Cover-to-Cover Commuting: Burned, and Smoke, by Ellen Hopkins

I had intended to review these two books during Banned Books Week, or shortly thereafter.  It's now two weeks later.  Good heavens, I hope my readers don't actually expect me to be timely, or if you do, you forgive me.  I'm a library director, and I have a second library job.  Both jobs are a lot of work, and consume a lot of time and energy.  Much as I'd love to blog more regularly, that's not going to happen.

Librarians are like teachers.  Overworked and underpaid.

 Enough of that, though.  Let me tell you about these audiobooks!  Burned was published in 2006, while its sequel, Smoke, came out last month.

Statistics
Checkouts: Both owned in print and audio format at the small public library
Typical reader: Teens, fans of the author
Source: Burned was interlibrary loaned; Smoke was cataloged and checked out to me the day it arrived, hehe

Synopses: In Burned, Pattyn von Stratten is the eldest daughter in a fundamentalist home with an abusive father and useless mother.  Enraged by her really fairly typical teen actions, her father sends her away to his sister's ranch in rural Nevada.  There, she finds happiness and hope - which she must leave when the school year begins.  Smoke picks up not long after the cliffhanger ending of Burned, with Pattyn on the run and her sister Jackie picking up the pieces of their lives.  Can they rebuild, despite the lies and pain?

My Goodreads ratings: 5 stars for Burned, 4 stars for Smoke

Pattyn (named for General Patton; her father named all his children for generals) is likely the sweetest protagonist you could possibly find in one of Ms. Hopkins' novels.  The poor girl has a rough life, though, with a father who rules with an iron fist - which he often uses against his wife - and a fundamentalist church that looks the other way when its women need help.

When Pattyn gets into trouble with her father and at school due to a boy, she is shipped off to live with an aunt who has a ranch in rural Nevada.  This is meant as punishment, but it turns out to be the exact opposite.  There, she learns how it feels to be loved, both by her kind aunt and by a nice neighbor boy.  Love is a double-edged sword, however, which she learns when she returns home to face reality.  And man, can the consequences of love be disastrous.

The second book is narrated by both Pattyn and her sister, Jackie.  Pattyn is on the run after a horrific series of events, and tries to rebuild her life posing as an illegal immigrant worker to become a nanny on a rural Californian ranch.  (And that didn't come across as ridiculously in the book as it does when I type it.)  Meanwhile, Jackie has her own demons to face, and must help her mother and sisters cope with all that's happened.  It's a lot for a young teen girl.

Smoke is different from any other novel by Ms. Hopkins that I've read.  It's filled with so much hope.  Fans may find themselves torn between grabbing onto that hope and expecting everything to turn out okay for Pattyn and Jackie, and being cynical and waiting for it to all come crashing down, especially for Pattyn in her new life.  Can there be a happy ending?

Banned Books Week: Crank, by Ellen Hopkins

Unlike last year, I'm taking Banned Books Week seriously here and reviewing a book that has been banned and challenged.  I recently listened to the audiobook version of Crank by Ellen Hopkins, and realized that it was perfect for this feature.  It has been challenged for drugs, offensive language, and being sexually explicit.  This has happened all over the country, often with the worst result possible: it's been banned.  It was #4 on the American Library Association's most frequently challenged book list for 2010.  The author, who has had many of her books challenged or banned, has even been repeatedly dis-invited from speaking events.

That's particularly sad because Crank is semi-biographical, about Ms. Hopkins' own daughter's descent into drug use.

So let's take a look at this book.

Statistics
Checkouts: not owned by the charter school; 6 checkouts of the paperback at the school/public; no statistics available for audiobook (interlibrary loan)
Typical reader: curious teens, and drug users
Source: Interlibrary loan

Synopsis: Kristina Snow was the perfect daughter and student.  Then she went to visit her father one summer, where she tried crank - the monster, methamphetamine.  At first, it was great.  But then it led her into a special sort of hell.

My Goodreads rating: 4 stars

I went with the audiobook for this one because it's written in free verse.  Between my dislike for that form of poetry, and the fact that I just can't read poetry (blaming high school English for that), it seemed like a good choice.  And it is, just for time's sake - the audiobook is 4 discs long, whereas the paperback is a whopping 537 pages.  But it's also good for the quality of narration.  Laura Flanagan delivers the story well, with feeling and a teen-sounding voice.  She handles the verse format better than I ever could, making it more lyrical and less cumbersome.

Crank is a rough book, any which way you read it.  It deals with some very hard subjects.  Kristina gets into a lot of trouble due to her drug use.  This includes trouble at home with her family, with her finances, at school, with her friends, and with boys.  Some of that is very serious.

This book has been banned and challenged for drugs, offensive language, and being sexually explicit.  Well, yes, it does have all of that.  Sometimes people challenge books for the oddest perceived faults; this time, they're right.  The book is about drug use.  Is it glamorized?  Hardly.  There's offensive language, but that seems superfluous.  As for being sexually explicit, let me give you some spoilers.  Kristina gets raped, and that is described a bit.  It's worth cringing over.  She talks with a fellow female drug user about it, and finds out that it's happened to the friend as well.  Girls that use drugs often get raped by dealers, or by guys that offer to help them get high.  And as a final lesson in what bad things can happen when a girl uses drugs, she discovers that she's pregnant, and it's the rapist's baby.

Is this appropriate for young children?  No, but I doubt anyone found it in an elementary collection.  Is it appropriate for teens?  That's a good question.  It's written for teens, about a teen, based on a real teen girl.  But parents should certainly be aware that their teen is reading it.  This is a novel that needs discussion.  Don't take it away, just because of a fear that it might make them curious or lead them astray.  The consequences of Kristina's drug-addled actions become clear enough by the end of the book.  Discuss it with them.  Talk about how drugs can mess up their lives.

I really have to give kudos to Ms. Hopkins for writing this book and its direct sequel, Glass.  She was struggling with how and why her daughter could go down the path of meth use, and this book explores what happened, or may have happened.  She's been praised by people who have used meth, for accurately portraying what it's like.  Some have even told her how the books have helped them clean up.

If that's not a reason to keep the book on the shelf, what is?


Have a good Banned Book Week, everyone.  Enjoy your freedom to read.  Do you have a favorite challenged book, or one that you're reading in honor of this week?

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On to a lighter subject.  Tomorrow is the first day of October.  October shall be a special month here, where a librarian moonlights as a librarian.   I'm going to take the month to focus on books of Marvelous Michigan!  I'll be exploring new and old books for all ages, that are by Michigan authors, or are set in Michigan, or are about this state of pleasant peninsulas.  I might even have an author interview or two.  Stay tuned - I hope you'll love it.