Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Shelf Life: Stories By the Book


Shelf Life: Stories By the Book
Paulsen, G. (2003) Shelf life. New York: Simon & Schuster.


Shelf Life is a compilation of short stories ranging from science fiction to historical fiction, written by a collection of well-known authors, and published in one book by another well-known author, Gary Paulsen.  Paulsen published this collection of stories to benefit the charitable reading organization, ProLiteracy Worldwide.  In his introduction, Paulsen details how and when books became such an important aspect of his life and how that prompted the need for him to write.  All of the short stories, in spite of having very different elements, shares one thing in common and that commonality is a book.  Each story contains characters who have either experienced a traumatic event or some type of developmental struggle, from Katie’s father suddenly dying at the age of 41, Georgie’s grandmother being diagnosed with cancer while she is living on Mars, to Henrietta’s father being held prisoner on suspicion of being a spy, to Jolene and Karly having a typical girl spat, and each of the major characters finds resolution or experiences a shift because of a book—a different book for each story with each book used in a different way.  Also included in Shelf Life are short snippets about each author which include other titles by the authors as well as awards they have won.  Because the stories are so varied and the vocabulary is very basic, readers from middle grades on up to grad students J can enjoy and learn from this book.

Winger



Winger
Smith, A. (2013). Winger. New York: Simon & Schuster.


This story, about a 14-year-old junior boy named Ryan Dean West who attends a private school called Pine Mountain, is humorous while, at the same time, highlighting common, very serious, and very real struggles of the adolescent male today.  Ryan Dean is academically gifted which explains his current standing in high school and is also fairly athletically gifted since he is fast enough to play on the school varsity rugby team with boys much bigger (and more intimidating) than him.  BUT, he is, after all, just 14 and therefore, still not as emotionally developed as the other boys that he is around.  He’s considered the “cute” kid to Annie and Megan and that’s certainly not how he wants to be seen by the girls, especially Annie who he considers himself to be in love with.  Winger, as he is known by his teammates, is often the easy target of the older boys, but he is also sometimes seen as sort of the little brother.  One twist that I was very shocked about was Ryan Dean’s friend Joey, was not only gay, but ended up murdered.  This novel is spot on in the way Smith portrays the relationships among all of the characters and even though it deals with very graphic content, would be suitable for readers in their teens and up because, in spite of language and content, it DOES address subjects inherent to young adults and in a way most of them can identify with.

I know this is going way over the word limit, but the art teacher in me would be remiss if I didn't speak to the wonderfully entertaining illustrations included in the novel that can only add a healthy dose of enjoyment for the reader. :)