Systematic Student:
Printz Award

Looking for Alaska by John Green is a story of friendship, betrayal, grief, happiness, hope, despair, laughter, tears, and growing up. I could go on and on about how many facets of life this book embodies, but I think you get the point.

Miles, Chip and Alaska were perfectly drawn characters. We were able to see both their strengths and their weaknesses, their perfections and their flaws. These characters each have so many dimensions to them, it's hard to believe they aren't actually real. Sometimes they get along, sometimes they make good choices, and other times they act recklessly, with a complete disregard for the rules and their own well being.

This is definitely not a perfectly wrapped story, decorated with ribbons, and wrapped with a bow, so if that's the story you're looking for, look elsewhere. However, if you are interested in reading a story that is going to alter the way you view your world, I highly, highly recommend this book.

The characters in this story are really stupid at times. But they learn. Miles went to boarding school, searching for his 'great perhaps'. He's lived a fairly boring life, nothing exciting ever happens to him, and he's looking for something, but he doesn't know quite what that something is. When he gets to school, he meets his new roommate, Chip, and one of his best friends, a beautiful and exciting girl named Alaska.

John Green shows an amazing talent for writing with this story. He manages to create in Miles a character who is intelligent, and able to think deep and philosophically without talking over the reader, or condescending to them. Miles thinks a lot about what he's learning, especially in his world religion course, and because he is our narrator, we hear a lot about what he's thinking and feeling. But, I never once felt preached to or overwhelmed.

This is a story about the hard parts of growing up. It's a story about those things every parent wishes didn't happen. But these things do happen and to ignore them, brush them under the rug and act as if they are not real is doing everyone a disservice. I makes kids feel like they are alone and that no one else has ever felt the way they do. But this story lets us know that there are other people out there who can relate to us, and that it's okay to hurt, okay to cry and okay to move on.

John Green, I think you are a brilliant man and I cannot wait to pick up your next story.

how i live now by Meg Rosoff won the Printz Award in 2005. Beyond that, I didn't know much about this book when I picked it up, other than it takes place during an almost apocalyptic war. I must say that when I started reading, I was not expecting this book.

Our narrator is Daisy, a 15 year old from Manhattan who is coming to England to visit some cousins to escape, what in her mind, is a toxic environment (wicked and pregnant step-mother). At first, I almost felt like I rattled around this book. There is very little standard sentence structure, punctuation and grammar. It took me a few pages to really understand the style of writing and at first, I didn't like it. It's written as a stream of consciousness narrative, so we are actually 'listening' to Daisy's thoughts. And remember, she's a 15 year old from Manhattan who may or may not be slightly unbalanced.

As I mentioned, I didn't originally like the writing style. This was my first experience with this style of writing and it took some getting used to. Once I got involved in the story though, the prose flowed wonderfully and felt insanely realistic. I felt like I was connected to Daisy in a way that rarely happens with a character. I understood her because I was experiencing her.

It was an interesting way to learn about a character, because there wasn't really an introduction in the normal method. We learn about Daisy as she thinks certain details. We don't get a lot of back story on her family, because she doesn't like to think about them. We don't know a lot about her English cousins, because she doesn't know a lot about her English cousins. There are certain facts about Daisy that are never really specified. They are hinted at through conversations with other people and later on in the story are addressed a little more, but as long as Daisy chooses not to think about/focus on them, we don't get anymore information. We are completely in Daisy's mind.

I will admit that I was a little bit weirded out by the incest. Daisy and her cousin Edmond fall in love, and do very little to stop or hide their feelings. Their relationship was incredibly intense. It's hinted throughout the whole story that there may be something a little bit extra in the way these three English cousins are able to communicate, and you see elements of this in Daisy's interactions with all three cousins, although none more so than Edmond. After Daisy and Edmond are separated during the war, they maintain an almost telepathic connection allowing them to know the other is safe, and deliver comfort when needed. I will say one thing though — this relationship was vital to the story. It was a necessary part to truly advance the plot and the characters in the way required. Rosoff uses this as a device but she doesn't let it become overwhelming or take control of the story. It is there, but it isn't extreme and it's definitely far from the level of V.C. Andrews. (That stuff is just creepy to be creepy.)

I know that this review is a little all over the place, and I apologize for that. However, that's a little bit the way this book makes you feel, so i don't really feel too bad about it.

I definitely recommend this book, although I will say that this is not for the faint of heart or the squeamish. This is a story about growing up and discovering who you are and what is most important in life. But, it takes place during a war. War is never pretty, and Rosoff makes no attempt to spare readers from the horrors of a major war. The way the characters handle the side effects of war felt very real, very raw. My heart hurts for these children.

This isn't a book that's going anywhere for me for a while. It's definitely one that is going to stay with me for a long time. Daisy really gets into your mind, just as you get into hers. It's a book to make you think, to make you questions, to give you hope, and to make you reevaluate everything you once thought important. This is one of those books I imagine you love a little more every time you read it. So what are you waiting for? Go grab it!

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang won the Printz Award in 2007. Before picking up this book, I had never before read a graphic novel, so I didn't quite know what to expect. I was hopeful though, because I had been hearing a lot of really great things about it. So, what did I think?

I was pleasantly surprised that I really enjoyed reading this as a graphic novel. The illustrations really added a lot to the reading. I don't know why, but I expected the illustrations to be a nice addition to the story, but not necessary to the story itself. I started reading it that way to, giving the illustrations only a cursory glance. It didn't take me long to realize that I was missing a lot of the story that way, so I slowed down and gave each page of illustrations as much attention as I gave the words. And all I can say is, Wow! It amazed me how much emotion and action you can get across to the reader in one small frame. That one illustration is able to convey an emotion or message, thought or feeling in just seconds, while it would have taken several sentences or a paragraph to give that same feeling using only words.

I really liked the graphic novel aspect and will definitely be searching out more in the future. However, I had also heard a lot of positive comments from people who simply gushed about this book. This was harder for me, because I didn't love this book the way so many others seemed to. The book uses three seemingly unrelated storylines to tell us our story. It begins with my favorite of the three, the tale of the Monkey King. He becomes a master of all sorts of Kung Fu, but is unhappy because the other gods will not accept him as an equal, no matter what he does, because he is a monkey, not a man. Next, we meet our main character, Jin Wang. He struggles to find his place, just wanting to fit in and be accepted for who he is. The final storyline (and my least favorite) is young Danny and his cousin Chin-Kee. Danny is the all-american high schooler; good looking, basketball player (bla bla bla) while Chin-Kee is the epitome of the negative Chinese stereotype.

The three stories are told individually, and at first there doesn't seem to be any connection between the three. As we approach the end of the book, the three story lines do pull together to create one larger story. I really liked the idea of pulling all three story lines together, but didn't love the way it happened. Almost all my disappointment in this novel revolves around the Danny and Chin-Kee storyline. I just feel that I missed a little bit of what they were actually trying to say. I understood the message and the importance of that segment, but there are a few details left over that weren't really clear to me. I don't want to ruin the ending, so I won't specify but a little more clarity would have been nice. A few things at the end just seemed to happen. Almost like they popped out of nowhere. (I'm looking at you Wei-Chen) Some of it was just a little too much for me to comfortably grasp, and I wasn't really able to give it the necessary suspension of disbelief in its entirety.

Overall, I must say that I did really enjoy American Born Chinese. It was a very interesting glimpse of what it must be like to grow up different from everyone around you, especially when it's very likely they already have a preconceived (negative) notion about you. There are a lot of life lessons hinted at in this book that many people would do well to learn.

Anyone else read this one? Tell me what you think!