Body image. Two short words that carry so much weight (pun intended). For American women andbecause men like some curves, especially in the baby-feeding area of the body, but certainly not FAT! Being fat means you're lazy. Being fat means you have no self-control. Being fat means you don't care about yourself. Being fat means people can dismiss you without guilt, because being fat is a seen as a character flaw, not a natural subset of human appearance.
girls (and, increasingly, girls anywhere in the world influenced by American beauty standards), the phrases "body image" and "weight problem" go hand in hand. There are certainly other (unrealistic) expectations for things like flawless skin, silky hair, etc..., but even those things won't make a female person "ideal" without also being thin. Not too thin, of course,

Being a curvy girl myself (Godbout hips, am I right aunts and girl cousins?), I have spent almost all of my life, from as far back as I can remember, ashamed of the size of my body. Especially when I was a teenager, which is ridiculous because looking back I was a perfectly average-sized person. But then, teenage girlhood is fraught with messages about the ways we don't measure up to feminine ideals-we're too skinny/too fat/too smart/too air-headed/too prudish/too slutty/etc...Isabel Quintero explores this through the lens of Latinx culture in her novel Gabi, A Girl in Pieces. 

The book follows the protagonist, Gabi, through her senior year in high school. Told through her journal entries, the story takes us through her struggles to maintain her grades, complete college applications, and manage a social life. Gabi's body image is pretty low, so when a cute boy named Eric wants to date her, she begins a relationship with him, despite the fact that they have nothing in common. Luckily, she soon finds Martin, a boy from her English class who shares her love of poetry.

Gabi is also trying to juggle all the stress of senior year with her concern for her father, who has been addicted to meth as long as Gabi can remember. When she comes home one day to find him dead of an overdose, it throws her into a tailspin that threatens to derail her plans to escape her dead-end neighborhood and find the life she has always dreamed of.

Quintaro expertly navigates the space between hope and fear with Gabi, who alternates between being sure her life is over and recommitting herself to the future she wants to have. Gabi's poetry demonstrates how she processes her life experiences, eventually finding her own voice. The novel takes on a lot-body image, first love, teen pregnancy, sexual assault, drug addiction/overdose-but it does a decent enough job addressing them all that the story doesn't feel disjointed. Quintero mixes the darker events with lots of Gabi's own self-deprecating inner life, creating a nice emotional balance. I think a lot of teenage girls would relate to Gabi, especially Latinx girls. This was definitely one of the best YA books I've read this year.

Jumped In, Patrick Flores-Scott

"Don't judge a book by its cover." "Looks can be deceiving." "All the glitters isn't gold." "Beauty is only skin deep." We have quite a few sayings in English about using more than just appearances to make judgments about people. That idea is the foundation of the young adult novel Jumped In by Patrick Flores-Scott. The main character is Sam, a teenage boy who has perfected the art of slackerhood. He has learned how to keep his head down and avoid drawing the attention of teachers or his fellow students, thereby allowing him to drift through high school doing just enough to pass and escape the not-always-friendly scrutiny of his peers. But when he is partnered with Luis, a tough-looking Hispanic kid, for an English project, Sam's whole modus operandi is threatened. Sam is sure Luis is a gang member; his brother is infamous for his involvement in gangs, and Luis has a huge scar running up his neck. Sam knows there will be no slacking or hiding this time-if he doesn't do his part in their slam poetry assignment, Luis is bound to pummel him into the ground. But not everything is as it seems with Luis. Can these two boys from seemingly different worlds actually be friends? 

I love this book! Flores-Scott does an amazing job creating sympathetic characters, and the friendship that develops between these two boys is really quite sweet. Sam is the narrator, so his internal life and perspective are easy to see, but Flores-Scott uses Luis' poetry to give us insight into his character that proves his tough exterior is protecting a tender soul with depths of thought and feeling people wouldn't assume just by looking at him. I think that teens who have ever been misjudged by others based on the way they look, or because they are part of a stereotyped group, will completely get Luis and his internal struggle. 

Because Luis is so enthusiastic about the poetry assignment, he is able to inspire Sam as well. Sam has his own issues; his mom left two years ago, and he has a love of the rock of the Pacific Northwest (musical, not mineral) that none of his classmates seem to share. He feels isolated and alone most of the time, and he adopts his slacker persona as a cover for these feelings, and as a way to cope with feeling so out of place at school. The way he blossoms through his friendship with Luis is a reversal of the white savior syndrome that so many books about young people of color and their white teachers/peers fall into. Luis is the one that saves Sam, not the other way around. Though Sam does get his chance to repay the friendship Luis showed him; after a gang fight, Luis disappears, and Sam has to put himself front and center with teachers and peers in a way that he never would have if Luis hadn't become such an influence in his life.

The high-interest nature of this book, coupled with the easy readability, make it a good choice for inclusion in a readers' workshop or other independent reading activity. It would also make a good novel to use in middle or high school (with lower level readers) to explore friendship, assumptions, stereotypes, and overcoming personal challenges.

Literary Blog Hop-My Favorite Poem

Welcome to this week's installment of the Literary Blog Hop, hosted my The Blue Bookcase.  What is the Literary Blog Hop, you say?

This blog hop is open to blogs that primarily feature book reviews of literary fiction, classic literature, and general literary discussion

This week's question is

What is your favorite poem and why?

Oh, Literary Blog Hop, we were getting along so well!

The fact is that I read almost no adult poetry.  I'm an elementary school teacher, so I do read lots of kids poetry, but not much for the over 10 set.  It's not that I dislike poetry, or find it boring or difficult to understand.  When I hear people read their poetry out loud I usually enjoy it, and I will occasionally run across poems that I love through random encounters.  But sitting down and reading a book of poems is just not my thing.  I think it has more to do with their relative brevity than anything else. I don't read short stories as a general rule either.  I guess I prefer the longer, overarching narrative, with lots of plot to keep me busy.

Now, my favorite children's poems are easy to identify.  Shel Silverstein's "Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take The Garbage Out", and "Life Doesn't Frighten Me At All" by Maya Angelou.

The Silverstein poem is actually one that I read as a child myself, so we have a long-term relationship.  The title explains the events of the poem pretty well, but it is the disgusting imagery that I love:

Greasy napkins, cookie crumbs,
Globs of gooey bubble gum,
Cellophane from green baloney,
Rubbery blubbery macaroni,
Peanut butter, caked and dry,
Curdled milk and crusts of pie,
Moldy melons, dried-up mustard,
Eggshells mixed with lemon custard,
Cold french fries and rancid meat,
Yellow lumps of Cream of Wheat.

" Life Doesn't Frighten Me At All" is a wonderfully empowering poem for children, and in my head when I read it I can hear Maya Angelou's strong beautiful voice.  I tried to choose my favorite few lines to share, but I love it all so that I didn't want to break it apart:

Shadows on the wall
Noises down the hail
Life doesn’t frighten me at all
Bad dogs barking loud
Big ghosts in a cloud
Life doesn’t frighten me at all.

Mean old Mother Goose
Lions on the loose
They don’t frighten me at all
Dragons breathing flame
On my counterpane
That doesn’t frighten me at all.

I go boo
Make them shoo
I make fun
Way they run
I won’t cry
So they fly
I just smile
They go wild
Life doesn’t frighten me at all.

Tough guys in a fight
All alone at night
Life doesn’t frighten me at all.
Panthers in the park
Strangers in the dark
No, they don’t frighten me at all.

That new classroom where
Boys pull all my hair
(Kissy little girls
With their hair in curls)
They don’t frighten me at all.

Don’t show me frogs and snakes
And listen for my scream,
If I’m afraid at all
It’s only in my dreams.
I’ve got a magic charm
That I keep up my sleeve,
I can walk the ocean floor
And never have to breathe.
Life doesn’t frighten me at all

Not at all
Not at all
Life doesn’t frighten me at all.

While I don't seek out adult poetry, I do occasionally stumble upon it (through no fault of my own), so I'm not completely ignorant of poetry in the 20th/21st century.  "Phenomenal Woman", also by Maya Angelou is another one of my favorites.  One poem that I discovered by accident that I love is "Stream of Life" by Rabindranath Tagore.  It was used during a Sunday morning service by the minister of the Unitarian Universalist church I was attending:

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures. It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers. It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth and of death, in ebb and in flow. I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life. And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.

 The imagery is gorgeous, and I love the way that the word sound together when said aloud.  The language dances and flows so effortlessly, much like the life spirit that Tagore is describing. Of course, have I ever sought out another Tagore poem?  No, because apparently I prefer my relationship to poetry to remain random and spontaneous.