Gossip Girl

Main Characters: Dan, Serena, Blair, Nate, Jenny, Vanessa

Setting: the upper east side in New York

Summary: The gossip girl books are about different teenagers from the upper east side in New York City.  These teenagers are dealing with different struggles in life including romantic relationships, self-conscious issues, and figuring out what they're going to do with their life.  In this particular Gossip Girl novel, Dan is writing poems about Serena, while she thinks he is being too intense and is starting to pull away.  Blair is planning to get closer to Nate, have a great interview to get into Yale, and is the maid of honor in her mother's wedding.  Nate has other ideas, as he is falling for Jenny and wanting to break up with Blair and planning a future at Brown University.  The teenagers are dealing with life's struggles the best they can and the book ends with Nate being with Jenny and Dan giving up on Serena and falling for Vanessa.  After not being friends until the wedding because Serena was with Nate two years ago, Serena and Blair are back to being best friends and taking on the world together.  Meanwhile, Gossip Girl is running a website that shares all of these teenagers secret lives for the world to read and with someone watching, they can't get away with anything.

This book is definitely more suited for young teenage girls.  I don't think I would use this book in the classroom, as it could be inappropriate to read in a  classroom setting.  If I did use this book, I would use it to teach students about different life lessons they can overcome.  I would have students start their own personal journey and ask them to write down hardships they have overcome and struggles they are dealing with on a daily basis.  This series would be available to people to read in my classroom, but it would not be required.

Questions to consider:

• What did you think about the content? How will you decide what is appropriate for your classroom? To be read aloud? To be part of an assignment? To be available, but not required.
• With graphic novels, it's important to address format. Why did the creator use this format? A format forces us to pay attention to stories in a different ways.

Reference:

Von Ziegesar, Cecily. You Know You Love Me: Gossip Girl. Little Brown and Company. New York, NY. 2002. Print.