Showing posts with label Printz Honor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Printz Honor. Show all posts

The House of the Scorpion

Wednesday, April 29, 2009 by Becky


Farmer, Nancy. 2002. The House of the Scorpion. Simon & Schuster. 380 pages

In the beginning there were thirty-six of them, thirty-six droplets of life so tiny that Eduardo could see them only under a microscope. He studied them anxiously in the darkened room.

If you haven't read The House of the Scorpion, you really don't know what you're missing. It's as wonderfully complex and beautiful and thrilling as Frankenstein. (Which, if you remember nothing else about me, remember my love for Mary Shelley's monster.) The House of the Scorpion is science fiction. Set several centuries in the future, it revolves around the Alacran family, rulers of the empire of Opium which borders the United States and Mexico. Well, what used to be called Mexico. Our hero, Matteo Alacran, has an unusual upbringing. His first five or six years are almost spent in complete isolation. His only interactions being with his caregiver--not his mother, who was sacrificed--a woman, a servant, named Celia. But one day, in his cabin, he hears voices. He sees two children. A boy and a girl. And despite Celia's warnings, his curiosity gets the better of him. And he springs through the window--the doors and windows being locked--freeing himself, yes, but bloodying himself up in the process. What this teaches him--among other things--is that he is different. Not just a little different, but DIFFERENT. His very existence seems to repulse people. Why? What did he ever do to them? Thus Matt's struggles begin.

The book traces his childhood from birth through age fourteen or so. As I said, it's a unique one. The household being darkly twisted and as dysfunctional as can be. The few friends Matt make cannot ever overcome his great disadvantages. Though small threads of hope remain. Matt's future remains uncertain. And his present is full of dangers as well. Life is not easy, but it's all he knows. His very life depends on the conclusions he will come to draw, the observations he continues to make.

The House of the Scorpion is a thrilling science fiction novel that is intelligent and intense.

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Octavian Nothing

Saturday, November 1, 2008 by Becky


Anderson, M.T. 2006. The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: Traitor to the Nation: Volume 1: The Pox Party.

Let's see...what can I say about Octavian Nothing. It's an award-winning book--winner of the National Book Award, winner of a Printz Honor. It's historical fiction--set in the Colonies right before the American Revolution. It's more literary than your typical teen book--it's heavy in semicolons and rich in detail.

So what is so astonishing about the life of Octavian Nothing? Many things. Many many things. For starters, he's a slave who doesn't quite realize he's a slave. He has little inkling just what he is...or who he is. Who is he? He's a human experiment. He's being studied to determine if Africans are inferior (or equal to) to Europeans. Everything about him is being observed and measured. He's been given the finest clothes, housed in a luxurious way (at least comparatively speaking), taught to play musical instruments, taught in a classical way--learned in many diverse subjects including English, French, Greek, and Latin. He is a child who had a very strange, very odd, very out-there upbringing. Who is raising him the members of the College of Lucidity. Strange men who are fascinated by science, math, philosophy, art, music, etc.

There are several events that change everything for Octavian. That turn his whole world, his whole life, his very being upside down and inside out. Through the course of the book, Octavian goes from a privileged boy who is clueless about the oppression of slavery to a full-grown man who has experienced the oppressive wrath and cruelty of his masters. A man who now longs for freedom.

Even that isn't quite a fair assessment of what this book is about...of what it has to offer readers.

I can't promise you that you'll love it...or even like it. You may, of course, respond that way. But this is a book that requires you to be engaged, to connect emotionally and intellectually with the text. It's a book that requires you to wear your thinking cap.

It's a book that I'd love to use for my Reading With Becky google group. I haven't gotten any response from that group yet whether they'd be interested. But I *do* hope that I can sway some to read it. If you're interested in reading this as a group, come and join the group (email me at my google address blaney1129ATgmail.com)...let's make this happen :)

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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