Module 6-Fiction and Poetry/LS 5663-20

Fiction-John,Antony. Five Flavors of Dumb. Dial Books, 2011. ISBN 9780803734333
Poetry-Nye,Naomi S.. Time you let me in. Greenwillow Books, 2010. ISBN 9780061896378
Teens face many hardships and will encounter new struggles daily. The book that I have chosen to review is one of the winners for the Schneider Family Book Award. This award is given to honor an author or illustrator for a book that embodies the artistic impression of the disability experience for a child or an adolescent. The book that I have chosen to review is called Five Flavors of Dumb. It is the Teen 2011 Winner of the Schneider Family Book Award.
The story introduces us to the character of Piper, who daily faces life as a deaf teenager. Through a bizarre set of circumstances and a bit of a dare, she becomes the manager of a group of budding musicians from her high school. All of Piper’s efforts to improve the band and have them be taken seriously are constant being undermine by the lead singer and his would be girlfriend, who is brought into the band to be used as eye candy. As a deaf person in a world that tends to focus only on the negative aspects, she longs to stand out and be known as something other than a deaf girl among her friends and her family. She overcomes many prejudices and stereotypes by working with the band, and throughout the book discovers the importance of family and true friendship.
The book of the poetry that will correlate with this book is called Time you let me in. It is a collection of poems by poets under the age of twenty-five. Each of the poems in this book gives an insight into their lives and their profound life-altering words. The following poem is one that I feel explains the transformation that the character, Piper, goes through.
Rootless
Like a net my fingers skim
Tap water, cleaning mung beans
Sprouts
The way you showed me.
From my palm I find the whole
Ones, fetal curvatures with scalps
Blossoming on tiny yellowed skulls.
My nail bisects the vertebrae
From primordial tail, roots
Cast away in the sink.
Though I never learned
The purpose , it’s a habit that remind
Me
Of a time that you let me in.
I feel that this poem represents breaking lives into different pieces. As a matter of protection and privacy, teenagers notoriously do not always let many into their very personal thoughts and feelings. As a way of protecting themselves, others are often alienated. When layers of sharing are dissected and opened up, a deeper understanding is achieved. Each of the poems included in this book help to reinforce the purpose of allowing young poets to share what they are feeling without fear of rejection. Each of the poems can be appreciated and understood by those who allow themselves to absorb the words. Many of the experiences that are being written about are familiar to readers and could serve as a healing experience.
I would use both of these books when working with middle school or high school students. Both of these books would be very beneficial when encouraging students to share their feelings through writing either poetry or prose. I would use the poem as a catalyst to encourage adolescents to share about areas of the life that others may not know about.