Bibliographic Information


Dessen, S. (2002). This lullaby. New York, NY: Penguin Group.

ISBN: 0-14-250155-7

 

Plot Summary

This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen is about Remy Starr who always breaks up with her boyfriends before things get to serious. Remy doesn’t believe in love or relationships. Her mother is on marriage number five and her father died after her second birthday. He did manage to write a one-hit-wonder about Remy before he passed away.  One day Remy visits her stepfatherto be at his car dealership to go over wedding plans for her mother. While at the dealership she meets Dexter, who is messy, disorganized and a musician. He is everything that Remy shouldn’t like and yet she finds herself falling for him each coming day. Remy decides Dexter will be a summer fling and nothing more. However, as the summer comes to an end, Remy starts to second-guess her decisions and everything she believes in.  Will Remy follow her heart or will Dexter be another boy on her list of exes.

 

Critical Evaluation


I loved this book for many reasons. It was a fast read with a heart warming coming of age story. Remy is product of her environment, so love is foreign to her and scary. Love can be scary to anyone, but I think that there are varying levels to which we are able to understand love. The less we feel loved or know what love is, the more likely we are to avoid it. This book can speak to a lot of teenagers who come from varying backgrounds, who find themselves trying to understand love just like Remy tries to. Even though Dessen tends to use a standard formula for her books, I think the value teens get out of her stories is important. Her stories usually include a difficult topic and discuss life, love, loss, and death through the eyes of a female teen. This story encourages teens to take risks and to live life to the fullest. It also encourages teens to not be afraid of the unknown. What makes her books so relatable to teens is that the main characters aren’t perfect and come from all kinds of backgrounds. They usually make mistakes in the story, but eventually grow from those mistakes and mature in the process.

 

Reader’s Annotation


After six weeks Remy always breaks up with her boyfriends. Remy meets Dexter who is completely opposite of her and should be just another summer fling. However, Remy finds her self second-guessing her normally straightforward breakup policy as she gets to know Dexter.

 

Author Information

The following information was taken from the author’s biography,

http://sarahdessen.com/bio/.

 

“Hi. I’m Sarah. Writing a bio is always a little weird, if only because it seems completely self-absorbed. I have a standard one that I send out, which lists where I got my degree, the names of my books, all the same boring basic facts. But for this website, I’m supposed to do something more, give a sense of who I really am. So here goes. The books I read when I was teenager, the good ones anyway, have stuck more in my mind than anything since. I still love books, but while I couldn’t tell you complete plots of novels I read even six months ago, I do remember even the smallest descriptive details from Lois Lowry’s A Summer to Die or Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. I think it was because back then books were still somewhat new to me, and when I found an author who seemed to say just what I was feeling, it really struck me and resonated. I hope that my books do that for the people who read them: I think it’s the best thing to which any writer can aspire.

 

I’ve also been lucky enough to teach writing and see my students find their own voice. Teaching was great for me, because I got to show people how writing can really change the way you see not only yourself but the world. I’ve found in my own life that if my writing isn’t going well, not much else will. It is the one constant, the key to everything else. Now that I’m writing full time, I have my good days and bad days. But I’d rather be doing this, even on the worst days, than anything else. As far as my other life, my non-writing life, I live in the country with my husband, my daughter, and two very spoiled dogs. I like to work in my garden—although I have not yet perfected the art of keeping everything alive—-and, in my weaker moments, shop. What else can I tell you? I love Starbucks mochas but they make me way hyper. I subscribe to too many magazines. I make a mean bean salad. I could go on, but the truth is, my books are much more exciting than I am, and that’s a good thing. It’s always more fun to make stuff up anyway.”

 

Genre

Fiction, Realistic, Romance

 

Curriculum Ties


N/A

 

Booktalking Ideas


• Why did Remy breakup with boyfriends after six weeks?

• Did you agree with Remy’s mother about love?

• How did Remy grow during the story?

 

Reading Level/ Interest Age


Grades 6-12

 

Challenge Issues


N/A

 

Challenge Issue Resources (for usage in a challenge situation)

• Active Listening

• Explanation of why it was chosen for the collection (Rational)

• Awards

• Reader Advisory Reviews (Students, Parents, Educators)

• Positive and Negative Reviews

• National Council of Teachers “Right to Read”

• ALA Strategies and Tips for Dealing with Challenges to Library Materials

• ALA Bill of Rights on Intellectual Freedom

• Library Selection Policy & Library District Reconsideration Form

 

Why I choose it

I choose to read this book because I grew up reading books from Sarah Dessen. I also choose this one because I hadn’t read it and because the book had won “Best Book for Young Adults” from the American Library Association.