Jr & High School Chronicles: Knock Before Entering. Dania Lebovics. Illustrated by Lam Quach. Toronto, ON: Kiddy Chronicles Publishing (Distributed by Firefly Books), 2006. 58 pp., 3-ring binder, $29.95. ISBN 0-9733994-3-0. Grades 6-12 / Ages 11-17. Review by Dave Jenkinson. *** /4

excerpt:

Grade 11

Year:
Age:


My School Picture
Fits picture up to 3½" x 5"

This was my second to last year in high school. My closest friends this year were .................................................. . My favorite teacher was.................................. . He/she taught me.......................................... And my mark in this course was ..................... . The person who I looked up to the most this year was................. . The websites I used the most for homework were................................................ . The websites I surfed the most for fun were ........................................................ . What I look forward to next year is...................................................................... . Additional comments ..................................................................... .

Parents of newborns are quite familiar with baby books in which they can record such things as their child’s favourite foods, toys, books or the dates of significant happenings like first words, steps, haircut or appearance of teeth. In simple terms, Jr & High School Chronicles is nothing more than a more grownup version of a baby book, and candidly there is nothing in it that thinking parents with time couldn’t come up with on their own. However, the reality for most parents is that, while they may keep a lot of “stuff” with the intention of someday organizing it, they never get around to doing so, or, if and when they do, they discover artifacts have been lost and facts forgotten. The structured arrangement of Jr & High School Chronicles serves as a valuable reminder to record things in the present.

     The sheets in the three ring binder are organized into 10 sections:

JR & HIGH SCHOOL YEARS
Middle school - keep track of grades 6 though eight
High school - keep track of grades 9 through 12

REPORT CARDS AND DIPLOMAS

EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES
Pictures, awards and other memorabilia from sports programs and hobbies

SUMMER VACATIONS, SUMMER AND PART-TIME JOBS
Job descriptions, pay stubs, details of community work and reference letters

BIRTHDAYS
Special gifts and birthday celebrations

REPORT CARDS AND DIPLOMAS
Photos of friends and family

MEDICAL
Weight, height, shoe size, medical, dental & orthodontic procedures

SOCIAL
Personal notes, dating and other private memories

DRIVING
Driving lesson experiences and results from driving exams

GRADUATION
High school graduation handouts, copy of valedictory speech, prom and college applications

     As can be observed in the excerpt above, the pages in the first section, JR & HIGH SCHOOL YEARS, provide lots of fill-in-the-blanks prompts. While details about the adolescent’s life are this section’s focus, “Signs of the Times” portions, which ask about things like “Cost of a chocolate bar,” “Cost of Gasoline” and “Family car,” provide a larger “historical” context as do places for attaching samples of postage stamps or currency. To negate that common experience of having kept our annual class photos but later not being able to recall who these people were, the opening section of Jr & High School Chronicles provides a place to record classmates’ names according to their photo rows.

     The next five sections, commencing with REPORT CARDS AND DIPLOMAS and concluding with PICTURES, are basically section dividers which suggest inserting plastic sleeves to hold the various bits of memorabilia. The MEDICAL section does contain charts for recording such data as height, weight and shoe size as well as pages for noting the dates of illnesses or fractures plus dental work and optical needs. The remaining sections are of the fill-in-the-blanks kind with the invitation to add plastic sleeves full of mementos.

     Correctly anticipating that a 1½-inch D-Ring binder will not likely hold all the memories of seven years of schooling, the publisher has, via the final two sheets in the book, provided front, back and spine covers which can then be inserted in a larger 3-inch binder of the type having the clear plastic sheet over the entire vinyl part of the binder.

     Likely who maintains Jr & High School Chronicles (and where it will be kept) will be a negotiated decision within a family. The family “archivist” (probably a parent) may keep most of it up to date, but there are some questions of a “sensitive” nature (“My locker this year was next to................. . I would have preferred it to be next to............................ .”) which the adolescent may wish to keep private at this point in her/his life. The questions asked in the SOCIAL section are fairly innocuous, and the juicier details will more likely be recorded in a locked, hidden diary.

     Criticisms of Jr & High School Chronicles are more of the quibble kind as opposed to being substantive in nature. How grades are grouped in schools varies across this country. In my home province of Manitoba, middle school consists of grades 5-8, but this memory book commences with grade 6. As well, in Manitoba, there are schools called junior highs which contain grades 7-9. Some of the terminology, such as “prom,” sounds rather American (or, at least, not Manitoban). Obviously a home purchase, Jr & High School Chronicles, when completed, will be a wonderful memory prompt/nostalgia-nudger in later life (and likely a source of great amusement and/or amazement to the book owner’s children).

Recommended.

Dave Jenkinson, who teaches courses in children’s and adolescent literature in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba, wishes he had kept such an album to prove to his now adult children how life was so tough back in the good old days of his adolescence.

To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca.

Copyright © the Manitoba Library Association. Reproduction for personal use is permitted only if this copyright notice is maintained. Any other reproduction is prohibited without permission.

Published by The Manitoba Library Association ISSN 1201-9364

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