The Langley Read

Langley High School is hosting a Relay For Life this year!...

Sun, 09 Dec 2012 20:50:38 -0500

Langley High School is hosting a Relay For Life this year! Thanks for the inspiration, TFIOS!

It’s About Being a Community That Takes Up The Fight....

Sun, 09 Dec 2012 20:48:10 -0500

The American Cancer Society’s Relay For Life is a community celebration of life, dedicated to current and former cancer patients, their families and friends. Relay For Life raises funds to fight cancer while raising awareness about cancer prevention and the programs and services offered by the American Cancer Society. While the event is underway, a festival atmosphere is created by team members camping out, enjoying music, food, games, entertainment, friendly competition and camaraderie!

Date: The Relay For Life of Langley-McLean will be held on April 27-28, 2013.

Location: The Relay For Life of Langley-McLean will take place at Langley H.S.

Participants: Anyone can put together a team!! Families, friends, neighbors, classmates, church members and co-workers join together to create teams that raise funds prior to the event, then walk or run relay style around the track for the duration of the event. Each team is offered a campsite and encouraged to stay overnight, keeping at least one team member on the track at all times.

Incentive Prizes: This is a donations event. Donations are collected and turned in prior to or the day of the Relay. Each person is challenged to raise at least $100 for the American Cancer Society. Incentive prizes are awarded to individuals who raise $250 or more. The top fundraisers will receive special recognition at closing ceremonies.

Special Events: Relay For Life begins with the Survivors’ Victory Lap. This first lap, taken by all area cancer survivors who wish to participate, is in honor and celebration of those who have fought the fight and won!

At dusk, candles are placed around the track and lit during the beautiful Luminaria Ceremony. This touching display of light is to honor cancer survivors and to remember those who have lost their battle with cancer.

Why We Do It: Cancer touches everyone in some way. This is an opportunity for the entire community to get involved. Today, one out of two patients diagnosed with cancer survives. That’s tremendous progress and this event proclaims that CANCER CAN AND WILL BE BEATEN!

For more information on Relay For Life, please call:

Shari True at (703) 937-1904

www.relayforlife.org

John Green @ National Book Festival!

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 21:32:53 -0400

John Green @ National Book Festival!

dude, John's vlogbrothers videos cover a lot of the discussion questions, however as John always says, "Books belong to their readers." No, really, he always says that. It's practically his catchphrase. BBTTR and DFTBA.

Sat, 15 Sep 2012 12:07:35 -0400

For those of you checking out this Tumblr page who don’t know what DFTBA means, it’s “Don’t Forget To Be Awesome.” You, my friend, have clearly not forgotten. It’s great to hear that you liked the Langley Read and follow the Vlogbrothers. Keep up the awesomeness.

Loved the book! I took it with me to summer camp and let my friend there read it. It was a theatre camp, but a lot of people had read the book and it came up casually in a random conversation about cancer books and how most of them are super depressing, but this one actually was filled with lots of humor. I always like reading the Langley Reads, though most people don't read them, nor is it really necessary to read them, but they are always interesting.

Sat, 15 Sep 2012 12:05:14 -0400

Glad you liked it! Yes, John Green is splendidly hilarious, and it’s great to interact with other people about the book. Langley is going to be having a Langley Read Night sometime in the future, so if you’re interested in discussing it more, please attend!

John Green @ 2012 National Book Festival!

Sat, 15 Sep 2012 12:00:53 -0400

John Green @ 2012 National Book Festival!

TFIOS + Latin = AWESOME

Sat, 15 Sep 2012 11:58:29 -0400

TFIOS + Latin = AWESOME

Library Bulletin Board

Sat, 15 Sep 2012 11:57:16 -0400

Library Bulletin Board

9th Grade TFIOS Tumblr

Sat, 15 Sep 2012 11:54:04 -0400

9th Grade TFIOS Tumblr

Discussion Questions

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 19:51:40 -0400

1) What did you like about this novel? What did you dislike? Why?

2) Who was your favorite character? Who was your least favorite character? Why?

3) How does Hazel change throughout the course of the novel? Why is this important to the meaning of the work?

4) Whom do you think changes the most throughout the novel? Discuss.

5) How are Hazel and Augustus alike? How are they different? Are these differences important? Why or why not?

6) What do Hazel and Augustus understand about life that their healthy peers do not? Why is this important to the meaning of the work?

7) Mrs. Waters tells Hazel that Augustus’ love for Hazel was “real” and not “puppy love.” What qualities makes Augustus’ love “real”?

8) How do Isaac and Monica set up a foil for Hazel and Augustus?

9) Discuss your reaction to Peter Van Houten. Is he a “bad person” as Augustus asserts? Is it possible to feel sympathy for a “bad person”? Discuss.

10) Peter Van Houten accuses Hazel of being a “child” and tells her that her illness places her in a continuous state of infancy so that she is dependent upon others. Do you agree or disagree with Van Houten? Considering Van Houten’s own situation, why might his accusation be ironic?

11) On page 110, Augustus says (with sarcasm), “I’d always thought the world was a wish-granting factory.” These words form a motif in the novel. Although Hazel and Gus know that the world is not a “wish-granting factory,” they still have hopes and wishes. What does Hazel hope for? What does this reveal about her as a character? What does Gus hope for? What does this reveal about him? Are there any characters in the novel who do not seem to have hopes? What does this reveal? What might a more “typical” adolescent (such as Kaitlyn) wish for? How might our wishes reveal our characters?

12) “There is no glory in illness. There is no meaning to it. There is no honor in dying of” (217). Does the novel seem to agree or disagree with Gus’ assertion? Discuss.

13) How does the novel reify the idea of the heroic young person fighting cancer? How does the novel add nuance to this stereotype?

14) John Green took a quotation from Shakespeare which asserted that the fault of humanity did not lie with the stars (fate, the heavens, etc.) but “within ourselves.” John Green then altered the quotation. Why is this change important to the meaning of the novel? Do you believe that the problems of the world lie “in the stars,” in the human heart, or in both? Discuss.

15) How do Hazel and Augustus and Isaac seem to be traditionally adolescent? How do they fail to conform to the stereotypes of adolescents?

16) Sometimes, people who are ill come to define themselves by their illness. Their illness becomes the most defining feature of who they are. Is this true of Hazel and Gus? How important is it that these two characters have cancer?

17) Many characters in this novel comment on the random, arbitrary nature of life. Can true meaning exist in a world that is random and arbitrary? How does Peter Van Houten answer this question? How does Hazel answer it? How does Gus? How do you?

18) Why do you think Isaac reacts more emotionally to the loss of his girlfriend than to the loss of his sight? How might Isaac’s reaction relate to the meaning of the novel?

19) Did you find this book to be funny? Why or why not? How does humor function in this book? Who are the funny characters? Who is not funny? Is this important?

20) Discuss Hazel’s reaction to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Why does she find Maslow’s philosophy to be insulting? How does Maslow’s philosophy relate to the novel?

21) Why do Hazel and Gus view their support group with derision? What about the support group seems to be inadequate to the participants’ needs?

22) How does the way Augustus plays video games reveal his character? What does Augustus learn as the novel progresses? Why would Augustus rather die “hunt[ing] Nazis” than die of cancer? What does this desire say about Augustus? About our society’s view of death?

23) Contrast Peter Van Houten and Hazel’s mother (or father). Why are these differences important?

24) “The physical evidence of disease separates you from other people. We are irrevocably other…” How does the novel showcase this idea? Does the novel ever seem to argue against this idea? Discuss.

25) At one point, Augustus tells Hazel that her recommendation of An Imperial Affliction was “a gift.” Why would Augustus feel this way about this novel? Have you ever felt that reading a book was “a gift”? Discuss.

26) “Maybe okay will be our always.” What does this expression reveal about Hazel and Gus’ relationship and how it was different from Isaac and Monica’s?

27) Discuss the possible meanings behind the characters’ names: Hazel Grace, Augustus (Gus) Waters, Isaac, Kaitlyn.

28) “Some infinities are greater than other infinities.” What does this mean? How does this motif relate to the meaning of the book?

29) Peter Van Houten points out that we discuss literary characters in the present tense and discuss dead characters in the past tense. Why?

30) One page 246, Hazel recites this poem by William Carlos Williams:

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

Why might this poem have been included in this novel? How might this poem relate to the meaning of the novel?

Photo

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 19:49:44 -0400

What if, say, someone tried to borrow The Fault of Our Stars book from the library, but he has to wait for over 100 people to read it and this person doesn't want to pay $17 for the book at the book store?

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 22:18:40 -0400

The book is available for a little over $10 on Amazon. Also, you could borrow it from one of the 2,000 other Langley kids who had to read it over the summer.

this is weird. why do we have to read?

Tue, 10 Jul 2012 18:30:52 -0400

You have to read because reading is the greatest ability a human being can have. Only 30 percent of the world’s population is literate, and a lot of the time, they (like you) don’t even realize how lucky they are. Reading is the cognitive gift that separates man from other animals, it is the miracle glue that binds people together with long distance communication, it is the foundation of math, science, history, religion, and that beautiful art called literature, and it is fully, completely, absolutely necessary for you to do to the 313 glorious pages of The Fault in Our Stars this summer. Yes, sorry to break it to you, but you must read this book, and even though you don’t HAVE to enjoy it, chances are you will. It’s about the teenage experience of falling in love, and the adult experience of growing old and dying. The Fault in Our Stars is funny, real, and yes, a little weird. But before you can pass judgement on it, you’ll have to read it first.

Click here to post suggestions, thoughts, or questions for the Langley Read

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 14:12:13 -0400

Click here to post suggestions, thoughts, or questions for the Langley Read

Reading guide for The Fault in Our Stars

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 14:00:08 -0400

Reading guide for The Fault in Our Stars

Photo

Wed, 06 Jun 2012 15:45:57 -0400

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, for we are underlings"

Tue, 15 May 2012 13:50:17 -0400

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, for we are underlings”

- William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

Book Reviews

Tue, 15 May 2012 13:48:59 -0400

Booklist Reviews 2012 January #1

*Starred Review* At 16, Hazel Grace Lancaster, a three-year stage IVcancer survivor, is clinically depressed. To help her deal with this, her doctor sends her to a weekly support group where she meets Augustus Waters, a fellow cancer survivor, and the two fall in love. Both kids are preternaturally intelligent, and Hazel is fascinated with a novel about cancer called An Imperial Affliction. Most particularly, she longs to know what happened to its characters after an ambiguous ending. To find out, the enterprising Augustus makes it possible for them to travel to Amsterdam, where Imperial’s author, an expatriate American, lives. What happens when they meet him must be left to readers to discover. Suffice it to say, it is significant. Writing about kids with cancer is an invitation to sentimentality and pathosor worse, in unskilled hands, bathos. Happily, Green is able to transcend such pitfalls in his best and most ambitious novel to date. Beautifully conceived and executed, this story artfully examines the largest possible considerationslife, love, and deathwith sensitivity, intelligence, honesty, and integrity. In the process, Green shows his readers what it is like to live with cancer, sometimes no more than a breath or a heartbeat away from death. But it is life that Green spiritedly celebrates here, even while acknowledging its pain. In its every aspect, this novel is a triumph. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Green’s promotional genius is a force of nature. After announcing he would sign all 150,000 copies of this title’s first print run, it shot to the top of Amazon and Barnes & Noble’s best-seller lists six months before publication. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.

SLJ Reviews 2012 February

Website: http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com

Gr 9 Up”It’s not fair,” complains 16-year-old Hazel from Indiana. “The world,” says Gus, her new friend from her teen support group, “is not a wish-granting factory.” Indeed, life is not fair; Hazel and Gus both have cancer, Hazel’s terminal. Despite this, she has a burning obsession: to find out what happens to the characters after the end of her favorite novel. An Imperial Affliction by Dutch author Peter Van Houten is about a girl named Anna who has cancer, and it ends in mid-sentence (presumably to indicate a life cut short), a stylistic choice that Hazel appreciates but the ambiguity drives her crazy. Did the “Dutch Tulip Man” marry Anna’s mom? What happened to Sisyphus the Hamster? Hazel asks her questions via email and Van Houten responds, claiming that he can only tell her the answers in person. When she was younger, Hazel used her wish-one granted to sick children from The Genie Foundationby going to Disney World. Gus decides to use his to take Hazel to Amsterdam to meet the author. Like most things in life, the trip doesn’t go exactly as anticipated. Van Houten is a disappointment, but Hazel, who has resisted loving Gus because she doesn’t want to be the grenade that explodes in his life when she dies, finally allows herself to love. Once again Green offers a well-developed cast of characters capable of both reflective thought and hilarious dialogue. With his trademark humor, lovable parents, and exploration of big-time challenges, The Fault in Our Stars is an achingly beautiful story about life and loss.Ragan O’Malley, Saint Ann’s School, Brooklyn, NY

John Green's vlog channel with his brother Hank Green

Tue, 15 May 2012 13:41:31 -0400

John Green's vlog channel with his brother Hank Green

John Green's Tumblr

Tue, 15 May 2012 13:40:08 -0400

John Green's Tumblr