ridiculous/hilarious/terrible/cool: a year in an american high school (Hardcover)

by Elisha Cooper (Author) "On the first day of school, Daniel Patton wakes at 5:15..." (more)
Key Phrases: homecoming king, paw prints, rar rar rar rar, The Girl, New York, Daniel Patton (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist
The tightly wound lives of high-school high achievers have had many chroniclers, such as Alexandra Robbins, who spent time at a prestigious Ivy League feeder school and turned her experiences into a nonfiction book for adults, The Overachievers (2006). In his second work of longer nonfiction (following Crawling, 2006, a parenting memoir for adults), Cooper aims his own documentary-style book about high school at an expert audience: students themselves. There are a couple of big differences here from adult treatments of the subject, many of which dwell on the stresses of getting into college. First, while Cooper’s subject is set in a big-deal Chicago magnet high school (where kids can take classes in Zulu and hip authors like Jonathan Safran Foer come to speak), the eight ethnically diverse students he profiles, most of whom are seniors, don’t seem like academic grinds. Sure, the anticipation about where they’ll end up (Harvard or Penn? Indiana for ballet or NYU for modern dance?) lends the book most of its forward drive. But the variety in the students’ ambitions and personalities helps Cooper’s treatment seem like an authentic cross section of student life, not a vehicle for a particular agenda—although some readers may find the teens scattered too purposefully across the ethnic map. (The inclusion of two starkly contrasting African American students, a Harvard aspirant and a pot dealer verging on flunking out, seems conspicuously pointed.) Also different from many adult titles is the author’s loose, lyrical approach. Best known as the illustrator of picture books such as A Good Night Walk (2006), Cooper turns out to be an extremely graceful wordsmith, with a strong visual sense (the school “sits in an athletic field like a block of butter on a green plate”) and a fluidity that matches the tiny, quick-fire sketches of students that dot the pages. Sewing together visits with the main subjects over the course of the academic year, Cooper’s anonymous, omniscient narrator drifts freely along intersecting narrative paths, including funny vignettes set in the school’s see-and-be-seen atrium, overheard conversations, and descriptions of the larger Chicago landscape. Far from the straightforward reportage that most readers expect of journalistic writing, the impressionistic quality of Cooper’s style lends the book an aura of fiction. For that reason, some readers may not realize they’re dealing with nonfiction until they reach the closing thank-you to the students for “letting Cooper ask questions about their lives even as they unfolded.” It’s clear that he was able to win the students’ trust to an impressive degree, but the erratic appearance of quoted material, along with numerous passages that presume knowledge of the students’ inner lives, leaves the relationship between the author’s research and the finished work a bit ambiguous. More information about how the book came to be would have been both interesting and valuable: Are the quotes verbatim or reconstructed from notes? Does the author himself consider this nonfiction or an interpretative creation? Teen readers accustomed to the finessed nonfiction narratives of reality television aren’t likely to be bothered by questions about authenticity; a larger trouble spot may be the unusually distanced tone of the narrative. In a novel, it’s easy for readers to forget that there’s someone scribbling behind the scenes. That’s not the case here. Cooper’s voice is distinctly present, hovering somewhere above the high-school fray, and its sometimes slyly knowing tone (“After all the talk surrounding prom . . . the most exciting part of prom was the talk”) may leave some YAs vaguely resenting the attempt of an observer to summarize their lives. Still, there are plenty of high-school students (especially the senioritis stricken) who will wholly identify with Cooper’s outsider-looking-in role, and even those who find his approach condescending will be sufficiently drawn by the individual stories to overlook the matter. But just because Cooper is writing for YAs doesn’t mean that nostalgic adults, especially those with kids facing their own high-school years, won’t be keenly interested in this, too; they’ll certainly find Cooper’s poignant, yet ultimately upbeat snapshots more welcoming than many existing exposés of America’s burned-out youth. Grades 7-12. --Jennifer Mattson

Product Description
Elisha Cooper spent a year hanging out at a Chicago high school— listening, watching, questioning, and sketching the students. He followed eight kids in particular, mostly seniors, through their entire year, and by telling their specific stories—of classes, extra-curriculars, friends, romances, and family—he gives us a more general picture of what it’s like to be a high school student today. Part documentary, part soap opera, part sketchbook, this is an eye-opening, thoroughly entertaining account—one that will appeal equally to readers who are looking forward to high school and those who are looking back.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9-12
  
• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Dial (March 13, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803731698
• ISBN-13: 978-0803731691
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 5.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #252,554 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great year in the life of a Chicago high school, March 25, 2008

By	Ami Hassler "www.bookami.com" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

When you spend your days reading YA novels like Gossip Girl and Gingerbread, you tend to view high school as a place where a bunch of shallow, back-stabbing, albeit totally together and well-coiffed, brats come together to compare notes. Ridiculous/ Hilarious/ Terrible/ Cool reminds jaded adults like myself that this is so not the case. This book reminded me that it's not easy to be a high school student, and it's particularly hard to be a senior. Work, tests, college application essays, dance, theater, soccer, student council and other extra-curricular activities in and out of school - it's enough to give any adult anxiety, let alone 17-year-olds. How do they do it? And in the case of 6 of the 8 students observed in this book, how do they do it so well?

Walter Payton High School is a good high school. Teens from all over Chicago apply to become students, and with the motto "We nurture leaders," it's no wonder so many kids want to go to this new school. It's also no wonder that so many of the students observed succeeded in accomplishing their goals, or at least most of them. Having said this, make no mistake, Walter Payton is still an urban high school. The infamous Cabrini Green Housing Projects loom to the West of the school. It is diverse with a third of the students being black, a third white and a third Latino, and with a small percentage of Asian students. Expectations are high, and security is tight. It's not easy to succeed at Walter Payton. What these six seniors accomplished is pretty impressive. As for the juniors, Anthony and Zef, they have another year to get it together, and the reader has no doubt that they will. This book definitely fills one with hope for future generations.

For the rest of this review and others, see my site.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars High School Days, August 27, 2008

By	A. Walker - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Cooper does a great job of detailing today's high school students' experience. Some parts of that experience are universal and regardless of the background of the reader, they will be able to identify with some portion of the protagonists' lives - whether they want to remember those high school days or not. At the same time, Cooper deftly notes what is new, not least of which is technology and Starbucks. These compelling stories are literally illustrated with Cooper's distinct and appealing artwork.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Courtesy of Teens Read Too, August 6, 2008

By	TeensReadToo.com "Eat. Drink. Read. Be Merrier." (All Over the US & Canada) - See all my reviews

Walking through the hallways of Walton Payton High School are a very selectively diverse group of students. Like its location, the students are all from different worlds but come together in one place. Out of the entire school, eight students stand out the most, in more ways than one.

First there is Anais, the dancer. Dancing is obviously her life, spending every day going to dance practice, hoping that one day she will be able to attend Julliard.

Then there is Daniel, the school's class president who is all business when it comes to academics and his future, not one to stand by stereotypes that people have against him because of his race.

Next is Emily, the girl's soccer captain since she was a junior. She doesn't fool around on or off the field.

Maya is the actress, always in every school play. Her acting is the only way she can shake off her little spasms and her OCD-ish routines.

Diana is very proper and polite. And also very smart, although she never shows it. Never talking in class, even though she knows the answers, she keeps to herself, having only one true friend since the other one left.

Aisha is the new girl, transferring from her last school located in Florida. She knows that this is only for a year, since her parents move all the time, so why make friends?

Zef is odd, and he knows it and isn't ashamed of it. Loving the sound of his own music and talking to himself, for some reason students are intrigued and are drawn to him.

And last but not least is Anthony. His comfort zone is located in only one place in the school, the cafeteria.

Some know what they want to accomplish this year, like becoming the best leader the school has ever seen or taking their time to achieve levels that they have never seen before, while others aren't so sure what their outcome will be. One thing they do have in common is college. Whether or not its for them or not and whether or not they will get into the college they so desperately need to escape to.

Inserted details of what goes on during school hours, from who sits where to the appropriate acknowledgements to old friends, gives this non-fiction account an extra sense of reality, which coincides with the lives of eight very different teens. Captivating and unique, Elisha Cooper manages to write a true account that can tell a story so raw and so real.

Reviewed by: Randstostipher "tallnlankyrn" Nguyen