is a sweet story that proves to us that it is what is inside that counts.  I love that Palacio shows us what life is like for those in Auggies' family and friends circle and how his struggles effect them as well.  It is a thorough and eye-opening look into life with a physical deformity and the ending makes you smile.  

Reviews:
A poignant and remarkable first novel that will grab your attention and your heart from the first page. Auggie Pullman was born with facial deformities that make quite noticeable to others. Until now, his medical problems have required him to be home-schooled. This year his parents have enrolled him in a private school where Auggie must learn to navigate not only the complexities of middle school life, but also the difficulties that come with his appearance. Told in several voices, Wonder will make readers re-examine their own attitudes about people who are different. 

Wonder. (review) (2012). Reading Today, 29(6), 41.

After being home-schooled for years, Auggie Pullman is about to start fifth grade, but he's worried: How will he fit into middle school life when he looks so different from everyone else?

Auggie has had 27 surgeries to correct facial anomalies he was born with, but he still has a face that has earned him such cruel nicknames as Freak, Freddy Krueger, Gross-out and Lizard face. Though "his features look like they've been melted, like the drippings on a candle" and he's used to people averting their eyes when they see him, he's an engaging boy who feels pretty ordinary inside. He's smart, funny, kind and brave, but his father says that having Auggie attend Beecher Prep would be like sending "a lamb to the slaughter." Palacio divides the novel into eight parts, interspersing Auggie's first-person narrative with the voices of family members and classmates, wisely expanding the story beyond Auggie's viewpoint and demonstrating that Auggie's arrival at school doesn't test only him, it affects everyone in the community. Auggie may be finding his place in the world, but that world must find a way to make room for him, too.

A memorable story of kindness, courage and wonder. (Fiction. 8-14)

Wonder. (review) (20120.  Kirkus Reviews. 11/15/2012 Best Fiction & Children's Books, 73.

Use in a school library: 
This book would be perfect to read aloud to classes that have some inclusion Special Ed kids join them for part of the day.  It teaches you that it doesn't matter what people look like or what disabilities they may have, but what their character is like- and what yours is like when you are with them- that counts.  After reading it, kids could discuss the character traits of Auggie and the other students and create a Venn Diagram or double bubble map to show how they are alike and different.  They could also create a Wanted poster for a good friend for Auggie and the traits they should possess.