WOW Reads: S3, E3 - TRAP Reads Destination Unknown by Bill Konigsberg

Join the Worlds of Words Center Teen Reading Ambassadors (TRAP) as we discuss Destination Unknown by Bill Konigsberg.

Wherever our destination is, we will enjoy the music! In this episode the Teen Reading Ambassadors talk about the joys of banter between friends, complicated family interactions, and how music connects us regardless of the decade. We, like Bill, hope everyone finds love in a beautiful way.

Band mentions:
Bad Sons
Fiona Apple
Green Day
INXS
Lil Peep (specifically "Star Shopping")
Missing Persons -- Dale Bozzio, do you know about this book?
Taylor Swift
Will Wood and the Tapeworms (specifically "Ish")

This podcast was recorded in the Digital Innovation and Learning Lab (DIALL) in the UArizona College of Education with assistance from the UA COE Tech Team.

Producer/Host: Rebecca Ballenger, Worlds of Words Center Associate Director
Special Guest: Aika Adamson, Worlds of Words Center Office Specialist
Audio Engineers: Liam Arias, Student Employee and Radio, TV, Film Major, and Alexis Mendoza, Worlds of Words Student Employee and U of A First-year Student
Coordinator: Vianey Torres, Student Employee and Nursing Major

For more information on the WOW Teen Reading Ambassadors (TRAP), visit wowlit.org.

We Can Promote Global Literature Together!

The Worlds of Words Reading Ambassador program is completely free for participants who receive a book for themselves and a book to share with their school librarian, ELA/English teacher, or other school entity. If you would like to support this program, please make a gift on-line through the University of Arizona Foundation.

Thank you for listening and keep reading!

Transcript

Welcome to WOW Reads, a podcast of the Worlds of Words, Center of Global Literacies and Literatures that centers middle school and teen voices on literature written for young people.

Worlds of Words Center is committed to creating an international network of people who share the vision of bringing books and children together, thereby opening windows on the world. We encourage thoughtful dialog around global literature so that children can reflect on their own cultural experiences and connect to the experiences of children across the globe.

Worlds of Words Reading Ambassadors engage in a university experience of children's literature within the University of Arizona College of Education. Reading ambassadors learn about literature for young people under the direction of faculty and staff with expertise in children's literature, education, library science and marketing.

We respectfully acknowledge The University of Arizona is on the land and territories of indigenous peoples. Today, Arizona is home to 22 federally recognized tribes, with Tucson being home to the O’Odham and Yaqui. Committed to diversity and inclusion, the university strives to build sustainable relationships with sovereign native nations and indigenous communities through education offerings, partnerships, and community service.

Bill Konigsberg is the author of six novels, including the Stonewall Book Award and Penn Center USA Literary Award winning The Porcupine of Truth and the Sid Fleischman Award of Humor, winning Openly Straight. In 2018, the National Council of Teachers of English Assembly on Literature for adolescents established the Bill Konigsberg Award and Acts and Activism for Equity and Inclusion through young adult literature.

Its 1987, in New York City, and Micah is at a dance club, trying to pretend he's more out and outgoing than he really is. C.J. isn't just out. He's completely out there. And Micah can't help but be both attracted to and afraid of someone who travels so loudly and proudly through the night.

I'm Rebecca Ballenger, the associate director for Worlds of Words, and I work with the Teen Reading Ambassadors who today got to meet with Bill Konigsberg. Let's start with a round of introductions. I already said my name, and the pop culture soundtrack of my youth has to include INXS.

I’m Aika the office specialist of Worlds of Words, and I would say the like most important band for my coming of age is The Bad Sons. I'm Avery and I'd say the most important song slash band for my coming of age would be Ish by Will Wood and The Tapeworms.

My name is Maggie, and the most important band in my coming of age is Fiona Apple.

I'm Quinn, and the - My favorite artist is Boy with Uke and Green Day.

I'm the other Rebecca, and the most important artist of my coming of age has to be Taylor Swift.

I am Gabby, the song, with my coming of age is going to be Star Shopping by Little Peep.

Okay, so there's no like, building up of excitement. I started at a level ten with this meeting. I was very excited to meet Bill Konigsberg. Can somebody share what your impressions of today's meeting were?

Yeah. so, I had a lot of fun in the meeting. I also cried a lot because I cry really easily, and I cried a lot while reading the book. So answering hearing the questions about the backstory of the book made me cry more.

Yeah, I'm right there with Avery. I definitely teared up because Bill was such a kind and while soft spoken person talked a lot. Which, he apologized for. But we we loved it. And he was, a very genuine, kind person to me.

Meeting Bill was honestly, really, really, resonating with me. It just felt so genuine and authentic. And just to hear him speak as passionately as he was, it just really connected. And like Avery said, she was, she was crying. I wanted to cry, but I'm not really a big crier. So.

Let's talk about the book Destination Unknown a little bit. What ways did you connect with the book?

So like I said, I cried a lot while reading it and, I just because I found some parts of each of the characters very relatable. I didn't find them overall relatable, but just bits and pieces of their life. I just really connected to.

I really connected to uh Micah, the one of the main characters passion for wanting to participate more in his society, which was under fire because of how they were being ignored almost and like just made fun of and ridiculed. I had a I, I guess I connected with the feeling of wanting to do something about it. And, you know, especially like with today's climate, wanting to help make a difference.

So one of the things we talked about with, Bill was, the banter that you have between C.J. and Micah and whether or not it was authentic, too. Well, it was definitely authentic, I think in the 80s, that kind of banter between friends. But whether or not it translated to a modern audience.

It definitely translated to a modern audience. I was laughing and it definitely felt like a conversation I'd have with my friends, considering I sent them a screenshot of the, one of the specific ones, and their immediate reaction was, tell me what book this is, or you're straight. So I think that's.

Yeah. He said that he was moving on from Y.A. novels. are we allowed to say that he.

I think so, yes.

That he told us actually that he is working on another Y.A. novel after saying that he would move on to adult, books and, he said he also already had an adult book done, but I yeah, I think he was definitely a little bit more self-conscious than he needed to be because he his writing came off as more confident and pretty relatable for a younger audience.

Do you have friendships like that?

Well, yeah. When I'm hanging out with a lot of my friends, it's just, this banter like, you know, making fun of each other, almost, but not in a loving sort of way that C.J. would make remarks of C.J. Jay would make remarks about Micah. and they developed, like these sort of moments with each other inside jokes that, I think of me and my, a lot of my friends who are just from experiences, from hanging out together.

I do believe that, the way that this banter was created, that it is a universal connection to, like, I think most teenagers, it's really connected to me and my friends. Like, I'm very quiet when you first get to know me. But, like, as soon as, like, we are connected, like, it's straight banter on and off, through texting, through calls, verbally, like nonverbally with my body language.

I just feel like this was really a universal thing for all teenagers.

I will say, like, not just C.J. and Micah, but also a bit with, his best friend Dena. Like, even though the book kind of portrayed her, like over time as being a little, like, less relatable, like not understanding him as well. There was a certain section where they had a bit of like some laughter, and there was that phrase who was like, oh, we know this is immediately going to enter our, like, lexicon, like that little space or friendship language we have between us.

I feel like that's definitely something I have with my best friend where like, if you like, look through our chat history, you will not understand a thing we're saying without any of that context. Yeah, I have that with one of our friends because we got into this stupid argument with someone and now every time we'll just, like, randomly bring it up, she'll be like, yeah, I'm cleaning my fishes and cleaning my fishes tank today with.

And, you know, it's a good thing I'm not using bleach. And then we just start adding because the person got so mad at them for having to, like, deep clean their tank with bleach. So he just mentioned it every now and then. It's great.

So we also have relationships with parents between parents and teens. And so we see a very traditional mom and dad in one setting. And then we see one character who is with a step dad, um talk a little bit about whether or not those relationships translated as well.

yeah. I said that in the I said this in the, meeting with Bill, that I could definitely relate to Micah's mom and also through that Bill's mom, because he said that that character was, like, loosely based off of his own mom. And yeah, I think it's very I think that's very common to have a parent who's very liberal and says they're very accepting of other people, but when it comes to their own children, because they have a specific life planned out for them, that they're less accepting.

Yeah, exactly. In this book. So for some context, Micah's parents are two Jewish liberals and they're very they have a they the dad is a best friend that is gay and out and they are accepting of that. It's just as even, Bill said, it's more it's different when it's like their kid. So they're less understanding. And I think that more so stemmed from the fear that they had of especially as to what was going on, at the time, the AIDS epidemic, they were scared of what was going to happen for their son and of losing him.

Speaking about the fear, I think the fear is another thing that really held up. It's just seeing people around you that are like dying and just like you. And you know that there's a chance that you might die too. And it's just that fear is still very real with a lot of people.

Which reflected onto the decisions Micah kept making and all the doubts he had about C.J., being scared to hang out with him like he turned him down the very first time they met, because of an incident that occurred with, two homophobic people, outside the bar, and it prevents, I think that fear prevents Micah from getting out, but he eventually is able to get over it and participate in activism.

So which part of which which parenting style do you think would fit better for modern kids? That sort of really permissive come home when the lights are on, kind of parent or the parent who is, you know, attending every swim meet?

I think nowadays parents are a lot less oh, just go out and it doesn't matter, really, because I just feel like there's a lot more.

Not fear. That's not the right word, but just they saw what it was like. They know that like it's easier to your kids can get kidnaped, your kids can get lost. And that wasn't like you weren't constantly hearing about that, as you didn't have social media telling you about every single little thing that's happening. But now you do, and you hear all the horror stories and you're like, oh my God, I don't want that happen to my kid.

So they definitely became a lot stricter all the time.

Yeah. Bill talks about his sister and about how his sister, was very helicopter-ey now in her parenting because she really disliked how her and Bill's mom let them go out in New York City and do anything they want, which is crazy to me. but I wonder what the way Bill said it about his sister. I wonder what she went through that made her have so much fear.

I do think fear is the right word there, because clearly something happened to her that she really just didn't want to happen to her kids. And I wonder what that was.

I think from the perspective of a kid having a parent that lets you go out and do whatever you want sounds like really, really fun. I know there are times where like, for me, I love biking, but I'm only allowed to go out for 30 minutes before having to circle back to my house and asked to go out again, which limits the range that I have.

and I get really frustrated with that sometimes. But in the long run, having the parents always wants to be there for you and always wants to support you is probably the the more effective one.

Maybe some happy middle because you probably all have phones on you, and we did not have phones on us back in the day. And Bill mentioned putting a payphone in the book for, you know, you know, a little bit of authenticity of the time. He also said that Micah is not the main character.

I think it makes sense that C.J. is the main character, because a lot of Micah's development in the story revolves around what he sees from C.J. like, he probably wouldn't have been willing to come out if it weren't for C.J. being there with him. He wouldn't have been going out at night. He wouldn't have been doing most of what he did if it wasn't for C.J. being right there beside him.

And I. Yeah, I think that's why he said Micah wasn't the main character, but.

C.J. was, when Bill had said that in the meeting earlier today, I was actually really, like, surprised. Like, yes, it could have been predicted, but, like, I didn't. I never thought that, like, I thought he was just like a side character. And then he told us that he had originally started this book from CJ's point of view, and then he just he couldn't finish it.

So he had to take another look at CJ's life, but from like a different point of view. So then he came up with Micah or like Micah came along and I thought that was just amazing, that like, he had his eyes set on this one main character and just worked around it like he came up with, like all of these other point of views, but on this specific character.

Yeah. Speaking about that with Bill saying that he felt that he could see C.J. better through somebody else's eyes was really telling, I think for childhood, you can, when you're so attached to who you were because that what that is you. But it really is a very different version of you as you grow up. and looking at your childhood from a different point of view, which I think Bill was doing through Micah, like he was looking at his own childhood through somebody else, I'm sure brought a lot of clarity and closure that he, his inner child, needed.

I definitely, never really saw Micah as the main character because in comparison to C.J., who has this, like, really vibrant, colorful life, almost who's always the life of the party, Micah is kind of, I don't want to say dull because that sounds rude, but, he's like, I don't know, he seems more normal or average by comparison.

So in meeting C.J., he said, was like the moment in his life where he started to finally, like, find some of the same color that C.J. had. So, yeah, it doesn't surprise me at all.

So this book, each chapter is the name of a different song, a great playlist. Let's switch gears a little bit to talk about music. what role do you think music plays in this book and the lives of the characters and by extension, to you- for you as the reader? What does what role does music play in your life?

When we met with Bill earlier, he said some really like interesting things about the music that he put in. He felt that connecting with music was just so much more authentic and elemental, which was such a beautiful word that he used. Like, I would have never thought to use elemental as like a way to describe something, but it just feels so right.

And he just the way that he used the music to connect them, but also to like, verbally connect them. It just it was so complex and so intricate. It just it felt so right.

I think music is like it's what brings people together for concerts. So you meet different people. Like if you see someone walking by wearing a shirt of a band that you like, you're likely to be able to start a conversation with them about it. And that's what happened for Micah and C.J. in the book. They started talking about different music and going following a concert were able to really get to know each other and start other conversations.

So the music is atmospheric. It sets the stage. It sort of helps us to understand the the people in the connections we're making. And one connection, I think that we can make. So we're not the reading ambassadors and I say this all the time, this is not a book club. We have to we have to do advocacy.

And I think one thing that we can advocate for right now, in this time, in this place, pretty easy. A fun thing to do would be to see if, if we could reach Missing Persons, if somehow, some way Dale Bozzio, which if you are born pre-internet and didn't know how to say that might be Bacio and let her know that this, this book is out there and so cool.

Would you guys be into that?

Yes, 100%. I would totally advocate for that.

I think you should really reach out to Bill Konigsberg and tell him that you being and you being mentioned in his book is really cool. You very much appreciate it.

He would love that. Yeah.

Dale, if you're out there, maybe we could do a social media campaign.

Screaming into the void right now.

Right. Exactly.

Something that Bill had spoken about in the meeting was the contrast between how we like, value music. now and how it might be like less than or in a different way than how music was valued or listened to in the 80s, which is when this book took place.

So let's do really quickly our last impressions.

I absolutely love this book. I actually cried multiple times while reading it. I also wept while reading it. It was really good and I definitely recommend that you read Destination Unknown by Bill Konigsberg

My last impression of like, just getting to meet him was we ended on a note to like, really related to how things are today and the idea and the idea of being like active and participating in your society to help make change. So, I don't know, I think meeting him was definitely, amazing. Hearing him talk about how passionate he was and it was really inspiring.

Yeah, he he somehow made me feel so sad, but also have hope for the future, which is hard to do because those are very conflicting emotions, our feelings. But I definitely want to show this book to people who also aren't, young adult, because I know my mom knew people with AIDS, and I think she would really enjoy reading this about how.

And relate to her. Be able to relate this book to her friends who struggled in similar ways.

My last impressions of this book were like it was percept-perception changing, like person. My point of view changing. Like I wouldn't have picked this up like off the shelf, but like, I'm so glad that I got to read this and to meet Bill. It was just amazing. And, the thing that he left us with before he left, was he said that you are not your accomplishments and that his biggest accomplishment was finding a love that was caring and healthy.

And he had had that for 20 years. And he hopes that every single one of us finds love in a beautiful way. And I hope every single one of you guys that are listening finds love in a beautiful way.

I thought that was beautiful too. Gabby, thank you for bringing that up. I liked that we asked him if it was in his nature to be an activist, and he talked about his experience, and it was his lived experience. And through those people that he loved and and seeing, the community engagement that really sort of turned his gears in that way.

Yeah. I think, I think this was definitely an important book to read, just because I don't think I've ever read a book that focused on the AIDS epidemic before, especially, with someone who was like, so like deep into the LGBTQ community in New York in the 80s. So, like, he had a lot of personal things to bring a lot of accuracy to give that I don't think a lot of people would have had, like before reading this book, if they're not really, like, familiar with the AIDS epidemic.

It was it was a bittersweet book. It was hard to read, but it was funny and it was, a fun read as well. So that will bring us to an end. For this podcast episode, I want to thank Ikea for sitting in with us. I want to thank Alexis and Liam, our sound engineer. I need to thank Vianey twice because I neglected to thank her in episode two.

She is the student employee who keeps us all together, administratively. Kate Waterhouse, our lit discussant and the University of Arizona College of Education tech team. We are recording in the Digital Innovation and Learning Lab.