Open Wide: Tooth School Inside

     Laurie Keller's first book, The Scrambled States of America, was a runaway success. So her second book, Open Wide: Tooth School Inside (New York: Henry Holt, 2000) takes the same educational-ish-while-still-being-hysterical format and applies it to dentistry(not the most exciting or interesting subject). But told in this way, it works really well.

     We spend the day in the halls of Tooth School, following the students throughout their day, from the Pledge of Allegiance("I pledge allegiance to this mouth, and to the dentist who takes care of us. And to the gums on which we stand, strong and healthy, with toothbrushes and toothpaste for all.") to the end-of-day bell. The cast we particularly follow is Dr. Flossman and the 32 students in his class. There are the eight incisors, Omar, Liza, Elvis, Sherrie, Sally, Sam, Ira and Ingrid. They're sort of used to being the center of attention. There are the four canines of Candy, Conan, Christy and Carl. The eight (musical) premolars have their own choir; they are Lola, Charlie, Pinky, Penelope, Rosie, Boopsy, Preston and Pedro. Then there are the twelve molars - Rusty, Martin, Marilyn, Marky, Bubba, Millicent, Roland and Melody. (What's that? You only counted eight molars? That's because the rest are Wisdom Teeth. Yep. Edward, Wallace, Wendy and Evelyn. They're weird smart. Like they yawn through episodes of Jeopardy!, saying that the questions are too easy.).
     Principal Fillingston gives his daily announcements over the intercom - there's some bridge work being done, so buses might be a little late today. And there will be a dance after the Chompers' football game on Friday night against the Plaqueville Germs. (Wallace Molar is reading a copy of the Canine in the Rye during these announcements, and Liza Incisor is stuck up.) Almost everyone failed last week's quiz on what healthy teeth ought to look like, so Dr. Flossman has to explain all that info again, including what the teeth are made out of. The part that can be seen is the crown. The outside layer is made of enamel, which is a hard coating protecting them from bacteria and germs.  Under that coating is dentin, which makes up most of the teeth. Pulp is what hurts when one of the teeth has an ache. The root keeps each tooth in place, fastened to the gums by a thin layer called cementum.
     Sally Incisor then reads her (rather incoherent) essay on the Tooth Fairy, and Dr. Flossman plays a videotape so the class can learn more about her. Then it's time for lunch, so everyone breaks into their groups: the incisors are food cutters, the canines food tearers, the premolars food crushers, and the molars are food grinders. (Martin Molar's mother made him a peanut-butter-and-onion sandwich.) During lunch there's a food fight, and then recess. (Preston Premolar had dirt for lunch, and Carl Canine and Lola Premolar are a couple, according to a mark on the schoolyard tree.) A terrifying lesson on cavities is next, so the terrified teeth hastily brush themselves clean. Dr. Flossman reads to them from the bestselling book So You've Got Yourself a Cavity, by Dr. Lou Stooth, then he promotes the Wisdom Teeth onward for higher learning. (Roland Molar is running for Student Council President, according to a banner in the hallway.)
     The history reports need to be read next, and we find out that ancient Egyptians believed that an onion, spice and incense mix would cure toothaches. (And maybe it did. They knew their medicine.) Mayans filed their teeth into different shapes (OUCH!!!!) and decorated them with jewels, while in the early 1600's Japanese women blackened their teeth (ew) to show loyalty to their husbands. Then the school bell rings, and everyone is free for the day. Except for the two quizzes of homework in the back of the book, one true/false and the other multiple choice. This helps reinforce the educational facts we've learned throughout the book.

     The final two pages are more entertaining scribbles adding depth to the world of these teeth, similar to the comments in the margins from The Scrambled States of America. It's a very well-written and well-drawn book, which ought to be read by pretty much everyone with kids, in my opinion.

#Wesley

Catching Fire

     Once The Hunger Games were completed, they would come again next year....unfortunately. So Suzanne Collins' Catching Fire (New York: Scholastic, 2009) continues the story of Katniss, Peeta and the impending revolution. It doesn't get much better, since it's the middle act of a three-part series, it mainly sets up for the big conclusion at the end. We learn a bit more about Haymitch's backstory, which explains a lot, but he - and everyone else - are possibly even flatter and uninteresting this time around. The DRAWN-OUT love triangle continues, as Katniss deals with trying to decide whether she likes Peeta or Gale better. That is maddening. The pacing is all haywire, going on for two pages about various wedding dresses, then leaping over months of drawn-out agony for neighbors in District 12, passing over their worsening condition in another two pages. That's the first example I can think of. Overall, it plods along without much of anything interesting happening, and is a total waste of a lot of now-dead trees.

     So Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark won the 74th edition of the Capitol's Hunger Games last year. Along the way, Peeta confessed that he's loved her for basically forever, which they use as a strategy in order to survive in the arena. It worked, sure, but since in real life she can hardly stand him, that makes things awkward once they get back home to whatever "real life" is now that they're nationwide celebrities, and thus summoned for all sorts of TV specials, parades, feasts, etc. Katniss goes hunting, because that's what she does. When she can, she hunts with Gale, who has all the emotional capacity, not to mention character complexity, of a rock. President Snow comes personally to Katniss's house to inform her that the other districts were inspired to rebel by her decision at the Games, and threatens that she has to shut them up. (Would he really come personally to deliver that message? I mean, really?)
     On a Victory Tour around the districts, while visiting 11 Katniss and Peeta thank the people for Thresh and Rue's actions. In response to this, the audience makes a "thank-you" gesture they saw Katniss make on TV, which gets several people killed. Peeta and Katniss become engaged during a staged interview, but their efforts to douse the glowing embers doesn't take. Katniss does a whole lot of monotonous pondering over who she likes better. District 8 revolted, and Katniss figures out that District 13, thought to be eliminated generations before, still exists.
     Since the 75th Hunger Games needs to be extra awful in order to make it special, previous victors must return to the arena to fight again. For District 12, that means Katniss and Peeta. They (with some prodding from Haymitch and Effie) make friends with the District 3 tech whizzes and a District 4 guy named Finnick. Most of these competitors have secretly teamed up to make sure Peeta and Katniss stay alive, and enough of them last long enough that they can blow up the force field trapping everyone in the arena. People from District 13 save Katniss, but they can't get to Peeta in time. So in retaliation, the Capitol blows up almost all of District 12.

#Wesley

The Hunger Games

     One of the series that set the current trend of young-adult bestsellers, besides Harry Potter, was Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy. The first book, The Hunger Games (New York: Scholastic, 2008) is rather dreary and unpleasant, as all dystopian YA fiction must be. I think Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower must have influenced Collins a lot in writing these, which isn't saying much. (It's really rare when there is nothing whatsoever praiseworthy in a novel, but Parable of the Sower is one of that rare breed.) The ideas behind this series are good, at least; it is based heavily on Roman ideas of society and the Greek myth of Theseus.
     The idea apparently came while Collins was channel-surfing one day and stopped on a reality show for a few minutes, then stopped for a bit on coverage of the war in Iraq, and those two ideas began blending themselves together in such a potentially-interesting way that she had to see where it would lead. The premise is gruesome and extremely violent, but could have been interesting if she hadn't chosen a first-person, continuously present-tense POV.  And since the narrator is a poorly-educated 16-year-old girl, the grammar is horrible. And so it's awful to read, even though it does match the character. And it has all the pieces that seem like it would make it wonderful - there's an underdog, good battling evil, but the characters are extremely flat, and Katniss, our narrator, is insufferable, both perfect at everything and stunningly clueless. The plot is utterly predictable, too.

   Panem, which used to be North America a long time ago, is ruled by the Capitol, which is a city-state located somewhere around the Rockies. There are twelve Districts which are subservient to the Capitol, and in order to enforce their power, the Capitol holds an annual spectacle known as the Hunger Games, which takes twenty-four teenagers - two from each district, a guy and a girl - and forces them to fight for the death. Since everyone in the country is near the starving point due to some unexplained famine, the winner's district is showered with plenty and he or she becomes a celebrity. Also, these games are televised and it's mandatory to watch.
     So Katniss enjoys hunting. She's really good when it comes to archery, we're told up front. Her sister Prim gets selected as District 12's girl tribute, but Katniss volunteers to take her place. The other tribute is a guy named Peeta, who works as a baker and has a knack for painting. (He's also had a a crush on her since they were five, which is convenient.) They have to convince the only living District 12 victor, Haymitch, to coach them on how to survive. Eventually he agrees to, reluctantly.
     At the Capitol, Katniss's stylist Cinna makes her clothes into inflammatory political statements, which helps attract attention to her as Someone to Watch. (Because she's perfect, and Peeta's in love with her, and that makes a good story for TV. And somehow she hasn't realized this, which doesn't make sense.) Once they get to the arena, people die in lots of gruesome ways, and a whole lot of wasted characters reach their expiration point to the novel's plot, dropping out without explanation. There's a lengthy and awkward "nurse-him-back-to-health" scene, which doesn't fit, considering that Katniss didn't inherit any of her mother's talent for nursing. (This mother never even gets a name throughout the whole series, not even "Mom." But besides serving as a nurse, the only other memorable thing about her is that she suffers from immense depression, because there isn't enough bleakness in this setting, apparently?) Katniss becomes allies with a girl from District 11 named Rue, who reminds her of Prim. Rue is brutally murdered, which allows us to see a (completely unbelievable) tenderness from Katniss.
      Eventually, following an attack by wolves, it comes down to Peeta and Katniss agreeing to commit suicide together so that there is no victor this year. This panics the officials, called "Gamemakers," and they hastily crown them co-champions. Their injuries are repaired by the skillful Capitol surgeons, but their lives will never be the same, given their defiance of the arena's rules.

     Peeta would make a much better narrator, simply because he is naturally empathetic and skillful with using words. Cinna also would count as an interesting character if Collins had dove deeper into his motivation for his actions, but as merely the stylist, he gets shoved to the background very quickly. Third-person would have worked best, because the narration by Katniss quickly become very monotonous and very repetitive. So it's hard to care about anyone. The love triangle between Peeta, Katniss and her hunting partner Gale stretches out too long. And the ending just sets up future books, not really offering any closure by itself. I'm not a fan at all.

#Wesley