Young Adult Literature

"It all seemed so silly.  Why couldn't she and Max and the Zwirns and the German children all play together?  Why did they have to have all this business of decisions and taking sides?" (Kerr, Judith. When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit. pg. 73) 

Cami, Hayley and I decided that for our self-selected project we would read When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr and Fever by Mary Beth Keane. 
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit - At first this story was not at all what I expected it to be.  I expected a story that was full of historical facts surrounded by a fictional story.  I have read a lot of historical fiction and really enjoy them because, though they are not true stories, I can begin to see what life may have been like for a person.  It took me a while to begin thinking this way as I read Pink Rabbit.  It is a story of a young Jewish girl and her family who move from Germany to Switzerland to France and by the end have just arrived in England during the 1930s.  It is based on the author's life.
As a group, we did not like a few things about the book.  Firstly, the book is written at a 5th or 6th grade level, which is a little young for us.  We were hoping for a more realistic story.  Secondly, we agreed that the story was very simplistic.  It was written with a lot of happy endings that we did not feel really fit the time period.  The author could have gone into a lot of depth on many issues facing the people during that time period, but stuck with very simplistic stories, we assume, of what she remembered.  This is where, I think, knowing who your audience is, is very key.  If Kerr had wanted to write a story to high school students, I think that we would have a story told in a very different way, perhaps with a lot more detail and discussion on those very deep issues (suicide, isolation, identity, racism).
Though we had a hard time with it at first and were not pleased with it's simplicity, we found numerous ways to apply this to one of our classrooms.  The first thing that I came up with was using this story in a ESL classroom or to benefit ELLs in a mainstream classroom.  This story follows the main character throughout three different countries where different languages are spoken.  ELLs could especially relate to her experience in France where no one spoke German at all.  She explains how frustrated she becomes, how she had to learn to speak with others through gestures, how tired she was because of the effort she was putting into the language and many other issues and problems.  ELLs are most likely going through very similar experiences with learning English.  Not only could they relate to learning a new language, but also getting used to a new culture, new people and trying to maintain their own culture at home.  I think that this story could greatly benefit them.  I also think that it could benefit non-ELLs because they could see how hard it would be to be in the main character's shoes, and in the shoes of the ELLs in their classroom.  Hopefully, this would open a great discussion between ELLs and non-ELLs.  We also liked the different perspectives that were represented in the book.  Not only did we learn about the main character, but we learned about relatives that stayed behind in Germany, Nazi supporters that they ran into, writers, actors and other artists that fled Germany...There was a wide range of people that we met, all with a different view on the situation.
We also came up with some teaching strategies that could be used while reading this book.   Some pre-reading activities that we thought of were: researching the author and her life to give us some context, discussing the use of propaganda and the role that it played during that time, as well as having a discussion on why artists/writers were a big target of Hitler's (the main character's father is a writer).  These activities would give the students context before they went into reading.  There are many during reading activities that could be used with this book.  Each chapter begins with a picture.  We would have students make predictions of what they thought would happen in the chapter based off of the picture.  We could follow the movement of the family on a map to help the students see where they were.  We also thought of the students writing postcards from the main character to her Onkel Julius back in Germany.  This will help us be able to assess the student's comprehension and analysis of the story.  There were two post-reading activities that I would consider using in my classroom.  The first would be to have the students predict what happened to the main character after the story ends, since it ends when she is still a little girl and before the outbreak of World War II.  Secondly, as we continued to learn about World War II, I would have them write her story again, but as if she had not moved out of Germany.  Both of these activities would be great assessments and would allow the students to decide how they think her story would be different.
Overall, after reading the whole story and reflecting on it, I would use it in an ESL history class, especially if I could work out a cross-curricular unit with an English teacher.  But if I teach older grades I would definitely keep this in my classroom library.
Fever - Fever was also not quite what we expected.  This story is a fictional representation of the woman who became known as Typhoid Mary.  We follow her from Ireland to America, through the different households in which she worked and the people with whom she associated, to her capture and through her trial.  It became a very interesting story.
We felt that this book was written for a more mature audience, such as 11th and 12th graders (as it has some suggested material and profanity).  The biggest criticism that I had while reading the book, was the way that it was organized.  Instead of following Mary from when she lived in Ireland straight through to her trial, it basically begins with her capture and takes us through her trial while she remembers her life before.  It is a memory piece.  I can see how this would be confusing for students and hard for them to follow because I had a hard time following the story. 
Though it was difficult at times to follow and not our favorite story, we also found ways that we could incorporate it into our classes or at least use material from the story.  One very interesting thing that I liked was that it mentioned real events that were happening around this time.  For example, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire is mentioned.  Students would have the chance to go and research these events for assignments and then compare their findings with the story.  This story is also based on fact and real person, so we thought that it would be interesting to have them read primary documents about this particular story.  We would help them find journal entries and newspaper clippings on the typhoid outbreak and have them relate it to what they are reading.  But what we thought of doing mostly was discussing the issues that are mentioned in the story: gender roles, trial proceedings then and now, the use of evidence, immigration, city life in the early 1900's, social status, economics, and civil rights.  Having discussions on these topics would be great during-reading activities to help the students expound and flesh out the life of Mary, the main character.  They could join her in the streets of New York and the hospital where she was held for two years just by studying the ways of life during that time.
Like Pink Rabbit, we felt like Fever could also be used for a cross-curricular unit between English, Science and History.  Though I probably would not use the entire book in my history class I can see using excerpts from the story to bring up discussions. 
For me, reading these two books was a pleasure.  I really like reading historical fiction books for fun, when I can just enjoy them.  Though neither one was what I expected them to be, they both could be used in my classroom, even if they were only found in my classroom library.  I think that students enjoy reading books like this for school because it is a break from reading a text that is so full of heavy information.  Young adult literature is also a lot easier to relate to one's life, especially young students.  After taking this class and reading these books I found myself looking for things that I can teach students which is pretty amazing!