Richie's Picks: Great Books for Children and Young Adults

Problems?
Ideas?
Suggestions?
Please email BudNotBuddy@aol.com

Thank You!

" 'Enough with the Alaska already. By my count, there are ninety-two girls at this school, and every last one of them is less crazy than Alaska, who, I might add, already has a boyfriend.' "

"You die, there is a sort of decent grief and a few people really do suffer from your absence, but the impact on the greater world is negligible. You do not leave a big hole. They dig a hole and put you in it."
--Garrison Keillor, from HOMEGROWN DEMOCRAT, Viking, 2004.

"Such a long, long time to be gone
And a short time to be there"
--Robert Hunter and Phil Lesh, "Box of Rain"

I surely burned four or five of my nine lives during my adolescence. I am not shy about telling Shari's students about how I was among the lucky fifty percent of adolescents: one of those young people who would frequently drive blind drunk after a party or concert or late beach get-together, or after just driving around drinking, and somehow didn't kill myself or anyone else in the process. I often think about good friends, now long gone, who did nothing crazy but were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"This life is burning
Turning to ash as it hits the air
Every death is an end in the race
It's a stopping and starting
A march over millions of years"
--Suzanne Vega, "Pilgrimage"

"And what is an instant death anyway? How long is an instant? Is it one second? Ten? The pain of those seconds must have been awful as her heart burst and her lungs collapsed and there was no air and no blood to her brain and only raw panic. What the hell is an instant? Nothing is instant. Instant rice takes five minutes, instant pudding an hour. I doubt that an instant of blinding pain feels particularly instantaneous."

Miles Halter's obsession is collecting the dying declarations of the famous.

" 'So this guy,' I said, standing in the doorway of the living room. Francois Rabelais. He was this poet. And his last words were "I go to seek a Great Perhaps." That's why I'm going. So I don't have to wait until I die to start seeking a Great Perhaps.' "

Miles is a young man who has not to this point been popular nor become very experienced in life, and he has decided to leave his Florida home and seek that Great Perhaps through attending Culver Creek, the same prep school outside Birmingham that his father had gone to. It is after arriving there that he acquires a trio of new friends that includes the wild, sexy, enigmatic, and self-named young woman, Alaska Young.

"That guy's got to stop...He'll see us."
-- James Dean

" 'But why Alaska?' I asked her.
"She smiled with the right side of her mouth. 'Well, later, I found out what it means. It's from an Aleut word Alyeska. It means "that which the sea breaks against," and I love that. But at the time, I just saw Alaska up there. And it was big, just like I wanted to be. And it was damn far away from Vine Station, Alabama, just like I wanted to be.'
"I laughed. 'And now you're all grown up and fairly far away from home,' I said, smiling. 'So congratulations.' She stopped the head bobbing and let go of my (unfortunately sweaty) hand."

Miles also finds himself a seeker in a World Religions class, presided over by the ancient Dr. Hyde:

" 'I will talk most of the time, and you will listen most of the time. Because you may be smart, but I've been smart longer. I'm sure some of you do not like lecture classes, but as you have probably noted, I'm not as young as I used to be. I would love to spend my remaining breath chatting with you about the finer points of Islamic history, but our time together is short. I must talk, and you must listen, for we are engaged here in the most important pursuit in history: the search for meaning. What is the nature of being a person? What is the best way to go about being a person? How did we come to be, and what will become of us when we are no longer? In short: What are the rules of the game, and how might we best play it?' "

"Will the real God please stand up?" --Todd Rundgren, "Eastern Intrigue"

" 'I've had eighteen straight whiskeys. I do believe that's a record.'
"--Dylan Thomas, just before dying.

" 'You never know. It's just. It's like. POOF. And you're gone.' "

LOOKING FOR ALASKA is divided into two parts: a BEFORE and an AFTER. Both in the time leading to and following that fateful moment, Miles's tale is an intimate and powerful story that follows his search for meaning and probes the relationships he develops with the adults, with his peers, and (even) with the wildlife:

"The swan.
"Swimming toward us like a swan possessed. Wings flapping furiously as it came, and then it was on the shore in front of us, making a noise that sounded like nothing else in the world, like all the worst parts of a dying rabbit plus all the worst parts of a crying baby, and there was no other way, so we just ran. I hit the swan at a full run and felt it bite into my ass. And then I was running with a noticeable limp, because my ass was on fire, and I thought to myself, What the hell is in swan saliva that burns so badly?"

LOOKING FOR ALASKA, which will release next spring, is John Green's first novel to be published. With a start like this you can bet that it won't be his last.

"God damn the whole friggin' world and everyone in it but you, Carlotta."
--WC Fields

"Friends applaud, the comedy is over."
--Beethoven

Richie Partington
http://richiespicks.com
BudNotBuddy@aol.com