The Astonishing Color of After, by Emily X. R. Pan, chronicles the journey of Leigh Chen Sanders as she goes to her mother’s homeland, Taiwan, in order to bring about some resolution for her mother (and herself) after her mother’s suicide. Shortly after her mother’s death, Leigh discovers that her mother has become a beautiful red bird, and she pursues the bird, which takes Leigh on a journey into the collective past of her family. ​

My Take: This book was stunningly beautiful. I also found it deeply painful to read. For a large portion of the book, I was worried that there was no hope for redemption or peace. The premise makes it clear that there is no hope for Leigh's mom (at least in her bodily form on this earth) as she has already succumbed to suicide as the book opens. However, I was completely captivated, and I found the twists and turns and magical realism that Pan weaves so smoothly into the text to be both compelling and comforting.
My conclusion: This was a stunning novel. Throughout much of the novel, I felt like I couldn't imagine feeling hopeful by the end, but it is remarkably uplifting considering the heavy content and premise.  It was captivating, eloquent, and artistic. In short, I loved it. I was teary throughout much of it, but I found it cathartic and hopeful. Well done, Ms. Pan. I look forward to more works by this talented author.  5/5 stars. 
Favorite Quotes: The memorable, gorgeous quotes are endless. I was taking photos of pages to capture the passages, and I truly felt that I could have photographed every page. I cannot believe this is Pan's first novel!  Here are a few of the ones I loved.​

• This is the mother I want to remember. This joy. The way her glow filled a room. Her playfulness, her love of good food, her bright and bouncing laughter. [...] I stand there with my feet rooted into the carpet of that memory, watching until my ribs crunch together and pulverize my heart and send the heat of my missing everywhere. The grief spills out of me sepia dark. - In one of Pan's many brilliant artistic choices, she makes it possible for Leigh to relive memories, even ones that don't belong to her. Leigh is able to rediscover powerful components of the past that help her better understand the present and future. Pan captures the essence of grief with a clarity that's frighteningly accurate for those who've experienced it firsthand.
• I would always remember my fourteenth birthday with perfect clarity, because it was one of the first times I realized that there might be something truly wrong with my mother. She cared that it was my birthday, but it wasn't enough to blow aside the storm. In the shadowy master bedroom, with lights off and curtains drawn, she spiraled all the way down. Her body was silent, but her darkness was louder than anything. Our home shrank to the size of a dollhouse, and the walls pressed up against me so that I couldn't breathe or speak or hear anything but her despair.  - Pan depicts the ins and outs of depression and the way it can affect a whole family. She also captures what that experience is like for a teenager only beginning to understand the profound circumference of its shadow.
• "They blame me. They think if I never come to America, if I never meet you, Jingling would be alive. Why everything always my fault? Maybe I blame them. They ate lunch with her the day she died. They should see how sick she was. Why everything my fault? Why not their fault? They will never meet Leigh. They will never hurt her like they hurt me."  - Through Leigh's journey to Taiwan and the memories that she discovers, she learns about the way that family members can impact each other throughout generations and can shape each other's lives. I so loved Leigh's discovery of Waipo and Waigong and their histories, and I love how that expanded and enriched her view of the world -- even though they were two people who had caused her mother tremendous pain. 

What I added to my TBR list: I'd read both of the other recommendations, Toni Morrison's Beloved and Laurie Halse Anderson's The Impossible Knife of Memory, but I love both passionately and wanted to mention here how great both of those reads are. 
​Teaching Tips: This novel would be a great choice for lit circles, and it would work well with other works about grief, coping with loss, family dynamics, cross-cultural families, and second generation Americans.

Man, have I read some amazing (mostly YA) literature lately! I’ve been fortunate to burn through lots of gift cards loading up on summer reads based on great recommendations (Thanks, Jen Moyers, my book guru!), and I can hardly keep up with all of the inspiring texts I’ve been enjoying. (In fact, this book review is a month overdue, but I’m finally going through what I initially wrote to post it. More reviews should be on their way shortly!)

Today I want to focus on Gabi, A Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero. (Credit goes to Goodreads.com for the cover image.)

From the provocative cover to the unique use of images and poetry within the novel, this book certainly gets the reader’s attention from the start. I read it on an e-reader (due to space constraints while traveling—see this post for more about that journey), and I feel like I missed out a little bit on some of the interesting aspects of the text, but I’ve looked at a paper copy as well to experience some of the richer, more colorful aspects of presentation. It's also a short novel, and I've written before about how valuable that can be, especially with a teen audience in a classroom setting.

This brilliant novel hits on all sorts of issues through the eyes of a hilarious, curious, critical girl, Gabi Hernandez, as she journeys through her senior year in high school. She spends much of her time figuring out what it means to be a woman, and she documents all of her thoughts and adventures in a diary that we, the readers, are privy to seeing. Gabi struggles through many typical teen issues with humor and self-reflection: she’s an awesome friend who helps out with a friend’s coming out and another friend’s pregnancy, and she struggles to find her way in relationships with boys. Gabi works through finding her voice as a writer, and she goes through the challenging process of applying for college. She also continually works to maintain meaningful relationships with a mother who, while well-meaning, can be oppressive, a brother who can be irresponsible and careless, and a father who is a drug addict.

The best part of the novel is Gabi’s voice. She’s distinctive, funny, and self-assured (even when she’s insecure). She doesn’t hesitate to say exactly how she feels, even when it’s difficult or makes people uncomfortable. Here are a couple of examples: “Curse the day I fell in love or like or whatever with Joshua Moore! I hate him. Hate him! HATE HIM!” (Quintero 20).  Here she comments on her discovery of her love of writing: “I’m finding out that I really like poetry. It’s therapeutic. It’s like I can write something painful on paper and part of it (not all of it, obviously) disappears. It goes always somewhere, and the sadness I feel dissolves a little bit” (Quintero 48). This manifests into some brilliant poetry later on in the novel as she discovers more about the world of writing. The poems about her grandmother and her father are stunning—ones that could easily stand alone, ones that I found myself rereading after I had finished the novel. Here's a brief excerpt from the poem about her father, "In light of the fear of my father's death I write this down":
       Guilt of gluttonous
       consumption
       on corners
       corners him.
       He evades questioning questions
       and dodges disagreements
       a refugee in refuge
       a reduction of
       my father the brave. (Quintero 65)

In the classroom: There are so many teachable aspects of this novel. However, the most intriguing aspect of it to me is the way that you could pair the novel with the texts and authors that Gabi discovers in the novel. As she discovers her own voice as a poet, she also encounters many other poets and writers, and you could use the pieces that she discovers as a way to pair the YA novel with more classical, traditional literature in the classroom setting. She encounters writers such as the Beats (specifically Ginsberg’s Howl), Sylvia Plath, Pablo Neruda, e.e. cummings, and Sandra Cisneros. She also talks about Brave New World (though only in passing), and there are references to Edgar Allen Poe and other authors. The text is full of literary connections that could enrich its reading.

I also love the incorporation of Spanish and the way that Gabi shows her readers what it can be like to grow up as a second generation immigrant in America. The Spanish in the text is unobtrusive to non-Spanish readers, and Gabi always makes her point clear in English, but it highlights the richness and complexity of her experience as she navigates through her world of colliding cultures and generations. The way that she talks about Mexican food also shows the richness of her culture. When one of her early relationships falls apart, she talks with her mother:
    I tried to act like I didn’t care about the whole Josh situation, but it was hard. I came home today and told     my mom what was going on (because she’s my mom and can ALWAYS tell when there’s something wrong     and won’t let it go until I tell her) and she offers some words of comfort so my heart wouldn’t shatter. She     knows heartbreak, she said. She said. “Yo se lo que es estar joven y enamorada.” I tried to think of my mom     as young and in love, but I couldn’t, it was too far of a stretch. (Quintero 22)
Gabi's relationship with her mom is complicated (aren't they always?) but tender and rich. The way that Gabi embraces her heritage and balances her different cultural influences shows one more aspect of her growing into herself. She reflects on her Mexican-American heritage and how hard it can be to be in that situation of split allegiances. It’s one more way that the text is complex, while being totally approachable.

This novel covers so many issues: it is not a book about being overweight, but Gabi talks openly and honestly about her struggles with food and self-image. It’s not a book about sexual identity, but Gabi manages to highlight to us the struggles that so many teens face as they try to learn about themselves. It’s not a book about being homosexual, but her friend’s struggles with his family show how difficult it is for some teens to come out to their loved ones. It’s not a book about teen pregnancy, but her friend Cindy’s struggles show what that path can look like for a young mother. It's not a book about addiction, but Gabi shows the way that addiction impacts the lives of loved ones. Through Gabi's eyes and voice, Quintero covers so many issues with humor, compassion, and authenticity.

In short (I realize this should be an ironic statement since this review keeps getting longer and longer...), I LOVED it, and it would be an invaluable addition to some of the more traditional canonical texts.

First of all, if you haven't read Eudora Welty's lovely short story, "A Worn Path," take the time to read it. Although it's a "traditional" text often found in textbooks, it is one that resonates with students and results in good engagement and strong discussions. 

Welty opens with a vivid depiction of the main character, Phoenix Jackson (seen in the great image to the left that I got from this blog). The story then moves into an account of Phoenix's long and tumultuous journey on foot to the closest town to get medicine for her sick grandson. It's short enough that most students could read it comfortably in one day with time to do some other activities (if you're on block schedule with around 90 minutes per class), but if you want to break it up over two (or more) days, there's plenty to do to supplement the story, and you can work with the first half of the story on the first day. It works well to break it after her encounter with the hunter when he departs (stop before the paragraph where Welty writes, "She walked on"). 


For those who are teaching English 11 through the literary movements, this piece fits into Modernism. (A brief tangent about the teaching of literary periods for those who are interested: once we finally let go of that style of teaching in English 11, a world of possibilities unfolded before us. We were able to group texts (even traditional, canonical ones) into much more engaging, approachable units that focused on relevant skills and riveting essential questions rather than struggling through early American literature and losing students right there at the beginning of the year when buy in is so crucial. If you have the freedom to break away from that mold, I encourage you to try it--we've done lots of different kinds of units, and ALL of them have been more successful than the chronological approach. If you've never taught that way or left it behind long ago, you may disregard this whole tangent.) When we taught units focusing on different archetypes, this story fell into the "journey" archetype. It would also fit nicely in a unit on determination, love for family, selflessness, or the need to help others. With the current "social issues" style of unit creation that we're using (see the post on social issues for more info about that), I'd place this in a unit focusing on issues addressing class or race. There are many subtleties in the text that could be explored including class issues, social structure, racism, finding meaning in life, and identity. 

The way I have taught the story, we explore the way that Welty uses literary techniques to create a theme. The activities has three parts: (1) An overview organizer that looks at Welty's life, reviews the literary terms, and examines some vocabulary from the story (2) An individual organizer that is differentiated to suit different students' comprehension/ skill levels. These organizers focus on SETTING/ CONFLICT/ CHARACTERIZATION/ and SYNTAX and SYMBOLISM. The students will only focus on ONE of the devices; there are basic plot questions at the bottom of each organizer to ensure that the students grasp the story while they are looking for their specific literary technique. (3) A group organizer that requires students to come together who have the different literary devices; that organizer focuses on creation of theme statements and lets the students explore HOW the devices create the theme that they see in the text.

The first day, we work our way through the pre-reading activities and get into the story. The students work on their individual parts of the story, finding examples and completing the organizer as they read. They can certainly work in groups for this, but it would work best if they worked with people who were looking for the same literary device. 


The second day, we focus on theme creation and proving HOW the literary devices reveal the theme. We talk about theme statements and the fact that they are not simply single words but instead complete statements about life. They work to analyze how the different elements reveal a specific theme statement. The groups then share their themes and how the devices reveal them. (Posters are always a wild success on theme days; I often let students make them using the big sketch pad paper and markers--I have them place the theme statement in the middle, surrounding it with the support, which would be the devices and examples here.) I like to start with a warm-up and end with a wrap-up activity (which I call exit slips--a term that I'm sure was drilled into me at some point in my teaching career, but that is not universal). For this story, I typically do journal entries at the beginning of class, and the activities at the end of class focus on theme creation within a poem as well as analysis of the story. 

There's a fascinating essay by Welty concerning Phoenix Jackson's grandson--namely, whether he is, in fact, alive at all. Check that out here if you're interested. (This is an essay I've used at times with classes--it leads to great discussion and debate.) She sums up her ideas when she says: 

Ah, yes, that's a lovely sentiment for all of us, writers and teachers. Aren't we eternally working tirelessly with nothing more to guide us than our own internal compass, an assumption and a bit of hope?

If you're interested in the materials that go with this set of lessons, check out my page on TeachersPayTeachers. (The materials are not there yet, as of 2/9/15, but they will be there ASAP!) I'm just now getting it going, so I'd love any feedback and support that you can offer!