Book Review: Riding The Bus With My Sister

Gillin, Beth. ‘Riding the Bus with my Sister/How I Learned How to Slow Down and Enjoy the Ride by Rachel Simon. The Philadelphia Inquirer. 02 October 2002.

This review of Riding the Bus with my Sister from the Philadelphia Inquirer is a fairly flattering review of the novel. It is clear that the author enjoyed reading the novel, and makes a point to bring up poignant moments and surprises that the novel had to offer. Another salient feature of this article is the summarization, which hits upon many of the key points of the novel. The article addresses the author’s internal struggle with Beth, their encounters with both kind and unkind people on the bus system outside of Philadelphia, the contrasts between Rachel and Beth in their personal lives and personalities, as well as Rachel and Beth’s traumatic history, which resulted in their separation for many years. This review provides a fairly short yet cohesive summary of the novel, and even addresses one of the issues that is also something grappled with in the novel itself.

The issue of politically correct and people first language has been long debated in the arena of special needs, and this article touches on that with the quote “Is it really a politically correct affectation, Simon wonders, to call Beth "a person with mental retardation," instead of "mentally retarded"? After all, she notes, people with cancer aren't called "cancered." That would reduce them to a disease.” The article ponders the question but does not attempt to answer it in such a short span, merely addressing the issue as one that is presented in the book. Briefly, the article also mentions Rachel’s struggle with nature vs. nurture as Rachel wonders how much of Beth’s personality is her really her personality, and how much of it is her syndrome. These issues require special attention by an informed reader throughout the novel, and once brought to attention by the article, can be made a focus when reading.

Response to Ada and Barrera & Quiroa Articles

Since I chose to do my assignment on Latino/Latino young literature, I unfortunately was unable to find many inside sources. I also had a problem finding reviews on the books I chose so because of this; I have reviewed the course pack articles and found many issues relevant to my reviews. The articles I have reviewd are Words of Jade and Coral: Latino Literature for Children and Adolescents by Ada and The Use of Spanish in Latino Children’s Literature in English: What Makes Cultural Authenticity by Rosalinda B. Barrera and Ruth E. Quiroa. (I did find reviews on Francisco Jimenez but none of them were pertaining to La Mariposa; they were addressing his other pieces).

One of the first issues I found interesting was in the Ada article when it states that the reason Latinos prefer to be addressed by the name of, ‘Latino’ is because they have descended from Spanish speakers that, “Do not want to be called Hispanos or Hispanics because they do not want to be reminded of their connection to Spain…this places them further from the colonizer”. This was nice to read about because it made me able to clarify the reasons behind the genre that is Latino literature.

Since I was unsuccessful in finding more inside sources, I was pleased to see that Ada also addresses this issue by stating that there aren’t that many books out there, written by insiders, about the “Very rich and diverse Latino reality”. This statement was almost like another support for my lack of insider authors because the statement is saying that this genre is wonderful and worth reading but there are unfortunately not enough insider authors being published. Ada goes on to state, “There is an inner look to a culture that is not easily acquired and requires long contact with people of the culture and its environment. The deep experiences of people can seldom be told authentically from the outside”. This was such a wonderful statement to come across because from reading these books, both from insider and outsider authors, I have formed the opinion that I prefer the insider knowledge to be more realistic and educational. This statement perfectly stated what I feel is true about the benefit of reading a piece of literature that has been composed by an insider of that culture. I felt this most strongly with La Mariposa by Francisco Jimenez as the story is written about his own personal experiences.

The Ada article also when on to discuss the idea of outsider authors, stating that many of them publish books on Latino literature because they know that there there’s not that many books out there about that culture. So, it’s almost as if they are publishing books for the wrong reasons and not taking the true meaning of the book into consideration. This idea seems to complement my reviews of the outsider books I read because the majority of them seemed to be very stereotypical and didn’t seem to interest me as much as the books by Jimenez and Gary Soto, both insiders by some aspect. The Ada article goes on to mention these authors later, in a positive way by saying they write books of merit. The article states that Gary Soto uses Spanish in his books because, “Being bilingual makes the world twice as big”. This quote seemed so inspirational! The world really would be so much larger and grander if we all could understand each other. Yet, as Ada states and we have learned in this class, “Latino children are faced with societal prejudice against their home language”. An example of this can be seen in La Mariposa when the teacher scolds the main character for speaking Spanish.

The Barrera and Quiroa article mainly focuses on the use of Spanish in books. Through reading their article I found that most words that are used in Spanish are words that mean types of family, foods, ethnographic terms for place and surroundings. This makes sense as almost all the books I read included Spanish words that could most definitely be categorized by these criteria. The Spanish words that were included in the book really stuck out positively to me because I felt that they further drew me into the story, making each story that much more personal. This article also mentioned Francisco Jimenez and his use of Spanish in his books stating he uses his native language in his pieces because, “ [He] simply uses the language because it comes naturally to [him], and there’s no translation for it”. Jimenez’s statement further illustrates the personal feeling one can experience when reading a book of a genre like Latino culture and witness those words and feeling what they mean.

Claiming Disability

Linton, Simi. Claiming Disability: Knowledge and Identity. New York: New York University, 1998.

Claiming Disability isn't a book about reading diverse literature, per se, but it has helped me think about implications of the language we use to talk about disability and how and when characters with disabilities are portrayed in texts.

One of my favorite quotes appears early in the text:

Disability studies takes for its subject matter not simply the variations that exist in human behavior, appearance, functioning, sensory acuity, and cognitive processing but, more crucially, the meaning we make of those variations. The field explores the critical divisions our society makes in creating the normal versus the pathological, the insider versus the outsider, or the competent citizen versus the ward of the state. (2)

I'm curious about people's responses to this quote: What does this have to do with reading diverse children's literature? Or whether and how we think of "disability" as a category of "diverse literature"? What types of questions would we ask about texts and our reading of texts if we read through a "disability studies" framework?