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A review by jwinchell
Who Put This Song On? by Morgan Parker
4.0
This is an important novel about being one of the only black kids in a white, conservative Christian California suburb. Morgan, much like the author's real life experiences, is struggling with newly diagnosed anxiety and depression at age 17. She was suicidal the summer before, 2008, and the book takes place the fall that Obama was elected. So there is a thread of "hope" throughout the novel, taking fledgling steps toward being ok when existential threats abound. There's an author's note at the end, in which Parker thanks her real life friends for inspiring this book and in which she reaches out across her 12 years since high school to recount how writing this book is her destiny.
I was puzzled by this book's rating by School Library Journal as 8th grade and up. It has been my impression that books with a substantial amount of drinking, pot, smoking, and some references to sexual acts would be rated 9th grade and up. I learned that maybe SLJ considers the scope of a novel, this one including the author's note and the uniqueness of this voice, when it rates what is appropriate at the middle school level. As my colleague says, we have students who are almost 15 and are on their way to high school.
I was puzzled by this book's rating by School Library Journal as 8th grade and up. It has been my impression that books with a substantial amount of drinking, pot, smoking, and some references to sexual acts would be rated 9th grade and up. I learned that maybe SLJ considers the scope of a novel, this one including the author's note and the uniqueness of this voice, when it rates what is appropriate at the middle school level. As my colleague says, we have students who are almost 15 and are on their way to high school.