               Battle of the Kids' Books
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Round 3 Match 2 The Hunger Games vs The LincolnsApril 30, 2009
Judge Chris Crutcher's Statement
They say you can’t compare apples and oranges, which is really dumb. Apples are usually red or green. Oranges are, well, orange. They’re both fruit. Apples are usually hard and oranges are usually soft. Most people take the skin off an orange before they eat it, but leave the skin on an apple. See? I can compare them and I’m not an apple- or orange-ologist, or even a general fruit practitioner.
Apples and oranges are far easier to compare than are The Hunger Games and The Lincolns. To the extent that this Battle of the Books has to have a winner, I almost wish I’d opted out as a “judge,” but then I wouldn’t have the opportunity to talk about both books. The Lincolns is a book that every U.S. History teacher should have in his or her classroom. Not in the back of the classroom, either; right there on every kid's desk. Many polls tell us that social studies is the least favorite academic discipline of middle and high schoolers. Being at the bottom of a totem pole that includes math, science, any number of foreign languages, is flat ugly; at least from my perspective. I’m guessing one reason social studies ends up down in snake's belly/whale dung territory in those polls is because of relevance. Candace Fleming brings Abraham and Mary Lincoln alive. They were humans. They had personalities, reasons why they behaved the way they behaved. They lived in a specific time; lived simultaneously through national tragedies and personal tragedies. Read The Lincolns and you feel like you know them. There is a scene in the movie “Thirteen Days” (about the Cuban missile crisis) where Ken O’Donnell and John and Bobby Kennedy stop in the middle of the chaos to realize that the only thing stopping Russia and the United States from entering nuclear war is them. You get the sense that, for a moment, their humanness – their smallness – is overwhelming. Then they go on and do what they need to do. That’s the sense I got reading The Lincolns. Real people thrown into astonishing events. There is brilliance to the layout of the book. The sub-title is: “A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary.” It is exactly that. You follow their lives as if you were living at the same time, reading snippets, newspaper articles, looking at pictures and drawings. I was, for a mercifully short time (mercifully for the students) a U.S. History teacher. I wish I’d had this book, as much to inform myself as to inform my students. I’d have appeared much smarter and my poll would have moved social studies out of the cellar. But I have to go with The Hunger Games. I read the first Harry Potter book just as the last one was coming out, just so I could be conversant in who the guy is. I don’t read fantasy. With the exception of Cormac McCarty’s The Road, I don’t read “After the fall” literature either. So I opened The Hunger Games cursing School Library Journal for asking me to participate in the Battle of the Books and cursing my editor for telling me I should do it. I pulled it out of my backpack as my plane took off from Denver, and by the time we were descending into LaGuardia I was praying to God to send many planes our way so we’d have to go into a circle pattern. Katniss’ voice was perfect… the story was perfectly balanced with characterization and action. Relationships were complex and compelling and always moved the story forward. It was just a hell of a yarn. Our main job as writers of fiction is getting kids to read. Simple as that. The Hunger Games is going to get a lot of kids reading.
 Finally! It’s about time somebody played the Kids-Won’t-Read-This card! Chris seems to be the only person who got one. Where were our other authors when they were being passed out? I adore The Lincolns, but it has not been a good week. First, it lost its rematch with Nation at the L.A. Times Book Prizes. And now, The Hunger Games unceremoniously bumps it from the tournament to advance to the championship round. If the main job of a writer, as Chris asserts, is to getting kids to read then The Hunger Games should win it all, but if writers of fiction can get kids to think as their main job then The Kingdom of the Waves can pull out the victory. My favorite book has already been dismissed, but I’m in negotiations with Lois the Omnipotent One to resurrect it as the winner, and since my bribe is currently the biggest . . .
Posted by Battle Commander on April 30, 2009 | Comments (3)
April 30, 2009
In response to: Round 3 Match 2 The Hunger Games vs The Lincolns Lauren Downey commented: YES. The anticipation was about to do me in, finally my F5 key can get a rest!
April 30, 2009
In response to: Round 3 Match 2 The Hunger Games vs The Lincolns Nancy Werlin commented: "Our main job as writers of fiction is getting kids to read."
April 30, 2009
In response to: Round 3 Match 2 The Hunger Games vs The Lincolns Jonathan Hunt commented: This would have been a difficult one for me to decide, too. A Sophie's Choice moment, for sure. Here take this one. No, take this one! Arrgh!
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