21st Century Sweathogs

Michael Kanaly calls his newest novel, "Room One, A Story of Public Education". It is that, but it is also the story of the pain teens feel when they are sure they will never succeed; the story of first love and how fragile it can feel; the story of a great teacher who can make students find their gifts and believe in themselves; the story of the isolation teens feel on most days.

Like Holden Caufield, Thomas Berg is failing every subject in high school. Berg long ago gave up trying, as the public school system shuffled him from one class to another, finally demoting him to the worst place in Roosevelt High, "Room One". Kanaly takes a risk in writing this book in the first person, but the risk pays off, because the reader can truly feel Thomas Berg's confusion, anger, fear, loneliness and hopelessness. Room One is filled with kids like Thomas, but Thomas knows, deep in his soul, that he doesn't really belong there.

In describing the sense of isolation students like Thomas feel, Kanaly writes:

"....the other thing that Victoria and I share, indeed the thing that binds all Room Oners, is the sense of exclusion we are forced to live with on a daily basis. We are separated from the other students, rightly or wrongly, by our Room One status. This is true, no matter what anyone else says, or pretends to believe. Once a kid is sentenced to Room One, or its equivalent, this exclusion completes a process that, for most of us, began early on in our so-called Educational Experience...."

I have worked with kids like Thomas and the Room Oners for over thirty years. I have tried to teach them, inspire them, defend them, protect them, and find them the help they so desperately need. I have seen the scars from the cuts they have made on their own bodies, listened to them bang their heads against cell doors when separated from the families who have abused and neglected them, pretended not to see their embarrassed tears as they struggle with addiction, and watched their faces close when they hear their own parents say they do not want to ever see these children again. I love these children, and it is clear that Michael Kanaly does, too.

He honors them in this book, by presenting characters who talk and behave just like real teens do. From the start, the reader senses great tension and a foreshadowing of things to come. Will Thomas find love with the girl of his dreams? Will he be foolish enough to be sucked into the dangerous antics of the Wolf Pack? Or, is there a chance...even a slim one...that Thomas will be able to overcome the negativity that public education has filled him with and succeed?

Anyone who has a teenager, works with teenagers, or simply wants to read a compelling story of what it is like to be in high school right now should read this superb book.

Oops, I read it again...

I have been trying very hard to find a new book to read; a new AUTHOR to read; even a new book by an author I already know. I visit the library at least weekly and take out armfuls of books. I search among the "old" and "new" books. Often, I read the first chapter and realize that I do not care one bit what happens next. Recently, I read an entire book without caring what would happen next. It was one of those books with recipes in it, too. If an author has to add recipes, perhaps she doesn't have enough of everything else. But I finished that book, just to prove that I don't toss every new book aside. Still, it has been several weeks since I have found a wonderful new book. After taking out four books the other day...and finding RECIPES in one...I picked up the yellowing old paperback "Something in the Wind", by Lee Smith. I guess Lee and her publishers don't like this book, because they have never re-issued it. But, as I have written before, I love this book. Brooke Kincaid, the privileged daughter of an attorney and a southern belle and the baby of her family, suffers the loss of her "intended", Charles Hughes, when she is about to graduate from high school...well, private girls-only prep school. Brooke devises a life plan to cope with the emotions she doesn't want to feel. She will act like those around her by watching, listening, and emulating their actions. At Christmas, when she tries to buy her current beau a gift, she ends up buying a huge glass ball (the kind that "snows")with a tiny village inside instead because she wishes she could live there. Brooke even thinks of herself as "Brooke". But she can't always keep her own feelings buried. And when she meets Bentley Travis Hooks, the son of a Baptist missionary, the real Brooke begins to come to the surface. Their love affair is the one we all had our freshman year in college...if we were lucky;passionate, romantic, and life-changing. There are no recipes in this book. Lee Smith has never had to put anything in her stories or novels except great plots, unforgettable characters, lush southern scenery, and a dash of magic.