MOE Recommended Text - THE JOY LUCK CLUB
I think The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan is a great literature text for Secondary school kids. The novel follows the lives of four Chinese women who immigrated to San Francisco, and their four American-born daughters. Feeling out of place in a foreign country, these four mothers find solace in each other’s company and form a mah jong group, which they call the Joy Luck Club. The text itself is richly layered, comprising sixteen vignettes which interweave and maneuver through time, cultures, and the perspectives of the mothers and their daughters. The socio-cultural issues explored are extremely relevant to students – for instance: identity (the daughters search for their self-identity as first-generation Chinese-Americans), tradition vs. modernity (the mothers are too old-fashioned/Chinese, the daughters are too Americanised), and sexism (idealised notion of female submission, sexist standards in a patriarchal society, women seen as child-bearing machines, purity culture).
YA Novel - THE HUNGER GAMES
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is an awesome young adult text. Set in post-apocalyptic North America, the nation of Panem consists of twelve different districts governed by a totalitarian government called The Capitol. Each year, one boy and one girl are selected from each district to compete in an event called The Hunger Games, which is basically a televised killing spree disguised as voyeuristic entertainment for the wealthy, privileged folk in The Capitol. I think the novel can work well as a literature text for Secondary school kids for various reasons. Once again, it explores pertinent issues like the oppression of the poor and the commodification of people for mass entertainment. It has a riveting premise (children fighting to the death in a twisted version of Survivor) and a strong female protagonist. It is also a good start for introducing dystopian literature to students.
Other Book: THE LOVELY BONES
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold tells the story of Susie Salmon, a teenage girl who was raped and murdered by her neighbour, a serial killer who preys on young girls. What makes this book interesting is that it is told from Susie’s point-of-view; even after she dies, she continues narrating the story from her personal heaven. She witnesses the turmoil her family goes through when they learn of her death, and how they painfully and slowly tried to solve the mystery of / come to terms with her death as the years passed. While Susie does indeed Rest In Peace by the end of the novel (when her spirit enters her friend Ruth’s body and she makes love to Ray the boy who was sweet on her when she was still alive and then returns to a larger part of heaven and is finally at peace – *phew*), her killer is never convicted of his heinous crimes and later dies in an accident while stalking another young woman.
Ultimately, I would choose The Hunger Games. I was initially apprehensive of choosing a work of genre fiction to be taught as a literature text (I don’t know why), but the book does explore many social themes that are relevant in the twenty-first century. Furthermore, it is a book that many teenagers enjoy and would willingly read on their own. I think this would motivate students to be more engaged when discussing the text and sharing their opinions about it in class.
Hi Francesa, Hunger Games would count as one of my choices for introducing students to dystopian literature but in terms of literary merit, where would you rank it? I ask it as someone who needs to return to the book to relook the issue from this perspective.
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