YA Book Review: Daughter of Smoke and Bone

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

At the head of my litmus test for YA literature rests the question, "will my students like the book?"

Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke & Bone presents on the surface as another aberrant fantasy, willed and forged to be the next peculiar and maybe even unsettling HBO series--a modern Romanesque retelling of Romeo and Juliet. Except everyone is a beast.

It is so much more than that.

An attentive reader will note the patience in the writing style. The novel takes its time to develop character history and a depth of conflict. The reader...we can't really say follows because the journey is not linear...the reader steps and veers with the protagonist, Karou, a seventeen year-old female. Who also happens to be in art classes. And who also happens to run errands for a demon.

Yes, an angel falls in love with a devil...more or less. At war for centuries, Juliet and Romeo catch eyes across a crowd...and...wait, Karou and Akiva catch eyes and fall in love. He forsakes angeldom (my word) and she wants to discover who she really is. Aside from a few dramatic fight scenes or revelations of an angels fiery wings to the gasping and awe-struck general public, the angel/devil thing really fades into the background for much of the novel. The story carries the day--and an old, classic story at that--forbidden love.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone does justice to the use of magic by devaluing it (for all its impact on the plot). The real magic, as the story unfolds, is in hope. And one's will. Magic, as a matter of fact, does not solve anything and one of the powerful demons in the story, Brimstone, even speaks to the fact that all of this, the magic the war, must go away. Magic won't end the war and the war won't end anything--all war is useless. The only thing that does matter is the hope and will for a new world...a new perspective...and a coming together. A positive message and one I always appreciate in YA fantasy.

I feel like my students will like this book because its heroine, Karou, presents well. Hip, funky, honest...beautiful, artistic, clever...tough, resilient, brave...Taylor constantly places Karou in situations that reveal another favorable layer. With her long shimmering blue hair, a predilection for hand-to-hand combat, and a sharp artist's hand and eye, Karou is just likeable.

Additionally, Taylor spoon feeds the adolescent (female adolescent especially) heart with ladles of tender and/or romantic moments--the kiss where the male places his hands on her face (who could resist the two-handed face kiss?); the fact that he smells like the sea or is described with other warm and cuddly similes; and the overall patina of one true love, sought for through the centuries..."I will find you!" Etc. Etc. Etc. Adolescent hearts eat this up.

Add the moments of light humor where (with magic) Karou is able to make her ex-boyfriend's butt itch, and redesign the eyebrows of the girl he cheated on her with...into one great furry stripe. I imagine Bert's eyebrow from Sesame Street.

Initially, I pulled the book aside as possible literature circle choice because I remembered the feeling of challenging vocabulary yet one that fell into a clear 8th grade-level context. On a second reading, I started to note vocabulary words to pull for my 8th graders should they chose to read this book: scribe, tout, demurral, melancholy, irrevocably, impending, lapsis lazuli, chivvied, trill, teeming, souks, perverse, squalling, genteel, preened, plummage, lank, emanate, djellaba, plundered, exhumed, dregs, sodden, dirham, scrabble, bedraggled, smite, revulsion, juddered, loathsome, lurched, residue, appalled, keening, susurrous, seraph, seraphim, engorged, abomination, imploring, supplication, moiling, kohl-rimmed, kindled, fervor, tumult, tributaries, souks, skirr, incandescence incongruous, lissome, scapula, parried, mythos, pathos, furrowed, emanated, detonation, hindered...and that was just from pages 80 through 100!

I'm looking forward to working with next year's creative writing classes as we will be adding this book as a literature circle choice. With much to talk about here in a classical context, or in terms of vocabulary, or sentence composition and complexity...Daughter of Smoke and Bone passes the litmus test. I'm confident my kids will like it on its own merits, and then garner so much more out of it in discussion and written reflection...or imitation!

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Nonfiction Review: Every Bone Tells a Story

Every Bone Tells a Story: Hominin Discoveries, Deductions, and Debates by Jill Rubalcaba
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

With an emphasis on nonfiction in the Common Core, several nonfiction selections will appear in my creative writing class for the first time: The Ominivore's Dilemma (Youth Edition); Chasing Lincoln's Killer; Flesh and Blood So Cheap; and Every Bone Tells a Story.

I discovered Every Bone Tells a Story in Carol Jago's book on the Common Core, With Rigor for All. With biography and autobiography often being the dominant nonfiction found on our classroom bookshelves or in our students' hands, I dug into Every Bone Tells a Story hopeful.

The first aspect that I like about Jill Rubalcaba's work is that connects to the subjects our students study in 8th grade: Earth Science, Geography, and more to my focus, informative writing. Every Bone Tells a Story may appeal as a literature circle choice for those students with an intensive interest in either Earth Science or Geography.

The individual discoveries, deductions, and debates of four separate hominins unfold in a style developed for adolescents--I'd say it is perfect for 8th grade but could also stretch forward into 9th and 10th grade depending on your needs.

William Blake wrote, "As a man is, so he sees." In Jill Rubalcaba's Every Bone Tells a Story we are asked to see through the lens of archeology...but when we do so, we learn of the many sub-lenses within the field. And each distinct lens, studying a specific and often myopic element of a bone, carries great passion, history, and responsibility. Yet, nothing is ever easy.

Rubalcaba walks us through the often clumsy circumstances by which four high-profile hominins have been discovered. In many cases, everyday people stumble across remains and never realizing what they have before them, damage the bones or other artifacts of the site. In two of the cases, everyone realized the discovery was significant and in their own unique ways (incredibly and unconscionably) consciously damaged some of the evidence! This section of each hominin's story reads as a piece, a fragment, of a narrative. In each case, this "baby" narrative captured my interest and carried me into the second segment of each discovery: deductions.

This is where each story becomes more science oriented.

In general, these sections show the reader that with each year humanity is able to understand more because of the advancements of technology. Moreover, the study of archeologists continues to grow more specialized. I am by no means a "science person" but the easy-to-read (and comprehend) detail of how much a scientist can learn just by studying one tooth, or a fragment of a colon, completely fascinated me. From the fragments of wood or charcoal used to heat their shelter or cook their food, to the pollen that can be painstakingly extracted from samples, scientists can learn where people traveled, to their lifestyle, to the history of our spoken language.

And this leads to what I find one of the strongest elements of this book: debate. I look forward to discussion and writing with my students about how heated and intense science can be...and is. Rubalcaba cites several occasions where scientists vehemently disagree with findings and how many often scramble for a piece of a newly discovered hominin for the chance to view it through THEIR lens. Each sub-region of archeology illuminates something new about these hominins through their own lens--a lens that is powerful, narrow, and...divisive!

As far as writing, the book can used as a mentor text as a whole, or the teacher could use individual hominin stories. Rubalcaba exercises the tenets for good informative writing by keeping the writing at arm's length from the reader--she isn't trying to persuade us or appeal to us as much as she is trying to inform us. Often the information does inspire some head-shaking especially when the readers learns of some of the interference and obstacles the scientists encounter before they can do their important work.

Full of expertise and a wonderful glossary, specialized and accessible for adolscents, I strongly
recommend this book as a boost to the nonfiction in your classroom library...or curriculum.

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YA Book Review: The House of the Scorpion

The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Complex and rich, Nancy Farmer's The House of the Scorpion grows from the family history created by drug lord, El Patron--a character mirroring the often bizarre machinations in characters spawned by Oscar Wilde or Nathanial Hawthorne.

El Patron, the most powerful man in the world, builds an empire on opium, slavery, augmented reality, and cruelty. He keeps himself alive for 148 years by harvesting organs from from clones created from his DNA.

The story follows the life of Matteo (called Matt), created from El Patron's DNA. We follow Matt's journey because unlike the other El Patron clones, his brains were kept intact. He was not drugged and operated into idiocy. He was not to be touched or harmed...yet, he was loathed by most around him.

It seems clones are akin to mongrels...not human. Dirty and without souls, many fear them and cringe when one is near. All, except for Matt, are kept away from humans...some strapped in hospitals or animal pens.

Beyond the main characters and those with the most text devoted to them, Farmer excels at building character. Many characters experience emotional highs and lows, moments of humanity, and moments of darkness--darkness emerging from fear, revenge, greed and several other of humanity's frailties.

In this excerpt, we see a bit of Farmer's ability to use artful dialogue to develop character. You may not know this novel, but we know a little something of Matt, Fidelito, and Consuela in just this snippet of text:


Matt blinked away tears. "How can anyone celebrate death?"
"Because it's part of us," Consuela said softly.
"Mi abuelita said I musn't be afraid of skeletons because I carry my own around inside," said Fidelito. "She told me to feel my ribs and make friends with them."
"Your grandmother was very wise," said Consuela.

The writing is so strong in The House of the Scorpion, that novels such as Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, M.T. Anderson's Feed, and Lowry's The Giver came to my mind as I read.

The plausibility of the circumstances surrounding the novel also engaged me--I didn't have to suspend belief because so much of the tale is woven on morality. Gosh, so many opportunities exist for reflection and conversation on morality, science and nature, as well as what makes us human. I love the opportunities presented here for great discussion and most certainly clean, healthy, challenging thought.

I can imagine adolescents having many questions--often beginning with "Why did he/she..."--and I do love that about this book.

Decorated like a naval hero (National Book Award; Newberry Honor Book; Printz Honor Book; ALA Notable Children's Book; ALA Best Book for Young Adults; among others) The House of the Scorpion once passed from hand to hand in my classroom (only a few years ago). Now, with so many other choices flooding the market and our classrooms, great books sometimes find themselves lost in the boneyard.

It is up to teachers, and teachers who are great readers, to keep great contemporary literature in the
hands of adolescents. Please consider adding this to your classroom library and do a book talk on this gem to keep it alive in the hands of this generation of readers.




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