A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, By Ishmael Beah

When my dad was in school, Vietnam was the conflict that had many people the world over calling for attention to the abuse of human rights. This was around the same time that many previously uncovered (in the United States media) events in Africa began boiling over, including the conflict in Sierra Leone. Of course, right now, the world conflicts that are garnering attention from human rights groups throughout post-industrial nations include what's happening in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the Darfur region of Sudan, and the civil war in Sierra Leone, among many others.

There are many books out there now in ya and children's literature circles about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the catalog of books is ever increasing. Darfur has moved to the forefront for many who decry what is happening throughout Sudan. A great book that discusses and showcases the human side of the events in Sudan (not necessarily Darfur) is called What is the What, written by Dave Eggers telling the true story of Valentino Achak Deng, a Sudanese refugee. Of course, this book is clearly written for adults, it is quite dense, and would be very cumbersome to read in a high school classroom, so I wouldn't recommend it.

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, written by and about Ishmael Beah, a boy soldier from Sierra Leone, is a book that is sized just right for the young adult audience. Content wise, this book is gritty and disturbing, as Beah takes us through his horrible experience of fleeing the rebels after the presumed death of his family, and hiding alone, as a child, in the jungles of Sierra Leone. He is eventually found and turned into a boy soldier, capable of ruthless genocide.

This story disturbed many adults in my reading group to the point that they could not finish the book, yet I was looking at this text as a resource to be used in an 11th or 12th grade literature class. As a non-fiction story (which we don't use often enough), a clear picture is painted here of genocide in our time. This isn't reading about the Holocaust and saying "wow, we must learn from those mistakes," because these things in Africa are happening right now.

First of all, this book is bloody, it is gritty, it is disturbing. It was written for the ya audience, and it is not any less appropriate for them than reading Maus (Art Spiegelman) or showing videos about the Darfur crisis. It's not a long book, which makes it a good two or three week long read, and the discussion that will surely take place upon completion of the book will go in many different directions, including morality, regaining humanity, and the place of an American in this crisis.

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy: Possible Young Adult Literature

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, was not written for high school students, it is an adult book. However, its content, as well as the way the story is told, is appropriate for high school and undergraduate college students alike. The Road is a post-apocalyptic story of the survival of a man and his son is told through very roughly formatted text, but in beautiful fashion. McCarthy, the author of No Country For Old Men (which is definitely NOT appropriate for school reading of any age), has struck a chord with this book among both science fiction and literary circles alike.

This book forces one to ask, can science fiction be heralded as a work of classic literature, or if this book even qualifies as science fiction. I wanted to originally classify this book as a dystopia themed one, much like 1984, A Brave New World, and such post-apocalyptic tales as The Planet of the Apes, I Am Legend, and Earth Abides, books that have all found their way into high school classrooms at one time or another. However, after reading it, I found that it fit with none of these books, although I was able to make connections that I found fit. This book defies classification in a clearly defined sub-genre, but is most definitely a work of science fiction and of the highest form of literary art, in my opinion.

This story involves no brutal murder, blood and guts, or even adult situations (other than the ongoing topic of death and suicide, which is not an uncommon theme in works of adult literature, especially such dark tales as this one). I can see high school juniors or seniors, as well as college undergraduates, delving deep into the possibilities of this book, including the origins of the apocalypse that took place, the relationship and goals of the man and boy, and the meaning of this story as a whole.

The prose of the book is especially interesting. McCarthy is known for his interesting style, and this book is no exception. The stripped down writing, with its incomplete punctuation, sometimes erratic structure, and bare bones dialogue are almost poetic at times, but on a deeper level, are a part of the story itself. When the man and boy are on the brink of despair and starvation, the grammatical structure of the story begins to thin, but when they are in higher spirits, it reads more like a novel (which isn't much). I think this would be an intriguing idea to show to students to let them think about on their own, it certainly interested me.

I am writing about this book in part because I thought it was of stunning beauty. It was a work of art, and engrossed me in every conceivable way. Its content is not inappropriate for high school students, and its vocabulary is not beyond 17 and 18 year olds. I recommend teachers take a closer look at this book, both for its value as a true masterpiece, and for its value in the classroom. Hopefully someone sees this and runs with this book. If I taught senior English/Composition, I definitely would.

I would draw possible parallels in the young adult and pre-adolescent literary worlds to this book through the following two books:

Life As We Knew It, by Susan Beth Pfeffer - The story of a girl and her family struggling to survive after a massive meteor strikes the moon, knocking it out of its gentle balance with the earth, causing apocalyptic events (ages 10-14). See my review of Life As We Knew It.

The City of Ember, by Jeanne DuPrau - Some sort of unnamed apocalypse occurs, and a group of people are taken to safety in The City of Ember. This story is one of survival through dark circumstances, but is told in a fashion that is appropriate for children (ages 8-12). See my review of The City of Ember.

Fahrenheit 451: A Young Adult Book Review

Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 stands as one of the masterpieces of the 20th century, and for good reason. This book, originally published in its complete form in 1953, can easily be compared to books like George Orwell's 1984, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, the works of Ayn Rand, and, for those of you in the intermediate and middle school grade levels, Lois Lowry's The Giver. This book is so widely loved that it's an often read piece in high school, college, and by adults, who see in it parallels between the politics of book burning and dominating the lives of people and the world we live in now (similar things can also be said about the other dystopic books listed here).

Now, if you're not familiar, dystopia themed literature is about a future in which the world has gone wrong. They often closely resemble, and are sometimes even mistaken for, utopia themed books. The Giver is a book that, in the beginning seems to be a perfect world, but as the curtains are pulled back, society is actually quite appalling and horrific, making it dystopic.

Guy Montag is the protagonist of Fahrenheit 451. He's a man who holds a position of respect in society, he is a fireman. He does not fight fires, he starts them, he burns books. Imagine a fireman carrying a fire hose, but the phrases are both literal, firemen who start fires with hoses that spray fire. Guy is drawn into the world of books, and begins stealing some away. His wife, in the meantime, has become a mindless watcher of TV sitting in the TV parlor watching shows all day in which she interacts with the actors and actresses in a futuristic artificial intelligence.

Early in the book, Guy runs across Clarisse, a sharp witted, free thinking teenager who often wanders around instead of going to school. When Guy asks her why she doesn't go to school, she responds by saying (I will paraphrase this quote to include some of the more poignant parts): "Social to me means talking to you about things like this... or talking about how strange the world is... But I don't think it's social to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk... we never ask questions, or at least most don't; they just run the answers at you."

In the very same paragraph as the above listed quote, Clarisse makes a quote that can basically sum up education in this future, and, if you're cynical enough, in America. She says: "It's a lot of funnels and a lot of water poured down the spout and out the bottom, and them telling us it's wine when it's not."

This book is a timeless masterpiece that can be enjoyed by a sharp minded 15 year old, and anyone older. I recommend this book for a junior or senior level English class, and even then, only with AP students. Use it with students who will look deeper and make those parallels between the book and society, both in the 1950's and now. I also see this book as a great read in a college undergraduate English class or as part of a survey of dystopia themed or politically charged literature. It would work great alongside the other books I listed at the beginning of this article.

The Adult Literacy Experience in the High School Classroom

When I say adult literacy, I guess I could also be talking about college level literacy, because often times, the literature used is more on the adult edge than anything else (although I encountered a number of books that I now consider to be young adult literature in undergraduate level courses).

The most enjoyable college literature courses for me were always the special topics courses. The way I believe it works at NMSU is there is a course called ENGL 211, which is basically books across a topic chosen by the instructor. When I took it, we read science fiction by female authors (you know, Frankenstein and stuff like that). I like the idea of forming a class around a genre, or a very specific topic, and moving forward from there.

For example, I have been a fan of dystopia (the opposite of utopia) themed literature. Books like 1984, A Brave New World, and even down into children's books like The Giver and The City of Ember. Imagine in a high school lit/comp class, instead of reading books like Wuthering Heights and Lord of the Flies (both classics in their own rights, but ultimately books I never felt a connection with as a 17 year old high school student), surveying the class (or even making the decision yourself, as a teacher), and reading books across that specific theme that's chosen. I would have been reading day and night if my senior English class was themed around zombie literature (OK, too much of a stretch?) or even historic fiction out of a certain period, say the Civil War or World War II.

Basically, look at it this way. As a teacher, what are your interests? You'd be surprised how just showing what you're interested in, letting your passion for that subject come to the surface, and sharing your knowledge can change the way students think about that topic. I'm quite interested in World War II and am passionate about some of the books I choose to read to my 5th graders, and many, if not most of my students end up sharing that passion and interest. It's just a continuing step in taking back the field of education, throwing down the test preparation materials, and doing what we should have been doing all along, teaching with passion and interest, teaching students to really learn about the world instead of teaching them to fill in bubbles on a test sheet.