Starting Over: A Reimagined Life
Joyce Adams Burner, Curriculum Connections -- School Library Journal, 10/11/2007
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What if you could reboot your life? Wipe the slate clean, emerge a different person? The fresh starts thrust upon the protagonists of two new young adult titles reveal the problems accompanying a renewed identity.
“[I]n a way, I was born to be an amnesiac. I have always been required to fill in the blanks,” confides Naomi Porter in Gabrielle Zevin’s Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac (Farrar, 2007). As a newborn, Naomi was abandoned and then adopted. A nasty fall downstairs and the resulting head trauma rob Naomi at 16 of four years of memories, including her parents’ painful divorce and her dedication as the yearbook co-editor. Her best friend and fellow co-editor Will is a stranger, as is Ace, her tennis-star boyfriend; their offhand references to past events only increase her sense of alienation. On the other hand, intriguing newcomer James lurks on the fringe amid swirling rumors of a troubled past. Trying to understand the Naomi pictured in past yearbooks, she reconsiders her relationships and interests, and sheds the commitments she no longer values, beginning with yearbook and, coincidentally, her friendship with Will. She breaks up with Ace and takes up with unstable James, only to be drawn into his emotional highs and lows. When her memories come flooding back, she chooses to keep them secret, initially preferring the new identity she has created for herself but ultimately weaving an entangling web of deception.
Hear Gabrielle Zevin read from Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac
“What if you only had one year to live...and you knew it?” asks the cover of Chris Crutcher’s Deadline (HarperCollins/Greenwillow, 2007). Like Naomi, Ben Wolf harbors a secret. A routine sports physical reveals an aggressive form of leukemia, and Ben, 18, chooses not to pursue treatment or tell anyone of his condition. “…I’m not going out bald and puking. I don’t have anything to teach anyone about life, and I’m not brave, but I’d rather be a flash than a slowly cooling ember….” Slightly built Ben quits cross country and goes out for football to play with his star-quarterback younger brother. He sets his romantic sights on strong, beautiful Dallas Suzuki, and displays newfound assertiveness in classroom discussions with a bigoted teacher. Already known as a smart aleck, Ben charges at life flat out. “I’m blessed with nothing to lose,” he reasons, ignoring the inevitable revelation of the truth.
Hear Chris Crutcher read from Deadline
Zevin and Crutcher start with made-for-TV-movie plots, but flesh them out with complex, well-defined characters stumbling through ethical and existential questions, ripe for classroom discussions and creative writing responses. What is the difference between holding a secret and lying? What is the basis of true friendship–personal commitment or shared (and remembered) experiences? Can a person truly “start over”? And what would you do if you learned you had only a year to live? The wry wit and sardonic irony lacing these books will delight and disconcert as readers consider the roles of humor and suspension of disbelief in depicting difficult topics.
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