Book #4 Shadowshaper

First of all, isn't this cover gorgeous?  
We all agreed that this cover really pulled us in.  Beautiful.
We met this week to talk about our fourth Great Stories Club book discussion in ALA’s Great Stories Club series, Growing up Brave on the Margins! We discussed the book Shadowshaper (Shadowshaper #1) by Daniel José Older

After briefly talking about our group agreements reminding us to keep this a safe a brave space, we read this poem titled "Where I'm From" by George Ella Lyon.

Then, using this template, we wrote our own "Where I'm From" Poems, mad-libs style (paper copies of this are available in the library - if you're interested in making your own).

Questions and Themes from this book

1. What does it mean to embrace your heritage, especially when it is under attack?
2. Community and Personal Identity
3. Diversity and Expression through the Arts
4. Community Change - (Gentrification) - what does this mean? 
5. Gender Inequality in our nation? in our state? in our city? in our schools?

So, what did we think of this book?

Meh.

Okay, there are some good parts: we compared this book as a read-alike of Percy Jackson. It has the same pacing, storyline, and the world building was cool. It brought you to a new world nicely, however...the consensus was that we were not huge fans of this book.

We couldn't relate with the protagonist. The way she thought seemed really juvenile, and it felt like the character lacked development. We couldn't relate. Was this written by a middle aged person trying to sound like a teenager? So many other Young Adult titles do this so much better.

Why was this book chosen as a "Growing Up Brave" book? There has been lots of talk in the literary world about this book showcasing people of color in a fantasy/mythical genre. This doesn't happen a lot. It also has some great themes to talk about (see themes above) - but we felt it was unfortunate that the story fell flat (to us).

What else was good?

The graffiti art was cool, kind of cyber punk style that we like. Constructive Grafitti was a neat concept. The push-back that the youth had on the gentrification or cleaning up of their neighborhood was nice to see, but we felt the author could've done so much more with this. It was cool to see how the grafitti art showcased culture and diversity of the community against the backdrop of a corporate eyesore of a building.

It would've been nice to see more symbolism developed with the villain of the story representing big corporate.

We found ourselves wondering what the target audience of this book might be? It read too young for our tastes. Also, mythical fantasy might not be our favorite, but it would be nice if it reached a broader audience, because the themes are there (again just wished there was more development of them).

Let's take a Tangent

Some of us missed The Hate U Give meeting last month and were super sad about this. It was a favorite of the series of books we read this year. If you missed it, here's the blog post to catch up.

Let's be kind. There are so many good, beautiful people in the world. Let us focus on this to give us hope for the future (as an aside, I have no doubt the future is great due to the conversations I've observed at Great Stories Club. True story: you all rock.)

Questions for Book Discussion

1.  The history of the shadowshapers is literally embedded in the murals and art that adorns Sierra’s Brooklyn community. What sort of art can you identify in your community, town, or city? How does the art reflect what is important to where you are from?
We talked about the mural being painted in Mankato. This cultural art is inspiring - we wish St. Peter had more of this in our community.

We talked about the differences between architecture here compared to architecture in places like Europe. There seems to be so much more history to buildings in Europe compared to buildings here. However, it's interesting to think that maybe if you spend too much time in one place, you don't always appreciate it's value. Check out Downtown St. Peter, for example. Look up and see the history that's always there in the buildings, that we may never realize.

2. Sierra’s New York neighborhood is slowly changing from local “mom and pop” shops to specialty stores and high rises where she and her peers often feel unwelcome. How would you explain causes and consequences of these changes in the community?
We feel like Sierra had forgotten to value her connection to friends and family around her at the beginning. She starts resenting the disappearing of stores but then starts to realize that losing people loses culture faster than it does when losing buildings.

4. How do you understand abuelo Lázaro’s refusal to initiate Sierra and his desire to make the shadowshapers a “boy’s only” club, even though her grandmother was their de facto leader? Have you experienced different treatment from your family or friends based on your gender? We talked a bit about how we personally experience different treatments based on gender. It this a cultural norm, generational norm? People joke about gender, but there's venom there. It shouldn't matter who you are 'joking' with, if it's offensive to anyone, drop it.

We didn't have time for this, but interesting to talk about:

Please share your ancestor history if you know “where your people are from.” If you don’t know, how might you find out more information about “where your people are from?”

Next Up

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Also!

Great Stories Club is continuing into summer!  Pick up your FREE copy (to keep) of our next book at the library: 

March: Book One (March #1)

by 

John Lewis,

 

Andrew Aydin (Goodreads Author) (Co-writer)

, 

Nate Powell (Artist)

We hope to read other great graphic novels this summer too - join us!  Invite others!

June Date TBD