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https://docs.google.com/document/d/11IjGHPmMC_rWM7AaXgeoLF3PmeStuOShMxhF39aDPaQ/edit

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http://prezi.com/fg3vmaryqbdn/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

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Character study
Magical Realism/Fantasy
Figurative language: allusion
Symbolism

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#SVYALit Project: Bone Gap and Survivor Stories, a guest post by author Laura Ruby — @TLT16 Teen Librarian Toolbox

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#SVYALit Project: Bone Gap and Survivor Stories, a guest post by author Laura Ruby — @TLT16 Teen Librarian Toolbox

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One of the best books I have read in 2015 is the upcoming Bone Gap by Laura Ruby. It is a stunning and haunting look at a world where you can easily fall between the gaps. If hard pressed to come up with a if you like, I would say that this is reminiscent of the very best of Ray Bradbury, think Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes. Today I am honored to have Laura Ruby here guest posting for The #SVYALit Project about Survivor Stories.
I had numerous beta readers for my YA novel BONE GAP-some for their expertise on horses and farms, some for their expertise on myth and language, others simply because they know a good story when they read one and they'd tell me where mine needed work. Out of the dozen-plus people who read this book pre-pub, only one person asked a question that I still can't get out of my head. Clearly my character Roza is a victim of some sort of sexual violence, he said, but the details are somewhat mysterious. What exactly happened to her?

Well, I told him, Roza didn't exactly share the specifics with me.

Yeah, okay, maybe this is snotty answer to a perfectly reasonable question from a thoughtful person. And maybe my answer is also a little bit bananas; I wrote Roza's story, how could she-a figment of my imagination!-choose to keep the gory details of something so terrible entirely to herself? And wouldn't it be better for readers to get the whole story in all its humiliating, awful detail? Don't we need it to understand her?

What exactly happened?

What exactly?

The idea we are somehow owed the stories of victims of sexual violence is pervasive, and to my mind, rather astonishing, considering our burning hostility toward such victims, our collective tendency toward creepy voyeurism. In one of the more bizarre book reviews I've ever read, a reviewer claimed she threw Roxane Gay's Bad Feminist across the room because Gay summed up her own gang rape at the age of twelve like this:

"They kept me there for hours. It was as bad as you might expect."

The reviewer argues that the details of Gay's rape are necessary, "Not because I think we need another graphic, sensational account of violence, we need a graphic, realistic account of violence that proves it needs to be taken seriously and stopped."

And yet, graphic, realistic accounts of sexual violence are everywhere and we still don't take them seriously. Even photographs and videos don't stand as proof; we use the evidence to pick apart the stories, to explain away the violence, to discount and dismiss. To blame the victim who got in the car went to the dorm room went to the frat house went to the party went on the date went to the woods with someone she loved.

Even love is used against victims. Even that.

Underneath the belief that we're owed victims' stories is the more insidious belief that what the victim really owes us is her/his/their pain. That because you've been violated, you must put words to that violation, and through the telling suffer again and again for some greater societal good, or simply to satisfy our morbid curiosity - "OMG, did you hear about...?!"

After the Bad Feminist review appeared, Ms. Gay was moved to write her story in the graphic detail the reviewer had demanded.

I read the whole account with my hand over my mouth.

It was exactly as bad as I expected.

I support rape victims who come forward and bravely recount their stories, as Gay did. And I support rape victims who choose not to. I'm not a cop or a lawyer, I will not be investigating or prosecuting any cases. I am not owed this kind of confidence. And we, as a culture, haven't earned this kind of trust. Too often we prove ourselves entirely unworthy of it.

Gay says: "We don't know how to hear stories about any kind of violence, because it is hard to accept that these things are complicated, that you can love someone who hurts you, that you can stay with someone who hurts you, that you can be hurt by someone who loves you, that you can be hurt by a complete stranger, that you can be hurt."

In BONE GAP, I didn't write about the specifics of Roza's sexual violation because I was more interested in the toll that violation took on her: the all-encompassing shame that sapped her strength and her will, the horror at the string of sociopaths who somehow sensed the nature of her wound and reveled in it, the sheer terror she felt when she finally stumbled into a person she might be able to trust. Mostly, though, I wanted to write about her refusal to be defined by what was done to her.

If it's remotely appropriate to ask victims of sexual violence anything, let's instead ask how the violence affected them, how they have coped since, how we can help.

What exactly happened is that they survived.
Meet our Guest Blogger
Raised in the wilds of suburban New Jersey, Laura Ruby now lives in Chicago with her family. Ruby is also the author of the Edgar-nominated children's mystery LILY'S GHOSTS (8/03), the children's fantasy THE WALL AND THE WING (3/06) and a sequel, THE CHAOS KING (5/07) all from Harpercollins. She writes for older teens as well, and her debut young adult novel, GOOD GIRLS (9/06), also from Harpercollins, was a Book Sense Pick for fall 2006 and an ALA Quick Pick for 2007.
Publisher's Book Description

Everyone knows Bone Gap is full of gaps-gaps to trip you up, gaps to slide through so you can disappear forever. So when young, beautiful Roza went missing, the people of Bone Gap weren't surprised. After all, it wasn't the first time that someone had slipped away and left Finn and Sean O'Sullivan on their own. Just a few years before, their mother had high-tailed it to Oregon for a brand new guy, a brand new life. That's just how things go, the people said. Who are you going to blame?

Finn knows that's not what happened with Roza. He knows she was kidnapped, ripped from the cornfields by a dangerous man whose face he cannot remember. But the searches turned up nothing, and no one believes him anymore. Not even Sean, who has more reason to find Roza than anyone, and every reason to blame Finn for letting her go.

As we follow the stories of Finn, Roza, and the people of Bone Gap-their melancholy pasts, their terrifying presents, their uncertain futures-acclaimed author Laura Ruby weaves a heartbreaking tale of love and loss, magic and mystery, regret and forgiveness-a story about how the face the world sees is never the sum of who we are.

Publishes March 3rd, 2015 from Balzer & Bray/HarperTeen. ISBN: 9780062317605

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#SVYALit Project: Bone Gap and Survivor Stories, a guest post by author Laura Ruby

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One of the best books I have read in 2015 is the upcoming Bone Gap by Laura Ruby. It is a stunning and haunting look at a world where you can easily fall between the gaps.

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How Much is Being Attractive Worth? | Science | Smithsonian

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How Much is Being Attractive Worth? | Science | Smithsonian

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For men and women, looking good can mean extra cash in your bank account

Smithsonian Magazine |

Beautiful people are indeed happier, a new study says, but not always for the same reasons. For handsome men, the extra kicks are more likely to come from economic benefits, like increased wages, while women are more apt to find joy just looking in the mirror. "Women feel that beauty is inherently important," says Daniel Hamermesh, a University of Texas at Austin labor economist and the study's lead author. "They just feel bad if they're ugly."

Hamermesh is the acknowledged father of pulchronomics, or the economic study of beauty. It can be a perilous undertaking. He once enraged an audience of young Mormon women, many of whom aspired to stay home with future children, by explaining that homemakers tend to be homelier than their working-girl peers. (Since beautiful women tend to be paid more, they have more incentive to stay in the work force, he says.) "I see no reason to mince words," says the 69-year-old, who rates himself a solid 3 on the 1-to-5 looks scale that he most often uses in his research.

The pursuit of good looks drives several mammoth industries-in 2010, Americans spent $845 million on face-lifts alone-but few economists focused on beauty's financial power until the mid-1990s, when Hamermesh and his colleague, Jeff Biddle of Michigan State University, became the first scholars to track the effect of appearance on earnings potential for a large sample of adults. Like many other desirable commodities, "beauty is scarce," Hamermesh says, "and that scarcity commands a price."

A handsome man is poised to make 13 percent more during his career than a "looks-challenged" peer, according to calculations in Hamermesh's recent book, Beauty Pays. (Interestingly, the net benefit is slightly less for comely women, who may make up the difference by trading on their looks to marry men with higher earning potential.) And some studies have shown that attractive people are more likely to be hired in a recession.

"Lookism" extends into professions seemingly detached from aesthetics. Homely quarterbacks earn 12 percent less than their easy-on-the-eyes rivals. "Hot" economics professors-designated by the number of chili peppers awarded on Ratemyprofes-sors.com-earn 6 percent more than members of their departments who fail to garner accolades along these lines.

Hamermesh argues that there's not much we can do to improve our pulchritude. There are even studies suggesting that for every dollar spent on cosmetic products, only 4 cents returns as salary-making lipstick a truly abysmal investment.

But inborn beauty isn't always lucrative. One 2006 study showed that the unbecoming may actually profit from their lack of looks. People tend to expect less from the unattractive, so when they surpass those low expectations they are rewarded. And the pulchritudinous are often initially held to a higher standard-then hit with a "beauty penalty" if they fail to deliver. "You might see this as wages being depressed over time," says Rick K. Wilson, a Rice University political scientist who co-authored the study. "We have these really high expectations for attractive people. By golly, they don't often live up to our expectations."

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Smithsonian Magazine | Beautiful people are indeed happier, a new study says, but not always for the same reasons. For handsome men, the extra kicks are more likely to come from economic benefits, like increased wages, while women are more apt to find joy just looking in the mirror.

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Orpheus: "On his mother's side he was more than mortal. He was the son of one of the Muses and a Tracian prince. His mother gave him the gift of music and Thrace where he grew up fostered it. The Thracians were the most musical of the peoples of Greece. But Orpheus had no rival there or anywhere except the gods alone. There was no limit to his power when he played and sang. No one and nothing could resist him.

In the deep still woods upon the Thracian mountains
Orpheus with his singing lyre led the trees,
Led the wild beasts of the wilderness.
Everything animate and inanimate followed him. He moved the rocks on the hillside and turned the courses of the rivers....
When he first met and how he wooed the maiden he loved, Euridice, we are not told, but it is clear that no maiden he wanted could have resisted the power of his song. They were married, but their joy was brief. Directly after the wedding, as the bride walked in a meadow with her bridesmaids, a viper stung her and she died. Orpheus' grief was overwhelming. He could not endure it. He determined to go down to the world of death and try to bring Eurydice back. He said to himself,

With my song
I will charm Demeter's daughter,
I will charm the Lord of the Dead,
Moving their hearts with my melody.
I will bear her away from Hades.
He dared more than any other man ever dared for his love. He took the fearsome journey to the underworld. There he struck his lyre, and at the sound all that vast multitude were charmed to stillness....
O Gods who rule the dark and silent world,
To you all born of a woman needs must come.
All lovely things at last go down to you.
You are the debtor who is always paid.
A little while we tarry up on earth.
Then we are yours forever and forever.
But I seek one who came to you too soon.
The bud was plucked before the flower bloomed.
I tried to bear my loss. I could not bear it.
Love was too strong a god, O King, you know
If that old tale men tell is true, how once
The flowers saw the rape of Proserpine,
Then weave again for sweet Eurydice
Life's pattern that was taken from the loom
Too quick. See, I ask a little thing,
Only that you will lend, not give, her to me.
She shall be yours when her years' span is full.
No one under the spell of his voice could refuse him anything. He
Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek,
and made Hell grant what Love did seek.
They summoned Eurydice and gave her to him, but upon one condition: that he would not look back at her as she followed him, until they had reached the upper world. So the two passed through the great doors of Hades to the path which would take them out of the darkness, climbing up and up. He knew that she must be just behind him, but he longed unutterably to give one glance to make sure. But now they were almost there, the blackness was turning gray; now he had stepped out joyfully into the daylight. Then he turned to her. It was too soon; she was still in the cavern. He saw her in the dim light, and he held out his arms to clasp her; but on the instant she was gone. She had slipped back into the darkness. All he heard was one faint word, "Farewell."
Desperately he tried to rush after her and follow her down, but he was not allowed. The gods would not consent to his entering the world of the dead a second time, while he was still alive. He was forced to return to the earth alone, in utter desolation. Then he forsook the company of men. He wandered through the wild solitudes of Thrace, comfortless except for his lyre, playing, always playing, and the rocks and the rivers and the trees heard him gladly, his only companions. But at last a band of Maenads [women] came upon him....They slew the gentle musician, tearing him limb from limb, borne along past the river's mouth on to the Lesbian shore; nor had it suffered any change from the sea when the Muses found it and buried it in the sanctuary of the island. His limbs they gathered and placed in a tomb at the foot of Mount Olympus, and there to this day the nightingales sing more sweetly than anywhere else. "

Here is another version, taken from Thomas Bulfinch and retold by Juliana Podd in Encyclopedia Mythica.

Eurydice and Orpheus were young and in love. So deep was their love that they were practically inseparable. So dependent was their love that each felt they could not live without the other. These young lovers were very happy and spent their time frolicking through the meadows. One day Eurdice was gaily running through a meadow with Orpheus when she was bitten by a serpent. The poison of the sting killed her and she descended to Hades immediately.

Orpheus was son of the great Olympian god Apollo. In many ways Apollo was the god of music and Orpheus was blessed with musical talents. Orpheus was so sad about the loss of his love that he composed music to express the terrible emptiness which pervaded his every breath and movement. He was so desperate and found so little else meaningful, that he decided address Hades. As the overseer of the underworld, Hades heart had to be hard as steel, and so it was. Many approached Hades to beg for loved ones back and as many times were refused. But Orpheus' music was so sweet and so moving that it softened the steel hearted heart of Hades himself. Hades gave permission to Orpheus to bring Eurydice back to the surface of the earth to enjoy the light of day. There was only one condition--Orpheus was not to look back as he ascended. He was to trust that Eurydice was immediately behind him. It was a long way back up and just as Orpheus had almost finished that last part of the trek, he looked behind him to make sure Eurydice was still with him. At that very moment, she was snatched back because he did not trust that she was there. When you hear music which mourns lost love, it is Orpheus' spirit who guides the hand of the musicians who play it.

To study text of H. D.'s "Eurydice"
Posted by Ann Woodlief for ENGLISH 384, Fall 2001

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Orpheus: "On his mother's side he was more than mortal. He was the son of one of the Muses and a Tracian prince. His mother gave him the gift of music and Thrace where he grew up fostered it. The Thracians were the most musical of the peoples of Greece.

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Bone Gap Character Correlation and Allusions 

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(34) Determinism vs Free Will: Crash Course Philosophy #24 - YouTube

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(34) Determinism vs Free Will: Crash Course Philosophy #24 - YouTube

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Determinism vs Free Will: Crash Course Philosophy #24