Bibliographic Information: Green, John. An Abundance of Katherines. Dutton Books 2006. ISBN 9780525476887
Genre: Teen Romance, Coming of age, Humor
Reading Level: Grades 7-12
Curriculum ties: Teenage boy prodigies, High school graduates, Mathematics, Self-perception, Historical trivia.
Awards: Booklist Editors’ Choice – Books for Youth – Older Readers Category: 2006, Texas Tayshas Reading Lists: 2007, YALSA Best Books for Young Adults: 2007, Michael L. Printz Honor Book, 2007.
Notes: Author of Printz-winning Looking for Alaska (2005)
Reader’s Annotation: Dumped by Katherine #19, Colin Singleton takes a road trip to contemplate his affinity to date girls named Katherine.
Plot Summary: Hassan, Colin’s best friend, hauls him out of his funk and out of the house with the promise of a road trip to cure all of Colin’s girl troubles after a recent break up with his girlfriend (Katherine #19). The boys leave Chicago and take to the road, entertaining themselves by playing anagrams, trivia, and foreign-language bons mots, and recounting historical facts (all their idea of fun). Eventually, they find themselves in Gunshot, Tennessee, where they see the grave of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, meet a girl who isn’t called Katherine, and end up working on a local oral history project. Lindsey (the not-Katherine) introduces the boys to Gunshot and agrees to help Colin with his “Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability,” which, when completed, will not only calculate the path of all romantic relationships, but also allow Colin to mature from failed child prodigy to successful mathematical genius.
Critical Evaluation: This intelligent story, the inclusion of mathematical problems, word puzzles and historical references makes this story appeal to older teen readers, especially boys but may discourage non scholarly readers. The narrative is nerdy but this should not discourage those who decide to pick up this book because there are footnotes at the bottom of each page to translate, explain the formula or give background history of what they are talking about. It encourages teens to expand their knowledge base without losing the element of story. I do like the nods given to obscure historical figure such as the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Most teens do not know this story but after this book they will have a better understanding or look into this further on their own. Teens would benefit from more fiction books written in this manner to include some factual base.
Booktalking Ideas:
Discuss your feelings towards Colin’s theories on love. Do you think love can be interpreted mathematically?
2) Talk about the incorporation of math, puzzles and footnotes in the story. Do they add or detract from the plot?
3) What characteristics does Colin show that he is a prodigy? Would you consider him to be a prodigy? What constitutes a prodigy?
4) In your opinion, why or why not does the formula (represented in the book) work?
Challenge Issues/ Defense:
Challenge Issues: Use of racist words such as: jewfro, fug, fugger, fugging, kafir
Challenge defense ideas:
• The words listed above were all part of a game that deals with wordplay. In the extensive combinations of letters, these words happened to come up as possible answers to their game.
Why was this book included?: A romantic book told from a male point view is hard to find.
Author Information: John Green is the New York Times bestselling author of Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, and Paper Towns. He is also the coauthor, with David Levithan, of Will Grayson, Will Grayson. He was 2006 recipient of the Michael L. Printz Award, a 2009 Edgar Award winner, and has twice been a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Green’s books have been published in more than a dozen languages.
In 2007, Green and his brother Hank ceased textual communication and began to talk primarily through videoblogs posted to youtube. The videos spawned a community of people called nerdfighters who fight for intellectualism and to decrease the overall worldwide level of suck. (Decreasing suck takes many forms: Nerdfighters have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight poverty in the developing world; they also planted thousands of trees around the world in May of 2010 to celebrate Hank’s 30th birthday.) Although they have long since resumed textual communication, John and Hank continue to upload three videos a week to their youtube channel, vlogbrothers. Their videos have been viewed more than 75 million times, and their channel is one of the most popular in the history of online video. He is also an active (if reluctant) Twitter user with more than 1.1 million followers.
(Author biography obtained from author website. Retrieved from: http://johngreenbooks.com/bio-contact/)
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