Jinxed



Jinxed by Amy McCulloch is a science fiction children's book written for kids 9-12 years old (Sourcebooks, n.d.).

This book follows Lacey who lives in a sci-fi world and hopes to one day be an engineer. However, she is rejected. In her sorrow she finds a broken "baku" a robot with all the functions of a computer or smartphone. baku named Jinx is able to get Lacey into school and soon learns that Jinx is far more than a normal baku and might end up being something much larger than she expected.

I chose this book because children's sci-fi and fantasy are very popular genres for early reading and connect kids to other worlds and larger ideas outside of their everyday lives. It was also selected after finding it listed on ALA's list of 2021 excellence in children's sci-fi list where it was put under the Eleanor Cameron Notable Middle Grade Books List Lace (ALA, 2021).

For this book I wanted to focus particularly on these three aspects, plot, setting, and point of view.

When we look at an example of a good plot it should show us what happens to our characters and we should care about what ultimately happens to them. I also believe plot and theme tie very heavily into each other which is why I will bring it briefly up here which for Jinxed is about rejection. This is a very good aspect to teach young readers that not everyone is going to be on your side and in the beginning of the story when Lacey is rejected that rejection is what leads her onto the next stage of the journey. The plot pushes the character forward. So, in a sense I've really noticed that plot, character and theme heavily depend upon each other, but one can be more overt than the others. In the regards for this book, plot drives the story and gets us to care about Lacey early on so we hope she can succeed in the new world she has entered.

Setting is what we will be looking at next. I love the sci-fi genre and Jinxed sets itself in a sci-fi world that is inspired heavily by cyberpunk elements and the film Blade Runner. The world it technologically advanced, especially with a world that can create animal like robots with all the built in abilities of a small computer. It's fantastical in some regards as well and clearly tells us where we are in relation to the world we the reader live in.

I wanted to look at point of view in particular because the majority of what I have looked at so far have been written in third person. Jinxed on the other hand is written in first person which greatly changes how we approach the story. the first sentence clues us into this, "Smoke rises from the tip of the soldering iron, my eyes watering as I stare at the motherboard through the microscope," (McCullough, 2021). It's ultimately more intimate than third person. We are seeing through Lacey's eyes, we see what she sees and we feel more connected to her thought process as she enters a new world that the reader is unfamiliar with. the point of view keeps us connected to Lacey rather than moving off to someone else and I believe allows us to connect to her and explore her thoughts on a deeper level.

References

American Library Association. (2021). Core announces the 2021 excellence in children’s and young adult science fiction notable lists. http://www.ala.org/news/member-news/2021/01/core-announces-2021-excellence-children-s-and-young-adult-science-fiction (Accessed April 7, 2024)

McCullough, A. (2021). Jinxed. Amy Alward Limited.

Sourcebooks (n.d.) Jinxed. https://read.sourcebooks.com/for-children/9781728216379-jinxed-tp.html


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Someone is Always Watching

Image
Someone is Always Watching by Kelley Armstrong is horror novel and classified under Young Adult fiction from the publishing site (Penguin Random House, 2024). Amazon lists the reading age between 7th and 9th grade (Amazon, n.d.). The book follows friends Blythe, Gabrielle, Tucker and Tanya who are torn apart when Gabrielle seems to have killed their principal, but had no memory of the event. This one instance begins to tear them apart as they try to piece together what is happening to Gabrielle. I typically stay out of the horror realm despite liking horror and have never touched a YA  horror book. So, this was a good chance to get acquinted with it. I didn't find this through any particular list done by the ALA but it was a book recommended to me by a fellow library that has seen some traction by mainly high school girls. I wanted to familiarize myself with an unfamiliar genre that seems to be a popular genre for young readers that gives me the impression of something like Pretty ...
Read more

Murtagh

Image
  Murtagh by Christopher Paolini is a YA Fantasy novel and can be read by readers between 7th and 12th grades. The book is classified under YA by Penguin Random House (n.d.) The story follows Murtagh after the events of the original Inheritance Cycle series where he is an outcast and must atone for his past sins after being a major antagonist. Wanting to find redemption it takes him to unknown lands where he must face off against a witch that mas much more planned for the land of Alagaesia. I chose this book because I grew up reading the Eragon books as a kid and they were a big part of developing my love od reading, but I haven't read them since childhood and have never touched this book until now. YA fantasy is a very popular genre and selecting from a long running series felt appropriate to examine. For this one in particular I chose to listen to an audiobook which is completely out of my comfort zone. After listening to it, I can't really say I comprehended it it. There...
Read more

Who Was Michelangelo?

Image
Who Was Michelangelo? is a biography written for young readers and Penguin Random House places the age of the intended readers between 8 to 12 years old (n.d.). This book is more or less a book of facts about the real life artist, Michelangelo and forgoes the traditional narrative but records the events of his life from childhood to his time painting for the Catholic Church, in particular being commissioned to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. he would go on to sculpt many important pieces and he would be remembered through those works far after his death. Again, my justification for selecting this book doesn't come from it being on any list but rather the popularity of the book series published by WhoHQ. Working in a library beside a elementary school, many students use these books for projects and early level research and they are a great source of information for young readers by selecting the key moments of a persons life without bombarding readers with too much complex ...
Read more