Family and Consumer Sciences

Title: How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else
Author: Gill, Michael Gates
Publisher: Gotham Books
ISBN: 978-1-592-40286-1           

Review: Just as Starbucks coffee is used as the “wake-up” beverage of choice for countless thousands, this book chronicles the wake-up call Michael Gates Gill received as he faced a reversal of fortune from a high-level advertising executive to a barista at Starbucks.  Michael, who grew up in New York, was born the first son in a prominent family.  His father, Brendan Gill was a well-known writer for the New Yorker and friend to many of the city’s most affluent and famous people.  While still a boy, Michael moved with his family to the prosperous New York suburb known as Bronxville.  The family house had twenty-five rooms, a gymnasium, and a two-story library.

A Yale graduate, Michael joined the world’s leading advertising agency, J. Walter Thompson. By his fifties, he had a big house in the suburbs, a loving family, and a six-figure salary. At age fifty-three, after giving the company most of his life, talents, energy, and countless hours away from family and life’s important events, he received the devastating news that he was no longer needed at the advertising agency.

Michael’s work gave him a place, title, income, and status.  He suffered devastating loss, and for the next seven years he floundered in a consulting wasteland attempting to find work that aligned with his professional and personal identity.  His life went from bad to worse.  His marriage ended due to a serious indiscretion.  The final blow came when, uninsured, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor.  At sixty-three he found himself with no money, no health insurance, no family, and no prospects.

At his very lowest point, Michael, in a desperate attempt to find comfort and to make some sense of his hopeless life, ordered his last affordable luxury, a Starbucks latte.  As he sat wearing a Brooks Brothers suit, brooding about his misfortune and his dwindling list of options, a 28-year-old Starbucks manager approached him and half-joking, offered him a job.  This chance encounter would literally change his life.  In his desperation, he did not have the energy to be polite or even lie about his financial state.  He surprised himself by saying, “Yes, I need a job.”  With nothing to lose, he went from drinking coffee in a Brooks Brothers suit to serving it in a green apron.  His job at Starbucks proved to be his road to redemption in many ways.

Suggested Questions/Discussion Points:

1. What was the significance of Michael’s early life as it related to his later misfortune?

2. What factors led up to Michael’s early financial success?

3. What factors led up to Michael’s later financial loss?

4. What factors led up to Michael’s personal loss of his wife and family?

5. Why was Michael’s identity and purpose tied to his corporate work?

6. How do you think Michael felt when he was offered the job at Starbucks?

7. Why did Michael initially feel that putting on the Starbucks uniform was humiliating and scary?

8. How did Michael’s attitude contribute to his eventual success at Starbucks?

9. What does the phrase “He downsized his career while he upsized his life.” mean to you?  In what ways did Michael’s outlook on life change from age fifty to sixty-five?

10. What is the ultimate lesson to be learned from this book regarding personal and professional   values?

Special Note : The movie, How Starbucks Saved My Life starring Tom Hanks as Michael Gates Gill, is a  2008 production Universal production.If your school permits, the film could be shown after the book has been read.  The students should compare/contrast the book and the movie. 

Title: The Outsiders
Author: S.E. Hinton
Publisher:Viking Press
ISBN: 978014038572

Review: Ponyboy Curtis, the main character, his brothers, and friends are from the wrong side of the track and face perpetual gang battles with the Soc’s, the elite, rich kids. The characters not only encounter stereotyping of friendships, gangs, and rivalries but also survival and death. The bittersweet ending showcases social class distinctions of adolescents in the 1960’s.  (Note:  The author started the first draft of The Outsiders when 15 years old and had completed the book by 17!)

Suggested Questions/Discussion Points:
1.  Read the novel as a group by including oral and silent reading.
2.  Hold class discussion on:

• Problems faced by the characters with schools and the community. 
• Prejudices and valuing individuals on the basis of social class.

3.  Have the student’s journal thoughts on events in the novel.
4.  Go to the website (http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/LitNote/The-Outsiders-About-the-Author-Personal-Background.id-139,pageNum-1.html) for information about the author, summary of chapters, and discussion questions.

Follow Up: Watch the DVD The Outsiders (1983) compare and contrast events and characters to the novel. The film is rated PG 13.

Title: When Zachary Beaver Came to Town
Author: Kimberly Willis Holt
Publisher: Laurel Leaf
ISBN: 0440238412

Review: Prior to the summer of 1971, Toby Wilson’s life appeared rather ordinary.  He and his best friend Cal liked to roam the small town of Antler, Texas where they live, escaping the summer heat at Wiley Womack’s snow cone stand and dreaming about girls like Scarlette Stalling.  But everything changes when Toby’s mother leaves home for good; Wayne  McKnight, Cal’s older brother, is killed in Vietnam; and Zachary Beaver, the fattest boy in the world, enters town.  At first. Toby and Cal are disgusted when they meet all 643 pounds of Zachary Beaver, but when Zachary is left alone by his guardian, Paulie Rankin, the boys befriend him and learn important lessons about the power of friendship.

Suggested Questions/Discussion Points:

1. Examine Toby’s friendships and discuss how they affect him. Define friendship; explain what it means to have friends and what character traits you value in your friends.  What traits do you    possess that make you a friend to others?
2. Toby’s dad tells him, “You are a lucky person if you go through life and have one person need you.” (p. 195)  Do you agree with this statement?  Why or why not?  Give examples from the book and your own life to support your belief about the validity of this statement.
3. People all over Texas pay $2 to see Zachary, then make fun of him and ask him rude questions about how much he eats.  Have you ever made fun of somebody or called him or her names?  How did that make you feel?  Has anybody ever made fun of you?  How did it make you feel?    Why do people make fun of others?  What benefit do they derive from this?  What is the Golden Rule, and how could it be applied to this situation?
4. Toby and Cal both suffer loss, but they handle it differently.  What factors contribute to the way they deal with their grief?  Do they go thorough the five stages of grief---denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance?  Have you or has someone you know lost someone special? Was the experience similar and did you or the person you know share the             same emotions?  How do you think you would handle what happened to Toby and Cal?
5. How do Cal and Toby’s encounter with Zachary help them decide what kind of friends and what kind of people they want to become?
6. Through Zachary’s move to Antler, the author shows several ways people learn to live with and to like strangers.  What are some of those ways? Have you ever had an encounter with a stranger that changed your life? How have you dealt with new kids at school, at church, or in your neighborhood?  Have you ever been the new kid?  How were you treated? How did you feel about how you were treated?
7. Even though they are best friends, Toby and Cal keep secrets from each other. Why do the boys keep secrets from each other?  Is it ever all right to tell a secret?  Does keeping secrets hurt other people?
8. When Toby and Cal first meet Zachary, they think he is rude, selfish, and not worth getting to know.  What changes their perspective?  Why are they willing to take risks to help Zachary?  Does Zachary appreciate what Cal and Toby do for him?  Have you ever changed your opinion about a person after getting to know him or her?

Book review and questions adapted from www.teenreads.com