Episode 45: Banned Book Review #10: Lawn Boy

Are you doing these critical things to help your child succeed academically? Take the quiz now to find out the important actions you can take to enhance your child's education. Go to my website, liberationthrougheducation.com quiz and take the quiz today. Foreign welcome to another episode of K12 Education Untangled. My name is Dr. Kim Fields, former corporate manager turned educational researcher and advocate, and I'm the host of this podcast. I I got into this space after dealing with some frustrating interactions with school educators and administrators, as well as experiencing the microdiscriminations that I faced as an African American mom raising my two kids who were in the public school system. I really wanted to understand how teachers were trained and what the research provided about the challenges of the public education system. Once I gained the information and the insights that I needed, I was then equipped to be able to successfully support my children in their educational progress. If you're looking to find out more about current information and issues in education that could affect you or your children, then you're in the right place. Thanks for tuning in today. I know that staying informed about K12 education trends and topics is important to you, so keep listening. On today's episode, I will review another book from the Band Book list Lawn Boy by Jonathan Edison. The intent of this and the previous monthly book reviews is to examine, analyze and investigate why these books were on the band book list for US K12 public school reading for the 20212022 school year. This is the last book that I will review from that band Book list. In today's book, the main characters are Michael Munoz, also known as Mike Nate, Mike's older brother Mike's mother Nick Mike's best friend Freddy, who's an African American man living with Mike's family. In the double wide trailer, Andrew Antino the setting is Washington State. Here's my summary of the book. The book is written with several short chapters or vignettes about Mike's current life, his love of reading, working as a gardener and taking care of his older brother who is developmentally disabled, while his mom works as a server at a local restaurant. Michael seems to have dreams and aspirations, but he's also wandering fairly aimlessly through life at 23 years old, lost virginity, homelessness, basically living in a van having two step dance one named Chuck and one named Ronnie, whom his mother married in order to support herself and her two sons. Both stepdads suffered from chronic back pain, migraine headaches and were averse to work. Neither of these marriages lasted longer than Two years. Mike had come to believe that to a large degree, we are products of our environment. He just knew that somehow, some way, he was going to do better. He was going to get his. He quit his job working for a landscaping company, especially because his boss, Lacey, and because he was tired of suffering the indignities that the clients subjected him to, like picking up dog poop, moving heavy boxes, hauling trash cans from the street to their houses, etc. Participating in church, especially the youth group. Mike's mother utilized the church as a resource, living on the reservation in a manufactured home with dirty siding and a cluttered carport. One of the friends that he met at church was Doug Goble, who, although he was as poor as Mike, grew up to be a wealthy entrepreneur. After a while, they no longer were friends because of Mike's love of reading. The library was his safe place, so he retreated to the library. After he quit his job. Mike spent weeks looking for a job, only to have a couple of interviews which did not result in getting a job. His truck broke down and someone stole his lawnmower, so he was unable to do landscaping work. Mike's mother rented out their shed to a guy named Fred Freddie, who freely dispensed tired life axioms to Mike. Mike was awkward socially. As far as developing friendships, he just seemed to not be able to hold or engage people in conversation, perhaps because of his lack of self confidence at times, Mike couldn't stand his best friend Nick because of his bigotry and shallowness and willful ignorance. But he was like family to he and Nate. Mike likes this girl named Remy, although he never got the nerve to ask her out. One night when he was at a restaurant with his new boss, Chaz, he ran into Remy and she gave him her phone number. Freddy eventually moved into the house and Mike moved into the shed. It seemed to be an official changing of the guard, with Freddy doing the work around the double wide trailer that needed to be done, as well as taking care of Mike's mom. Mike's new job as a production worker in Chaz's company ended after a few months. When Chaz was arrested, Mike was unemployed once again. On one occasion, Mike woke up in the wee hours of the morning with a terrible toothache. He went into the trailer to seek help from Freddy, whom he enlisted to pull the tooth. Freddy collected pliers and village ice grip. To tackle the job, he pulled the tooth, but it was the wrong tooth. Mike told him so even though he was in extreme pain and his mouth was bleeding excessively. He pointed to the right tooth. And before he knew whether Freddy was able to pull the tooth, he blacked out. He stayed in bed for two days after that with a mouthful of gauze and a bottle of peroxide, taking his meals with the straw, Although he was lucky in that he avoided infection. Soon, Mike was out pounding the pavement again, looking for a job. He ran into Doug Goble, A real estate mogul and successful entrepreneur. One day when he was downtown after he dropped off an application at Rite Aid. After talking with Doug for some time, Doug told Mike to call him about a possible job opportunity. Turns out, Doug Doug was currently managing six new properties that all needed regular maintenance on their lawns. If Mike chose to work for him, he'd be paid $20 an hour. Of course, he took the job. In the end, Doug Goble was just using him to try to make headway into an exclusive country club neighborhood so that he could sell homes there. Mike didn't like being a pawn, so he ended up quitting that job. He tried using a childhood incident with Doug as some type of leverage, But Doug didn't recollect that incident. Mike, still unemployed, he joined a protest with Andrew, who worked at the library as a substitute library assistant. And their protest was at Walmart. It fell flat. Another protest at a puppy meal was was unsuccessful. Mike's friend Nick called him by the job opportunity at the company that he worked for. But Mike turned it down because he was tired of doing things he didn't want to do and that he needed to start doing things that he didn't hate. One of the guys that Mike used to do landscaping work with, named Tino, contacted him about an opportunity. What he wanted was to start a business with Mike, and they call it T and M Landscaping. And Mike insisted on owning 45% of this business. Yes, he would be back to mowing lawns and doing landscaping, but he would be doing it on his own terms, Making his own rules, and punching his own clock. Mike chose to celebrate this news with Andrew, not Remy. Although he's attracted to women, he seems to be more attracted to Andrew. And he develops a close, intimate relationship with him. The fledgling T and M landscaping business was growing slowly after an investment from Freddy. Mike gets to show off his topiary artistic skills, which leaves him a lot of creative freedom to express himself. He feels like he's finally making decisions in his life that matter, and he appreciates his friends and community. The story ends with Mike and his family going to Disneyland, A promise finally fulfilled from when his father first told him about Disneyland. When he was a child. Here are my overall impressions of this book. This was the 10th book that I've reviewed from the K12 band book list. Jonathan Evison is a wonderful storyteller who provides an insightful commentary on class while portraying a young Latino man's struggle with with his current circumstances while also struggling to achieve his dreams. The story definitely has some funny moments in it, like when Mike, Nate and Freddy get stopped by the police. And I already described another funny incident when Freddy pulled the wrong tooth when Mike was in excruciating pain. The way the story was told in short chapters or vignettes about various situations in Mike's life kept the reading interesting and engaging. The writing was descriptive, especially with the colorful dialogues between Mike and Nick. Mike's interactions and learning experiences from the people in his life including Doug, Koble, Chaz, Freddie and Tino, all helped to shape his perspectives on life. Mike had to accept that he was a mixed race Latino 23 year old man who lived at the fringes of poverty and homelessness. These lessons helped to develop his self confidence over time, especially when he became friends with Andrew who later became his love interest. The book is an interesting read about social class distinctions, overcoming cultural discrimination and learning how to accept who one is by standing up for oneself. I think this book was placed on the banned book list because of the discussions on race or racism bias and the coming of age awareness of the main character. The book is certainly worth reading, mostly because of the probative and entertaining prose. I think that young adults would find this book relatable, especially high school students. There are a variety of characters in the book for which young adults could identify. It's worth the read. If this is the type of subject matter and discussion that resonates with you, please follow my podcast on whatever service you're listening to this also, I'd love to hear from you, so please leave me a rating, a review or a comment on Apple, Spotify or podchaser if you like this podcast, the best way to support me and help me grow it is by leaving a review. This helps my rankings and entices other people to listen to the show and share this episode with anyone that you think would find it valuable. Be sure to tell your friends, family and community about my podcast. I'd really appreciate it if you could recommend my podcast to a friend directly on Twitter and to mention my show in your tweet. Additionally, connect with me on Instagram and Facebook book with the handle kimjfields. Thanks for listening today. I hope you'll come back for more K12 educational discussions with even more exciting topics to untangle. Until next time, aim to learn something new every day. Love my show. Consider being a regular subscriber. You can subscribe for as little as $3 per month. Just go to there's no contractual obligation. You can cancel at any time. If you choose to subscribe, I'll give you a special shout out thanking you in an upcoming episode. Remember, that's HTTPs://forward/tinyurl.com podcast support to subscribe.