Speak, the movie based on the book

Title: Speak
Based on the book: Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson
Year: 2004
Director : Jessica Sharzer
Screenplay: Annie Young Frisbie & Jessica Sharzer
Distributed by: Showtime Networks, Inc.
Running time: 92 min.

Main characters:
Melinda Sordino--played by Kristin Stewart
Joyce, Melinda's mother--played by Elizabeth Perkins
Jack, Melinda's father--played by D.B. Sweeney
Mr. Freeman, art teacher--played by Steve Zahn

It seems like ages since I read the book, Speak, nearly 6 weeks ago because I've read so many books in between, but seeing the movie reinforced my appreciation of the book (click here for my book review.) I thought that the movie stayed pretty true to the book for the most part, leaving out some subplots and other details. However, the major difference between the book and the movie, for me, was the change in the "scene of the crime." In the book, it happened on a walk in the trees nearby where the party was taking place, but in the movie, it happened in a car. It is my understanding that this change was due to the actress' allergy to grass, but I felt like the change of location was detrimental for a couple reasons. First, the walk in the woods scene gave more credibility to Melinda's innocent role than a trip to the car. Secondly, the woods offered a symbolic connection with Melinda's art focus for the year--trees. All in all, I felt like the filmmakers did a wonderful job portraying Melinda's sense of isolation and blended narration, flashbacks, and sequential action. The book contains, of course, significantly more narration, which gives a better picture of what is going on in Melinda's head, and I do think that the film could have used a little more of this narration.

Regarding the acting, I did think that Kristin Stewart was perfect for the role; she plays the quiet, thoughtful, observant, angst-ridden teen very well. I loved Steve Zahn's character, the art teacher, whose role in the book was not quite as colorful but equally significant in terms of Melinda's transformation. I appreciated some of the emphasis on visual elements that were possible in this medium, such as the repetitive imagery of Andy's hand over the Melinda's mouth, to keep her quiet, and again with Melinda's "former" friend Rachel. I felt that the turningpoint for Melinda was more clear in the movie, with emphasis on the art teacher's advice, "If something's eating at you, you gotta find a way to use it." He was talking about artistic expression and more. I felt like the influence art had on Melinda was a little more emphasized in the movie, but I loved this. In the book, she also found confidence when she found she was good at tennis, but this was not emphasized in the movie. I thought the movie did a good job portraying moments where you think Melinda is on the verge of saying something, speaking out, but most of the adults were either oblivious or simply not receptive. Melinda's introspective jaunts to the hospital for rest or to the closet or feeling the wind on her face underscore her artistic nature, preferring the sensory approach to the world rather than the verbal one and help us understand why she chose not to speak out. If I had to say which was better, of course the book would win, hands down, but I must also say that adding the movie to the experience of reading the book has enriched it, added color and life and art to the medium of text.

Fifth Class Session

Last night's class began with booktalks, which surprised me because I expected that we would begin by addressing and highlighting our guest speaker, Mr. Bart Bare, author of Girl: a Novel. Instead, he became an interested spectator in our class, and I suspect he took in his own observations of us as we discussed books, authors, book covers, and interpretations of the books we had read. The booktalks were very interesting and I took a few notes about the books I want to go out and read (sometime after I'm recovered from this course) as well as the techniques people used in their booktalk presentations that I felt were helpful in making their presentations appealing.
So here are some booktalk strategies I noted:

• address the audience
• choices, questions
• leave the ending open--why read? . . . if you want to find out ____?
  
• Meet _____, use characters' names
• involve the audience (have audience read, participate)
• bookmark--designate books in booktalk in diff. color or on different side of bookmark

We also discussed Playing with Matches, by Brian Katcher, which I've wanted to do since I finished that book. It feels so satisfying to discuss a book that you've enjoyed and appreciated. It feels so good to get other opinions, other points of view about the characters, their motivations, the author's strengths or shortcomings. Mostly, I enjoy talking about the things I've enjoyed about a book rather than criticisms. When a book moves me or when I notice something subtle or particularly symbolic in a book, I want to share the experience of a book with someone else who has read that same book and felt some of the same things. Book discussions, for me, are so gratifying. Really good books, the books that move me to tears or cause me to think, are meant to be shared, discussed, explored, and relished.

We did, finally, get to hear the Contemporary Realistic chapter presentation tonight. It was originally scheduled for last week and those group members had to haul all their books to class a second time, but their presentation was really good--packed with information, funny, and of course, it poked fun at Tammy's love for fantasy literature. They presented short bits about several interesting contemporary realistic novels, which made me want to go out and read some of them. I loved how Tammy, who was banned from promoting her beloved Fantasy literature in this class, was able to champion her love for all things Harry Potter while her group presented valuable information about Fantasy's polar opposite genre--Brilliant!

Perhaps the most interesting component of tonight's class was our interaction with author, Bart Bare. He answered questions that we had submitted regarding his writing habits, his inspiration, and he offered specific details about his book that we all read for this class. I enjoyed hearing his experiences, thoughts, and opinions about writing as well as the importance of cover artwork. He was warm and friendly and he helped us all to understand a little more of a writer's perspective. He said that all books start with a writer's inspiration: "what if . . . .?" He discussed how he had modeled Loren in Girl after a true young girl he had known who "coped with life by virtue of her character" and his wife had suggested, "There's a story there . . ." I was intrigued by the comments that he made about her virtue and then I understood his motivations for making Loren so admirable. He explained how his novel had impacted a reader when the reader said that she loved the book because Loren "wouldn't let them make her a victim." Despite my own criticisms of the book, I do appreciate that he chose to make young Loren a character with virtue, honor, and integrity who affects those around her in a positive way. In a world where these characteristics seem lost, it is refreshing to see them feature so prominently in a novel. As the class was ending, Mr. Bare offered a brief story and some advice for us. He said that he owed his intellectual life to a librarian, Ethyl Sheffield, who encouraged him to read and supported his interests. Then he offered a quote, telling us to write it down:
"I have kissed the hem of eternity; I have been a teacher." Thank you, Mr. Bare, for encouraging us, for reminding us why we want to be librarians, and just how much impact we can have.

The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak

Title: The Book Thief

Author: Markus Zusak

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf

Year: 2005

# Pages: 552

Category: Historical Fiction Presentation

Genre: Historical Fiction

My Summary & Critique:

“It’s just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. . . .

Narrated by Death, Markus Zusak's groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a young foster girl living outside of Munich in Nazi Germany. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she discovers something she can't resist- books. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever they are to be found.
With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, Liesel learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids, as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement.”—goodreads.com

This is the script from my booktalk, in which I introduce myself, as Death, the narrator of The Book Thief. Then, the booktalk is given from my/Death's point of view, with some direct quotations and paraphrased lines from The Book Thief:

Let me introduce myself using a few excerpts from the first book I will be discussing today:

***HERE IS A SMALL FACT ***

You are going to die.

I am in all truthfulness attempting to be cheerful about this whole topic, though most people find that hard to believe. Please, trust me. I most definitely can be cheerful. Just don't ask me to be nice. Nice has nothing to do with me.

You are going do to die.

Does this worry you?

I urge you--don't be afraid.

I'm nothing if not fair.

--Of course, an introduction.

A beginning.

Where are my manners?

I could introduce myself properly, but it's not really necessary. You will know me well enough in time. It suffices to say that at some point in time, I will be standing over you, as genially as possible. Your soul will be in my arms. A color will be perched on my shoulder. I will carry you gently away."

So Who am I??

Yes, I was told that you are a very bright group of humans.

I know I may not appear like you expect. What did you expect me to look like?

"A Small Piece of Truth:

I do not carry a sickle or scythe.

I only wear a hooded black robe when it’s cold.

And I don’t have those skull-like features you seem to enjoy pinning on me from a distance. You want to know what I truly look like? I’ll help you out. Find yourself a mirror while I continue."

I want you to know that I don’t usually appear to so many of you humans at once, unless your lives were, indeed in peril, but I assure you that I have made a special visit to your group on my day off to share with you some very interesting books. Books that will intrigue you, delight you, entertain you, make you think, teach you something, and help you look at Death, me, in a whole new way. For in these books, I am prominent in the story, I may even be the star.

Let’s begin with one of my most prominent roles, The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak.

I have the honor and privilege of narrating this story—a story about a little German girl, Liesel Meminger, who was left with foster parents just before the outbreak of World War II. On the way to her new home with her younger brother, I meet Liesel for the first time as I have come to take her brother away. She intrigues me, so I watch her. At her brother’s funeral, she stole her first book—the Grave Digger’s handbook—that had been dropped in the snow. It would be the book from which she learned to read and it would not be the last book she stole. As she settles in with her harsh but caring foster mother, Rosa, and kind, gentle foster father, Hans, she gets to know the people of her poor neighborhood and learns to read. Her obsession with books grows as the war closes in, rationing is put in place, air raids sound, and Hans takes in a Jewish man named Max to hide in the basement. And through it all, I travel the Earth, taking in more and more souls every day and you’ll wonder who I will come for next. Read The Book Thief to find out what happened to Liesel, what became of the Jewish man in the cellar whom she came to adore, and find out how I could know her entire story when I only met the book thief three times. As you read this story, you will learn how the power of words transformed a little girl, a family, a war-torn community, a nation, and me.

How I Found the Strong, by Margaret McMullan

Title: How I Found the Strong

Author: Margaret McMullan

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Year: 2004

# Pages: 136

Category: History choice, Historical Fiction Presentation

Genre: Historical Fiction

My Summary & Critique:

How I Found the Strong is a novel about the effects of the Civil War on a young boy and his family in rural Mississippi. It is told from the perspective of ten-year-old Frank Russell, who wishes he could have gone off to war with his father and brother, Henry, who is fourteen and “old enough to be a soldier.” Frank is the baby of the family, nicknamed “Shanks” because of his skinny legs, and rarely given any serious attention or respect. As the war takes its toll on the South, his family suffers extreme poverty, death, abandonment, and near-starvation. All that’s left at home are Shanks, his mother, the new baby, and their slave, Buck, who is not much older than Shanks. With each passing season, Shanks witnesses more of the hardships and atrocities of war and comes to his own conclusions about slavery, cowardice, and ultimately, his own strength.

Margaret McMullan’s novel about the Civil War is unlike any other novel I have read regarding this period in history. Learning about the war through the eyes of a ten year old boy has been particularly interesting, but also seeing the war from the viewpoint of someone slightly outside of it, in the suburbs of the war, so to speak, has been an intriguing and enlightening experience. McMullan touches on all the expected issues related to the war like Southern attitudes toward the North, toward slavery, their confidence that the war wouldn’t last, and of course the vivid atrocities of war as Shanks sees these with his own eyes in a makeshift hospital for wounded soldiers. The author also handles other issues such as desertion, lynching, the relationship between a slave and his master’s family, the humility of poverty, the nature of freedom, and the cruelty that walks hand-in-hand with racism. McMullan achieves a wonderful coming-of-age story amidst the depressing climate of war and poverty that would be excellent for young adults to read and discuss in classes as a supplement to the historical facts they learn about the Civil War period.

Fourth class session

For tonight's class, we opened with a discussion of Born to Run. The class seemed to be split pretty evenly between those who loved it and those who absolutely didn't. I have to agree that it is the type of book that could take a little time for the reader to accept, and I believe it has more to do with expectations than the actual merits of the book. Some people really were inspired to get out and run barefoot while others were content to read and absorb this great story. Still others, uninspired and uninterested, were turned off by the book.

Next, the fantasy group presented the information from their chapter, which I thought was very informative and thorough. Many of the books mentioned are books I have read or want to read. I love the variety of story possibilities available in the fantasy genre.

After a break, we listened to part of an audiobook in which the characters were from the antebellum South and reflected the kind of anti-Yankee sentiment that pervaded the South during the time period in which our book, The Unspeakable Crime, was set. Listening to this section of the audiobook really did set the stage for the kind of feelings that were prominent in Atlanta in 1913, setting us up for our courtroom reinactment.

Then, we proceeded to have a casual "mock trial" of Leo Frank using information from the book. This activity was fun and an interesting way to review the events of the book, but we all agreed in the end that it would have been more productive if the witnesses were able to prepare ahead of time for their interrogations rather than attempt to remember sometimes minute details from the book.

For our next class session, we will be having guest speaker, Bart Bare, author of Girl: a Novel. It should be interesting to speak with him and get his insight. Also, the Friends & Society group presentation that was assigned for tonight was rescheduled for next week.

An Unspeakable Crime: the Prosecution and Persecution of Leo Frank, by Elaine Marie Alphin

Title: An Unspeakable Crime: the Prosecution and Persecution of Leo Frank

Author: Elaine Marie Alphin

Publisher: Carolrhoda Books

Year: 2010

# Pages: 152

Category: Required

Genre: Non-fiction

My Summary & Critique:

An Unspeakable Crime chronicles the search for justice in the murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan in Atlanta, Georgia in 1913. Her body was found in the basement of the pencil factory in which she worked on the day of a parade in honor of Confederate Memorial Day. The story received widespread press coverage as officers sought to lay blame for this heinous act, and Leo Frank, a “Yankee Jew” who was the factory superintendent, became the target of suspicion. He was arrested, indicted, convicted, and his case went all the way to the Supreme Court, but his sentence was eventually commuted by the governor of Georgia, believing him to be innocent, and he was to serve life in prison instead of death by hanging. Details about the case indicate that there was mishandling of evidence, failure of due process, witness credibility issues, and enormous sway of public opinion and bias affecting the outcome of the case. In the end, a group of prominent, respectable men carried out a carefully organized plan to honor the court’s original sentence of death by hanging, and Leo Frank was taken from his prison cell and lynched. A lifetime later, in 1986, witnesses came forward who supported Frank’s innocence and he was pardoned posthumously by the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles.

This book made me angry. Angry at the judicial system for failing to live up to its proposed ideals; Angry at the witnesses, journalists, and investigators who were involved in researching, reporting, and trying this case; Angry at the 1913 public, so swayed by self-interest, popular opinion, and historical self-righteousness that they could not or would not be swayed by reason. I believe my anger is exactly what the author intended me to get out of this book. It is a story told with obvious bias, intended to inflame the reader with stories of injustice, racism, and anti-Semitism. Yet it is founded in fact and supported by documentation, so it is wholly believable. The details are punctuated by black and white photographs and supporting evidence, including court scenes, press headlines and articles, and gruesome souvenir photographs of the lynching. Annotated listings of the major figures in the case as well as source notes and bibliography are also included to help the reader. This book is powerful and gripping, sure to inspire heated discussion among readers. It would be an excellent choice for schools to consider adding to their curriculum content because it would provide a suitable companion to other classic works such as Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, in which a similar “witch hunt” is held. It could also provide valuable material for discussion on civic duties and the legal system, journalism ethics, or the dangers of repeating history. Students could draw similarities from the events and reactions of the public in this book to the public reactions to prominent trials of recent years. It is a remarkable text with powerful content for young adult and adult readers alike.

Marcelo in the Real World, by Francisco X. Stork

Title: Marcelo in the Real World
Author: Francisco X. Stork

Publisher: Scholastic
Year: 2009
# Pages: 312

Category: Friends & Society Choice
Genre: Contemporary Realistic

My Summary & Critique:
Marcelo Sandoval is a seventeen-year-old young man diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, a condition on the higher-functioning end of the autism spectrum. He has spent all his school years at Paterson, a special school, which has sheltered him and has provided him with the lessons in social etiquette that help him adjust to interacting with others, which takes considerable thought and effort on his part. The story begins at the beginning of the summer before his senior year and his father, Arturo, who wants his son to be as normal as possible, wants Marcelo to come and work in his law firm’s mailroom for the summer to get a dose of “the real world.” If he is able to successfully navigate the real world rules of the law office, Marcelo will be able to choose whether he wants to spend his senior year in the safe zone of Paterson, which he prefers, or enroll in the local public high school, which would be his father’s choice. His father is loving but seems somewhat embarrassed by his son’s condition and wants Marcelo to live as normal a life as possible, able to hold his own in the sometimes unforgiving “real world.”

Some of the aspects of Marcelo’s personality that keep him from fitting in are his absence of demonstrating characteristic emotional responses, his “special interest” in religion with a tendency to quote scripture on a regular basis, difficulty interpreting the feelings and motivations of others, and his tendency to hear a kind of internal music. He also has a tendency to view and speak of himself in the third person and repeat words and phrases that are unfamiliar to him. His mother, Aurora, and Rabbi Heschel understand him best of all and help him discuss his problems and navigate the intricacies of his interactions with people and the choices he must make. Working at the law firm puts him in the position of dealing with people who are sometimes inconsiderate and callous toward him as well as people who wish to manipulate him, using his weaknesses to their advantage. He also develops a close friendship with Jasmine, a fellow mailroom worker, introducing him to the possibility of love. Marcelo stumbles upon a photograph of a girl involved in a lawsuit at his father’s law firm and is compelled to help her, but there are many ethical implications he must consider. He makes difficult choices and he finds a way to thrive outside of his comfort zone, making plans for his own future.When I turned the final page of this book, I gave it a hug, thankful to have read it. Because one of my children also shows symptoms on the autism spectrum, similar to Marcelo’s, I had personal reasons for reading this book. I feel like the author has used Marcelo’s voice to provide a good picture of some of the struggles faced by those who are affected by Asperger’s or autism—not just the person, but also his family, his teachers, his friends, coworkers. There are plenty of excellent examples of people who seem to understand Marcelo and know exactly just what to say to him, giving him space when needed, and just the right words to help him interpret his surroundings and make the choices he needs to make. They also value him for his contributions, recognizing that his intelligence as well as what he can offer extend beyond the limitations of his condition. There are also people who clearly misunderstand him and mistreat him, teaching him that trust must be earned.

Written in mostly first person narrative, Marcelo’s character is believable, with an authentic voice, giving the reader a glimpse into the thoughts, motivations, and struggles faced by those who are deemed “different” by society. Although there are some instances of sexual talk (and an emphasis on “the f word”) and occasional crude language by an offensive character, most of these instances further the plot and characterization of the story. In fact, there is a frank discussion between Marcelo and the female Rabbi Heschel regarding sex from which many young adults might benefit. I loved the author’s treatment of Marcelo’s “special interest”—religion—because it was incorporated into the story so harmoniously that it became part of the story without feeling intrusive. References to Adam & Eve’s eating of the fruit from the Garden of Eden, giving them knowledge of good and evil, parallel Marcelo’s introduction into the “real world” and give the reader much to ponder. Ultimately, the message of this book is about how we understand and treat people, how we know the difference between right and wrong, and how we all can come to listen to our own inner music.