Steve, Kluger...My Most Excellent Year. is a fiction. Let's just get that out there right now. The main characters: T.C., Auggie and Alejandro. (did you notice none of those are normal names?) There all basically average young teenagers trying to get along and cope with reality as they see it. Some of the issues in this story( which are hardly issues, especially in this world; but a book needs issues) are that Auggie is gay, T.C. is finding himself and likes Alejandra, and Alejandra is the perfectionist type who will figure it all out. Can you imagine the dilemma...oh yeah...T.C. and Auggie are practically brothers...and who better to talk to the girl of your dreams than your brother...especially when he's gay! Okay...that is all that I am saying...
Lessons...Lessons...Lessons- well, what lessons could this book teach us...its not realistic, its not a book of epic literary merit porportions. Well paired with the right lesson, ideas, or even other book it could potentially do well. In my Young Adult Literature course we read this book and followed it up with a harsh taste of reality in another excellent and much more realistic book in "We Were Here," by Matt de la Pena. The books are structured differently, there implicit messages are different and all together vastly different books. So for the lesson...let's try this...the book deals with homosexuality as its main theme...as far as I was concerned. It was accepted very easily and dealt with by parents and friends as if it was another day in the life...Well teachers...it is simply uncontroversial...THAT IS HOW IT SHOULD BE!!! and guess what??? Not to get political here, but a few little hints and giggles in this book seem to suggest that the world that would accept such a thing is a world full of "Bleedin' Heart Liberals" That's right, I said it. Let's face it they mention the great democrats of the past in good fashion early on in the book and Alejandra is somewhat of a political activist herself.
The lesson that could go along with this could be something to do with civil rights and the look at before and after. Are things equal yet? How could a time have ever existed when we had slaves, when we saw people of a different race as truly a different race other that the human race? Well it did and it has to be learned so not to be repeated. Show this book and contrast the lives of Blacks and other minorities in the world today and before with the lives of openly homosexual men and women of today's world. Are they all that different? How are they targeted? what message is this book sending? and where can when can we see ourselves being this open and understanding? Ever? Think about it...it is hard not to cross any lines of appropriateness but at the same time it seems to be an important lesson to look at.
"My Most Excellent Year!" check it out for teachers, it'll do, but I would reccomend being a skilled, not necessarily experienced, teacher with an open and creative mind to get it Right!
Good Luck!!!
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