Death and Mayhem for Halloween

Happy Halloween! I am celebrating by responding to a review of The Cure by Sonia Levitin, a story of the plague outbreak of 1348 in Europe.

 Title:The Cure
Author: Sonia Levitin
Publisher: HarperCollins
Copyright: 2000
Interests: Plague/ Jewish History/ Science Fiction
Summary: Kirkus Review



 The Cure by Sonia Levitin.
A young man from the year 2407 travels back to 1348 - the height of the Great Plague.

 Juxtaposing the past and the future, this potent story explores the societal consequences of diversity and individuality. It’s 2407 and the almost 16-year-old Gemm 16884 lives in a serene Orwellian society where the denizens are trained to believe that “diversity begets hostility,” and that psychological troubles can be banished by sipping on a serotonin shake. But Gemm is not like his kinsmen; he’s afflicted with ungovernable emotions and a “deviant” passion for music. To avoid being “recycled,” he agrees to undergo a frightening cure, a mind-adventure that will make the association of music and the emotions it engenders unbearable. He wakes up in 1348 Strasbourg, Germany, where he’s known as Johannes the Jew. Unlike the fairly standard rendering of the future, this part of the story, opening just as the Black Death begins to sweep through the population, fairly pulsates with energy and freshness; it is based on a real event and packed with spine-tingling historical detail. Johannes has to cope with virulent anti-Semitism in a society that is anything but tranquil. Levitin (Yesterday’s Child, 1997, etc.) cheats a little to give the future world an upbeat ending, but even so pulls off an unusual mix of science and historical fiction that is as suspenseful and as it is unsettling. (bibliography) (Fiction. 10-14)
Source of review: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/sonia-levitin/the-cure/ 

 Okay, let me start by saying I don't generally like science fiction. I mean, I rarely like science fiction. Having said that, the one feature of science fiction that bothers me the most is time travel. (Although my love for A Wrinkle in Time out weights all the tessering that takes place in that novel.) Seriously, I don't want to think about people jumping back and forth in time and mucking things up. Although for all I know it is already happening - now there is a little meta-fiction you to contemplate. The Kirkus review is accurate, and presents the conflict of the book well. In The Cure, Gemm is one half of a couple, created to be together from "birth." Sex and families don't really happen in the year 2407 - messy, complicated, and too emotional. As punishment for being an individual with too much emotion, Gemm is sent back to the year 1348 as a Jew. Historically, 1348 in Europe is known as the First Holocaust. The spread of Bubonic Plague wipes out nearly half of Europe and the Jews are blamed for spreading the disease.
(What is science fiction?
http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/lesson_images/lesson927/SciFiDefinition.pdf)
(What is historical fiction?http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/lesson_images/lesson404/HistoricalFictionDefn.pdf)

I like the historical portion of the book, but didn't care for the science fiction. Although to be honest, what bothered me the most about the book is it is presented as science fiction, but most of it is historical fiction. Chapters 1-4 and 19-20 are science fiction, but chapters 5 - 18 are historical fiction. I didn't think the mix worked in this case. I will say the book was very well researched. Levitin successful wove many facts into the story without lossing the plot.  Overall, I would give chapters 5 - 18 a Good rating, but the mix of generes (for me) knocks it down to an Average rating.

For more information about this time period, see
http://www.sixmillioncrucifixions.com/Blaming_the_Jews_for_the_Black_Death_plague.html

 Next week: a children's book and Those Whose Names are Unknown by Sanora Babb, a story of the Dust Bowl.


Thank you for the pics!
Image sources:
Book cover: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/sonia-levitin/the-cure/
Plaque: https://www.flickr.com/photos/leshaines123/4523973656

New Term, New Topic!

We are starting a new term and that means new reading topics. Last term I focused on teaching materials without a specific content area. It was a great way to clean out my TBR pile (To Be Read). I couldn't believe how many books I had purchased, but hadn't read. This term I am working on building background knowledge and lesson ideas for new units in my English 10 class. Because so many of the standardized tests my students will be taking are heavily based on nonfiction reading (traditionally it was more fiction), I am building more nonfiction reading into our classroom. These new units are based on materials I can access - not the best way to build a curriculum, but life is what it is and trying to build a curriculum on materials we don't have doesn't make sense.  Our new units are focused on the history of plagues, the Dust Bowl, and the Great Depression.

I started a plague unit last year when Ebola was ravaging countries in Africa. I wanted my students to know how the people suffered - even those who managed to avoid the disease. My students seemed genuinely interested so I added some information on bubonic plague using James Cross Giblin's When Plague Strikes. They seemed to appreciate the content. I also added "The Masque of the Red Death" - they did not appreciate that short story. Clearly I need to make some adjustments.
(More infromation on Ebloa and the Black Death: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/02/science/new-theories-link-black-death-to-ebola-like-virus.html)

In preparing for our last piece of literature this term, To Kill a Mockingbird, we will build some background knowledge regarding the Great Depression. I don't think anyone can understand the Great Depression with also considering the effects of the Dust Bowl. Those materials will read this term.

My first book for this term was Terrible Typhoid Mary: A True Story of the Deadliest Cook in America by Susan Campbell Bartoletti. This is a YA biography on Mary Mallon, the woman who became the first healthy carrier case of Typhoid in America. Bartoletti successfully presents the idea that Mallon's rights were violated over and over again, but those rights were weighed against the health of the families she worked for. So much of this thinking applies to situations today: when do the rights of individuals get shoved aside for the safety of the general population? I found the book to be a quick read, and a solid piece for middle school students. I appreciated the amount of research and documentation Bartoletti provided, though none of my students would probably notice this.

(More infromation on Mary Mallon at http://www.history.com/news/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-typhoid-mary)

Next week: The Cure by Sonia Levitin. A young man from the year 2407 travels back to 1348 - the height of the Great Plague.