Out of Tune? or Jaw-Dropping Tedium?

Brad: This is certainly the first "former-student-now-colleague" dialogue I have ever engaged in for Smackdown.  I'm a little terrified that we might not be in any sort of agreement over these two, and I'm not ready to lay the smack this early in the tournament.  How about we kick off this convo with three-word-descriptions of our two books?

Alexa: Could we possibly be in disagreement over these two? I think I'm willing to lay some smack. Three-ish words....

Tune It Out: "Hip." Semi-endearing heroine.

The Radium Girls: It was radium. 

Brad: Oh, you're clever.  You aren't tipping your hat to me about The Radium Girls yet.  I think my selected three words might make my thoughts pretty clear:

The Radium Girls: Grotesquerie.  Borderline (?) offensive.

Tune It Out: Alright. But problematic.

I am no fan of the "fictionalized historical accounts for young adults" form that keeps popping up in Smackdown; I think there is something disingenuous at best, and ethically comprised at worst, when we generate liminal narrative that is neither fiction nor non-fiction, but the conceit is that THIS IS HOW IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED (see Bomb.  And The Nazi Hunters.  And that bizarre book about the Romanoffs).  The Radium Girls wants us to empathize with these real women who endured unspeakable horrors, but keeps R.L. Stine-ing these horrors for MAXIMUM! YUCHY! EFFECT! to the point where...these real women become IRreal--plot points for a circus of gross-outs with LOTS! OF! ADJECTIVES! AND! EXCLAMATION! POINTS! Wait.  Did you like it?

Alexa: No!! Of course I didn't like it! It was pulling teeth just getting through part one, and then somehow it stretched into three parts, where every other chapter ended with the predictable, groan-eliciting, "It was the radium." 500 pages describing various women who, despite the uNiQuE descriptions of their fashionable clothes and hairstyles, have blended into "radium girl" in my mind, going through the loss of teeth, limb, and life, over, and over, and over. The proclaimed purpose of telling the story of brave girls who fought for justice and change rang hollow, flattening their experience to a handful of quotations supported by weird hypothetical action to try to bring the story to life.  I am in complete agreement with your issue of not-fiction-not-non-fiction. I'd like to see merit in easing young readers into non-fiction in this way, but it was just frustrating and confusing. It was repetitive (!!!), inconsistent, and full of irritating quirks like beginning far too many sentences with coordinating conjunctions, irresponsibly using italics far too liberally, and throwing in random transitions such as, "The Lord works in mysterious ways." WHAT?!?! 

Brad: It's hard to enjoy a book that purports to historically document the bravery of these women, beginning with the exhortation that "[e]ven though they're not with us anymore, these amazing women live on"--and then identifying each of these ladies reductively, repeatedly and almost exclusively by their hair styles. AND! THEN! HER JAW! FELL! OFF!  It's ghoulishly exploitative.

Alexa: Fact: open the book to any page, and there will certainly be a necrotic jaw OR trendy bob reference within your first skim. I can't get over it.

Brad:  Thoughts on Tune It Out, then?  Certainly not without its own problems....

Alexa: Ok. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on Tune It Out, because I read it second and it was such a refreshing alternative to The Radium Girls that I'm almost ready to give it a... glowing reference. I thought it was extremely predictable, definitely a little corny, but I did find it amusing at times; I feel like the tween relatability of Lou and Well was reached for, but fell short of charming. The sensory processing disorder…was it tokenistic? Would kids with similar experiences feel a genuine connection with how it was portrayed? Was Lou's miraculous overcoming-of-fear realistic? All of this, I do not know. Your turn. 

Brad:  It’s weird how many pretty BIG things I found problematic (predominantly the way poverty and social class is dealt with, and the fact that we are to believe that Lou is twelve years old [sidebar: I seriously thought this would somehow be a plot point/twist in the book], and a wet thud of a hurried final act, and….) and yet…there are some terrific passages. And Sumner has an ear for dialogue that rings true, sometimes turning what initially seems like a stereotypical character into to someone multi-faceted and...interesting? While many of the “hip” references fall flat, almost as many sort of charmed me (although…there’s an expiration date on this book—half the references will be EMOJI SHRUG in two years). The book is…okay? But some serious reservations. Final thoughts for your first Smackdown round ever?

Alexa: I see what you mean - reinforcing harmful stereotypes is not on my teaching agenda, and Tune It Out employs them perhaps rather.. obliviously?

My final thoughts: The Radium Girls should end its journey here, for being generally offensive and having significantly fewer "shining" moments, if there were any at all. Tune It Out may move on, but I can't say I would recommend it to a student (in good conscience). I'm looking forward to round two!

ROUND ONE:  Two begrudging votes for Tune It Out.

P.S.:  Mr. McBean?  Zorrie is terrific.  Top three of the NBA Fiction Longlist IMHO.