Tag Archives: Lit Circles

Within the Branches: An Exploration of The Trees

Posted in 2022 Booker Prize Short List, Lit Circles | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Diane Cook’s Fan Club: A First Look into The New Wilderness

As a group, we had collectively been extremely interested in doing a podcast. We were able to come together and discuss about something we are interested in with no pressure and complete freedom regarding what we talked about. We discussed the themes of power and leadership in the novel along … Continue reading

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A PBL Take: Final Thoughts on Diane Cooke’s New Wilderness

Cooke’s well-developed prose drew us in from the beginning of the novel. The vivid descriptions of the nature and setting in which the characters live and battle for survival added richness to the plot and demonstrated the severity of the … Continue reading

Posted in 2020 Booker Short List novels, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 11 Comments

The New Wilderness: Parallels to our Climate Crisis

Diane Cook’s dystopian novel has trail blazed its own genre that is becoming increasingly relevant in our daily lives: climate change fiction, or cli-fi. With carbon emissions becoming a global problem as well as the diminishing presence of nonrenewable energy, … Continue reading

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Keeping it Real

Brandon Taylor’s Real Life tells the story of Wallace, a young, gay, black student studying in the rural Midwest. Despite his best efforts to distance himself and keep his personal life hidden, Wallace faces racism, drama and toxicity in the workspace. This coming-of-age novel illustrates Wallace’s fight with society’s standards, along with his internal fight as a young man who … Continue reading

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Assault on the Black Female in This Mournable Body- Reagan Russell and Max Santopietro

In this novel Mournable Body, assault on the black female body is a reoccurring theme. So far in the novel, there have been two different physical attacks on two different women. The first woman to be attacked is Gertrude, one of Tambudzai’s hostel mates. She is described … Continue reading

Posted in 2020 Booker Short List novels, English IV Honors, Feminism, Literature Circles aka #litcircles, Project-Based Learning | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The Unique Perspectives of Maaza Mengiste in The Shadow King

The Shadow King tells a story of WWII struggle from two unique perspectives: that of Ethiopian history as well as women’s part in it. In my experience, classroom lessons about WWII are usually Eurocentric and ignore the conflict’s effects on the … Continue reading

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This Mournable Body; Coming of Age in the face of Racism and Sexism

  In This Mournable Body, Dangarembgaan essential member of society who has the “courage to say the truth about the way things are” while also illuminating the truth that things do not “have to be this way”.  We can’t wait to … Continue reading

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Maaza Mengiste and her “lyrical song of war”

Throughout history, certain narratives – especially those pertaining to women and minority groups – have largely remain unseen and unexplored by literature. Synthesizing a compelling narrative through extensive research with impeccable writing, Maaza Mengiste combines gripping story about war – described as a “lyrical song of war” by Namwali Serpell of the New York Times – and a moving account of … Continue reading

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