ARISTOTLE AND DANTE DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE by Benjamin Alire Saenz Book Review

     






Written by Benjamin Alire Saenz

Published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers in 2012

ISBN: 978-1442408937

Plot Summary: Aristotle is a young Latino boy growing up in El Paso, Texas "who is a mystery even to himself." He doesn't have anyone helping him through his teenage years as his older brother is in prison. He meets a boy named Dante who is unlike any boy that he has ever met as he shows his emotions each and every day. Ari risks his life to save Dante when a car swerves in the street and ends up with broken legs. Dante moves to Chicago where he experiments with kissing girls but finds out that he prefers to kiss boys. Dante gets beaten up and Ari comes to his defense and realizes that he loves him. Ari and Dante grow close and Ari realizes that his parents are human and have big emotions like the ones tied to his brother and Ari finally embraces his true self. 

Critical Analysis: This book goes through so many highs and lows and teaches us what it means to love, to be human, and how to get to the root of who you are as a human. Ari's characters grows in leaps and bounds from the questioning at the beginning of the story to coming to terms with who he is by the end. Dante brings out the emotional side of Ari and it shows through his writing and the way that he interacts with his parents. Saenz shows a beautiful love story that goes through the peaks and valleys of life just as many love stories have done before. 

Art and Literature play a huge role throughout the story as the means in which both Dante and Ari figure out who they are and how they want to express themselves to others. As with most LGBTQ+ books, society's conventions try to keep Ari and Dante from expressing themselves and the power of shame is evident throughout the book not just with Ari but also with his parents being ashamed of his older brother being in prison. Love is a mysterious thing and that is very evident throughout this well written story that any LBGTQ+ or anyone at all will be able to relate to. 

Review: Kirkus

A boring summer stretches ahead of Ari, who at 15 feels hemmed in by a life filled with rules and family secrets. He doesn't know why his older brother is in prison, since his parents and adult sisters refuse to talk about it. His father also keeps his experience in Vietnam locked up inside. On a whim, Ari heads to the town swimming pool, where a boy he's never met offers to teach him to swim. Ari, a loner who's good in a fight, is caught off guard by the self-assured, artistic Dante. The two develop an easy friendship, ribbing each other about who is more Mexican, discussing life's big questions, and wondering when they'll be old enough to take on the world. An accident near the end of summer complicates their friendship while bringing their families closer. Sáenz's interplay of poetic and ordinary speech beautifully captures this transitional time: " 'That's a very Dante question,' I said. 'That's a very Ari answer,' he said.… For a few minutes I wished that Dante and I lived in the universe of boys instead of the universe of almost-men." Plot elements come together at the midpoint as Ari, adding up the parts of his life, begins to define himself.

Meticulous pacing and finely nuanced characters underpin the author's gift for affecting prose that illuminates the struggles within relationships . (Fiction. 14 & up)

Connection: Students can learn more about being an ally and a safe space for LGBTQ+ people here. 

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED512337.pdf

More Books by Benjamin Alire Saenz

Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World ISBN 978-1534496200

Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club ISBN 978-1935955320





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

We are America Book Review by Walter Dean Myers

Image
  Written by Walter Dean Myers Illustrated by Christopher Myers Published by HarperCollins Children's Books in 2011 ISBN- 978-0060523107 Plot Summary: This book is a history of america told through the form of poetry. The author starts before the settlers arrive with the Native Americans and their view of what the United States looked like before settlers came and ends with the present day of everyone coming together to make the country look the way it does. The story includes people from different backgrounds including African Americans who haven't been taken to America yet, the history of the Civil War and the people that died for our freedom, and the immigrants that came during the industrial revolution to help create the country that we live in now.  Analysis: The author uses a free verse style of poetry that highlights immigrants especially and how we are all Americans even though we come from very diverse backgrounds. He highlights the important events that helped shape t
Read more

Free Lunch Book Review by Rex Ogle

Image
Written By Rex Ogle Published by Norton Young Readers in 2019 ISBN: 978-1324003601 Plot Summary: This is a memoir of Rex Ogle when he was in 6th grade. He was enrolled in the free lunch program at school as he was living in poverty at the time. The story begins with his mom Luciana in the grocery store as they are shopping for food but they only have so many dollars in food stamps that they can use. Rex remembers how angry he is that he never gets to choose food that he likes and both he and his mom are embarrassed as they didn't have enough money for the food that they chose so they only walk out with one bag of groceries even though they had chosen much more than that. Rex is anxious about going to school as he doesn't want the other kids to know that he was on the free lunch program and when he questions his mom she beats him and gives him a black eye which he has to explain away at the school. Rex has to announce that he has free lunch in the line which embarasses him even
Read more

The Surrender Tree by Margarita Engle Book Rev

Image
   Written by Margarita Engle  Published by Square Fish in 2010  ISBN: 978-0312608712 Plot Summary: The book is based on Rosario Castellanos Castellanos who is a famous person in Cuban American history. She was a freed slave who works as a nurse for the rebels who are fighting against the Spanish in the mid to late 1800's in Cuba. The poems are free verse and are written from the perspective of 4 different people: Rosa, Jose her husband, a slave hunter named Lieutenant Death in the story, and a girl named Sylvia. The novel is written in 5 different parts that cover Rosa's story from childhood to adulthood.  The first part is titled "The Names of the Flowers" and is talks about how Rosa grows up in the field amd learns about the healing properties of different plants and herbs from the women. Rosa helps to heal runaway slaves who have been beaten after running away and this is where she meets Teniente Muerte otherwise known as Lieutenant Death. The Lieutenant doesn'
Read more