I was first introduced to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein through its adaptations. Growing up, my dad hogged the living room TV to play his compendium of old movies, and James Whale’s 1931 Frankenstein was one of his favorite repeats. As a kid, I loved hearing him mimic some of the Creature’s first words (“Goooood, gooood!”) from Bride of Frankenstein.  And I don’t think I ever laughed as hard as when I saw Young Frankenstein in high school for the first time. It wasn’t until I graduated college that I finally got around to Shelley’s novel. Reading the original book sparked a whole new level of obsession with the story and its adaptations, and since then I’ve viewed dozens of Franken-things–books, movies, TV episodes, music, and even a board game–that continually make me see the narrative and characters anew.

​When M is for Monster opens, we are dropped into the typical tense creation scene of any Frankenstein adaptation. Dr. Francis Ai, also known as Frankie, is attempting to reanimate her dead sister Maura, who recently died in a tragic laboratory accident. Maura jolts awake while Frankie, donned in gloves, goggles, and eerie shadows, towers over her. The experiment is a success, and unlike Shelley’s Frankenstein who never names his creature, Frankie does instantly, calling it Maura, thus bestowing her with a seemingly fixed identity. Except that this reanimated Maura isn’t really Maura, only Maura’s haphazardly be-stitched body containing no memories from her previous life. For the rest of the novel, M–as she renames herself–navigates her new life while befriending the real Maura’s ghost and struggling to live up to Frankie’s expectations of who she’s supposed to be. Eventually, both sisters, alongside a small cast of supporting characters, must confront reality and accept each other as they are or risk the permanent fragmentation of their lives and relationships. 

In the same way, M mirrors Shelley’s Creature while eventually forging her own path. Both creations are initially beholden to their creators because they deeply fear violence and abandonment, then are set free into the world to explore what it means to be human as they are haunted by visions of the past and present. Both also experience rejection, but to a different extent and with different consequences. While Shelley’s Creature is doomed to all-out rejection by his creator and society writ large despite his desperate pleas for acceptance, M eventually discovers her passions under the guidance of a caring neighbor, then gains the confidence to assert her unique identity and confront her creator in an emotional, yet productive way. Unlike the Creature who becomes mired in bloody cycles of vengeful violence, M’s character arc is full of promise and possibility as the world shifts to make a place for her. As such, Dutton transforms M into a relatable role model for teen readers who may also be struggling to assert identity, as well as a beacon of the bright future Shelley’s Creature could have had if only the people in his life would have loved him as he was. 

​Perhaps this is the novel's most striking feature: its reimagining of Frankenstein the horror sci-fi story to that of a family drama slash bildungsroman with elements of horror and sci-fi. This genre shift enables Dutton to speculate what if in interesting ways: What if Frankenstein’s creature were born loved, but as something other than it was? What if the creature had access to the tools to become who he wanted to be, and had the support to do so? What if Frankenstein accepted the creature as he was, if they got to know each other? What if the creator and creation had a sibling dynamic versus a parent/child dynamic? What if monsters aren’t born, but are created through our biases and exclusionary practices? Ultimately, how Dutton deals with these wonderings recasts Frankenstein as a story of optimistic possibilities, hope, and the life-building force of love. Reading the original novel alongside M is for Monster could be a memorable way for middle grade or high school students to ask these questions themselves, including: What if I accepted people in my life for who they are? What if I created myself despite the world’s expectations? I could also envision this work paired with texts like Monster by Walter Dean Myers, Pet by Akwaeke Emezi, or Scythe by Neal Shusterman to further explore themes of monstrosity, or as a way into Nicole Mirra and Antero Garcia’s speculative civic literacies.

Ultimately, this book provides an apt metaphor for adaptations and how we can view them in English education. Like the Creature and M, it begs to be seen as its own unique work, one that indeed stems from a creator and its long line of adaptations but that ultimately becomes something entirely new. As M first looks to Maura for how to embody Maura-ness, so does Dutton to Shelley, Whale, and others. She considers what makes Frankenstein Frankenstein–its characters, its themes, and visual motifs–then, like M’s brave and subversive venture into self-hood, extends and remixes these elements to stitch together a new work for a new audience. And for this reason, “it’s alive!” as Whale’s Frankenstein maddeningly exerts--M is for Monster, that is–a story that remembers the past as it echoes and shape shifts across history and cultures like Shelley’s monster, breathing new life into readers in our time. I, for one, can’t wait for it to breathe life into my classroom.

This time of year, who can resist listening to a good ghost story, diving into a dark and twisted murder mystery, or frantically turning pages filled with horror? To celebrate this season of spookiness, we will explore Gothic YA novels this week.  

According to Harpole (1999), “...a Gothic tale usually takes place...in an antiquated or seemingly antiquated space....[and] within this space....are hidden some secrets from the past (sometimes the recent past) that haunt the characters, psychologically, physically, or otherwise” (p.2). These hauntings, ghosts, or monsters are not inserted into the novel as mere thrill factors. Rather, these beings or occurrences are supernatural manifestations of “the unconscious” - representing what is psychologically buried within the characters themselves or representing “deep-seated social and historical dilemmas” (Harpole, 1999, p. 3). As a result, as readers are drawn into these eerie worlds, they also enter the characters’ minds to vicariously both survive and discover the true meaning behind the horror. 
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In addition to classic Gothic texts, this genre is quite prevalent in adolescent literature. Del Nero (2018) posits, “part of the appeal of the Gothic to adolescents is that like the developmental stage, the Gothic is a genre of in-betweenness" (p. 392). These characters border two worlds, whether they are people marginalized because of gender, race, or physical/mental capabilities or are ghosts or other creatures living in supernatural and actual realms (Farnell, 2009). Weaving together classic Gothic elements of mystery, horror, and romance, this week’s chosen novels also explore universal YA themes, including what it means to be in-between childhood and adulthood, which can – at times – be somewhat horrifying. 

Among our recommended reads, we begin with a retelling of one of the most iconic Gothic novels - Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein. Told from the perspective of Victor’s adopted sister, who later becomes his wife, The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein traces Elizabeth’s escape from poverty and subsequent abusive relationship with Victor and his family. What is captivating about this novel is how deeply we are drawn into Elizabeth’s mind. In her desperate quest for self-preservation, she justifies dark and devious actions to keep Victor’s secrets. As she matures into adulthood, she slowly acknowledges her complicity with thoughts such as “I had accused Victor of creating a monster, but I had done the same.” In this retelling Victor is still deplorable, but we see – through Elizabeth’s perspective - how the monster within was nurtured into existence. Contrasting her dysfunctional marriage, Elizabeth eventually finds joy and acceptance in two females and an unexpected friend, suggesting that good can prevail over evil. 

Moving from the captivating reimagining of Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein we turn to another gothic iconic piece, Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw which has inspired numerous retellings and movie adaptations that captivate young readers and viewers. The premise of James’ novella centers on an unnamed governess sent to a remote island to care for two young charges while their uninterested, and wealthy, uncle who lives away from the estate, desires no contact or knowledge of their care. Unsettling appearances, ghosts perhaps, cause the governess to question her insanity, the estate, and the children.  

Two recent YA adaptations have reimagined this eerie tale, offering fresh perspectives on its enduring mystery and psychological tension. The first, The Turning, by Francine Prose tells the story of Jack, a teenage boy who takes a summer job as a babysitter on a remote island, tasked with caring for two strange children, Miles and Flora. Isolated from the mainland with no cell service or internet, Jack begins to witness unsettling, ghostly occurrences that make him question whether the children are haunted or if he’s losing his grip on reality. As the eerie events intensify, the novel builds suspense around Jack’s psychological unraveling, blurring the line between the supernatural and his own fears.

​Written in epistolary form, there is something quite intimate about the structure of the novel reading Jack’s letters to his friends and father as he questions his sanity and surroundings. He ruminates, as does the reader, in the surroundings without the distractions of the phone to confirm or ease his fears. The sense of isolation from the original text plays well in this tech free island that Prose has created as Jack cannot text his fears in real time but must craft handwritten letters and wait for response. The absence of phones or the internet intensifies the Gothic mood, allowing fear to fester unchallenged. Additionally, the gender swap of the protagonist offers a fresh and engaging update to this classic tale. ​

A more traditional take on James’ novel is John Harding’s Florence & Giles, set in late 19th-century New England. Harding changes the sibling dynamic by making Florence the elder and protagonist of the story. Under the strict control of a distant uncle, Florence is forbidden from learning to read due to his conservative views. While her younger brother, Giles, is sent away to boarding school, Florence secretly teaches herself to read, devouring the contents of the mansion’s Gothic library. When Giles is unexpectedly sent home, a new governess, Miss Taylor, arrives to care for the two. Florence quickly becomes suspicious, believing Miss Taylor harbors dark intentions toward her brother and may even be a malevolent, supernatural presence. As the story unfolds, Florence's increasingly unreliable narration blurs the line between reality and paranoia, raising questions about the true nature of the governess and her own actions. With an unreliable protagonist, and an unsettling ending, Florence & Giles turns the pages at breakneck speed for the lover of gothic horror. The novel is steeped in the eerie atmosphere of the exterior in the remote setting and gothic mansion, as well as the interior of a mind in turmoil.   

​Though not strictly speaking a Gothic YA novel, Gretchen McNeil’s Ten is included in this week’s recommendations due to its creepy retelling of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. McNeil emulates the “Queen of Crime” by structuring her novel as a cozy mystery and using a similar framework as the original text: It is set in a remote village, fueled by a plot filled with red herrings, and is driven by an adolescent sleuth, Meg. The premise is that 10 teens are invited to a weekend party at a secluded island beach house. When they are stranded due to a storm, characters mysteriously start dying, forcing Meg and the remaining survivors to unravel clues revealing the murderer. From secret diaries, to love triangles, to rumors and back-stabbing – McNeil heightens the suspense by showing how everyday teenage drama can spiral into hysteria under such tense circumstances. While this novel does not dive deeply into serious themes, it is a dark and twisty page-turner. A fun weekend pick or perfect for independent reading. 

​There is something captivating about the elements of gothic horror that appeal to young readers. Questioning one’s identity is a key piece of gothic horror that aligns well with the emerging adult. Through this genre, and all the lenses like feminist and Marxist we can apply to reading them, these tales of unsettledness and questioning oneself, allow adolescents to see reflections of their experiences metaphorically. Grappling with the past, questioning who we are to become, are all salient themes for the young reader. These reimagined works of gothic horror perhaps invite readers not just into the books themselves, but into their own uncovered truths as well.  

References:  
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Del Nero, J. R. (January/February 2018). Embracing the other in Gothic texts: Cultivating understanding in the reading classroom. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 61,(4), 391-399. 

Farnell, G. (2009). The Gothic and the thing. Gothic Studies, 11,(1), 113-123. https://doi.0rg/10.7227/G  

Hogle, J. E. (2002). Introduction: the Gothic in Western culture. In J.E. Hogle (Ed.), The Cambridge companion to Gothic fiction (pp.1-20). Cambridge University Press.  

After working to build my racial literacy to do a better job of addressing race through literature instruction, I knew that the next area of personal ignorance that I wanted to focus on was social class. If someone asked me to do a class analysis of a text, I wouldn’t have known where to start to say something meaningful, something that unpeeled the novel in fresh ways unavailable without class-based knowledge. 

So, I asked smart friends, specifying that I didn’t want to learn about Marxist analyses, but some other way to do class-based analyses. Thankfully, Amanda Haertling Thein recommended that I read Julie Bettie’s sociological study Women without Class: Girls, Race and Identity. From this book, I started building what I now think of as my social class literacy with key concepts like class injury (about which I wrote in an earlier YAW Blog), cultural capital, and definitions for understanding working-class experiences as either settled-living or hard-living working class. I started applying these terms to YAW in my YA course for ELA teachers, and it has changed the way I see characterization, theme, even setting in texts I’ve been teaching for a while. 

In this post I share a few key class concepts and how they show up in some YA texts as ways to build class-based literary analyses, and by doing so, bolstering not only engagements with literature, but applications to readers’ lives, and teachers’ perceptions of current and future students.

Institutionalized Classism

As with the racial counterpart to this term, institutionalized classism reflects how institutions like schools, for example, reflect classism through policies and practices. So, when hard-living working-class Zoey, in Braden’s The Benefits of Being an Octopus, who lives with her mom and three younger siblings in her mom’s boyfriend’s trailer with him and his father, is asked to join the Debate Club at her middle school, we see how such extracurricular activities are classed.

Zoey has to race to the pizza joint where her mom works after school to pick up her baby brother from there, before crossing the street to pick up her other two young siblings from the bus and then take them home. To achieve this, her mom’s co-worker stays a bit after his shift to watch the baby while her mom starts her shift and they wait for Zoey. Once Zoey is invited to join the Debate Club by her teacher, she cannot imagine a way to stay after school to do this and still meet her family responsibilities. Only because her teacher knew about her responsibilities, and offered to drive Zoey to the restaurant in time to do her pick-ups was Zoey able to participate.

As my sharp student, Jessica, noted: “It took a lot of people helping her to make it possible for her to do this extracurricular activity.” In other words, after school “enrichment” opportunities—the kinds that look great on college applications, for example—require students to have leisure time, something available to middle-class students, but often not to working-class students. This is an example of institutionalized classism, and there is an abundance of textual details to unpack across texts to build a class-focused literary analysis. 

Cultural Capital

French theorist, Pierre Bourdieu, introduced the concept of cultural capital, to explain the ways that students who grow up in middle-class homes acquire class-based knowledge (e.g., about books) and practices (e.g., how to dress for an “occasion”) that better match the middle-classed expectations of schooling, and thereby make their educational experiences a smoother process than it is for working-class youth. We can draw attention to the role of cultural capital whether a book is explicitly focused on class-based themes or not.

For an example of the former, Ibi Zoboi’s Pride: A Pride and Prejudice Remix, puts on display the many ways that the working-class Benitez family lacks the kind of cultural capital on display in encounters with the wealthy Darcy family that moves in across the street. When Zuri, the protagonist, is in the car with Darius and his sister, Georgia, both of whom attend fancy prep schools, Zuri cannot understand half of the references to places they have traveled: “skiing somewhere called Aspen, go to somebody named Martha’s Vineyard every summer, and how they are still hoping to take a trip to some place called the Maldives” (168). Zuri lacks the cultural capital to follow the conversation. 

In contrast, in Colbert’s Little & Lion, a book focused more on issues of bisexuality and mental health than social class, the main characters are nonetheless upper middle-class characters who live in a beautiful home in a historic district in Los Angeles, can afford to send a child to a boarding school in New England, and discuss plans for the kids to travel after high school. In Suzette’s interests in visiting museums with her mom’s partner, Saul, the fact that engaging in this pastime is something they have enjoyed across their relationship, we see the “natural” presence of cultural capital around art, exhibits, and museums evident in middle-class homes.

​In our YA course, we talk about how having class ease does not mean that youth like Suzette do not have problems. They do. But they do not have class-based problems, and this affords them opportunities to turn their attention to other facets of being than exigencies, and this affects characterization, it affects themes in YA texts, and it also exposes adolescence as a classed categorization when some youth have time to socialize and build romantic relationships and others do not.

Agency

This term is less of a class-specific piece of nomenclature, and more of a worthy consideration when making text selections focused on social class. As with texts featuring other marginalized groups, when we reach for texts to address social class, it matters to ensure that protagonists who may be class-oppressed are nonetheless still shown to be agentic.

In fact, it’s just this issue that bothers Jade, the protagonist of Watson’s Piecing Me Together. More than anything, she wants to be nominated for the service abroad program, where she can use the Spanish she’s learned. Instead, she is regularly nominated for class-based programs like SAT testing support, a job tutoring peers in Spanish, and the Woman-to-Woman program aimed at building cultural capital in Black, working-class, first-generation students striving for college. But when a young Black woman is injured at the hands of a police officer, Jade mobilizes to do something for her and for her family, and this sense of agency leads her to advocate for herself at school, too, around this much-desired opportunity to travel abroad. 

Slowly, I have been building such a bedrock of social class vocabulary to craft the kind of critical lens that opens classed experiences for literary interpretation that feels resonant and meaningful for teachers aiming to teach their own ELA students about class. By focusing on concepts drawn from sociology—rather than from Marxist analysis, say—students in my courses have found easier inroads to noticing social class at work in YA texts, and understanding how important it would be to bring such awareness to their future students, too.

If I were in charge of the world (nod to author and poet Judith Viorst), I would have every human read the body of work created by Gary Schmidt. Coming from a woman who has read thousands and thousands of books and reserves the honor of “Author Study Worthy” for a tiny population of authors, I hope this bold statement about Gary’s books will entice others to explore his stunning work.
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The story of how I came upon Gary’s work was a time in my 35-year career when I had the most profound paradigm shift related to the teaching of literature after reading just one of his books. This shift (which involved the simple formula of 1. reading aloud to start and end each class period, 2. allowing choice in what students read, and 3. talking books with students daily) is what led me to be named “The Book Dealer” by one of my students and eventually led to my second career in academia working with children’s and YA authors.

The truth is this:  I should not be the educator who is named “The Book Dealer,” as that title should be bestowed upon a retired middle school science teacher. Moosa Shah, 7th grade teacher in Fairfax County, Virginia, is the greatest example of a “Book Dealer” I have ever witnessed working book magic.  And I have been in hundreds of classrooms.  It was Moosa who first texted me the title of Gary’s award-winning book The Wednesday Wars and emphatically told me it was a must-read.
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My Book Dealer was 100% correct; after reading The Wednesday Wars, I feverishly read several of Gary’s other titles, starting with the companion book Okay for Now then immediately reading the truly life-changing book Orbiting Jupiter. There are only a handful of books I have read that garnered the same reaction as I had while reading Orbiting Jupiter.  I can still remember where I was seated, what I was wearing, what year I read it, what day it was, and my emotional reaction. I liken this to days I experienced meeting an impactful person or witnessing a historical event that forever changed my life.  I had never read a book quite like this one.  Schmidt has a keen ability to create characters who stay with the reader for a lifetime.  Although I have fallen in love with characters in each of Schmidt’s books, Jack and Joseph, the two main characters in Orbiting Jupiter, will forever have a place in my heart and soul.  Luckily for any reader of this book, there are two novels that contain Jack and Joseph.

Recently, my undergraduate English and history methods course engaged in a study of the work of Schmidt, and it ignited an interest and a passion in my students for the power of his books and the connection they have with middle (and even high school) students. The comments I received acknowledged Schmidt writes books that are both equally funny and heartbreaking. What impressed my future history teachers was the content Gary adds that is historically grounded while still being engaging. Studying Schmidt’s work helped my students see how connecting (dealing books) to their students can create what I call a “book pipeline” for our youth, which often, in turn, creates a lifelong love for reading. This is the best endorsement a class of college twenty-somethings has ever given regarding the authors I have introduced during class. This speaks volumes, as many of them admitted they stopped reading after elementary school.

As for Moosa Shah, the true Book Dealer? He is happily retired in Virginia, still reading the work of middle-grade authors. As a thanks to Moosa for the thousands of books he has shared with kids, I asked Gary Schmidt to email him the weekend of his retirement.  As I fully predicted, the humble and gracious Schmidt thanked Moosa for a “faithful career” of teaching. He went on to share his gladness to hear that “a teacher in the sciences has shown such a commitment to reading and to literature,” and commented that this was truly one of Shah’s “lasting achievements.” No truer words have ever been spoken.  A teacher who leads youth to the fountain of reading has given one of life’s greatest gifts.
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As a final reminder, it does not matter what discipline you teach: sharing books with our youth can have a lifetime impact. Moosa Shah has proven that, and Gary Schmidt has written an entire shelf of those “just-right” books to entice all readers. 

I’d be remiss if I didn’t open this piece with a grito, the Mexican battle cry by Father Miguel Hidaldo, a call to arms against Spanish rule. Here, though, we’re celebrating Brown books, and so my grito: ¡Qué viva la lectura! ¡Qué vivan los libros! ¡Qu´ vivan los lectores! ¡Qué vivan las lectoras! ¡Ajúa¡ 

Tasked with selecting a couple of titles to highlight during Hispanic Heritage Month is both easy and difficult. Easy because there is so much beautiful work in print to date. Difficult for the same reason: there is so much of it now (though there needs to be more of it! Of the 3,200 books submitted to CCBC by U.S. publishers in 2023, only 291 titles were “about” Brown subject matter. A dismal number considering that the number hasn’t really improved by much since 2018 when that number was 244). But boy! The quality of what’s out there already and continues to be published.

A list of fiction our escuincles should get their hands on, though not a comprehensive one:
 
Pocho by José Antonio Villarreal (1970)
…y no se lo tragó la tierra by Tomás Rivera (1971)
Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya (1972)
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros (1984)
Rainbow’s End by Genaro Gonzalez (1988)

As for verse:

“I Am Joaquin/Yo soy Joaquín” by Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales (1967)
A Fire in my Hands by Gary Soto (1991)
My Own True Name by Pat Mora (2003)
Sonnets and Salsa by Carmen Tafolla (2004)

A seemingly brief list. There are more: Xavier Garza, Ruben Degollado, Diana López, Matt de la Peña, Viola Canales, Claudia Guadalupe Martinez, many more. Forgive my oversight. These are just my go-to Brown writers.

Note, too, that I’ve selected writers and poets who identify as Mexican American, Chicano/a, or a variation, but with a jumpstart in Mexico. It’s intentional, my choice. Each in their own way (some more obvious than others) are seminal writers in the Brown movement. There are more who I’m overlooking, apologies, again. If I were asked, though, what 10 titles would I take with me if I could only grab that many off my shelf the night La Llorona were to come after me, I’d bolt with those on my list. And believe you me, if I were accompanied by a fellow reader who could carry his or her own titles and they included books by those in my other list (Garza, Degollado, etc.), I’d trip him so that La Llorona would abscond with him, leaving behind his mochila azúl heavy with his books, and I’d snatch it and run. I’d be set. Sneaky, sneaky.

Here's the thing, though: it’s one thing to celebrate Brown books, but these books, any and all books for that matter, are nothing without readers. Wenndy Pray, a librarian who is also a student of mine working on her PhD in Language, Diversity & Literacy Studies at Texas Tech University, posted a photo on Instagram recently. In it there are a good ten smiling and happy Brown faces of lectores. Check it out: they’re readers, active and engaged. Proving that stereotype way wrong. What we’ve been shooting for these last couple decades. They aren’t reading from off the lists above, though. Instead they’re reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Trouble According to Humphrey, Full Court Dreams, Cinder, and Dork Diaries.

Am I worried that they aren’t choosing titles from the lists above? Several years ago I would be. To this day I know it in my heart of hearts that when a kid doesn’t opt for a book when given the choice there’s good reason. Often, it’s because they’ve read a very one-sided narrative from the beginning of their reading lives. I know also that if they read something culturally relevant to them that the chances of them picking up the reading act increase tremendously. But these kids are already readers. They’ll grab hold of Anaya then Cisneros in graduate school like happened with me. But with me it was more an introduction to books as if for the very first time. Wait! Esperanza Cordero’s story is my own. Where’s she been all my life? With these kids, they’ll pick up any one of the writers I mentioned, but pick them up as Literature, no different from the Classics.

I see the smiles on the faces of these lectores, and I can’t help but give a grito of my own. ¡Ajúa! That’s how it’s done.

​“It’s a cautionary tale of fear and lust and pride
Based on actual events where people died!
(No one died.)”
–Janis and Damian from Mean Girls (Richmond & Nell, 2018)

​Literally within 20 minutes of finishing Cormier’s The Chocolate War, I was listening to the sound track from Mean Girls. This line hit me just about as hard as Jerry gets tackled in Cormier’s opening line, “They murdered him.” I paused the music and drove in reflective silence for a moment. “Is there something here?” I mused to myself. “Can more comparisons be made between Cormier’s The Chocolate War and Tina Fey’s hit comedy Mean Girls?” Then I really got excited as I wondered, “What can an intersection between a Young Adult hit from 20 years ago with another Young Adult hit from 50 years ago mean today?” 

​Both Mean Girls and The Chocolate War have survived far longer than audiences may have initially expected. In fact, if measured by Ted Hipple’s standard in “Young Adult Literature and the Test of Time”, these two texts are pushing four and ten generations, respectively. Hipple explains since Young Adult authors must aim at an ever-moving target of experience of about five years in order to connect with their audience, they have a much shorter generational span of approximately 5 years. (Hipple, 1992) If a piece written for Young Adults can last longer than this five years, it’s considered a classic within the genre.
 
We will be celebrating Mean Girls Day tomorrow, marking 20 years since the original movie was released. Who knew when Rosalind Wiseman wrote her first edition of the girls’ clique self-help book Queen Bees and Wannabees back in 2002, it would get picked up by comedy mastermind, Tina Fey and turned into a movie (Mean Girls) in 2004, then into a musical by the same name in 2017, then into a YA novel (Mean Girls, A Novel) in 2017, then into a Shakespearean parody (Much Ado About Mean Girls) in 2019, then into a graphic novel (Mean Girls, Senior Year) in 2020, then back into a new interpretation of the movie and the musical in 2024?

​Cormier’s The Chocolate War was first published in 1974, 50 years ago and about 30 years before Mean Girls. Within two years it was the most widely read and recommended book for Young Adults across multiple library, school, and magazine lists. It quickly became one of the most censored texts too, much to the outrage of many young adults and teachers. Today, students and academics alike are still riveted by Cormier’s realism that mirrors their own emotions and experiences of Young Adulthood. A quick search on google scholar brings up peer-reviewed articles of The Chocolate War published as recently as this year. Cormier’s The Chocolate War changed the landscape of how authors talked with and respected the experiences of Young Adults. Cormier couldn’t have anticipated this attention, but he solemnly used it to bring light and deep respect to the experience and validity of young adulthood.

As I continued to drive along with the Mean Girls soundtrack, more words filled the silence,
 
“But how far would you go
To be popular and hot?
Would you resist temptation?
No you would not!

Just admit it, sometimes
Mean is what you are
Mean is easier than nice
And though mean can take you far

Maybe this will make you think twice” (Richmond & Nell, 2018)

Before The Chocolate War and Mean Girls, few books and media took seriously the cognitive dissonance Young Adults experience when they know they should do one thing but just can’t bring themselves to do it. Books and media catering to young people were full of trite consequences and didactic lessons that alleviated young adults’ need to challenge their thoughts and change their behavior. Both Cormier and Fey thought adolescents deserved a little more credit. They could see that what young adults were dealing with were internal, polarizing issues that could not be repaired within 2 hours or a 200 page novel. They brought to light the complexity of the adolescent experience we all can relate to.
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The writers of Mean Girls are reflecting the harsh reality of life. “Mean is what you are/Mean is easier than nice.” In thinking about Cormier’s The Chocolate War, we have a protagonist, Jerry, who consistently almost stands up for himself, supporting characters who almost take a stand against bullies, antagonists who almost feel remorse for their choices, and adults who almost reach out and make positive connections with the youth they have stewardship over. Do any of these characters actually do these things? No. Why? It’s easier not to. “Dare I disturb the universe?” Cormier’s protagonist Jerry asks himself, just before he does nothing. No. “Mean is easier than nice.”

Cady from Mean Girls and Jerry from The Chocolate War are similar in their habit of falling just short of sainthood. Their names mean Pure and Mighty respectively yet they are anything but. Cady observes the social hierarchy of her high school just long enough to know how to manipulate it for her own gain. Jerry begins to take a stand against the Vigil gang running his school and coercing the faculty, but he never really follows through with enough “might” to disturb the universe. The similarity between the characters in relation to their habits of falling short of their namesakes is worth noting. How many times have young adults felt this pull to be great and then felt the crippling disappointment of falling short?
 
Regina from Mean Girls and Archie from The Chocolate War are antagonists cut from the same cloth. Regina’s power lies in others’ willingness to follow her. She would be nothing without Gretchen and the Plastics to do her bidding. Archie knows the moment Obie turns on him, he will lose power within the Vigils gang, the school and the faculty. Archie works intentionally to keep Obie below him so his empire doesn’t crumble.
 
We can see Gretchen and Obie both hate their respective antagonists. Gretchen gives a full speech in the 2004 version of the movie and concludes, “Why should Caesar get to stomp around like a giant while the rest of us try not to get smushed under his big feet? What’s so great about Caesar, hm? Brutus is just as cute as Caesar. Brutus is just as smart as Caesar, people totally like Brutus as much as they like Caesar. WE SHOULD TOTALLY JUST STAB CAESAR!” and Obie, in The Chocolate War, clearly manipulates Archie, calling on him to meet in the gym because Obie knows exactly how much Archie hates sweat. In this uncomfortable place, Obie challenges Archie with Jerry’s stand against him and the Vigils to continue not to sell chocolates despite the gang’s mandate to do so. Obie is sick of Archie’s bullying just as Gretchen is sick of Regina’s manipulation but the force still keeping both of them in place is fear of the antagonist. They don’t progress further than resentment because their fear keeps them both in check.

​It is in this place of being paralyzed with fear that both texts converge to open a powerful invitation for dialogue. Cady and Jerry feel trapped by circumstance. Regina and Archie are trapped by the power they exert over others; one casual misstep and the empires they’ve built to their self-importance topple. Gretchen and Obie feel trapped by their own resentment toward powers they want to break down but don’t know how. It is in this delicate balance of empowerment and entrapment that the wobble of venturing out into a new territory of thought is most felt by the audience. It is at this point in both texts we see an opening for us to enter as a participant in the dialogue extended by Cormier and Fey.

​Interestingly, this moment for dialogue happens in the gymnasium.
A place of action.
A place where one must win or one must lose. 

​Inviting the audience to self-reflect in the face of reality and the frustrations that come with it is one of the most powerful elements these two texts share. No answers are given. Fey actually makes a joke out of the possibility of having the answers as she has Regina get hit by a bus. (No one dies!) Cormier leads his audience to believe Jerry has failed without first fulfilling his call to disturb the universe.
 
For today’s young adult readers of The Chocolate War, it can be intimidating to jump into a text that is 50 years old and expect to find relevance. Is it worth the try? Yes. How can educators make it accessible and relevant to their students? Build on the momentum of the more recently published Mean Girls phenomenon. The intersection points of longevity, realism, characters, and dialogue can be catalysts for a fresh look at the common adolescent experience of knowing what one must do but not quite knowing how to traverse from old habits to actually do it. Both texts offer a powerful tool to cross this difficult bridge: reflection through dialogue. 

​As the girls are gathered in the gym and asked by Ms. Norbury, “Raise your hand if you have ever been personally victimized by Regina George,” the viewer is immediately drawn in as girls stare straight into the camera and make their confessions. Even teachers participate. Likewise, in Cormier’s primal scene of the fight in the gym, the reader is gathered as a spectator that cannot turn his back on the violence that is unfolding in the organized fight. Cormier made sure the reader could not turn his back because we zoom out to see Father Leon, a “trusted” authority figure, literally turn his back on the boys and the reader together. In these pivotal moments of each text, the audience is forced to consider and reflect on their position and make a choice of what they would do.

​To what degree “[d]are I disturb the universe?” Jerry asks himself.
Cady might very well respond with, “The limit does not exist.”
 
No direct answer is given, the audience is free to work out what their own response would be.
 
If that isn’t fetch, I don’t know what is.