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Overview
In a startling, often poignant student journal, acclaimed poet and novelist Ron Koertge creates a suburban high school both familiar and terrifying.
The Branston High School Class of 2001 seems familiar enough on the surface: there’s the Smart One, the Fat Kid, Social Conscience, Bad Girl, Good Girl, Jock, Anorexic, Dyke, Rich Boy, Sistah, Stud . . . and Boyd, an Angry Young Man who has just made a dangerous new friend. Now he’s making a list.
The Branston High School Class of 2001. You might think you know them. You might be surprised.
Narrated by fifteen teenage characters, this startling, often poignant poetic novel evokes a suburban high school both familiar and terrifying — and provides an ideal opportunity for young adults to discuss violence in schools.
In a series of short interconnected poems, students at a high school nicknamed Brimstone reveal the violence existing and growing in their lives.
Synopsis
In a startling, often poignant student journal, acclaimed poet and novelist Ron Koertge creates a suburban high school both familiar and terrifying.
The Branston High School Class of 2001 seems familiar enough on the surface: there’s the Smart One, the Fat Kid, Social Conscience, Bad Girl, Good Girl, Jock, Anorexic, Dyke, Rich Boy, Sistah, Stud . . . and Boyd, an Angry Young Man who has just made a dangerous new friend. Now he’s making a list.
The Branston High School Class of 2001. You might think you know them. You might be surprised.
Narrated by fifteen teenage characters, this startling, often poignant poetic novel evokes a suburban high school both familiar and terrifying — and provides an ideal opportunity for young adults to discuss violence in schools.
Publishers Weekly
Through poems, Koertge (Where the Kissing Never Stops) creates 15 separate narrators, all seniors at Branston (nicknamed "Brimstone") High School, struggling with major problems. Boyd, a white supremacist neglected by his alcoholic father, is staging a school shooting spree. Even the school nurse and at least one teacher are racist: "Our homeroom teacher,/ Ms. Malone... / says black/ people have their own Heaven, but it's/ far enough away from ours so we won't/ have to listen to their music." As Boyd prepares a target list (of "everybody who/ ever blew me off, flipped me off,/ or pissed me off"), the other characters reach their own breaking points; some even consider buying guns from him to solve their troubles. While Koertge's pacing allows readers to sense the building tension, the brevity of the poems provides readers with little insight into the characters, so that they teeter on the edge of melodrama: Kitty is anorexic ("I think if I'm thin enough, I can fly"), Sheila wonders if she's a lesbian because she loves her best friend ("I want to go farther with Monica/ than just good-bye hugs"). Despite some memorable lines ("His dreams are like a box I cannot put down," says Tran, a Vietnamese teen who feels pressured by his immigrant father to become successful), the novel does not have enough heft to compensate for a cast that does not seem fully alive. Ages 14-up. (Feb.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
Through poems, Koertge (Where the Kissing Never Stops) creates 15 separate narrators, all seniors at Branston (nicknamed "Brimstone") High School, struggling with major problems. Boyd, a white supremacist neglected by his alcoholic father, is staging a school shooting spree. Even the school nurse and at least one teacher are racist: "Our homeroom teacher,/ Ms. Malone... / says black/ people have their own Heaven, but it's/ far enough away from ours so we won't/ have to listen to their music." As Boyd prepares a target list (of "everybody who/ ever blew me off, flipped me off,/ or pissed me off"), the other characters reach their own breaking points; some even consider buying guns from him to solve their troubles. While Koertge's pacing allows readers to sense the building tension, the brevity of the poems provides readers with little insight into the characters, so that they teeter on the edge of melodrama: Kitty is anorexic ("I think if I'm thin enough, I can fly"), Sheila wonders if she's a lesbian because she loves her best friend ("I want to go farther with Monica/ than just good-bye hugs"). Despite some memorable lines ("His dreams are like a box I cannot put down," says Tran, a Vietnamese teen who feels pressured by his immigrant father to become successful), the novel does not have enough heft to compensate for a cast that does not seem fully alive. Ages 14-up. (Feb.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.Children's Literature
Written as journal entries, these startling and poignant free verse poems capture the hurt, angry and confused voices of teens. Branston High's senior class is typical of any American high school with students like Kelly the anorexic, Sheila the lesbian, Damon the jock, Meredith the easy one and Kelli trying to break free from an obsessive boyfriend. Then there is Boyd, the angry young man stockpiling his weapons, culling his followers, and planning his violent attack. These powerful and chilling voices resonate with the echoes of Columbine. Each is strong in its individuality but it is their interconnection to one another and to the simmering violence waiting to explode that resounds from the pages. As each student reveals more about himself the reader is able to put the pieces of the puzzle together for a clear picture of this troubled class. The large number of personalities is at first difficult to sort through but the impression they leave on the reader will remain with him long after the last page is read. 2001, Candlewick Press, $15.99. Ages 14 to 18. Reviewer: Beverley FaheyKLIATT
To quote from the review of the hardcover in KLIATT, March 2001: The Fat Kid, the Anorexic, the Slut, the Jock...and, most alarmingly, the Angry Boy with a Grudge and a Gun. We meet 15 familiar high school student types through the brief but revealing poems they write. Yes, the characters are stereotypes, but this story of simmering violence has an unexpected ending, in which tragedy is averted and an unlikely character becomes a hero. Like Mel Glenn (author of Split Image, Foreign Exchange, and other YA titles), Koertge, a poet and YA author (Where the Kissing Never Stops, The Arizona Kid, and Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright) employs multiple perspectives and a blank verse format to explore a topic of concern to all YAs. A good companion piece to Todd Strasser's Give a Boy a Gun, another recent YA novel about school violence. The format makes this a quick, easy read, and teachers may want to have students try this kind of writing themselves. Some profanity. (An ALA Best Book for YAs.) KLIATT Codes: JS*—Exceptional book, recommended for junior and senior high school students. 2001, Candlewick, 113p., Ages 12 to 18.—Paula Rohrlick