Beautiful Children

I just finished reading Beautiful Children by Charles Bock. Here is the review I posted on amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com:
This book deserves its distinction as one of The New York Times Best Books of 2008. It is well-written and organized in such a way that readers understand these characters as people and not as caricatures. Not only that, but Charles Bock has a keen eye for social critique and many of his characters provide insightful commentary about society as well as a developing sense of their own reasons behind their actions. For example, Lestat appears earlier in the novel and the reader is repelled by him, but later on Bock allows the narrative to pick up Lestat's voice and the inner workings of his mind and suddenly the reader is given a new perspective on this character: "The sane sober businessman does not walk down the street talking out loud to himself, but the crazy homeless man does...Over time Lestat had also grown to understand how the former becomes the latter. How all your thoughts and frustrations can inch closer and closer toward one uninterrupted rant. How the chasm between a person and the world around him can grow, a shell forming between the life you once had and the life you are living." This situation is true for the characters in the novel. Each one is dealing with a chasm that either developed while he/she was consciously or unconsciously oblivious or is coming to terms with the fact that the chasm is developing at that moment, based on a particular decision that needs to be made. This, for me, is the best part of the book--that the philosophy and vision behind it are so satisfying. Who hasn't at times felt like Kenny on the side of the road, raising our hands in the air and wondering "What am I supposed to do now?". I like the nun's answer in this novel: You must question how you might be more than you are. Like Rilke writes in his poem "The Archaic Torso of Apollo," You must change your life. I agree. You must also read this book.

Donald Hall

I've been reading Donald Hall's White Apples and the Taste of Stone, which is a collection of his poems from 1946-2006. This book comes with a CD of Hall reading some of the poems, which I've been listening to in my car while driving to and from school. I recommend Hall's poem "To a Waterfowl." Here is a link to the audio of the poem online: http://audiopoetry.wordpress.com/category/poet/donald-hall/. I laughed out loud in the car while driving. I keep relistening to the poem over and over again. In teaching news, I only have two days left until Christmas break, not that I'm counting...but anyway, this year has gone well so far and my honors students are working on a project right now comparing Montag from Fahrenheit 451, Equality 7-2521 from Anthem, and Truman from The Truman Show. Oh, I don't think I've updated my blog since my post about censorship and Feed by M.T. Anderson. I can teach it as long as I get parent permission. I made the permission slips, sent them out, and received them all back. After break, Feed will be the next book we read.