The copyright in the Rye

Today's publishing lesson: If it isn't yours and it's still under copyright, don't sell it.

Seems obvious to you and me, but the latest debacle in the industry goes something like this: An author calling himself J.D. California wants to publish a book called 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye, about Holden Caulfield as a man in his mid-70s. J.D. Salinger is suing.

-CNN: Lawsuit targets "rip-off" of "Catcher in the Rye"
-BBC news: Salinger sues over Rye "sequel"
-New York Times: Planned ‘Rye’ Sequel Draws Salinger Suit
-Huffington Post: Right Or Wrong: J.D. Salinger Wants Holden To Stay "Forever Young" (Warning: If you've ever written fanfiction of any kind at any point in your life, this one will make you roll your eyes.)

Parody is protected by fair use laws, but this looks like a continuation (or where I come from, fanfiction), rather than a parody. Sigh. Some people never learn.

...But I know it when I see it

Via YALSA-BK and the news, I've been following the saga of the West Bend, WI, library and the town debate over YA books that contain GLBTQ content (the one most often named in the news is Geography Club by Brent Hartinger) belong in the YA section of the library, which services 6th-12th grade. I've actually read the story with more interest than rage. That was, until I listened to this radio interview (link is "West Bend Library Issue") with the woman who filed the complaint against the GLBTQ suggested booklist for teens. During the listener call-in, the complainant, Ginny Maziarka, said that she'd met with West Bend's YA librarian and read the "explicit" parts aloud. When asked by the DJ how old the YA librarian, Kristin Pekoll, is, Maziarka responded that Pekoll was in her late 20s. Then comes the irritating part.

Maziarka had the gall to ask Pekoll if (and I paraphrase here) if these were the kind of books that she would take home and read to her children. Pekoll responded, "That is irrelevant to this discussion." Ms Pekoll: GOOD FOR YOU. That was absolutely the right and professional answer to give. Your delivering that answer does the profession good. I don't know how the rest of you feel about this, but my personal life is not up for discussion with my patrons. None of ours should be, regardless of the community we serve.

First, what an incredibly rude question for Ms Maziarka & Co. to ask. That's the kind of question my mother taught me to respond to with a smile and an "I'll forgive you for asking that question if you will forgive me for not responding." Second, and I know this may come as a shock to some, but the number of children one has is completely irrelevant to whether or not one can do a great job as a YA librarian. I've known wonderful YA librarians with no children. I've known terrible YA librarians with two or three children. Ms Pekoll's reproductive status and her parenting choices (if she decides to parent) are no one's business but hers. I wonder if the would-be censors asked the male library director if he had kids, or would read these books to his kids. I bet not. Okay, off that soapbox; it's just a topic that's close to my heart and I had to rant.

The most fundamental problem Ms Maziarka & Co. have, in my opinion, is that although she knows the YA section is supposed to serve people in sixth to twelfth grade, she refuses to acknowledge that anyone over the age of eleven is reading the books. YA is published for people approximately 12-18 years old and despite what the media likes to tell us, there are older teens who love YA. I also find the excuse of "there's nothing on Geography Club that would indicate its content" a little silly. Is there no printing on the book jacket? Every hardcover copy of Geography Club I've ever seen has flap copy written on it. Every review ever written about this book, several of which are easily readable on Amazon or Barnes&Noble.com, discusses the content. With all that information readily available, I'm not buying the argument.

Listen to the whole interview. The callers that call in clearly haven't got a clue as to how the internet differs from books, or how collection development works. The DJ and Ms Maziarka are trying to rile people up. Frankly, I'm not riled because it's patently obvious they, like their listeners, also haven't got a clue as to how collection development, accessibility to materials in libraries, literature awards, writing for teens, bookselling and library law, etc. works. Sometimes I think that the lack of knowledge and education in those who want to control what other people can access at the library is a greater threat than their opposition to "objectionable" content itself.

At the end of the interview, Ms Maziarka stated that she believed West Bend to be a faith-based community. If that is so, then I have faith that the library will keep books like Geography Club in YA where they belong and will leave parenting in the hands of individual parents, not one small group.

Lifestyles of the rich and well-read

This week's media coverage of YA literature is brought to you in part by an opinion piece in the Tufts University Observer: Falling for Young Adult Literature.

I had high hopes for this piece, because it appears to be written by someone who has not only read more than two YA books in the past five years, but actually enjoys them. You all know I'm a big advocate for those over 18 reading YA.

The biggest problem with this piece (and yes, I know it's an opinion piece; that's why I have a blog, so I can disagree with opinion pieces) is a problem that YA librarians see every day when doing RA, collection development, and professional reading: YA literature is held to a different standard than adult literature. Not once does Ms Surya complain about the small, subpar selection of adult novels that has dominated the adult section of the bookstore for years, but the truth is that the percentage of great vs crappy adult novels is about the same as great vs. crappy YA novels. About three thousand YA novels come out every year. Every year, there are fights over what will win the Printz and every year, there are books that are quickly forgotten. Such is the way of reading and publishing.

I quote:

As a response to this recent sales explosion, publishers have started churning out YA books faster than Stephen King novels. A large chunk of the YA genre shows a trend toward developing books with poor writing, repetitive or clichéd plots, and an unnatural, unhealthy focus on romance.

What's wrong with this statement? A few things, if you ask me. First, she says "faster than Stephen King novels" like it's a bad thing. From what I've read and seen online, Stephen King is a dedicated, thoughtful writer and contributor to the art of writing. Also, what Ms Surya calls a trend of developing bad books is entirely a matter of opinion. Cliched plots? There are only 12 plots in all of literature. Poor writing? What makes for poor writing? Even I in my jaded years of reading YA have arguments (friendly ones!) with my colleagues about what good writing is and is not. Last, but not least, what exactly is an unnatural focus on romance, and do these unnatural books really make up a "large chunk of YA?" Books like Gossip Girl, states Surya, "are sad and inaccurate portrayals of teenagers today. Their characters are engulfed in worlds of beauty, fashion, and premature sex— two-dimensional universes that unfairly stereotype teenagers. These authors fail to provide us with any kind of critical lens for our lives, reducing us to mere piles of Gucci and fluff." I think the unfair one here is Ms Surya, who fails to recognize that not all books about teens set out to portray their lives with middle-class accuracy. Books like Gossip Girl are meant to be over-the-top and escapist. They're meant to give a different slice of life. This goes back to the problem of holding YA to a different standard, both moral and quality in this case, than adult literature. Ms Surya seems to think that it is an author's responsibility, and especially a YA author's responsibility, to "provide us with any kind of critical lens for our lives" when in fact, this is not the job of a YA author or the YA genre. An author's job is to tell his or her story. Period. Authors, regardless of what age group they write for owe nothing to their audience except a story.

At the end, Ms Surya reassures us that though the YA market is seemingly dominated by crap, there is still hope in authors like Libba Bray. Well, that's nice. The closing paragraph of the piece begins:

I don’t just want to hear about the girl that I am—I want to know about the woman I will become or, more importantly, the woman I want to become. Books are meant to do more than indulge our fantasies.

That's all fine and good for Ms Surya, and to be fair this is her opinion piece, but isn't this statement a slap in the face to those of us who like to read to indulge our fantasies? Truth is, there is no wrong way to read. Books mean different things to everyone and everyone reads for a different reason. Think of books in the same vein as movies. Some movies are meant to make you laugh, others to make you cry, others to make you think or scream. Books are the same. One art form is not better or more meaningful than the other.

When you read, in the immortal words of Hannah Montana, you can have the best of both worlds. I say we embrace the Gossip Girl and read for whatever reason is closest to our hearts. Even if our hearts contain nothing but Gucci and fluff.

Vacation reading

In 24 hours I am going to be someplace with palm trees, so Librarilly Blonde will be on vacation for a week unless I'm feeling really inspired to blog (unlikely). Until then, have some links:

• The Washington Post fails yet again, this time on the subject of the Newbery Award: Plot twist: The Newbery may dampen kids' reading.
  
  
• Carrie Ryan, author of The Forest of Hands and Teeth, has a wonderfully intelligent reaction to a recent article in the New Yorker about YA lit. Carrie's reaction intrigues me because I am always wondering about the divide between children's and YA, and YA and adult. For even more awesome, read Sherwood Smith's reaction.



• The TV Addict gives the CW its midseason report card: Three hardworking remnants from the beloved WB era (SMALLVILLE, SUPERNATURAL and ONE TREE HILL) proved you don’t need silly things like an actual marketing budget to be successful. I've been saying since August that if the CW spent half the money advertising Supernatural that it did advertising 90210, SPN would easily have twice its ratings. This is not to say SPN's ratings have been bad, because they've actually been quite good, but it's such a superior show to 90210 in terms of writing and acting that I always wondered why the CW gives it no love.



• The BCCLS Teens page has been redesigned. In the interest of slow connections and fussy browsers, we've kept it simple on design and a little heavier on content. In the next few months I'm hoping to add more links, but this will suffice for now.

As my holiday gift to all of you, here's the opening of the best holiday special ever made, Shari's Christmas Concert:

You're giving me a language complex

The things you learn from the Washington Post! In today's Short Stack, written by Dennis Drabelle, I learned that one "graduates" from children's and YA literature to adult novels. No, really! Take a look at the article's introductory paragraph, which I've snipped here:

There comes a time in every reader's life when he or she graduates from kids books and young-adult titles to nonfiction with no holds barred and fiction that draws on the full resources of the language in portraying complex human relationships... The switchover doesn't happen all at once, of course, but there must have been a night when kid lit provided all the thrills and fascination I could handle, followed by a dawn when it seemed blah.

The author then goes on to give us a list of "grownup" books he read around the age of 14. It makes me wonder a few things, the least of which is, "Is this article written for the purpose of being a competitive reader?" You all know competitive readers: "I read The Iliad when I was eight!" "My son/daughter/cousin/neighbor's kid read Harry Potter at 3 and they're his favorite books ever!" I am in no way saying Mr. Drabelle didn't really read or enjoy these books; I am just one of those cynical people. I'm dying to know how old he is and what books were around when he was a teen. I'm also dying to know if anyone guided him to YA lit when he was in its target age range.

He asks at the end of the article for readers to chime in on the books that transformed them into grownup readers. I wonder, then, if those of us adults who read and love YA are not considered "adult" readers.

I think what really annoys me the most is his statement about the "full usage of the language to portray complex human relationships." I have two words for you, Mr. Drabelle: Charlotte's Web. Sure, one could argue that E.B. White didn't use all the words he knew, or strive to write the way Faulkner or Morrison would. It's a disservice to books, however, to say that those that don't use the most adult of adult language and lots of fifty-cent words don't use it fully. The great thing about language is that there are many, many ways to use it. White showed us in Charlotte's Web that complex human (or pig and spider, as the case may be) relationships can and are portrayed in books that don't use the language fully by Mr. Drabelle's standards. Thinking about it, doesn't every book use language fully? Doesn't Ramona and her Father use language as fully as The Great Gatsby? The books fulfill different reader needs and purposes, absolutely, but to say that one is less "full" than the other seems a little silly to me.

I don't think readers should read only children's and YA books all their lives. I certainly enjoyed my fair share of adult books when I was a teen and I expect that most of you reading this did as well. I do think, however, that children's and YA literature is not to be dismissed by any reader, especially those who think enough of their own maturity to call themselves grownups.

Comparing apples and pineapples much?

The dumbest thing I've seen today: Calling Harry Potter and Twilight fans: debaters needed for the ultimate lit geek series showdown.

Wanted: Potter-heads and Twi-hards ready to defend their series in a Harry Potter versus Twilight showdown.

I swore to myself I wouldn't do this, but the handwriting is on the wall: fans of both sets of books are snarking at each other continually already, and I love nothing better than a good old fashioned knock-down, drag-out over the merits, inconsistencies, brilliance, or utter juvenille stupidity of a piece of literature, so who am I to stand in the way of fate?

I'll tell you who you are. I'll tell you that you're one to stand in the way of a "debate" that compares two books that have nothing in common except they're both long, they're both published as YA, and they're both bestsellers. What's there to debate about? The books are two different genres. They take place in two different worlds. They're told in two different styles of narration. They have two different themes. Debating which is "better?" You might as well debate "Which is better: Peanut butter or chicken salad?" They both go on sandwiches, but beyond that, what is there to argue? And what, exactly, is to be derived from this "showdown?"

Fail, Newark Examiner. The concept of a book debate is good, but your choices for said debate are bad.

The best book no kid wants to read

The article everyone in the YA and children's lit world is talking about lately is Has the Newbery lost its way?, by Anita Silvey in the October SLJ. I read the article, and I read Melissa's response to it at Librarian by Day, and I read Monica Edinger's thoughts on the Newbery's relevance, and Roger Sutton's entry, titled Going for the Gold, and Nina Lindsay's response at Heavy Medal.

After reading all of these, I went back and reread the Newbery criteria, and after mixing it all together in my head and baking at 350 degrees I have the following:

1. Why do we care about whether kids like the Newbery books? It's not the committee's charge to pick books kids will like.

2. Isn't Ranganathan's second law "To every book its reader?" Whether a book has millions of readers or fifty, there is a reader for every book out there. Why does it have to be liked, or resonate with a huge number of people, to contribute to the genre? I don't particularly like the Beatles, but I do admit they contributed to the rock genre in important ways.

3. Clearly, we're not doing a good enough job not just educating the public, but educating our fellow librarians, about what the Newbery and the Printz are given for. Personally, I like to say that the Newbery and the Printz are given to works of art, books that stand apart and make us rethink what a children's or YA book can be. The Newbery is given to a book "for which children are a potential audience," which by my interpretation means that the Newbery people have always acknowledged that not all kids will lurve a Newbery winner. Potential, not absolute, not guaranteed. I think the use of the word "potential" shows that the Newbery committee does understand the diversity of children and their reading habits and that no one book will ever speak to all children. Except maybe Holes.

4. One of the things I like best about my job is that I get to talk about YA books with other adults and not be thought of as strange. I think there's extreme value in adults, looking at books published for children and teens, bringing their adult perspectives and experiences to a discussion about said books. It's why I pushed so hard for Octavian Nothing when it came up at the BCCLS Mock Printz in 2007. I thought it was the perfect book to demonstrate why the Printz is given. It was a work of art, chronicling an adolescence that was completely unfamiliar to most teens.

What did I hear at the discussions? "It was too hard to get through." "My kids wouldn't read it." "I didn't understand it." Now, all of these are perfectly legitimate reasons for not adding a book to your collection, where circ stats are key to knowing how you're going to develop your collection in the future. But for an award? I knew the minute I read it that given the Printz criteria and the committee's charge, that it would take an honor for that year if it didn't win the whole thing. Why? Because the Printz criteria, like the Newbery criteria, has nothing to do with how much the intended audience loves a book.

5. In general, I think Silvey's muchly-flawed article wants us to believe that the Newbery committee has a job to do that is not, in fact, in their charge. It is not the job of the Newbery committee to pick the book that will stay a favorite with generations of children. It is not the job of the Newbery committee to make sure that those small-town kids will love the Newbery winner. It is not the job of the "too many experts" on the Newbery Committee to pick the year's most perfect book for children.

Winning the Newbery Medal does not mean a book will automatically be loved or even remembered, or that all children should read it. (Why would anyone make such a ridiculous statement, that "every child" should read ANY given book, Newbery winner or not?) It means that in one particular year, that book made the most outstanding contribution to literature for children. Here's hoping school assignments catch up to that.

We lie. There IS such a thing as a dumb question.

The question every librarian is asked most often at the reference desk is not "Where's the bathroom?" but "Can I ask you a dumb question?" To this, I usually respond, "There is no such thing as a dumb question."

I LIED.

There is such a thing as a dumb question, and the MTV Movies blog has asked it: Team Bella or Team Hermione? Whose side are you on?

Let's look at this question.

To ask a person to take a side in an issue, you must ask them to take one side or another concerning the same issue. Clowns are scary vs. Clowns are funny. Either way, it's a question about clowns. When MTV asks "Bella or Hermione?" they're trying to get people to take "sides" on two completely dissimilar things. It was one thing to ask, "Should Harry ride off into the sunset with Hermione or Ginny," because all the characters were in the same book and Hermione vs. Ginny was two sides of one issue. That is, of course, if you only read every other word of the books and couldn't see the Ron/Hermione coming from miles away. By asking "Bella or Hermione?" MTV assumes that Bella and Hermione represent two sides of the same issue, and they don't. They're not even in the same book.

Bella is a narrator and Hermione is a secondary character, to start. I suppose they're both book-smart, but the evidence we have of that for Bella is somewhat minimal at best. The theme of Twilight is romance and the theme of Harry Potter is the battle between good and evil. Hermione is resourceful and stands up for herself. Bella cooks dinner for her father and lets other men stand up for her. Even the book's perspectives are different: Twilight is first-person and Harry Potter is limited third-person. Bella is remarkably average and Hermione is remarkable. I don't particularly like either character, and that's about all I can see they have in common.

Would someone please explain why this is even a debate? I mean, I guess the blogger wants to compare the main female characters of two bestselling YA series, but so what? Even the bestseller numbers are dissimilar: Breaking Dawn's first print run (2 million) was only 16.67% of that of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (12 million). I like a spirited debate as much as the next person, but this is not a debate. This is comparing apples and pineapples.

Superfudge is still here! Or, outreach with literature.

I'm not the target audience of Babble, a parenting site, because I don't have children. Despite my lack of children I do have an interest in children's books (obviously), so I was intrigued and extremely dismayed to read this blog entry, Where, Oh Where is Superfudge? by Rachel Shukert who, as I see from her bio, is a writer. I guess she's a writer that doesn't read children's or young adult literature, or one that has any familiarity with the reading habits of young people, because those who are familiar with the ever-widening offerings in the children's and YA lit world can see right through this entry.

Shuket's overall argument is that children's and YA books these days are too, well, shiny, too focused on the exploits of rich kids. She can't find any books about poorer, urban, nonwhite, etc. children and seems to believe that they don't exist in children's literature anymore. She encourages readers of her entry to "rescue all those Carter-era stories of latchkey kids and public school and Native American girls abandoned on islands off the coast of California as well."

Believe me, my head is still spinning, and not just because Island of the Blue Dolphins was one of the most boring books I was ever forced to read as a child.

Fancy Nancy is acknowledged, but not Trixie and her beloved Knuffle Bunny in all their Brooklyn landscape glory. Shukert shows a fundamental lack of knowledge about the difference between children's and YA literature, stating in an opening paragraph: There was a time when the shelves of the Young Adult section at the bookstore (or even the library, as the more ancient among you may remember) were filled with stories of smart, urban, and overwhelmingly middle class children doing very normal and often humorous things. She then goes on to talk about Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing, which is not now, has never been, and never will be classified as YA. Beyond this, those shelves are still filled with stories of smart, middle-class children doing normal and humorous things. She just doesn't seem to be willing to look for them, choosing instead to focus on Gossip Girl and the other Poppy series. Shukert goes on at length about Serena van der Woodsen but never once mentions Jacqueline Woodson. She's quick to complain about the lack of normal kids in YA literature but I have a signed galley of Paper Towns that says she's never heard of John Green, or Laurie Halse Anderson, or Walter Dean Myers, or Joan Bauer, or Sarah Dessen, or any other author that does exactly what she complains about authors not doing, that is, writing great books about middle-class and/or urban teens who don't have superpowers.

Lest it seem that I am too hasty to blame Shuket for her complete lack of knowledge of MG and YA literature, please know that one thing I can't stop thinking is, "Why does she know so little?" Any children's and/or YA librarian would be happy to load her up with books by the authors I mentioned. Why did she not talk to any of them before writing off the last three decades' worth of children's and YA books? Why are librarians still so invisible to those who love to complain about how great children's and YA books were back in the good ol' days? In the good ol' days, where gay characters almost always died, and teens who had sex were punished for it by pregnancy or disease, or... Sorry. But seriously, children's and YA lit has come so far in 30 years and I can't help but wonder why there are more books now but less knowledge about them. It's become almost as important to reach adults, especially parents, with YA lit as it is to reach teens. Hmm. Another underserved population, perhaps?

It's true: Some people just don't get it.

I love Editorial Anonymous, the blog of a children's book editor. Yesterday's post on answering the question of "Who is your book for?" led to some fascinating comments, one of which made my head spin so much that I had to respond to it here.

Direct link to the comment is here: What an idiot.

First, this: I'm not yet published, but I have 2 books done and 1 almost done in a series. Not a normal series because the main characters get older in each book.

That's called a bildungsroman, and it's not uncommon, definitely not since Harry Potter. It is neither normal nor abnormal to have the characters get older in each book. It does not make you edgy to age your characters, it just means you chose a different form for your series. The Pendragon and Uglies books do this.

Second: I know exactly the type of reader these are for. I knew that before I wrote any of books. I wrote for the age of the reader for the book. Adults won't get some of it because I didn't write it for them.

OH NO YOU DIDN'T!!!

Knowing the type of reader your book is for is great. It helps us purchasers and reader's advisers immensely if you can say something like, "My book is for teens who love historical romance." If you knew it before you wrote your books, okay, I can't argue, because you're the writer and not me, and if that helped you focus the book more power to you. But don't you DARE say that "adults won't get it because you didn't write it for them." Here's the major problem I have with writers who write children's books with that attitude:

Who do you think is going to buy, publish, publicize, review and sell your book?

Here's a hint: It's not children.

I am forever sick of being told that I don't "get" a teen book because I'm an adult. First, didn't an adult WRITE this book? Second, I think that a reader "getting" a book depends much more on the writer than on the reader. It's the writer's job to convey his or her ideas in a fashion that will make it clear to the reader what's going on. If a writer writes a book that no adult will understand, how will an adult literary agent sell that book to a publisher? How will an adult editor edit? How will adults in the publicity department get copies out to adult reviewers who write for review publications read by adults? I am curious as to how this anonymous commenter thinks the book will ever reach any kind of an audience if adults can't read it and sell it to child readers. Unless, of course, s/he envisions some kind of wunderkind Utopia over at 1745 Broadway, filled with the most brilliant minds under the age of 18.

I am not stupid and non-understanding of children because I am an adult, and if your book is written so adults "don't get it," that is your problem, not theirs.

Third: I am going to have a hard time "selling" this to a publisher. Of course.

Well, you said it, I didn't. But really, why do you think that is?

Probably my most beloved publishing blog of all time is the late, great, Miss Snark. Miss Snark wrote about the business of acquiring and selling fiction. No matter what questions most authors had about their books, one thing always seemed to be the theme: Good writing trumps all.

There are many YA books that are hard sells because they don't booktalk easily. Holes is one of them. The Book Thief, Impossible and everything John Green has ever written are prime examples of this. All of those books have one thing in common: The writing is absolutely stellar. None of these authors said that adults wouldn't understand books. They wrote the best story they could aimed at a YA audience. Publishing is a difficult industry to get into, yes, but in the end, it's all about how well you write. Good writing will be recognized by children and adults alike.

Also, why is "selling" in quotation marks? You sell a book. Period.

Interestingly, I have heard the "adults just don't get it" argument from an author who blogged about the reasons his book got a bad review in Kirkus.

Fourth, this gets my Ridiculous Line of the Day Award: I hated Harry Potter. She killed a teen aged boy and there was cruelty in the books.

J.K. Rowling killed someone? When? Why was she not sent to jail?

Ohhhh, because she killed a fictional character in one of the sharpest, most honest moments in the entire Harry Potter series. I will argue until the end of time that Cedric Diggory's death was an absolutely instrumental plot device, turning the entire series. And if it was wrong to kill Cedric Diggory, does this anonymous commenter also have it in for writers like Katherine Paterson, Jerry Spinelli, and E.B. White? How guilty can any of us feel about what we do to fictional characters?

And there was cruelty in the books! One would think that without J.K. Rowling all books for children would be perfectly safe stories of children frolicking in rainbows and playing with butterflies and puppies. Because there was never cruelty chronicled in children's books before Harry Potter, oh no.

Look, no one has to like the Harry Potter books. I certainly liked them but if someone gives them a chance and decides it's not for him, that's fine. To every reader his or her book. That's why libraries have thousands of books and trained reader's advisers. Feel free to hate the books because you thought Cedric Diggory should have lived, but don't hold Harry Potter to a different standard than the rest of the genre.

Anarchy in the UK! (Age banding)

One of my biggest pet peeves in library teen services are public libraries who split their YA collection into "middle school" and "high school" or somesuch. (Note: This peeve does not apply to school libraries.) I've always felt that this discourages not only reading on the part of the teen patron, but an effort to do your job well and know the literature on the part of a librarian. If you work hard at your job and read the literature and know the books, you shouldn't have to separate your collection. You should be able to hand-sell the right book to the right reader without breaking down the collection. It's not that I don't support dividing a library's collection into picture books, easy readers, middle grade, YA, and adult, but I don't support breaking it down any further than that.

Apparently, British publishers disagree with me. For the linkphobic, Philip Pullman, Jacqueline Wilson, and other British authors have come together to protest age banding, a practice that will start this fall that will mark the front covers of books with age designations: 5+, 7+, 9+, 11+ and 13+/teen. Many authors and librarians (myself included) think this is a terrible idea and have established No to Age Banding in protest.

One of the comments to the Telegraph article reads: There are certain types of material that young children should not be exposed to before they have the emotional or intellectual resources to deal it. Why are these authors so reluctant to protect the young could it be they are greedy or have political agendas?

I think this commenter is missing the point. He doesn't seem to understand that every child has a different level of emotional and intellectual resources. Some kids are ready to babysit at eleven while others still need to be babysat. That's where librarians come in. We have the knowledge and the resources to interview each reader and suggest books that he or she will enjoy. My favorite book when I was in third grade (eight years old) was The Pistachio Prescription by Paula Danziger. Cassie, the main character of that book is thirteen and in eighth grade, concerned with her average looks, class president elections, her mother's superficiality, dating, and parties. In short, things most third-graders don't deal with. But I loved how honest and witty Cassie was, how much she cared about her best friend and her little brother, and how open she was about her anxieties. That book would probably carry an 11+ age branding but at eight, it spoke volumes to me. Would this commenter think that Paula Danziger, bless her, was reluctant to protect me? Maybe, but it wasn't Paula Danziger's job to do so. Because I learned to read at an early age, I had a lot of autonomy when choosing books. I often asked the librarians at the public library (Sharon Levine, I will never forget you!) for suggestions, and they were able to recommend books based not on my age, but what kind of reader I was.

Personally, I think age banding is a great way to encourage unhealthy competition in both parents and kids, to discourage those who don't read as fast or as well as their peers from reading at all, and to have publishers make decisions that are best made by parents, children, librarians, and booksellers. But that might just be my greedy political agenda.

Editing to add: Printz winner Meg Rosoff thinks age banding is a good thing.

I do not think that award means what you think it means

Via one of my listservs, I found this entry from The Reading Zone. It's an entry I pretty much agree with, talking about the effect the No Child Left Behind act has on reading for pleasure. What I find odd are the comments from "safelibraries," who seems to have a very skewed idea of what the Printz award is given for.

The Reading Zone suggests that books like Printz winner Looking for Alaska and honor book Speak be read and discussed in classrooms, not instead of but along with the classics most high school students are assigned. SafeLibraries says, in one of his/her comments:

Regarding parents needing to be aware of things, you are correct. But right now ALA-awarded books are considered ideal without the need for parents to question the ALA. The parents are aware the books are award winning books and that’s enough to know. Parents are not yet aware that the ALA now awards books that parents would not want their children to read if they knew the true contents. That’s the rub.

Nowhere in the Printz criteria does it say that a winner or honor book is ideal for any one reader or even any one audience. The Printz is given for literary merit, meaning (to me) that it's not always what you say, but how you say it. I could have written a novel with the same ideas as Looking for Alaska, for example, but because John Green is a much better writer than I, he was able to give it a literary bent that I could not. Green's use of language is what made that book stand out. When the Printz committee awarded Alaska, it was because of the way Green conveyed his ideas and made his characters come to life. The Printz committee does not care what content is in a book. It's not their job to care, frankly. American Born Chinese has no sex in it at all, but Repossessed does (sort of). When the Printz committee grants the award, they are in no way saying that the winner is a book appropriate for all children 12-18. That would be ridiculous. No such book exists, regardless of content. Teens are too diverse for any one group of people to determine what is good for all. I would also say the same for the Newbery. The book that wins the Newbery is not going to be enjoyed by all children, and their parents might not deem it appropriate.

SafeLibraries continues:

Parents are supposed to judge books for their own children, while at the same time parents are misled as to the contents of those books.

I really don't get how giving a book an award would mislead any parent as to the content. The award is given for the way the book is written, not what topics it's written about. A parent picking up a book with an award medal on the cover will probably figure that the book is good because it is. A group of people who did nothing but read YA books for a year deemed that particular book the most outstanding contribution to the genre in that given year. But an award sticker cannot tell a parent how appropriate, or not, the book is for their child. Everyone's values are different.

SafeLibraries cites an article in which former YALSA president Pam Spencer Holley was quoted talking about the Gossip Girl books:

So I’m going to provide evidence that, to me, is clear and convincing.

Consider the following:

“The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), the fastest growing division of the American Library Association (ALA), has announced a list of books to recommend to teens, both avid and reluctant readers, who are looking for books like Cecily von Ziegesar’s ‘Gossip Girl’ series.

“‘The books on this list are perfect for when your readers have finished with every “Gossip Girl” title in your library and are clamoring for another book like the Gossip Girl,’ said YALSA President Pam Spencer Holley.”
The press release goes on to say, “For nearly 50 years YALSA has been the world leader in selecting books, videos, and audiobooks for teens.” Fine. But why not also reveal that at a certain point along that timeline YALSA started recommending sexually inappropriate books for children, accompanied by glowing reviews that intentionally hide such inappropriate material? You buy these books in a bookstore and the store signs advise of inappropriate content. The ALA has no such advisories. This is another example why the ALA should no longer be considered authoritative when it comes to the recommendation of children’s books.

I have never seen signs in a bookstore advising that some content of YA books is explicit. Has anyone else? If so, where did you see them and what did they say?

Also, what is "sexually inappropriate?" And if the Gossip Girl series is just that, reader's advisory logic would dictate that those who love Gossip Girl would love other books that address the teen view of sex. "The ALA has no such advisories," but doesn't that speak to a belief that says that ultimately the teen (and the parent, if so desired) has to be the last word on what book is appropriate for him/her? There's a wide range of maturity in teens, and even in adults, and since librarians cannot address every single teen, the best we can do is recommend readalikes and let the reader decide.

In the meantime, here is YALSA's Printz Award page.