The Memory of Light by Francisco X. Stork

From Goodreads,

"16-year-old Vicky Cruz wakes up in a hospital's mental ward after a failed suicide attempt. Now she must find a path to recovery - and perhaps rescue some others along the way.

When Vicky Cruz wakes up in the Lakeview Hospital Mental Disorders ward, she knows one thing: After her suicide attempt, she shouldn't be alive. But then she meets Mona, the live wire; Gabriel, the saint; E.M., always angry; and Dr. Desai, a quiet force. With stories and honesty, kindness and hard work, they push her to reconsider her life before Lakeview, and offer her an acceptance she's never had.

But Vicky's newfound peace is as fragile as the roses that grow around the hospital. And when a crisis forces the group to split up, sending Vick back to the life that drove her to suicide, she must try to find her own courage and strength. She may not have them. She doesn't know.

Inspired in part by the author's own experience with depression, The Memory of Light is the rare young adult novel that focuses not on the events leading up to a suicide attempt, but the recovery from one - about living when life doesn't seem worth it, and how we go on anyway. "

Goodreads - The Memory of Light

Awards:

• Tomas Rivera Mexican American Children's Book Award (2017)
• Americas Award Commended Title (2017)

As a teacher we are constantly on high alert for students who are unstable.  In my community we have had multiple students commit suicide and frankly it is unsettling.  I'm not entirely sure why I am attracted to books that are about mental health.  Maybe it is because I work in a profession where I have to constantly monitor my students and their mental health.  Maybe it is because each story is unique and different from the last.  Either way, I tend to gravitate to books about mental illness.

This book starts with Vicky Cruz waking up to find herself in the hospital.  She realizes that she has survived her attempt at suicide, but she isn't sure how.  Vicky makes friends with her roommate and two other people.  She doesn't know what is wrong with her, but she does know that she isn't okay.  Her father and stepmother think she is fine and they want her to leave.  Vicky tells them she needs to stay and they reluctantly agree.  Over time Vicky comes to realize what is wrong with her and finds out the truth behind why each of her new friends are in the mental ward with her.

I loved that this book had various people from various backgrounds with various mental disorders.  Even more than that, I loved that everyone didn't get a happy ending.  I feel like with mental illness books they go one of two ways.  They either end with the person being "fixed" or they end with death.  This book had various endings for each of the characters.  I think that Stork did an excellent job at portraying mental illness because honestly no one with a mental illness is ever really healed or fixed.  They learn how to manage and cope with the disorder they have or they don't.  In this book Vicky was slowly learning how to cope with her disorder and how to handle being back in her normal environment again.  However, Vicky's friend Mona was bipolar and we read about her deciding to stop taking her medication because she didn't like how it made her feel.  Mona didn't learn how to cope with and manage her illness.  I feel like this book was a true picture of people with mental illness.  Some want help and will do anything possible to make things better, and some don't care.  Things aren't always rainbows and happy endings, and Stork did an excellent job at portraying a real world ending.

While I loved the realness of the characters, I wasn't too fond of the storyline.  I felt like there lacked a solid plot that had exciting twists and turns.  I honestly expected there to be more events that led Vicky to attempting to commit suicide.  I expected there to be a big fiasco that happened at school or at home, or something that happened between a friend or a boyfriend.  But there never was anything that really stuck out.  The story was kind of flat and lacked depth in my opinion.  Vicky basically tried to commit suicide, talked to counselors and worked through her problems, went to a ranch retreat, and went home.  The plot was a typical mental illness plot sprinkled with characters with realistic personalities.

I enjoyed the characters in this book because they didn't portray happy-go-lucky characters that all had a happy ending in the end.  The plot had a lot to be desired.  I give this book 3 out of 5 stars.  I recommend this to anyone who is a fan of mental illness books.  

Call It Courage by Armstrong Sperry

From Goodreads,

"Mafatu has been afraid of the sea for as long as he can remember. Though his father is the Great Chief of Hikueru - an island whose seafaring people worship courage - Mafatu feels like an outsider. All his life he has been teased, taunted, and even blamed for storms on the sea. 

Then at age fifteen, no longer willing to put up with the ridicule and jibes, Mafatu decides to take his fate into his own hands. With his dog, Uri, as his companion, Mafatu paddles out to sea, ready to face his fears. What he learns on his lonesome adventure will change him forever and make him a hero in the eyes of his people."

Goodreads - Call It Courage

Awards:

• Newbery Medal (1941)

I posted a couple of weeks ago that my boyfriend and I decided we would tackle reading all of the books on that had received the Newbery Medal Award.  This is almost a hundred books considering the first award was given in 1922.  I finished the first book which was the 2017 winner The Girl Who Drank The Moon.  I waited for about a week for him to hopefully finish the book.  I got tired of waiting and read another book in the meantime.  A few weeks later he sadly told me he wasn't going to finish the book and that he wasn't going to read all the books on the list.  I was irritated to say the least, but I also understood where he was coming from.  Reading isn't his thing.  It's mine.  I decided I would continue with the task of reading the books on the award list.  While I had originally planned to read the books in order as closely as possible, I ended up randomly grabbing a book off my shelf, and it happened to be the 1941 Newbery Medal Award winner.  I was really wanting a short book and that is definitely what I got.

This book is about a young boy named Mafatu who is terrified of the water after a nasty run in while with his mother as a child.  Mafatu feels that he escaped the wrath of the ocean, but that Moana the god of the sea is going to seek revenge because he escaped.  He feels like an outcast because the people on his island live and breathe the ocean.  The other boys make fun of him and eventually Mafatu has enough.  He loads a canoe with his dog Uri and the essentials and he sets sail to make a path of his own and to prove everyone that he isn't totally terrified of the ocean.

There wasn't much that I really enjoyed in this book.  I felt like I had already heard this storyline before.  And then it hit me.  I realized that this story was very similar to the Disney movie Moana.  The plot line was the same for both the book and the movie.  It has the general storyline of a person that doesn't fit in with their village, they take a canoe and travel somewhere, they have to accomplish something, they encounter hardships, and they eventually return home as a hero.  The book mentions Maui and Moana and the two main characters in the movie are Maui and Moana.  Both main characters in the book and the movie have 2 sidekicks.  One that stays in the canoe with them and one that doesn't.  I cannot stop thinking about if Disney ripped off this book.  The two are just too similar.  It's a little unsettling.

I honestly didn't like this book.  It was a very shallow book that lacked in my opinion a real story line.  I give this book 2 out of 5 stars.  If you are wanting to read all the books on the Newbery list then you'll have to read this book, but otherwise I wouldn't even bother with it.  

The Wave by Todd Strasser

From Goodreads,

"The Wave is based on a true incident that occurred in a high school history class in Palo Alto, California, in 1969.

The powerful forces of group pressure that pervaded many historic movements such as Nazism are recreated in the classroom when history teacher Burt Ross introduces a "new" system to his students. And before long The Wave, with its rules of "strength through discipline, community, and action", The Wave sweeps from the classroom through the entire school. And as most of the students join the movement, Laurie Saunders and David Collins recognize the frightening momentum of The Waveand realize they must stop it before it's too late."

Goodreads - The Wave

Awards:

• Preis der Leseratten des ZDF (1984)

When I first saw this book I saw the sticker that said "The classroom experiment that went too far" on the cover.  It caught my eye because I'm a teacher and I'm always intrigued by things related to my profession.  I read the back cover and was like "Wow!  This is based on real events and this teacher was able to fully engage his students in his lessons."  I was sold on the book and knew I had to read it and find out what the experiment was and how it went too far.  

This book starts with a foreword that states that this book is based on true events that happened in a high school history class in Palo Alto, California in 1969.  The book then begins following a couple students and getting a brief glimpse of what is happening before they enter their history class.  The teacher is trying to teach about World War II and Adolf Hitler.  Of course students ask questions pertaining to how something could go so far and how people could just give up their rights.  The teacher sees an opportunity to show the kids how they could just fall in with what the dictator said.  From there, the entire experiment spiraled out of control and took over the school until the teacher had to put an end to it. 

This book gave me lots of mixed feelings.  The experiment was completely out of line and should have never happened.  But at the same time he saw a teachable moment and he capitalized on it.  I've been known to take a moment like this and make it something where the students can learn something new.  But this went absolutely way too far.  I know I have personally asked myself how someone like Hitler could make so many people follow them and do what they say.  But after reading this I realized they were scared to leave because they were afraid that they would end up in a worse situation than if they just followed the leader.  This book is a super effective way to realize how easily and quickly someone can fall into a cult or powerful group.  

One thing that I don't like about this book is that Strasser wrote it based off of the movie that was created back in 1981.  After I realized this was based on the movie I was irritated because I felt like I should have just watched the movie and saved myself some time.  I would have enjoyed it more if Strasser had researched and wrote his own book.  I do understand that this is based on real events, and that makes writing a book much more difficult.  I think I would have really enjoyed it if this had been a complete work of nonfiction instead of just loosely based on events.

Overall, this book was somewhat boring and I was so excited when I finally finished it.  If you like books based on true stories then there's a slight chance you will enjoy this.  I give this book 2 out of 5 stars.

Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Pena

From Goodreads,

"Every Sunday after church, CJ and his grandma ride the bus across town. But today, CJ wonders why they don't own a car like his friend Colby. Why doesn’t he have an iPod like the boys on the bus? How come they always have to get off in the dirty part of town? Each question is met with an encouraging answer from grandma, who helps him see the beauty—and fun—in their routine and the world around them.

This energetic ride through a bustling city highlights the wonderful perspective only grandparent and grandchild can share, and comes to life through Matt de la Pena’s vibrant text and Christian Robinson’s radiant illustrations."

Goodreads - Last Stop on Market Street

Awards:

• New York Times Book Review Notable Children's Book (2015)
• Wall Street Journal Best Children's Book (2015)
• Newbery Medal (2016)
• Caldecott Honor (2016)
• Charlotte Zolotow Award Honor (2016)
• Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book (2016)

My boyfriend and I have decided to read all of the books on the Newbery Award list as a fun thing for us to do.  The first book we both read since starting this challenge was Last Stop on Market Street.  He read it out loud to me first.  He finished the book by saying that it was absolutely awful.  From what I had heard I agreed.  Then I decided to take the book and read it for myself, and honestly I had a totally different opinion by the time I finished the book. 

This book is about CJ and his grandma who take the bus to get where they are going.  CJ is just a young boy and he continuously asks questions while he rides the bus with his grandmother.  The entire time she answers his questions while trying to get him to find pride in himself and his community. 

This book isn't just a simple children's book.  It definitely has solid underlying messages that are important for children to learn about.  One of the most important messages that I took away from this book was to respect and take pride in your community.  CJ didn't have much pride in his community and the fact that he had to ride the bus with people who were different than him.  His grandmother continuously reminds him to enjoy the people and things around him.  I think this is good for students to read about because in today's world, nobody appreciates what they have.  Everyone is always wanting something bigger and better.  I hear my own students talk about how other towns have this or that, but I don't hear them talk about what things we have in our own town.  I don't hear them talk about the disc golf course that we have or the new escape room that just went into an old building in town.  This book really makes me want to do a community service project with my students to help build some pride and respect for our community.

This book also has an important message about diversity.  In the book we meet people who are all riding the bus with CJ and his grandmother, and they are all diverse.  There are people from different ethnicities, people with disabilities, elderly people and young people all included in this book.  There's a little bit of everything and everyone.  I think it is good to see the diversity in books because it allows children to find a character that they identify with.  We really need more diverse children's books in classroom, and this book is definitely one to help students see diversity in books.

While this was a good book with some serious themes, I think that many would be overlooked by students.  I'm not entirely sure how this book won the Newbery Award in 2016.  The award focuses on content, not length, but I still feel like this book lacked a lot for it to be a Newbery Award.  Especially considering I just finished The Girl Who Drank The Moon.  Either way, I give this book 3 stars out of 5.  It wasn't a chapter book like I was expecting and I had to read it twice just to get any messages or feeling out of it.