You can break a slate with a wand: Hermione Granger’s Top 5 Moments

Posted on July 14, 2011 by Sarah

The release the of last Harry Potter movie gives us an excuse to do some writing about one of our favorite Slatebreakers, the brilliant and brave Hermione Granger. We could go on for hours and many, many pages, but here are our top five Hermione Slatebreaking Moments.

1. She stops the Devil’s Snare in Harry Potter & the Sorcerer’s Stone.  We know from the very beginning of the series that Hermione is the smartest one in the room. But it’s at the end of Sorcerer’s Stone that we first see her using her knowledge to save herself and her friends. When she summons the blue flame to stop the Devil’s Snare Plant she proves that she not only knows the spells but she can use them when it matters. This is a crucial character point, as we see Hermione hold up under pressure and practically use the thing she learns (foreshadowing of awesomeness to come) and it’s an early indicator of why this obvious intellectual is sorted into Gryffindor rather than Ravenclaw.

2. She founds SPEW in Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire.

By the time we get to book 4 we have learned that not only is Hermione a top notch student and skilled wizard, she’s something of a social radical. Appalled when she learns about the working conditions and forced enslavement of the Hogwarts House Elves, she launches a deeply felt and much maligned campaign to restore their rights. SPEW, the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare is not well received by anyone in the Hogwarts community, yet Hermione is not deterred from her mission of social justice. Not only is the whole campaign something we can get behind, we (especially Brianna) particularly love that Hermione uses knitting to advance her cause, reclaiming this traditional domestic art!

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Review: Sisterhood Everlasting by Ann Brashares

Posted on July 11, 2011 by Sarah

Sisterhood Everlasting by Ann Brashares
Random House, 2011 (currently available)

Genre: Contemporary Realism

Face Value: The cover suggests the beach read that it is, though it’s unfortunate that even this adult venture had to include a headless girl in some form. The inside cover uses phrases like “whose friendship became a touchstone for a generation” and “as moving and life-changing as an encounter with long-lost best friends.” If I’d never heard of this book and picked it up in a bookstore I’d think standard mass marketed chick lit.

Does it Break the Slate? Nope, not even a little bit. As I explain in the review, the first book bent the slate, the second one broke it and three, four and five begin the process of putting it back together.

Who would we give it to? Anyone who has read and enjoyed the earlier Pants books will probably enjoy reading this one. It might make you angry. But you will enjoy it. If you haven’t read and liked the earlier books, don’t use this one as your introduction.

Review: It’s so hard to decide how I felt about this book! I loved the first two books in this series. I read the first one as an actual YA, when it came out my senior year of high school and when the second one came out while I was in college I sat and read it in the Borders cafe instead of writing a paper. I loved the friendship between these girls. These books pass the Bechdel test with flying colors – it’s all about conversations between young women, and I appreciated the way the truly huge issues were given equal weight to smaller ones, in a way that rang true with my perception of the teenage experience. And so I kept reading, when book 3 came out in 2005, and book 4 in 2007. And I was disappointed. Those issues, handled so beautifully in the early books started to become clunky and overwrought. The girls kept learning the same lessons. Poor Carmen never seemed to be able to catch a break. One of my friends’ Goodreads reviews said it best “let’s just pretend this series ended with the second book.” But we couldn’t help but be excited to read Sisterhood Everlasting, to find out what these characters we couldn’t help but still like were like as adults. And in fairness, this adult venture is better than 3 & 4 but not nearly as good as 1 or 2.

Warning: THERE ARE SPOILERS AHEAD. If you don’t want to know, stop reading!

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Review: Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

Posted on July 11, 2011 by Brianna

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray. Scholastic Press, 2011. Currently available.

Genre:  YA Fiction/Satire

Face Value: This cover had me pulling out my credit card before I knew what the book was about or who wrote it. Let’s break it down into its main components.

Fit, stereotypically attractive blonde girl in a bikini, with her head and legs cut off: Oh dear, another tragic case of YA cover disembodied female syndrome. The female body is majorly on display here, and the girl is even sweating delicately in that way favored by health magazines and Sports Illustrated. (“I’m not sweating, I’m ‘glowing.’”)

Beauty queen sash: This is where it starts to get subversive. The sash is dirty and worn, signaling to readers that this will be an unusual take on the beauty queen theme.

Lipstick bandolier: Now we’re talking! Taking the trappings of feminine beautification and turning it into weaponry – that’s cool.

The whole Beauty Queens package is playing with tropes about girlhood and femininity. The synopsis promises evening gowns and a body count, and the cover image stands out on bookshelves. From far away, a customer would first see the pastel color palette and the female body. It’s only when you get up close that you notice the twisted take on the swimsuit competition. Beauty Queens is using our cultural stereotypes and shaking them up in a way that will challenge our assumptions about teen girls while still having considerable market appeal.

Does it break the slate? The slate is shattered. The girl characters in Beauty Queens defy cultural expectations and blast through teen archetypes. They come to terms with their own bodies and backgrounds. They become confident in their own ideas. They discover sex as something to be enjoyed and respected, but not feared. The leading ladies of this story are complex, motivated, and dynamic girls who defy expectations.

Who would we give it to? 13-year-old me, with hopes that the confident ladies in this book would inspire my timid early-adolescent self to speak up and have some more self-confidence. Also, everyone we’ve ever met.

Review: Beauty Queens is not a perfect book. It’s chaotic, there are too many characters, and the plot veers in ten different directions. Bray includes a pseudo-political storyline about an Elvis impersonating dictator named MoMo B. ChaCha, and this ridiculous extension of the plot could easily have been trimmed down. The departure and return of various characters sent my head spinning. But even with its myriad faults, Beauty Queens totally and completely stole my heart. Continue reading →

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Slatebreaker All Stars: The Hall of Fame Opens!

Posted on July 11, 2011 by Sarah

We’re introducing a feature we plan to come back to a lot over our time writing here at Slatebreakers. The Slatebreaker All Star is granted to characters who exemplify everything we get amped up about at this site. They question the world around them, challenge expectations and they do it with style. There are dozens of ways to be a Slatebreaker, and we find our All Stars across the canon, from Sarah Dessen’s pastel covers to Katniss’s raw toughness. These are heroines who live up to the standard set by the original Slatebreaker, Anne Shirley.


To get us started, here are some of our personal favorite Slatebreaker All Stars

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Welcome to Slatebreakers!

Posted on June 18, 2011 by Sarah

“Gilbert reached across the aisle, picked up the end of Anne’s long red braid, held it out at arm’s length and said in a piercing whisper, ‘Carrots! Carrots!’

Then Anne looked at him with a vengeance!

She did more than look. She sprang to her feet, her bright fancies fallen into cureless ruin. She flashed one indignant glance at Gilbert from eyes whose angry sparkle was swiftly quenched in equally angry tears.

‘You mean, hateful boy!’ she exclaimed passionately. ‘How dare you!’

And then – Thwack! Anne had brought her slate down on Gilbert’s head and cracked it – slate, not head – clear across.”

Anne Shirley is one of our heroes. When she cracked that slate over Gilbert’s head, she took circumstances into her own hands, and made it clear that she was not going to tolerate being teased or objectified by boys (even one who might turn out all right – more than all right – in the end). As book lovers, educators, and feminists, we have started this blog in search of slatebreaking moments in children’s and young adult literature. We’re writing about girls in kidlit and YA who challenge expectations, stand up for themselves and their communities and have a positive impact on the world around them, fictional and otherwise. Expect to see a wide variety of material on this site – a mix of book reviews, critical essays and things that generally interest us. Thanks for joining the conversation!

Brianna & Sarah

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