Jagged Little Pill: The Novel, how music inspires a story

Jagged Little Pill was one of the first albums I bought and when I listened to the music of Alanis Morisette, as a 13 year old, I could feel the emotion behind her lyrics.  In high school I won front row tickets to her concert when she toured with Garbage and even got to meet her backstage!  She was every bit of lovely and kind as I imagined.  It continues to be one of the best moments of my adolescence. Here I am, 27 years later, reading the young adult novel of the same name based on the Tony and Grammy Award-winning musical by Eric Smith, Diablo Cody and Glen Ballard.  This is the first novelization of a musical that I have read and it didn't disappoint!  

The story is told from alternating points of view of five teenagers: Frankie, Jo, Nick, Phoenix and Bella.  It's the middle of the school year in a Connecticut suburb and nothing will be the same after a party that gets out of hand when Bella gets violated and the evidence is spread across social media.  Everyone's expectations of how they should respond in the wake of this incident drives the story:

• How will Nick, Bella's love interest who was supposed to look out for her act when his mother insists that he do nothing to jeopardize his college plans?  
• How will Frankie, Nick's adoptive sister, and her best-friend-with-benefits, Jo, support Bella along with their social activist club to make sure justice is served?  
• What can the new student, Phoenix, do to help as he falls for Frankie while taking care of his mom and hospitalized sister?

Using the musical and album, it's a journey for each character to get introspective as they risk losing the people they love in order to be true to themselves. The adults in the story have as many problems, if not more than the teens as they apply social pressure to everyone around them, including themselves.  This is a dynamic story where every character's choices have much to be debated.  Readers can think about how much race fits into their expectations of people's sexuality along with the #MeToo movement.  Who gets believed and why?  How do you communicate with someone with whom you've crossed the line of friendship? What do you do when you suspect your parent of having an addiction?

This book also stands out to me and will resonate with young adult readers because the authors interweave texting and chat conversations between the characters.  This is a more realistic way of storytelling as today's young people communicate in this way and will more likely read a book that includes this component of dialog.  

Teens can also choose an album or song that speaks to them and write a story idea inspired by the lyrics.  This type of writing prompt can help adolescents find the beauty in storytelling and even match other books with songs that would go along well with them!  As a fan of movie soundtracks, I love it when books name songs being played so I can play them and the story comes alive in a different way.  Literacy is about so much more than the words the page. It's a complete sensory experience if you allow yourself to engage in it. Smith includes a link to the cast recording so readers can listen to it for themselves:

Now that I have read the novel I am ready to watch the musical!  

I Can Make This Promise: family secrets & identity

 Christine Day's debut middle grade novel, I Can Make This Promise, conveys a perspective of a 12-year old Native American girl who only knows that her mother was adopted by a White couple so she has no connection to the Native side of her heritage.  Although Edie is constantly "othered" by people asking her "what are you?", she feels as though her parents would've shared anything they knew with her.  That is until she and her friends stumble across a box of keepsakes in Edie's attic full of mysterious photos, letters, and postcards.  The woman in the photos looks just like Edie and even shares her name.  When Edie asks her parents, they act shifty and change the subject.  Why would they keep something like that a secret? 

Edie and her friends approach this sensitive mystery in different ways. One of her friends urges Edie to talk about it with her parents more while her other friend thinks they should dig for more clues on their own.  The journey that Edie takes to find out the truth is both heart-breaking, yet, hopeful.  Day puts real faces and emotions to the atrocities Native people suffered at the hands of the U.S. Government.  Readers can take the snippets of people mentioned in the story and conduct further research about who they were and why they were considered activists of their time.  Readers can also relate to the changing friendships and history that follow them into adolescence.  Edie decides to cut ties with someone who refuses to be an ally to her and that is a situation that readers can discuss.  

As a teacher, librarian and parent, I would definitely share this book with my students and daughter.  The themes of identity, family, friendship, and historical power and injustice offer a lot of important conversations that connect to other media.  Share the book trailer below with readers to gauge their interest in this story:

Initially I read Day's second novel, The Sea in Winter and was impressed by the authentic voice her characters use while teaching the reader about the upper northwestern U.S. and the Native tribes located there.  I'm looking forward to reading more by Day!