October is a fun month for some many people, those who love a good fright or all things Halloween. For whatever reason, it has never been my thing... I don't particularly enjoy horror movies (I find most preternaturally silly), I don't frighten easily, and the haunted house thing never got my ticker ticking. This year, however, I've read something that has haunted me, indeed shaken me to my very core. And everyone needs to read it as well. If you have kids, you need to read it. Having seen what it contains, you need to decide exactly when your kids should be allowed to read it, and then make them read it. And then you need to discuss it with them.
If you don't have kids, but are part of the human race... you need to read it. Does that pretty much cover it? Are we clear on this point now?
The book is "Th1rteen R3asons Why", by Jay Asher. You will find it in the Young Adult section. Oh, and BTW, the New York Times Bestseller List. I came upon this book because of a review I read in one of my magazines. And so I added it to my library 'reading list', and picked it up one day while my boys were running around getting Hardy Boys books....
Fair warning: this book is very disturbing. Unsettling, I-have-to-put-this-aside-because-I'm-having-a-down-day-myself disturbing. And yet its power and engagement comes from just how disturbing and unfortunately realistic it is.
Mr. Asher tackles one of the most prevalent blights on our modern society in this novel-- teen suicide. Set in a fictional town, a young man receives a series of cassette tapes in an anonymous package. The tapes turn out to from a fellow high-school student who committed suicide a few weeks before, and the tapes serve as the novel's plot engine and an audio diary of a troubled young girl and the myriad events and people in her life who play a part in this drama de la muerte.
The author does a masterful job of creating a realistic scenario of this tragic teenage life. This story could be set in any town, at any public high school. And if you think these things don't happen in your local school... I can only say "OPEN YOUR EYES!". Yes, these things are happening. And too many of us make the same errors you will read about in these pages..... we close our eyes. We avert our eyes. We don't get involved. We blow things off. We stand by and let evil happen. And evil flourishes when we do....
Read this book. Have your kids read this book. Discuss it with your kids. Find a way to get them to talk to you. Find a way to keep them sharing with you all the deepest things in their hearts. BE the kind of parents they can feel comfortable confiding in, a safe haven they can run to when Life gets like it does.
Teach them that "Everything... affects everything" (p.202). Every action we do, everything thing we say, every inappropriate joke, every evil act no matter how hidden, every good act omitted, every time we avert our eyes.... we affect everything and everyone. No one lives in a vacuum. When you throw the rock in the pond, you make a lot of ripples... far more and further-reaching than you can even fathom.
Teach them to take care when dealing with other human beings, no matter who they are. We are all God's children and should be cherished and treated with care. Teach to them recognize when others are not doing this, and to stand up and protest. Teach them to look past the shallow, to squelch the gossip, and to befriend the friendless.
Teach them, in other words, to practice the 2nd of the Greatest Commandments, and then pray fervently that they will have the fortitude to do so in the face of the type of world Jay Asher so brilliantly captures through the eyes of Hannah and Clay.
Want to be haunted this October? Get a copy of this book and read it cover to cover. Weep for the depravity of man and for a broken world that will not change until the next age, when a new Kingdom is established. And then do whatever you can to hold back the tide in your little town, your high school, and the lives around you... lives that you and yours.... affect.
"Everything... affects everything"
If you don't have kids, but are part of the human race... you need to read it. Does that pretty much cover it? Are we clear on this point now?
The book is "Th1rteen R3asons Why", by Jay Asher. You will find it in the Young Adult section. Oh, and BTW, the New York Times Bestseller List. I came upon this book because of a review I read in one of my magazines. And so I added it to my library 'reading list', and picked it up one day while my boys were running around getting Hardy Boys books....
Fair warning: this book is very disturbing. Unsettling, I-have-to-put-this-aside-because-I'm-having-a-down-day-myself disturbing. And yet its power and engagement comes from just how disturbing and unfortunately realistic it is.
Mr. Asher tackles one of the most prevalent blights on our modern society in this novel-- teen suicide. Set in a fictional town, a young man receives a series of cassette tapes in an anonymous package. The tapes turn out to from a fellow high-school student who committed suicide a few weeks before, and the tapes serve as the novel's plot engine and an audio diary of a troubled young girl and the myriad events and people in her life who play a part in this drama de la muerte.
The author does a masterful job of creating a realistic scenario of this tragic teenage life. This story could be set in any town, at any public high school. And if you think these things don't happen in your local school... I can only say "OPEN YOUR EYES!". Yes, these things are happening. And too many of us make the same errors you will read about in these pages..... we close our eyes. We avert our eyes. We don't get involved. We blow things off. We stand by and let evil happen. And evil flourishes when we do....
Read this book. Have your kids read this book. Discuss it with your kids. Find a way to get them to talk to you. Find a way to keep them sharing with you all the deepest things in their hearts. BE the kind of parents they can feel comfortable confiding in, a safe haven they can run to when Life gets like it does.
Teach them that "Everything... affects everything" (p.202). Every action we do, everything thing we say, every inappropriate joke, every evil act no matter how hidden, every good act omitted, every time we avert our eyes.... we affect everything and everyone. No one lives in a vacuum. When you throw the rock in the pond, you make a lot of ripples... far more and further-reaching than you can even fathom.
Teach them to take care when dealing with other human beings, no matter who they are. We are all God's children and should be cherished and treated with care. Teach to them recognize when others are not doing this, and to stand up and protest. Teach them to look past the shallow, to squelch the gossip, and to befriend the friendless.
Teach them, in other words, to practice the 2nd of the Greatest Commandments, and then pray fervently that they will have the fortitude to do so in the face of the type of world Jay Asher so brilliantly captures through the eyes of Hannah and Clay.
Want to be haunted this October? Get a copy of this book and read it cover to cover. Weep for the depravity of man and for a broken world that will not change until the next age, when a new Kingdom is established. And then do whatever you can to hold back the tide in your little town, your high school, and the lives around you... lives that you and yours.... affect.
"Everything... affects everything"
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