Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

This is the first book that I have specifically read for my research symposium, and to be honest it was like watching a scary movie. Which I discovered when I had to finish it before the semester started and I read it before bed. 

That being said, it was surprisingly interesting. The beginning of the book was kinda slow, but as I kept reading it got more and more interesting. The author uses actual pictures that "artists" find at rummage sales and flea markets and put in their displays. The pictures really make the book. They are basically sideshow pictures that are suuuuuuuuuuper creepy!

I am doing a presentation on current trends in children literature. Because this is such a popular book that is getting a ton of attention right now, this is one of the books that I read. 

One issue that I want to address in my presentation is that some childrens literature has gotten to a point where it is somewhat inappropriate for children.... that being said, this book is WAY too creepy for children.

When I first saw these pictures I thought they were creepy. Keep in mind that these books are written for "young adults" but I would say the story is more for 10/12 year old's after reading it. While it is a GOOD story, there are these bad creepy black monsters that chase peculiar children around trying to brutally murder them. Age appropriate? Not in my opinion... Now I am not by any means saying that children should read books like "The Babysitter's Club" and "Hardy Boys" until they are 18. However, these books are for younger kids. I do not care what kids learn from video games, R rated movies, and shows on television. Just because they have access to creepier, scarier things doesn't diminish the fact that this book is DARK. 

In the first few chapters of the book, Jacob, the main character, talks about his life as a 16 year old boy. He describes hating his job, and the fact that his life is quite boring. He also describes his close relationship with his grandfather who has wild stories, that are presumably fictional. I am going to try REALLY hard not to ruin this book, so if I do not succeed in that attempt I apologize. For a reason unbeknown to YOU (but I know haha!) Jacob runs across these children who are quite PECULIAR! They have weird traits about them, some of them are things that you would normally see in series like X-Men, but then some of them are just super creepy and weird. 

Through out the book Jacob is basically trying to avoid having a mental breakdown, something that I know 10/12 year old's sometimes experience, although, seriously? Come on... One of the main characters in the book is the psychiatrist! There are many situations in today's world where I feel children are thrust into situations that are far beyond their age, and this is an example in the book. People who have barely reached puberty do NOT need to be reading about mental breakdowns. That being said, I do like some aspects of Jacob. He is constantly feeling like he does not fit in, and is confused about what he wants to do in his life. I think this is something that is good for young kids to read about. Many of them are stuck between childhood and being a teenager and really have no clue where they belong.

I suppose there are situations where children can relate to feeling peculiar, although, I doubt it was because of things like walking on the ceiling, raising people from the dead, and seeing what can only be described adequately as demons....

What happen to the peculiar children that has super powers?!?!?! When I grew up children were fighting evil but it was much more animated and cartoonish... 

I never thought Wolverine, the Rescue Rangers, or Darwing Duck would come walking through my door to SCARE me before bedtime! I looked up to these super hero's (as unrealistic as they were) and I cheered for the bad guy that did not look nearly as creepy and scary as the GOOD GUYS in this book!

Another thing that was touched on in this book was an enormous amount of violence. Obviously if you read any young adult novels lately you would see that violence has become a HUGE trend in these books. Example: Hunger Games. Love the books, but CRAZY violent. In this book, people are brutally murdered. They are shoved into a ice freezer to be preserved until the authorities come (somewhat mob style...). They are brought back to life by a heart that is not inside their body, and they beg to be killed again because they cannot handle the pain that they are feeling over from the way they initially died. I know that kids have always been exposed to violence, I know that my parents were much more okay with me seeing violence then they were with my brothers and I seeing a sex scene in a movie. However, these situations, in my opinion, are NOT appropriate for children.

After you have heard me complain about this book quite a bit, I probably should say some good things. I really actually enjoyed the book, surprising from all my complaints I know.... I thought that it was really interesting, and the fact that I was scared to read it before bed just shows how vivid the descriptions were in the book. I liked the fact that when there was a hard thing to explain (like the child with the head on a dog body) that there was a picture to show me what he was talking about. I have never seen a book that used actual pictures, which is what he did. Obviously they were altered and these were more than likely optical allusions... but still! So... if you are looking for a new book, that is very different and a page turner, this is one i would recommend!

BTW: I do not own the rights to any of these pictures... and thank God SOPA did not go through =)

"Bloodchild" by Octavia Butler

YAY! So I am required to write a blog for one of my classes on what I am reading in class. Since I am doing a reading project in addition to that, I figured I probably should blog ANYWAYS. So. 

Okay, first story we read in my Sci-Fi (a term that apparently is quite offensive to "S.F." Snobs) Women's Lit class is "Bloodchild" by Octavia Butler.

SUPER weird story! At the end of the story I felt like I had bugs crawling through my skin and it just made me cringe. Anyways! The story is basically about how humans have traveled to another world (because earth has been destroyed... so conveniently!) and have become people who carry alien's babies. The main person of the story is Gan, who is a boy on the verge of "manhood". He is chosen by one of the aliens (I pictured a overgrown centipede in my head during this entire story because the author is constantly referring to the multiple legs) to be the human who carries their child. In the story he witnesses a "birth" gone wrong on another human male and becomes scared. Gan and his alien fight like they are high school lovers and eventually she ends up injecting him immediately after their fight, much like a high school relationship.... Get in a fight? That's ok! Let's make babies!

...........

I found this story extremely interesting because of the way that the birth of the aliens are described. The only examples in the story of humans who are carrying the aliens young are those of men, and at one point there is a man who is basically being eaten alive by his alien/lover's young. He is pretty much cut open while an alien digs around his organs to find the babies... yeah... gross....

So Gan gets scared after seeing the horrific account of a birth gone bad and doesn't know if he wants to do it. But then there is the issue of whether he REALLY has a choice or not. This seemed to me to be EXTREMELY similar to the way that women in our society seem to be portrayed... sometimes.

When women give birth it is VERY graphic. There is blood and goo and guts and bleh. So, that being said, we (or me and other women) still choose to have children more than choosing not to have children. When the situation is straight out explained is gross and sounds like it hurts immensely. When looking at a baby, even a newborn, it's amazing to think that they came out of a hole that could not have POSSIBLY produced it... yet... it did. In this story Gan doesn't know if he wants to go through the experience and the pain, and the alien just says "ok, I will go elsewhere". But as women of this time/age/pick a word, if we chose not to have children we are constantly badgered. Quickly after marriage young couples are bombarded with the question of when they are going to have kids and start a family. If a woman chooses not to have a child, people are immediately wondering WHY. So do we really have a choice? Yes, technically, no one can force us to carry a child. However, if we chose to be nontraditional that is constantly thrown in our face, even by just using the term nontraditional! In the story Gan is basically an alien baby incubator, is that not how women have also been portrayed as and are still portrayed as sometimes?

That being said, I am ALL for being a mother and a even housewife. I am getting married in May and plan on start popping kids out right away, which kind of makes my argument seem silly. However, I have made that choice. I have friends who are in their 30's who are married and have CHOSEN not to have children. They enjoy traveling and independence and spending their money that they work hard for every day on themselves. That being said, I have heard numerous times people ask them why they are being so selfish. "So many people are out there who want to have kids and can't and you are just deciding not to". This statement makes me SO mad! If there is a man who is like "nope I am not having kids" it is PERFECTLY fine and acceptable. Women, however, obviously have something wrong with them if they chose to take this route.

I suppose my frustrations that this short story bring up is the fact that at the end of the day in many ways, we are a slave to childbirth. Let me be clear... I am not saying that having children is bad. I am saying that being EXPECTED to have children is bad. When I have kids I want them to know that they were my choice, not my requirement.