Book Summary and Review:
This book would be a perfect summer read for incoming 9th or
10th graders. I might also include it on an independent reading list for
10th graders. Eleanor and Park is about two young misfits who fall
in love. Park, the male protagonist, comes from a stable home but feels
the outsider amongst his friends. Eleanor, the female protagonist, has
returned to her unstable household- made up of very young siblings, a fearful
mother, and a drunkard, abusive stepfather- after months of living in “foster” care.
The story essentially begins on the day Park spots Eleanor on the bus before
school. On that first day, Park sees Eleanor the way his classmates see
her. He’s embarrassed for her. She has uncontrollable red hair,
chipmunk cheeks, thrift shop clothes. When no one will give her space to
sit, Park cruelly demands she sit with him—basically to stop his own
discomfort. Day after day, Park and Eleanor sit together on the bus to
and from school and slowly strike up a friendship over comic books, music, and
their “outsiderness.” As their relationship deepens, Park learns
more about Eleanor’s dysfunctional family and realizes her spirit and beauty
and Eleanor helps Park be his more authentic self, the person he wants to be
instead of the son his father finds suitable. Overall, this is a
fast-paced, compelling story that touches upon issues of race, bullying,
family, and young love. The story is told from both Eleanor and Park's
first-person point of view which mostly works. Sometimes the story
doesn't seem to benefit from the changes in perspective-- i.e. when
Eleanor and Park are with each other and they reveal as much through their
dialogue as they do in their private thoughts.
Craft and Technique: Students’
powers of observation begins, most of the time, with the teacher and how he/she
teaches them to find their way into a text. Teaching students how to
paraphrase is a useful starting place for close reading as paraphrasing makes
clear, to both teacher and students, what we do and do not understand.
Stumbles in comprehension can be brought to light through paraphrasing.
Paraphrasing also reveals the author’s craft and artistry in his/her
storytelling. When I paraphrase “out loud” in front of my students, I ask
them what was lost when I recast those lines- of poetry or prose- in my own
words. Students find new ways of describing an author's style through
this process.
The questions in Figure 1: Craft
Techniques and Related Questions for Close Reading are useful, especially those
regarding syntax. I could see using those in an AP level class as a way
of revisiting grammar in the context of close reading and analysis.
MN Academic Standards:
This novel could easily meet the standard highlighting student choice in the
classroom- Self-select texts for personal enjoyment, interest, and academic
tasks. Because of the way the novel is written, it fits under the
umbrella of the standard regarding reading widely to understand multiple
perspectives and pluralistic viewpoints.
The beginning of the novel begins at
a point in the future and works its way back to when Eleanor and Park
meet. Conversations about the author’s strategy here and the changes in
perspectives tie into the following reading standard- Analyze how an
author’s choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it
(e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create
such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise- though I’d not stop with
mystery, tension, surprise. It might be more interesting to examine what
it reveals about the characters, conflicts, themes.
-Bethany Mohs- Edina High School
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