Blog Review: THE AGE OF ____________?
*Note: this blog was created for a class at TWU
1. ADDRESS:
http://theageof.blogspot.com/
2. SUMMARY:
This blog is created and maintained by Tom Philion, an associate professor at Roosevelt University, and includes reviews, commentary, and booktalks on all of the 2007 Prinz Award Winner and Honor Books as well as Alex Award winners and Top 10 Books for Young Adults. He focuses on making text-to-world connections.
3. REACTION:
Philion's reviews are well-written, and his short booktalk videos would be easy "borrow" from for my own booktalks and teachers who aren't comfortable booktalking could even show them to students.
While the blog doesn't have much visual razzle dazzle (which isn't what I'm looking for anyway), I like the fact that it is fairly focused in both terms of the books he reviews and the text-to-world connections. This is a blog aimed at teachers, librarians, and library science students, and he makes recommendations as to how and to whom to promote the books, how to use them in the classroom, and what themes seem to permeate young adult literature today.
For example, he noted that several of the 2007 Prinz Award Winners dealt with both a fear of terrorism/violence and with cultural confusion. Citing five of the novels, and providing links to government studies and recent media articles, he explores how the books reflect the world we live in now. Here's an excerpt of this commentary:
"According to a report of the Council of Economic Advisors, the United States is becoming an increasingly diverse nation, characterized by an unprecedented degree of social heterogeneity. However, the heterogeneity that increasingly defines American culture is not evenly distributed; gaps exist between regions and locales in terms of the quantity and degree of social diversity. In addition, some evidence exists that members of different ethnic and social groups have very different perceptions of and attitudes toward public policy issues. It seems fair to say that the representation of cultural diffusion and confusion in contemporary young adult literature mirrors the highly dynamic social environment of the United States, an environment that is increasingly multicultural, diverse, and self-aware with regard to issues of cultural diversity, yet also fraught with considerable challenges, misunderstandings, and conflicts."
Philion then continues to tie in each novel to recent events such as the Virginia Tech shootings and the Don Imus affair.
4. CONNECTIONS
* This would be a great blog to refer to when teachers chose to use one of these award-winning novels in the classroom, especially for pulling research and non-fiction articles linked to the major themes of the novels. I remember when I taught SLAUGHTERHOUSE 5 to my 11th graders last year, I spent a lot of time gathering information about the history of post-traumatic stress disorder and about instances of it among Iraq War veterans. The students were fascinated by it, and it helped them not only feel compassion for the characters in the novel, but also to see the novel's relevance today. Using the research and links from this blog could do the same for the new award-winning novels.
*Note: this blog was created for a class at TWU
1. ADDRESS:
http://theageof.blogspot.com/
2. SUMMARY:
This blog is created and maintained by Tom Philion, an associate professor at Roosevelt University, and includes reviews, commentary, and booktalks on all of the 2007 Prinz Award Winner and Honor Books as well as Alex Award winners and Top 10 Books for Young Adults. He focuses on making text-to-world connections.
3. REACTION:
Philion's reviews are well-written, and his short booktalk videos would be easy "borrow" from for my own booktalks and teachers who aren't comfortable booktalking could even show them to students.
While the blog doesn't have much visual razzle dazzle (which isn't what I'm looking for anyway), I like the fact that it is fairly focused in both terms of the books he reviews and the text-to-world connections. This is a blog aimed at teachers, librarians, and library science students, and he makes recommendations as to how and to whom to promote the books, how to use them in the classroom, and what themes seem to permeate young adult literature today.
For example, he noted that several of the 2007 Prinz Award Winners dealt with both a fear of terrorism/violence and with cultural confusion. Citing five of the novels, and providing links to government studies and recent media articles, he explores how the books reflect the world we live in now. Here's an excerpt of this commentary:
"According to a report of the Council of Economic Advisors, the United States is becoming an increasingly diverse nation, characterized by an unprecedented degree of social heterogeneity. However, the heterogeneity that increasingly defines American culture is not evenly distributed; gaps exist between regions and locales in terms of the quantity and degree of social diversity. In addition, some evidence exists that members of different ethnic and social groups have very different perceptions of and attitudes toward public policy issues. It seems fair to say that the representation of cultural diffusion and confusion in contemporary young adult literature mirrors the highly dynamic social environment of the United States, an environment that is increasingly multicultural, diverse, and self-aware with regard to issues of cultural diversity, yet also fraught with considerable challenges, misunderstandings, and conflicts."
Philion then continues to tie in each novel to recent events such as the Virginia Tech shootings and the Don Imus affair.
4. CONNECTIONS
* This would be a great blog to refer to when teachers chose to use one of these award-winning novels in the classroom, especially for pulling research and non-fiction articles linked to the major themes of the novels. I remember when I taught SLAUGHTERHOUSE 5 to my 11th graders last year, I spent a lot of time gathering information about the history of post-traumatic stress disorder and about instances of it among Iraq War veterans. The students were fascinated by it, and it helped them not only feel compassion for the characters in the novel, but also to see the novel's relevance today. Using the research and links from this blog could do the same for the new award-winning novels.
1 comment:
Thanks for the kind review, J. I'm glad to see my writing has struck a positive chord, and really appreciate that your analysis of The Age of ______? matches up well with my goals and intentions.
Good luck with your own endeavor here--I plan to keep reading.
Cheers,
Tom Philion
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