Literature for Young Adults · UNIT FOUR School Pictures Pig Brains Alden R.Carter short story 182...

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P E R F E C T I O N L E A R N I N G

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M A N Y V O I C E S L I T E R A T U R E S E R I E SM A N Y V O I C E S L I T E R A T U R E S E R I E S

Lite

rature

for Y

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Ad

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Snap

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Literature for Young Adults

Snapshots is an anthology of the best contemporary literature by the best authors writ-ing

for young adults. The relevant, thought-provoking selections in a wide variety of gen-

res

deal with issues of concern to today’s young-adult

readers. Most of the photographs that

accompany the selections were taken by

student photographers.

Readers will see themselves as they

read through

the "snapshots" in this anthology.

PERFECTION LEARNING® CORPORATIONLogan, Iowa 51546-0500perfectionlearning.com

Printed in U.S.A.

#38637 ISBN: 0-7569-9952-9

Other titles in the

MANY VOICES LITERATURE SERIES

American Short Stories: 1920 to the Present

A Multicultural Reader, Collection One

A Multicultural Reader, Collection Two

Reading the World: Contemporary Literature from Around the Globe

SnapshotsLiterature for Young AdultsSnapshots

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UNIT TWO

Family Album

Looking for WorkGary Soto autobiography 66

A Plate of PeasRick Beyer memoir 73

AshesSusan Beth Pfeffer short story 76

After the DivorceJewel Kilcher poem 85

Atomic Blue PiecesAngela Johnson short story 86

The Night the Bear Ate GoombawPatrick F. McManus short story 93

Saying Good-bye to the Tal l ManRick Book short story 100

Because I could not stop for DeathEmily Dickinson poem 111

R e s p o n d i n g t o U n i t Tw o 112

UNIT THREE

Friendly Photos

Kiss ing TennesseeKathi Appelt short story 116

The Dream KeeperLangston Hughes poem 121

A Robot Doesn’t Have a Cur ve Bal lRon Koertge short story 122

DawnTim Wynne-Jones short story 135

Josh: The Smartest Dog in the WorldGary Paulsen personal narrative 153

The Fitt ing of the Sl ipperWilliam J. Brooke short story 162

Inter viewSara Henderson Hay poem 177

R e s p o n d i n g t o U n i t T h r e e 178

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UNIT FOUR

School Pictures

Pig BrainsAlden R. Carter short story 182

The MetaphorBudge Wilson short story 192

Mrs. GoldwasserRon Wallace poem 209

This Is a Test Stephen Gregg play 210

Pass/Fai lLinda Pastan poem 230

What Is and Ain’t GrammaticalDave Barry essay 231

A Letter from the Fringe Joan Bauer short story 235

R e s p o n d i n g t o U n i t Fo u r 244

UNIT FIVE

Neighborhood Panorama

The Pi l l Factor yAnne Mazer short story 248

AmirPaul Fleischman short story 264

Post HumusPatti Tana poem 268

War GameNancy Werlin short story 269

What Happened During the Ice StormJim Heynen short story 278

The RunawayRobert Frost poem 280

Block Party—145th Street StyleWalter Dean Myers short story 281

in the inner c ityLucille Clifton poem 291

R e s p o n d i n g t o U n i t F i v e 292


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UNIT SIX

Postcards from Beyond

Black Angel Nancy Springer short story 296

Horse by Moonl ightAlberto Blanco poem 308

The ElevatorWilliam Sleator short story 309

Muff in Explains Teleology to the Wold at LargeJames Alan Gardner short story 316

Turn! Turn! Turn!Pete Seeger song lyrics 330

The Wife’s Stor yUrsula K. Le Guin short story 331

The DefenderRobert Lipsyte short story 336

R e s p o n d i n g t o U n i t S i x 346

Author Biographies 348Index of Tit les and Authors 356Acknowledgments 358


9

Active ReadingWhat Is It and Why Is It Important?

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Reading is a lot like sports. Both require practice and a goodunderstanding of the rules. In both you have a goal, either toreach the finish line or to finish the last line. And both demandactive participation. Of course reading does not leave you sweatyand exhausted like a good game of soccer, but it does require lotsof activity—mind activity. Like a good athlete, a good reader mustbe on his or her toes, ready at all times to spring into action.

That is what Active Reading is all about: Jumping into yourreading with both feet, getting involved, being a part of theaction, and relating to the characters. The chart below will helpyou understand, remember, and use the Active Reading strate-

gies. If you train yourself to use these strategies every time you read, they will become secondnature to you. Soon, you will be using them without being aware of them. You will become askilled reader who learns efficiently and enjoys reading.

The Six Active Reading Strategies■ Questioning Ask questions that come to mind as you read.

Example: The first little pig built his house of straw, what will the second little pig use?

■ Predicting Use what has happened to guess what will happen next.Example: The Big Bad Wolf is going to huff and puff and blow the stick house down, just as hedid the straw house.

■ Clarifying Clear up confusion and answer any questions you may have.Example: The wolf blew down two houses, but does he really think he can also blow down abrick house? Yes. He tries, but fails.

■ Connecting Compare the text with something in your own experience or with other thingsyou have read or seen.Example: I think that the wolf has met his match. If I were the wolf, I would leave this thirdpig alone.

■ Summarizing Review what has happened so far.Example: The wolf has been able to blow down a straw and a stick house, but not the brickhouse of the third little pig. He is now going to climb down the third little pig’s chimney.

■ Evaluating Use evidence in the selection as well as your common sense to form opinionsand arrive at conclusions.Example: The story of the wolf and the three little pigs is a good example of using the rightmaterials to combat disaster.

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UNIT FIVE

Neighborhood

anoramaPBut the garden’s greatest benefit, I feel,was not relief to the eyes, but to make theeyes see our neighbors.

from “Amir”by Paul Fleischman

Active Reading Alert!

SUMMARIZING Every now and again as you read each selectionin Unit Five, stop to review what you think has happened so far. Determine what you know,what you think you know, and what has changedabout what you thought you knew.

247


264

AmirPaul F le ischman


I n India we have many vast cities, just as in America. There, too,you are one among millions. But there at least you know yourneighbors. Here, one cannot say that. The object in America is

to avoid contact, to treat all as foes unless they’re known to be friends.Here you have a million crabs living in a million crevices.

When I saw the garden for the first time, so green among thedark brick buildings, I thought back to my parents’ Persian rug. Itshowed climbing vines, rivers and waterfalls, grapes, flower beds,singing birds, everything a desert dweller might dream of. Thoserugs were indeed portable gardens. In the summers in Delhi, so veryhot, my sisters and I would lie upon it and try to press ourselves intoits world. The garden’s green was as soothing to the eye as the deepblue of that rug. I’m aware of color—I manage a fabric store. But thegarden’s greatest benefit, I feel, was not relief to the eyes, but tomake the eyes see our neighbors.

I grew eggplants, onions, carrots, and cauliflower. When the egg-plants appeared in August they were pale purple, a strange and eerieshade. When my wife would bring our little son, he was forever want-ing to pick them. There was nothing else in the garden with thatcolor. Very many people came over to ask about them and talk to me.I recognized a few from the neighborhood. Not one had spoken tome before—and now how friendly they turned out to be. The egg-plants gave them an excuse for breaking the rules and start-ing a conversation. How happy they seemed to have foundthis excuse, to let their natural friendliness out.

Those conversations tied us together. In the middle ofsummer someone dumped a load of tires on the garden atnight, as if it were still filled with trash. A man’s four rowsof young corn were crushed. In an hour, we had all thetires by the curb. We were used to helping each other bythen. A few weeks later, early in the evening a womanscreamed, down the block from the garden. A man with aknife had taken her purse. Three men from the garden ran after him.I was surprised that I was one of them. Even more surprising, wecaught him. Royce held the man to a wall with his pitchfork untilthe police arrived. I asked the others. Not one of us had ever chaseda criminal before. And most likely we wouldn’t have except near thegarden. There, you felt part of a community.

Amir 265

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crevicescracks; hideouts

eerieunusual and mysterious looking

�Think about the role the gar-

den plays in both the story

and the poem as you read.

LITERARY LENS


Paul Fleischman266

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exploitheroic deed

I came to the United States in 1980. Cleveland is a city of immi-grants. The Poles are especially well known here. I’d always heardthat the Polish men were tough steelworkers and that the womencooked lots of cabbage. But I’d never known one—until the garden.She was an old woman whose space bordered mine. She had aseven-block walk to the garden, the same route I took. We spokequite often. We both planted carrots. When her hundreds ofseedlings came up in a row, I was very surprised that she did not thinthem—pulling out all but one healthy-looking plant each fewinches, to give them room to grow. I asked her. She looked down atthem and said she knew she ought to do it, but that this taskreminded her too closely of her concentration camp, where the pris-oners were inspected each morning and divided into two lines—thehealthy to live and the others to die. Her father, an orchestra violin-ist, had spoken out against the Germans, which had caused her fam-ily’s arrest. When I heard her words, I realized how useless was allthat I’d heard about Poles, how much richness it hid, like the worth-less shell around an almond. I still do not know, or care, whethershe cooks cabbage.

The garden found this out with Royce. He was young and black.He looked rather dangerous. People watched him and seemed to berelieved when he left the garden. Then he began spending more timethere. We found out that he had a stutter. Then that he had two sis-ters, that he liked the cats that roamed the garden, and that heworked very well with his hands. Soon all the mothers were tryingto feed him. How very strange it was to watch people who wouldhave crossed the street if they’d seen him coming a few weeks before,now giving him vegetables, more than he could eat. In return, hewatered for people who were sick and fixed fences and made otherrepairs. He might weed your garden or use the bricks from the build-ing that was torn down up the block to make you a brick pathbetween your rows. He always pretended he hadn’t done it. It wasalways a surprise. One felt honored to be chosen. He was trusted andliked—and famous, after his exploit with the pitchfork. He was nota black teenage boy. He was Royce.

In September he and a Mexican man collected many bricks fromup the street and built a big barbecue. I was in the garden onSaturday when the Mexican family drove up in a truck with a dead


Amir 267

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pig in the back. They built a fire, put a heavy metal spit through thepig, and began to roast it. A bit later their friends began arriving.One brought a guitar, another played violin. They filled a foldingtable with food. Perhaps it was one of their birthdays, or perhaps noreason was needed for the party. It was beautiful weather, sunny butnot hot. Fall was just beginning and the garden was changing fromgreen to brown. Those of us who had come to work felt the party’sspirit enter us. The smell of the roasting pig drifted out and called toeveryone, gardeners or not. Soon the entire garden was filled.

It was a harvest festival, like those in India, though no one hadplanned it to be. People brought food and drinks and drums. I wenthome to get my wife and son. Watermelons from the garden weresliced open. The gardeners proudly showed off what they’d grown.We traded harvests, as we often did. And we gave food away, as weoften did also—even I, a businessman, trained to give away nothing,to always make a profit. The garden provided many excuses forbreaking that particular rule.

Many people spoke to me that day. Several asked where I wasfrom. I wondered if they knew as little about Indians as I had knownabout Poles. One old woman, Italian I believe, said she’d admiredmy eggplants for weeks and told me how happy she was to meet me.She praised them and told me how to cook them and asked allabout my family. But something bothered me. Then I remembered.A year before she’d claimed that she’d received the wrong change inmy store. I was called out to the register. She’d gotten quite angryand called me—despite her own accent—a dirty foreigner. Now thatwe were so friendly with each other I dared to remind her of this.Her eyes became huge. She apologized to me over and over again.She kept saying, “Back then, I didn’t know it was you . . .”


268 Patti Tana

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Scatter my ashes in my gardenso I can be near my loves.Say a few honest words, sing a gentle song,join hands in a circle of flesh.Please tell some stories about memaking you laugh. I love to make you laugh.When I’ve had time to settle, and greengathers into buds, remember I love blossomsbursting in spring. As the season ripensremember my persistent passion.And if you come in my gardenon an August afternoonpluck a bright red globe,let juice run down your chin and the seeds stick to your cheek. When I’m deadI want folks to smile and say That Patti,she sure is some tomato!

THE POET’S PERSPECTIVE

Post HumusPatt i Tana

�LITERARY LENS

What do you think the

garden symbolizes in both

“Amir” and “Post Humus”?

�


R E F L E C T I N G

1. Based on your reading of the stories in this unit, what kind of neighbor-hood do you think would be the best one for you? Why?

2. Many of the people in this unit’s selections were good friends and neighbors.Which one or ones would you give the “Good Neighbor Award,” and why?

3. If you lived in the neighborhood when the war game was being played,would you have joined in the game? Give reasons for your answer.

4. Meredith, the narrator of “The Pill Factory,” calls Violet brave when shequits a job they both hate. Who do you think was the brave one, Violet orMeredith? Explain.

A N A LY Z I N G

5. The people in this unit’s selections relate to those around them in manydifferent ways. Pick a character from “Block Party—145th Street Style,”“Amir,” or “War Game,” or the speaker in the poem “Post Humus,” andhave that person visit the boys in “What Happened During the Ice Storm”a week after “the incident of the pheasants.” Write a short dialoguebetween the characters.

6. Paraphrase the following sentences from “Block Party—145th Street Style.”

They had hooked up some monster amps on a flatbed truck and theusual hoochie mamas were showing off their stuff. Me and Peaches,who are both on a conservative trip, were standing in front of my cribchecking things out. I’m not homely but I don’t have Peaches’ looksso I was scopin’ and hopin’, if you know what I mean.

7. Create a semantic map like the one below to gather descriptive informationabout “The Pill Factory.” When you have completed the map, write a shortdescription of what the workers see, feel, touch, and hear as they work.

Responding to Unit Five292

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RESPONDING TO UNIT FIVE


The PillFactory

clattering machines, whirringfans, ticking clocks


293

8. In “War Game” Jo states that Ces’t la guerre, which means “that’s war,” reallymeans “that’s life.” Do you agree that war games can teach us about life?

9. Active Reading Did you stop at various points in your reading of thisunit to review and summarize events? Did you remember to questionthings that confused you and to predict what might happen next?

D I S C U S S I N G

What’s the worst job or chore you ever had to do? How did you go aboutworking through it? Did you use any techniques to make the work lighter ormore enjoyable?

W R I T I N G

Read All About It! Write a newspaper article about your community. Try tobe objective as you describe the people, organizations, schools, businesses,parks, and other important elements that make where you live special.

A Feel for the Neighborhood The power of observation is essential to goodwriting. Being able to describe a scene, a person, or an event is what separatesthe good writers from the amateurs. Hone your writing skills by taking a walkaround your block and jotting down anything you observe. Be sure to use avariety of senses—sight, hearing, smell, and touch. Write a short descriptionof your walk.

WO R K I N P R O G R E S S

Community Action Committee As a class, work together to investigate issuesof concern to people in your community. Perhaps littering is a problem, ormaybe kids need a place to meet and have fun on the weekends. After yougather this information, chose one issue to focus on. Try to develop solutionsto the problem. When you have gathered your solutions, devise an actionplan. You may want to present the plan to your city council or other appropri-ate community agency.

Quite a Character Pick a person in your neighborhood whom you admire,enjoy, or just think is interesting. Write a short character sketch of this person.Try to capture the person’s physical and personality traits, how he or shespeaks, moves, acts, and dresses. If you have time when you have finishedwriting, trade papers with a partner and draw a picture of the person yourpartner wrote about.


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Author Biographies

Arnold Adoff A celebrated biographer, anthologist, and poet, Adoff lives with his wife, VirginiaHamilton, also a writer, in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Throughout the year, Adoff travels around thecountry reading his poems to young audiences. He writes for young adults because he wants to“effect a change in American society. By the time we reach adulthood, we are closed and set in ourattitudes.” Adoff was awarded the 1988 National Council of Teachers of English Award forExcellence in Poetry for Children for his body of work. He is also recognized as one of the first cul-tivators of multiculturalism in American literature for young people. “Writing a poem,” he says, “ismaking music with words and space.” His most recent books are Slow Dance Heartbreak Blues, StreetMusic, and Love Letters.

Judie Angell If you can’t find a book by Judie Angell, you may also want to search under thenames Fran Arrick and Maggie Twohill. Born in 1937 in New York City, Angell’s high school nov-els are written under the pen name “Fran Arrick.” Her lighter, middle school books are under“Maggie Twohill.” Her young adult novels are often based on experiences from her own life. InSummertime It’s Tuffy relies on Angell’s 15 years of being a camper and camp counselor. One-Wayto Ansonia, a novel about a Jewish immigrant living in the U.S., is inspired by her grandmother’slife. Angell is praised for her ability to combine serious emotions with humorous circumstances,and she has received several citations for Best Books for Young Adults.

Kathi Appelt When Kathi Appelt was in first grade, her teacher told her that she could see writingin Appelt’s future. And it was! Her award-winning book Just People & Paper/Pen/Poem: A YoungWriter’s Way to Begin began as a “happy accident.” Flattered by a gift of poems and stories from aclass of ninth graders, Appelt wrote back, sending along more of her poems as a thank you. Thecorrespondence went on for a year and led Appelt to write about the experience. She says that, forher, the only way to survive the solitary life of writing is to balance it with teaching, too. For begin-ning writers she offers this advice: “Read anything you can get your hands on and write every day—even if it’s only a grocery list.”

Dave Barry He believes that he’ll never be funnier than dogs or the U.S. government, and the onemessage he’d like to send to today’s teenagers is “Your hats are on backwards.” A natural comedian,Barry’s writing career began with short humor pieces that he wrote for his high school newspaper.Today his newspaper column is published in over 500 newspapers nationwide. Barry has written23 books and won numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for his 1988 book Commentary.His non-literary endeavors have included the CBS sitcom “Dave’s World,” based on two of hisbooks, and playing lead guitarist in the rock band Rock Bottom Remainders, made up entirely ofauthors—including Stephen King and Amy Tan. Barry lives with his wife and two children inMiami, Florida.

Joan Bauer Raised in Illinois in the 1950s, Bauer grew up feeling “like a water buffalo at a teaparty.” She is now a graceful adult and the author of several comedic novels for young people. “Ibelieve that humorous books teach young people to use laughter against the storms of life.” Herearly fascination with humor may also be attributed to her grandmother—a professional story-

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teller—and her mother—a high school English teacher. Bauer saw little of her father after her par-ents divorced, and his absence remained a source of pain into adulthood. Consequently, many ofher stories contain characters that have complex, yet humorous relationships with their fathers.During a long recovery from an auto accident she was prompted to write Squashed in 1991. It wasthe humor in that story that helped her heal. “I have come to understand how deeply I need tolaugh,” she says. “It’s like oxygen to me.”

Rick Beyer The account of the war between Beyer’s mother and grandmother over his eating aplate of peas was first heard as a radio broadcast in 1999. National Public Radio had extended aninvitation to all listeners to send in a story that was short, true, and “sounded like fiction.” RickBeyer’s story “A Plate of Peas” was chosen and read on the NPR program All Things Considered, andconsequently included in the best-selling book I Thought My Father Was God. Rick Beyer lives inLexington, Massachusetts.

Alberto Blanco Born in Mexico City, Mexico, in 1951, Blanco came to the U.S. in 1991 and taughtat the University of California. In 1997 he was invited to Bellagio, Italy, to work as a translator fora theater company. Blanco has translated several books from Spanish into English, and publishedmany of his own in both languages. Blanco’s poems have been translated into English, French,German, Italian, Portuguese, Hungarian, and Russian. He has won countless awards for his work—most often his literature for children and young adults. Married with two children, he currentlylives and teaches in El Paso, Texas.

Rick Book Born and raised on a wheat farm in Canada, Book didn’t begin to write seriously untilhis forties. His first book for young adults, Necking With Louise, is about a 16-year old boy growingup on the prairie in the mid-1960s. “Necking With Louise shows how much I love where I comefrom,” he says, though he admits he didn’t always feel this way. After college, Book took a job at asmall TV news station interviewing local residents about their lives. “The segments could be aboutsome guy who caught frogs for a lab or hippies living in a mill making masks. It was the storytellingthat I grew up with. . . .” Book has taught his two children to appreciate the richness of simplethings. “My kids and I always look up when we go outside to see what the sky’s up to, where themoon is and what stars are out. That comes with growing up on the prairies, being in touch withland and sky.”

William J. Brooke Brooke wrote his first short story in second grade, and he continued to writethem once he learned that it “impressed adults.” In high school, Brooke learned that writing “couldalso impress girls.” He handed out his outrageous stories to all of his crushes, until realizing thatacting could impress a whole audience of girls at once. After high school, he worked for many yearsin the theater, doing everything from playing lead roles to writing musical scores. His first book ofstories, A Telling of the Tales, grew from Brooke’s own daydream, “I wonder what would happen ifyou put Paul Bunyon and Johnny Appleseed in the same room together?” The book won anAmerican Library Association Notable Book Award. Brooke followed it up with Untold Tales in1992 and Teller of Tales in 1994.

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Literature for Young Adults · UNIT FOUR School Pictures Pig Brains Alden R.Carter short story 182...

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