Image retrieved from:
http://www.amazon.com/Going-Bovine-Libba-Bray/dp/0385733984
Book Summary:
Is this real life or just a dream. That is what the audience
wonders. Cameron is diagnosed with Mad Cow disease and it is fatal. At 16 his
life has been cut short. While he was looking forward to the end of High School, now he can look forward to losing his mind. A former outsider, now the entire school starts to pull for him. As they hold pep rallies in his honor. As the disease progresses the story takes more manic
turns. At Cameron's lowest point in the hospital awaiting his end, when he is
challenged by Dulcie ,an angel with pink hair,
who sends him a mission. To go on a road trip to find the elusive Dr. X. save the world and receive his miraculous cure. He and his friend Gonzo head out on what can be best described a crazy and unreal trip around
the United States. Adventures include visiting a long dead jazz musician in New Orleans, a
religious cult bent on making everyone happy by taking away choice , finding a crazy talking garden gnome inhabited by the spirit
of Balder, and other crazy shenanigans along the way. In the end the reader
finds that this is all in Cameron's mind, but that does not make it any less
real? Sorry to spoil the book, but Cameron dies in the end. The reader know from the point of his diagnoses that this will happen. This story is not about the end, as in the end we will all perish. This story is about the journey, about life and holding on to it until the very end.
APA Citation:
Bray, L.
(2009). Going bovine. New York: Delacorte Press.
Impressions:
This novel is very much a young adult novel, but the concept
is so outside the norm I was worried about even getting through the novel. This book is funny at times and then incredibly sad a times. The reader wants Cameron to fulfill his quest, but in the end we know even while reading that it is a lost cause. The writing style was long and drawn out a times, but I was worth the ride. This book was a roller coaster ride with its crazy twists and turns, it holds the reader making them want to continue on to see where the next turn takes Cameron. This book is very different, unlike anything
I had ever read. At times the plot was disruptive, but that was very
intentional. As this jerky motion of the plot makes the reader feel just as disjointed as Cameron is as his
grasp on reality wains. It is not my new favorite book, but it was one of the
most interesting books I have ever read. This maybe why it won the Printz award. It's a novel about a teenager dying, but it is not typical. Cameron is depressed about the prospect of dying young, but he isn't going down without a fight. The best way to describe this book is different. This book is about life, a little about death and the
journey between. It speaks to the point that the meaning of life is the journey. It is what that happens on the journey that counts not the end. Overall a challenging but worthwhile read.
Professional Review:
Morbidity and
Hilarity
By LISA VON
DRASEK
Published:
February 12, 2010
You could say
that this year’s winner of the Michael L. Printz Award for young adult
literature, announced last month by the American
Library Association, begins with an off-putting premise. The narrator,
Cameron, a self-proclaimed slacker (“I’m a drifter — right downstream and over
the falls with the rest of the driftwood”), learns that he has contracted a
fatal condition: Creutzfeldt-Jakob, or mad
cow, disease (as it’s known in animals). Who wants to read a 480-page novel
about a 16-year-old who has four to six months to live and suffers from
progressive muscle weakness, dementia and delusions?
But Libba Bray,
author of the best-selling gothic-fantasy-romance Gemma Doyle trilogy, manages
to turn a hopeless situation into a hilarious and hallucinatory quest,
featuring an asthmatic teenage dwarf, Gonzo; a pink-haired angel in combat
boots, Dulcie; and Balder, a Norse god who is cursed with the form of a garden
gnome. If Dulcie is to be believed, Cameron must find the mysterious Dr. X who
is responsible for releasing dark energy that could cause the end of the world.
If he succeeds, he may just save his own life. (Or, it’s all just a hallucination.)
Despite the
novel’s length, Bray doesn’t waste a sentence. With just one chapter heading
(regarding “High School Hallway Etiquette and the Fact That Staci Johnson Is
Evil; Also, Unfairly Hot”) she can neatly suggest an entire subplot.
For readers who
enjoy intertextual connections, there are “Don Quixote” references dropped in
throughout, including windmills, Dulcie (Dulcinea) and trusty sidekicks.
Everyone else will just want to see where this amusement park ride is taking
us.
Cameron does or
doesn’t travel to New Orleans to see a trumpeter who comes off as a kind of
oracle, get duped by a religious cult, explore parallel universes and realize
that along the way, “It’s not all sand castles and ninjas.”
Why keep
reading, when we know our hero is still going to die? As Balder chides Gonzo
during a scene involving a wizard and a burning pancake restaurant: “Cameron is
our brother, our friend, and we do not abandon our friends. . . . This is a
quest. I pledged my loyalty to Cameron back on the cul-de-sac. I shall see it
through to the end.”
Libba Bray not
only breaks the mold of the ubiquitous dying-teenager genre — she smashes it
and grinds the tiny pieces into the sidewalk. For the record, I’d go anywhere
she wanted to take me.
Lisa Von Drasek
is the children’s librarian of the Bank Street College of Education.
Citation:
Drasek, L. (2010, February 13). Morbidity and
Hilarity. New York Times. Retrieved October 6, 2015, from
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/books/review/VonDrasek-t.html?_r=0
Library Uses:
I would hold a debate in the library about the reality of
this book. I would have two groups work together to show their arguments that
the story is actually happening or that the story is only taking place in
Cameron's mind. I will have another librarian judge the debate and choose the
winning group.
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