Classic YA Literature

I will be the first to admit that I am not a fan of the classics.  I slogged through them in high school and the sharp analysis I was required to do of each syllable of each word (ok, not really, but that's what it felt like) left a bad taste in my mouth.  And it didn't help that they were hard to read and interpret.

However, the classics are a lot different than YA classics.  I mean, we're talking the difference in Shakespeare and Judy Blume, here.  I found the YA classics that I read this week to have a very easy to read quality and the themes transcended time; they were things I could still relate to even though these books were written as far back as 1908.

I wish, in the deepest recesses of my heart, that they'd reissue this book with a better, updated cover.  This book was great and would have HUGE appeal for boys, but the cover is simply boring and gives no indication of what the book is about.  In my library, I think I have been the only one to check it out in the last year.

Jerry, our main character in this book, is having a tough year.  His mother died the previous spring and now he's being sent off to the all-boys Catholic high school.  He also wants to play football, even though he's not particularly physically well suited for it, and ends up sore and injured after each practice.

Alternatively we have Archie, who isn't the leader of the underground student organization that operates in the school (called the Vigils), but might as well be.  Archie is in charge of deciding which students to bully and how to bully them.  The school does not officially acknowledge the existence of the Vigils.

Each year, the school does a big chocolate sale to raise funds.  This year the principal is ill and on leave so the vice principal, Brother Leon, is in charge.  He got a great deal on the chocolate so the boys are now expected to sell twice the number from the year before.  Brother Leon approaches Archie to see if the Vigils can help bolster the student body into selling all the chocolates. 

Archie sees this as an opportunity to gain power within the school.  The acting principal not only acknowledged that the Vigils exist, but asked for their help!  Archie, being the person he is, takes the chance to make a major power play and does it using Jerry.

Jerry is instructed that, for two weeks, he isn't to sell the chocolate.  When Brother Leon asks for his total number of boxes sold each day, Jerry is to decline publicly.  After two weeks, however, Jerry continues to refuse, which makes Archie furious.  How dare he go against Vigil orders!  To make things worse, the other boys see Jerry refusing to sell and they start doing the same.  Brother Leon comes down on Archie who, in turn begins a very systematic bullying approach that ends with a bloody and beaten Jerry (mentally and physically).

I know very well that this is the optimist in me, but I would have enjoyed this book a lot more had Archie, the Vigils, and Brother Leon gotten their "just desserts" in the end.  On the flip side, this book had a very good lesson in it: the people who should "get theirs" often don't.  Regardless, it was a good book that kept me reading.

I also read:

With this book being among the oldest on the reading list, I was both intrigued and terrified that I wouldn't like it.  What I found, though, was a super sweet story about friendship and the making of a family.

Marissa and Matthew are siblings who live together and run their family's farm.  They know someone in their town who has adopted a child and they decide, since they are getting older, it might be a good idea to adopt a young boy to help around the farm.  When Matthew arrives at the train station after making arrangements with the orphanage, he ends up coming away with a red-headed girl who talks almost constantly.

Anne almost immediately endears herself to Matthew but Marissa is set to send her back to the orphanage.  They needed a BOY and, as sad as this young girl's story is, they need a boy.  Matthew is so taken with Anne, however, that he ends up going to bat for her and Marissa relents, deciding if it is that important to Matthew that they can keep Anne.

Most of the book is full of Anne, her adventures, and Marissa or Matthew's reactions.  Initially, Marissa is generally cold toward Anne but it doesn't take long for her to consider Anne a daughter.  After Matthew's unexpected death, Anne gives up her very coveted college scholarship in order to help Marissa continue to run the farm.  It is truly the story of a young girl coming into her own and a family being made in a relatively nontraditional manner.