2019 Top Ten Best Fiction: Darius The Great is Not Okay by Adib Khorram

Khorram, A. (2018). Darius the Great Is Not Okay. Penguin Young Readers Group.

 Darius The Great is Not Okay was chosen as one of the 2019 Top Ten Best Fiction by YALSA. This list is presented annually recommended for readers between the ages of 12 to 18. The purpose of this list originally was to be a resource for collection development and reader's advisory purposes. Among others in the top ten is Poet X which won this years Printz award and others that were recognized in other ways. When picking a book from this list, I wanted to try to cross reference and see if any of the books I was interested in reading had won any other awards or had been recognized. I also wanted to have a wide variety of texts that I have picked from this semester. 

 Darius The Great Is Not Okay has also won the William C, Morris Debut Award, Asian/Pactific American Award for Young Adult Literature, TIME's 10 Best Young Adult and Children's Books of the Year, Publishers Weekly Best Books of the year. 
That's normal. Right? 

 In this story Darius, who is half Persian and lives with depression, is struggling to get by. He is obsessed with high brow teas (only the best for Darius), and never feels like he can fit in. He has a strained relationship with his father, and deals with bullying from the same kids since middle school. His father doesn't understand, believing that if he just stuck up for himself or stopped caring that they would stop. After a few weeks and a few fights with his dad, his parents announce that the whole family will be going to visit Yzad, Iran to see his grandparents, as his grandfather is dying of a brain tumor. Darius has mixed feelings about this trip, tangled up in anxiety. Despite the fact that he wanted to learn as a kid, Darius does not know Farsi (their native language) yet his little sister learned at a young age. He feels a conflict in his identity- never feeling Persian enough when he is with his family, but always feeling too Persian to fit in with his dad and the boys at his school. Despite all of these anxieties and fears, Darius meets Sohrab his new best friend. And he also gets to meet his grandparents for the first time- outside of a computer screen! He realizes quickly that both friendship and family can get very complicated, but it is both friends and family who can pick you up out of the darkness and find your place in life. Sohrab encourages Darius to play soccer with him, explore with him, and even shows him how "his place has been empty" that everyone had been waiting for him here and that the only person who felt like he didn't belong was himself. This story was endearing in being about coming of age, father son relationships, first love, and a connection to one's past. 

 Khorram, the author, did a delightful job bringing about the characters in this book. Darius with his obsession with tea and Star Trek which only helps you understand him more. He used Star Trek as a mechanism to explain his depression- without really noticing it. As a girl who watch all of Star Trek: The Next Generation with her dad and looked up to Captain Picard like another father figure- the way he describes his depression is very accurate and heart breaking. Another unique thing that I felt toward this book is the wanderlust it created for the small town of Yzad, Iran. I love being able to have books that can transport me other places with experiences I have never had, but I love even more when those stories make me yearn to be a part of that culture and place even just for a little while. I think this is especially important for a book that is (mostly) set in a different country. This is something I feel only a remarkable talent of a writer can do. 

 If you enjoyed reading Darius the Great Is Not Okay: 

  • The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (Dual identity- cultural identity issues) 
  • Love & Gelato by Jenna Evan Welch (discovering a new county, small love story- more importantly relationship between mother and daughter, and daughter and her new 'dad', wanderlust feeling - I have never wanted to visit Italy more than after I read this book) 
    Source: 
   Ngilbert. (2019, April 01). 2019 Top Ten Best Fiction. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/yalsa/2019-top-ten-best-fiction

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chapter 10: Historical fiction

Image
Chapter 10: Historical fiction Historical fiction is any fictional story set in the past. I typically like to add the caveat that typically historical fiction is based on significant events or historical period in the past. While it is difficult to pin point at what point historical fiction ends and contemporary fiction begins- most students define it as being before they were born or if it is in a history text book. One important aspect of historical fiction is that it gives the reader “the opportunity to vicariously experience what it might have been like to live in a previous time and place.” Some criteria to help you and your student evaluate Historical fiction is: Does the book tell a good story that blends the history in the story itself?; Are the facts if the historical period accurate?; How are the values of the time brought to life?; Is everything consistent with the social environment or culture?; and Does the theme of the story relate to contemporary readers? I fee...
Read more

Final Reflection 5391

Well, this class has been very interesting and challenging. I am about a mid-level technology buff. I enjoy using technology in the classroom, but often struggle to incorporate it consistently. This class has shown me so many different options to use in the classroom. It also has inspired a new passion for me to continue finding more technology and applications that can be included in my classroom. Which technology we have studied in class made me most excited?  If I am honest, most of the visual and auditory applications were the most exciting for me to explore. Some things like Infographics, Cartoons & Comics, Screencasts, Instagram, and Flipgram were especially interesting to me. I think these were the most interesting to me because they are so applicable to my classroom and the students I serve. Since I teach middle school- my students are particularly visual. They love visual stimulation- all of the images they see on a daily basis and being able to create more visual...
Read more

Chapter 9: Poetry

Image
Chapter 9: Poetry This chapter discusses the format of poetry and how to evaluate it in conjunction with YA literature. There are 5 main questions that are outlined in the chapter to ask yourself for evaluating Poetry for children: Is the subject of the poem something with which children would be familiar?; Does the poem use imagery?; Does the poem rhyme?; How is the rhythm used?; and what role does sound play? Another important aspect of this chapter discusses the findings of studies surrounding poetry for children. For example, they found that most children prefer narrative style poetry. This study focused on elementary schools, but you can also tell that this is still prevalent in YA literature. Some very popular YA literature that is written in this format- Kwame Alexander’s Crossover series, Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson, and Ellen Hopkin’s Crank series. When evaluating these books, it is important to look not only at the content of the book like themes,...
Read more