Why "The Search for..."?

I got my title from the book The Search for Delicious by Natalie Babbitt. where there is a wonderful quote--

" 'Of course it's silly,' said the Prime Minister impatiently. 'But a lot of serious things start silly.'"

This particular quote stuck out for me as I was reading The Search for Delicious to my kids this past fall, and I put it aside knowing that I would use it somewhere, sometime. It seems like the perfect subtitle to this blog as many of my musing probably are silly, but may turn serious at any moment!

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Crank by Ellen Hopkins


Cautionary tales about drug use are as old as….well,  GoAsk Alice.  The 1970’s story tried to convince the reader that the diarist was a real girl who fell down the rabbit hole after being slipped LSD at a party.  I never was completely convinced that Alice was a real diary, but the sentiment behind the novel was real.  Drugs are dangerous, and teens should not mess with them.  All kinds of avenues can and should be used to open up the discussion about drugs with teens.  Books like Go Ask Alice can help parents and other concerned adults to do just that. 
But, how about an update?  LSD just isn’t the drug of choice anymore.  Enter Crank, and the subsequent series, by Ellen Hopkins.  Go Ask Alice meets methamphetamine.  I will admit I haven’t read the whole series, and I’m not sure I plan to, at least not now.  After all, it is summer and diving into the dark and seamy side of life can be too depressing for glorious summer days.  I must admit though, I learned as much from the pages of Crank about the dangers of meth as I did from browsing the pages of Faces of Meth or watching Frontline.  It scares me as parent, teacher, and citizen that the drugs de jour change so quickly that law enforcement can’t keep up.  It makes me wonder about the emptiness that both teens and adults are trying to fill by trying something they must know, on some level, will destroy their lives. 
Enter Kristina…no Bree….well, it depends on the mood that she is in.  When she is the normal, high-achieving high school student who lives to please her mother, she is Kristina.  When she snorts, smokes or flirts with boys, she is Bree.  With the drugs, Bree begins to take over her life, and the monster of meth, her drug of choice, controls Bree’s life.  The poetic style reminds me of so many students over the years who have used poetry as a release for sadness and distress.  My biggest complaint was the ending…there was just too much hope for this to be a realistic story.  However, from what I gather out of reviews of Glass and Fallout, that hope does prove to be a false one.  The monster seems to always win. 
Not a book for the impressionable young; it is gritty and realistic.  Too gritty for the young middle schooler.  I would recommend this one for students about eighth grade and above with healthy doses of parental discussion. 

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