Archive for September, 2009

The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

overachieversThe Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids, by New York Times bestselling author Alexandra Robbins has written for publications such as Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, the Atlantic Monthly, and the Washington Post, and has appeared on television shows including Today, Oprah, 60 Minutes, and The View. In this non-fiction read, she tells the story of nine “overachieving” students who endure the pressures of the highly competitive Walt Whitman high school in an attempt to be accepted by their favorite Ivy League colleges.

Robbins reports on nine students, Julie the high school senior who is a track star that is afraid of the choices she makes., Audry the perfectionist, A.P Frank a college freshmen workaholic, Taylor the “popular girl”, Sam the teacher’s pet, Pete the meathead, Ryland a perceived slacker, Stealth the overachieving but quiet junior, and C.J. the flirt. All of these students undergo different challenges in their schooling careers and find ways around them all. However, in some cases, they are driven into depression, resentment, and some are pushed to the brink of suicide, all because of all the stress and pressure. Some of the pressure comes from parents, some from teachers, coaches, but a lot comes from the student them self.

“The driving force behind much of the frenzy is the belief that a person must attend a top ranked university in order to succeed in life”

Robbins explains some of the problems found in schools today. Cheating and study habits, the over testing of students, sports rage, a drug market for studying, and the insane and confusing college admission processes that students have to undergo. Robbins uncovers many secrets and horrible truths that exist in schools all around the nation.

“You can’t just be the smartest. You have to be the most athletic, you have to be able to have the most fun, you have to be the prettiest, the best dressed, the nicest, the most wanted. You have to constantly be out on the town partying, and then you have to get straight “A”s. And most of all, you have to appear to be happy.” – CJ, age seventeen

I picked it up and got hooked from the first page. My first thought when I finished the book was that my husband and I were not doing enough to give our straight “A” daughter an edge.  My mind started reeling with the community college classes my middle-schooler should start taking at age 14 and the private coaches and swimming lessons we should consider for college scholarships. I also looked into some high profile community service options to flesh out her portfolio and wondered if 12 were too young to take the practice SAT.  Once my neurosis was in check, I was able to contemplate the impact of Robbin’s book.

The biases in her case study of a group of high school students from her Bethesda, Maryland alma mater cannot be ignored but do a lot to shed light on perspectives about learning and getting into the “right” college.

Balance however, can be found within her analysis: some aspects of overachiever culture lead to negative outcomes like excessive stress, unsupported focus on name-brand colleges and even preschools, and so forth, while other aspects lead to positive outcomes like an ability to rise to challenges, mastery of academic and/or sports skills, and more. She presents both sides and the more neutral in-betweens, clearly.

Parents and high-schoolers should read this book.

GENRE: Non-Fiction

Link here to visit the authors website

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Posted in New York Times Best-Seller, Non-Fiction |

Hitler’s Daughter

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

Mark and Anna, and Little Tracey pass the time waiting at the school bus stop by telling each other stories. Usually they are about fairies, mermaids and princesses. Set in Australia, during a particularly torrential rain storm, Anna begins to tell a very different narrative about Hitler’s daughter, Heidi.

hitlersdaughterDid Hitler really have a daughter? No, it’s pretty clear that he did not. So this is fiction. But by the end of the book titled Hitler’s Daughter by Jackie French, you may be left wondering about the possibility, just like Mark in this story.

Anna tells the story of Heidi who is the unacknowledged daughter of Adolf Hitler. She is not acknowledged in public, because of her dark features, red birthmark on her face and a limp due to one leg being shorter than another, but she is provided for by her father. She lives in isolation with a governess, Fraulein Gelber, and knows very little of the real political situation in Germany during the war. She receives very occasional visits from her father, whom she addresses as Duffi.

Now, this story is related very slowly over a period of a few days, so Mark, who begins to be drawn into the story, has time to consider the implications of the tale that Anna is telling him. He begins to wonder how it might really feel to be the child of someone who was responsible for so much evil. He wonders if that make the child evil too? If the answer is no, then what can the child do about it? And how could the child continue to love someone who has committed a gross crime? These are difficult questions to answer:

“The thought pestered him all through afternoon school.

People should do what they thought was right. But what if what you thought was right, was wrong?

Doing what everyone else did was no help either. If there was one thing that all that Hitler stuff showed, it was that most of a whole country could be wrong.

Had everyone back then really thought about things? Had they looked at the evidence?”

It was thought provoking, and a good beginning to understanding the holocaust. It wasn’t too scary (or too in depth), yet provided a starting point for many conversations about human rights, genocide, and ethical decision making. Furthermore, it delves into how one becomes a bystander to heinous wrong doings, or how one can feel helpless to stop wrong doing.  My only complaint with the book written for fourth grade on up is that it relies heavily on the reader having some background knowledge of the holocaust. It is very character driven, slowly meandering through the story and so may not be a great fit for the reader looking for an action book.

GENRE: Historical Fiction

Literature Circle Questions Link Here

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Posted in Historical Fiction, Juvenile Fiction |

Flash Forward

Monday, September 28th, 2009

Along with 12.5 million other viewers, I tuned into the  premiere of the new ABC series “Flash Forward”. I was drawn in by what I thought was a great premise for a show. The show starts off with a planetary “disaster” in which everyone blacks-out for 2 minutes and 17 seconds. During this black-out, people see glimpses of their future six months from now. After so much hype, I decided to give the show a shot, only to be disappointed by the writing, acting, special effects, etc… The show is trying to be Lost, and I really think this show is going to be another example of great premise + poor execution = cancellation.

However being so interested in the premise, I decided to try to read the original novel this show was based on to see if this was another classic case of the book is so much better then the television series a la “Legend of the Seeker”. So at my weekly Barnes and Noble/Starbucks date with my daughter, I picked up the book to read the first few chapters and did not put the book down until I completed it later this weekend.

flashforwardFlash Forward, by Robert J. Sawyer, starts off with a worldwide disaster in which everyone blacks-out for just under  two minutes, and during the black-out, people see their lives for a brief time, 21 years in the future. The book focuses on the stories of really two main characters. Lloyd Simcoe and Theo Procopides. These two protagonists are scientists working for an organization called CERN. Their lifetime goal has been to create a phenomenon called the Higgs boson. I am not a scientist, but as the book explains, it has something to do with recreating the energy created seconds after the “Big Bang”. After seeing their future, their attentions are now refocused on the events they see in their future. Lloyd ends up seeing himself married to someone other than his current fiancee, and Theo doesn’t see anything, leading him to assume he was no longer living at the future age of forty-eight.

The story builds on these two stories bringing up many philosophical, ethical, spiritual, and scientific questions. The main question to be answered, is the future immutable? Lloyd’s belief is “the future is as fixed as the past”, others are not so sure.

Theo finds out the reason he did not see his future was that he was indeed dead at the time, in fact he was murdered. The second half of the book focuses on Theo solving the mystery of his future murder, thus hoping to avert it.  Lloyd’s dilemma was a little more philosophical, do you marry your fiancee if you know the marriage will not last?

I truly enjoyed this book and it was definitely a page turner. Sawyer did a great job explaining the technologies involved, and each chapter began with news headlines which really were helpful in telling the story of what was going through the minds of  the citizens of planet Earth after seeing their “futures”.

However, one warning, if you choose to read the book, please skip Chapter 31 in the soft cover re-release of the novel. That chapter was a huge disappointment and turned a great premise and story into some strange and psychedelic bad trip.

All in all, the book is worth a definite read, while the series has a lot to live up to. At least the book gives the story 21 years to work with while the series has six months. I wonder if the series creators saw their future and realized unless the future is able to be changed, it will be dead in April 2010.

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Posted in Science Fiction |
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