So you want to write a nonfiction book a few tips for those writers intimidated by the idea of writing something that contains many pages and. The internal conflict of alice from the book go ask alice is that she feels under pressure because of her parents and from her friends external conflict foreshadow. Conflict in literary fiction story in literary fiction. How does this affect the story and your appreciation of the book. Some people maintain that alice in wonderland can only have been written by an author with considerable hallucinogenic mushroom experience under their belt. If your book offers a cultural portraitof life in another country or region of your own country, start with questions a, b, and c. Go ask alice by beatrice sparks 1180 words 123 help me. Until a few years ago, before publishing a book it was important to get past the gatekeepers.
Gee, those adjectives make this book sound like a load of fun, dont they. Only parents can decide if they want their children to read go ask alice. A long hard road of adolescence reading through the novel, go ask alice, finding out all of the unbelievable, yet true, experiences and feelings of alice is quite. The diary begins right before alices fifteenth birthday. It is likely that you wont get to all of them during your meeting. It graphically describes the waking hell into which the main character descends, her heartfelt but futile battles to. However, coming from a teenager, this book has convinced me to refrain from trying lsd, etc. These were the agents and the publishers who may or may not have looked at your manuscript and chapter samples before outright rejecting it. James discusses conversion, repentance, mysticism, and fears of punishment in the hereafteras well as the religious experiences of such diverse thinkers as voltaire, whitman, emerson, luther, tolstoy, and others.
The writing arena has become crowded now more than ever. The go ask alice book of answers is a groundbreaking guide that mines the best material from the eponymous awardwinning web site. This oneyear book club reading list includes popular fiction and nonfiction that groups will enjoy reading and discussing. Shop for alice in wonderland book online at target. Go ask alice is the firstperson tale of an accidental downward spiral into drugs, alcohol, unwanted sex, and impoverished living. Syracuse book club message board general discussion questions for nonfiction books. Your genre fiction protagonist knew he or she was a better person than the villain and had no reason to change. We meet the first monday of every month at 6 pm in local pubs and restaurants t. Would you recommend the book to readers who dont typically like this genre. Theres a good chance that your school either made you read this book or banned you from even looking at it. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Then someone else introduced her to torpedoes and speed and she filled in with tranquilizers and sleeping pills and dexies until she split. In go ask alice there are many illegal substance references throughout the entire book. They are also books and documents that students might actually enjoy reading.
Sparks, 82, 83 next, another reason go ask alice should be banned is the excessive use of illegal substances. An analysis of the book go ask alice by beatrice sparks. External conflict used to be the primary form of conflict in genre or popular fiction. Beatrice sparks, whom is known to the general public as the editor of go ask alice, populated the false impression that this book was based off of the diary of a young girl, whom fell. My favourite part of the book, is the part where alice met joel and she felt in love with him.
Then someone else introduced her to torpedoes and speed and she filled in with tranquilizers and sleeping pills and dexies until she. For another direction entirely, you may want to try universal harvester, by john darnielle, a modern work of technohorror, also quite good. Fiction or nonfiction, the issues are real and the story should be respected as such. What made you suggest it to the group for discussion. In the nonfiction story familiar strangers the author. I would give a lot of information on the author if that was possible, but the author is anonymous so i can not do so. Yet it was originally promoted as nonfiction, its still sold as by anonymous and the copy i have has this is alice s true story on the cover plus the blurb on the back, the foreword and the psychologists comment at the back everything is still packaged to make out this is nonfiction. Aug 1, 2015 janets list of literary nonfiction books that are worth adopting in the english classroom. These questions are meant to be used with works of fiction. Does it remind you of other real or fictional places.
When you write a story or a biography, or relate a true event or series of events, you need not focus on such themes, and theres no reason to state them explicitly except in passing, perhaps, to provide insight about a biographical. A book report on go ask alice english literature essay. The varieties of religious experience was an immediate bestseller upon its publication in june 1902. Nonfiction book club questions add these questions to your standard book club list. General discussion questions for nonfiction books syracuse. I love baseball, i love the oakland as, and i love anything written by. This group is for people who love to read and are interested in meeting other book lovers to discuss what you have read. This study guide consists of approximately 52 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of go ask alice. Go ask alice by beatrice sparks setting the setting in this book i liked the most. Work from home more effectively with video conferences and updates. Dec 30, 2014 i read still alice based on a recommendation from a few friends.
I read still alice based on a recommendation from a few friends. The drugs make her fit in with a certain group at school, but alienate her from her family and others. One of the key reasons most people join a book club is to read something a bit different to what they would usually choose themselves. Feb 16, 2017 so you want to write a nonfiction book a few tips for those writers intimidated by the idea of writing something that contains many pages and a spine.
Go ask alice is written as the diary of a fifteenyearold girls daytoday struggle with drug addiction. Edwin strattonmackay go ask alice is a politicallyfunded novel, a terror. This book is a little disappointing in that it is indeed a work of fiction. Feb 23, 2015 still alice novelist shines spotlight on early onset alzheimers. How to create an outline for your nonfiction book susan. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely.
It is the story of a troubled young woman who seeks solace in drugs and the counterculture. The drug use written throughout the book is not appropriate for middle school or elementary, but should be permitted for high school level. Go ask alice, an information service originally available only to columbia university students but later accessible to others through its web site, takes book form in this eyeopening collection of questions and answers. A list of important facts about anonymouss go ask alice, including setting, climax, protagonists, and. She is a pretty typical teenage girl in the late 1960sshes mostly concerned with school, boys, her hair, and fitting in okay, thats pretty typical for any decade. Go ask alice is a novel by youth counsellor beatrice sparks, first published in 1971. Go ask alice is the diary of a 15yearold girl whose drink is spiked with lsd during a party. This is almost the only happy thing in alices life. So the tension in the story was all about whether the hero. Yet it was originally promoted as nonfiction, its still sold as by anonymous and the copy i have has this is alices true story on the cover plus the blurb on the back, the foreword and the psychologists comment at the back everything is still packaged to make out this is nonfiction. We have a standard set of questions that we use for most of our book club discussions you can find them at questions for a book club youll quickly work out that you need a wide variety of books to keep the interest level high, stopping people from dropping out. So you want to write a nonfiction book the washington post. Go ask alice has been around for decades, and is even being used as reading material in high schools.
Still alice book 51 of 2014 competitive nonfiction. The girl who wrote this diary lived in two different worlds, the. Creating nonfiction is an 800 page tome merging the genres of literary nonfiction, creative nonfiction, literary journalism, and nonfiction personal essay, place writing and memoir into a cohesive whole that celebrates the aesthetics of literature and our passion for selfexpression. Choose the questions that you think are most appropriate to your group and the book youve read, and feel free to modify them any way you need to. Authentic, tragic tale of teen drug addiction a classic. Go ask alice by beatrice sparks goodreads share book. The go ask alice community note includes chapterbychapter summary and. Apr 20, 2017 until a few years ago, before publishing a book it was important to get past the gatekeepers. Learn by example and become a better writer with kibins suite of essay help services. Well be looking at why the book was challenged, howif things have changed since the book was originally published and what we actually think of the book. In the nonfiction story familiar strangers the author writes the following quotation.
Its based on a true story, so i think itd be nonfiction. Alice wants to fit in, but doing that with her peers means shes at odds with her family. Reyna marie to clear the matter, this novel was not based on a true story, nor is the events following alices life, or characters factual. An analysis and recommendation of the book go ask alice.
The life and times of the thunderbolt kid, bill bryson. I discovered the facts of the matter in my email inbox in july of 2010. Go ask alice was a novel written in 1971, formatted as an authentic diary. Its a sad and moving portrayal of a woman losing the things that defined her. Im sure you have because everybody sometime in there life does. Still alice is the story of a harvard psychology professor who finds that she is losing pieces of herself. But those of you old enough to remember the latter portion of the 70s might remember that beatrice sparks, the editor of go ask alice, also edited a bunch of other alarmist books aimed at teens, all supposedly taken from teenagers diaries. Go ask alice, the anonymous diary of a young girl who died of a drug overdose. Only in more literary works did heroes grow, change, or even question themselves much. Does the author use any narrative devices like flashbacks or multiple voices in telling the story. Go ask alice go ask alice go ask alice summary gods will vs. Go ask alice is a 1971 fiction book about a teenage girl who develops a drug addiction at age 15 and runs away from home on a journey of selfdestructive escapism.
The chumminess would proceed from here, with each stage. Browse essays about go ask alice and find inspiration. Go ask alice literary elements theme the main theme of the novel go ask alice is about how drugs affect teens. Go ask alice was published anonymously in 1971, but in the last two decades, it still lives in the top 25 most frequently banned books, according to the american library association.
Jan 04, 2008 do you know anything about the book go ask alice. Maybe i just dont like being told what to do, but this rebellious tendency was particularly bad in high school. Non fiction books find something a bit different to read for your book club. The book details the life of an anonymous fifteen year old girl who develops a. Go ask alice is still awash in controversy, 43 years. At the story core, conflict is the momentum of happening and change and is crucial on all levels for delivering information and building characterization conflict is the source of change that engages a reader, and in a story, conflict and action do what description and. Go ask alice is about a girl who goes from being a straighta, well behaved teenager, to a broken young girl. Conflict is the essence of drama, and all literary fiction requires drama to please the reader and to succeed as a story. Nonfiction for high school students collection by uncommon core.
Reyna marie to clear the matter, this novel was not based on a true story, nor is the events following alice s life, or characters factual. This is my second read of go ask alice, and i loved it just as much the second time around. An incredibly powerful and moving novel, it impacted me immediately and has stuck with me since. See more ideas about nonfiction, literary nonfiction and books.
Beatrice sparks, whom is known to the general public as the editor of go ask alice, populated the false impression that this book was based off of the diary of a young girl, whom fell into the elaborate and dangerous life of a drug addict. A direct intercept of the youthful drug experience this dear diary record is the second heads you lose, p. Oct 20, 2015 would you recommend the book to readers who dont typically like this genre. Two years and several doobies, heroin shots, and blow jobs for money later, shes dead from an overdose. Go ask alice is a reference to a jefferson airplane song called white rabbit, which alludes to rampant hallucinogenic drug use in lewis carrolls alice in wonderland.
Picking different book genres is therefore a critical step in keeping your book club recommendations interesting and varied. Consider these 6 options before publishing a book by alice. Its a sad and moving portrayal of a woman losing the. Oct 03, 2016 go ask alice is the firstperson tale of an accidental downward spiral into drugs, alcohol, unwanted sex, and impoverished living. In case you arent familiar with it, its supposedly an anonymous diary found by the parents of a fifteen year old drug user after she. Aug 23, 2017 gilead won both the pulitzer prize and the national book critics circle award for fiction in 2005. The book i read go ask alice by an anonymous author is all about problems, conflicts, and how to deal with them. Before turning to writing fiction, genova earned a phd in neuroscience at harvard. Through out the book we see the reality of drugs and what they can destroy. From sex and relationships to alcohol and drugs to fitness and nutrition, this comprehensive handbook is the first of its kind to provide muchneeded information for young adults who cannot get reliable or anonymous. The movie is based on the 2007 novel of the same name by lisa genova, who it turns out isnt just a novelist. Every work of literature, and much nonfiction narrative, is based on at least one of the following conflicts.
Others, particularly in civil rights organizationssay something different is happening. On october 22 of this year, i discovered the facts of the matter via a tweet that read, apparently meta is the new big thing in nonfiction with a link. Still alice novelist lisa genova shines spotlight on. Ask your question to support your homeschooling, were including unlimited answers with your free account for the time being. Gilead won both the pulitzer prize and the national book critics circle award for fiction in 2005. Created during the height of the drug era, the girl could be anyone from this time who found him or herself seduced by the mindaltering affects of marijuana, lsd, bennies, dexies, and heroin.
The book then becomes a journey into trying to hold on to yourself and. Use these general nonfiction questions by litlovers to get book club discussions off to a good start. The 6 most ridiculous lies ever published as nonfiction. How to create an outline for your nonfiction book when someone says theres only one way to do something, i often get ornery. Still alice novelist lisa genova shines spotlight on early. Its based on a true story, so i think itd be non fiction.
Conflict self self the conflict i chose, is when alice thinks that she is pregnant. Arkansas 1968, that courts do not and cannot intervene in the resolution of conflicts. The queries are representative of those emailed by anonymous visitors to the go ask alice web site. What is the primary conflict in the book go ask alice. The biggest conflict in the book is the diarists increasing. When you write a story or a biography, or relate a true event or series of events, you need not focus on such themes, and theres no reason to state them explicitly except in passing, perhaps, to provide insight about a biographical subject, but youre wise to identify the. Would you like to live in or visit the books setting. Alice is in conflict with everyone around her, because she cant accept herself as she really is.
851 1012 1234 426 1044 181 126 1289 1390 1058 586 181 118 1455 148 1524 1506 1106 532 1430 1049 1185 738 973 118 1472 1035 195 296 597 1240 1140 1492 1417 859 603 419 422 359 1356 755