neopf.blogg.se

What is Marcelo in the Real World About and Why Should I Care? And after you meet Marcelo, we're pretty sure you will too.

The people who are so-called disabled have a true place in our world and actually contribute to healing some of the things that are wrong in our society" ( source). As he told School Library Journal, "When you live with the disabled, you learn more from them than, frankly, they learn from you.

Sure, Marcelo in the Real World is a work of fiction, but it was inspired by the time Stork spent living and working in a L'Arche house, part of a faith-based community that provides services to people with intellectual disabilities (seriously, can we just go ahead and give him the Awesome Human award now?). We're betting there's a bit (or a lot) of him in our Marcelo. You could definitely say he learned about class struggle the hard way. He's a lawyer in Boston, just like Marcelo's dad Arturo, but he was born out of wedlock (which is what they used to call unmarried girls having babies) in a convent (which is one of the places out-of-wedlock babies used to be born) in Monterrey, Mexico. Stork knows a little something about all of this. On top of all that, he's learning about social class distinction for the first time, and it's not exactly a beginner's lesson. So what's Marcelo's heavy problem? His dad's representing a corrupt corporation that manufactures faulty products, and Marcelo realizes someone's been hurt really, really badly as a result.

Stork has written four other award-winning YA books, all of which, like Marcelo, deal with a teen facing heavy problems. Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, and School Library Journal (basically, all the big reviewers) named it a Best Book of 2009. Stork, was published in 2009 to serious acclaim. Marcelo in the Real World, by Francisco X. That's right: classical music and Judaism are homeboy's jams. Marcelo has something resembling Asperger's syndrome, and it manifests itself in his unique obsession with both religion and music. Yes, you read that right: he's a Catholic with a rabbi and a music box between his ears.

Marcelo Sandoval is a 17-year-old Mexican-American Catholic kid who loves horses, tree houses, his dog, his rabbi (more on that later), and listening to the imaginary music generated by his very own brain.