YA is extraordinary if you ever get to know it

Earlier today, Liz B and I did a presentation for the New Jersey Youth Services Forum on YA for older readers, officially titled "YA for Older Readers: More than just sex and four-letter words." We spent a little over half the presentation talking about themes and trends in YA for older readers, and one of the things we really worked hard on was talking about YA for older readers that was literary, or fun, or both. We wanted to show our audience the huge range of possibilities for YA fiction, especially realistic fiction that didn't necessarily have sex, drugs, or rock and roll but required life and reading experience to understand. I also had a 5-minute section prepared on how Gossip Girl has changed YA publishing for the better, but alas, I didn't have the time to give it.

It seems like an act of the cosmos, then, that I would run across this blog entry today: Is my novel too weird? at Revising Leah. This blogger, who appears to be at work on (or has just finished) a novel he believes is probably YA, says (with many parts snipped out because I know y'all can follow links):

But the other day, when it occurred to me that my novel might be a little too weird, I wasn’t thinking about one specific element of the story that I could correct; rather, I was thinking about the story as a whole. What I thought was weird about my story isn’t that it is odd or idiosyncratic in places (the best works of literature are often those that are a little strange);instead, it’s the fact that the story really isn’t weird at all which makes it too weird...

...the “second act” of my novel revolves around a history report on the ancient Egyptians. Of course, that report is a plot device... Leah goes to the library, she takes notes, she writes her essay, she’s nervous about reading it in front of her class. These are some of the most mundane events imaginable, and what worries me is that the story itself is too focused on these mundane events.

But what I like about the mundane is that it is real. Sadly, it’s true that a lot of the horrible things that happen to main characters in other young adult novels do happen to some real teenagers in real life, but most teenagers live relatively mundane lives... If I write a story about these things, then I may be writing a “real” story, but the price I have to pay for that realism is, I guess, a weird and boring novel.

No.

That's not how it works.

Revising Leah believes, or at least I glean this from reading his entries, that in order to appeal to a wide YA audience you need to have some kind of Big Traumatic Event. He doesn't want to write the BTEs because that's not what interested him as a teen and he's not into "melodrama." And you know? That's perfectly fine. What's not fine is believing that these books represent all contemporary YA and all YA sales, or that a writer has to write BTEs and melodrama in order to sell books. Plenty of books sell that contain none of these things. Plenty of books sell that aren't science fiction or fantasy. YA is a cool genre because anything can happen, including realism that appears to be boring on the surface but is saved by great writing (see the list at the end of this entry). It's also not fine to believe that popular books are bad and less popular, more literary books are good. Gossip Girl is not inherently worse than Looking for Alaska. There's room in YA for everything. YA is a place where The Clique can happen as easily as Madapple and everything Ellen Hopkins ever wrote.

I don't think there's a "price to pay for realism" at all. The only price around is the one the reader pays when the writer doesn't see that YA can be literary, that it can have many layers, and that a story about everyday life doesn't have to be, well, everyday. As Stephen King said in On Writing, our lives have no plots, so a plot where some kind of big trauma happens is not necessarily the key to a successful YA novel. "Relatable" characters are not necessarily ordinary. We all related to Harry Potter not because he was magical, but because he got into fights with his friends and completely screwed things up with Cho Chang and always strived to do the right thing. Harry Potter is as ordinary as you and I, and that heart, that brand of realism, is what makes for a successful YA novel.

I've added some of my favorite YA about ordinary teens here:


Dramarama: Broadway shows bring their own drama.

An Abundance of Katherines: Boy goes on a road trip at the end of his senior year and falls in love.

Crooked: A normal boy and girl form an unlikely friendship and try to navigate bullies and parental troubles.

Prom: Her boyfriend is kind of an ass but she still wants to go to prom.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist: Two souls meet and bond over exes and music.

Criss Cross: She wished something would happen.

A Little Friendly Advice: Dad wants to make reparations. Also, there's a camera.

Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie: Freshman year is an extreme sport.

(and feel free to add your own favorite great "nothing happens here" titles!)

Yes, I know these are all realistic fiction, because strange and brilliant things happening to teens is sort of the point of YA science fiction and fantasy.

Icky, angsty, and...not so bad

In the Calgary Herald: A new generation of icky, angsty, inspirational books for teens

Yeah, that headline had me worried, too. But it's not bad at all! Look:

Sure, they text and they Twitter and they play way too much Wii. But all those twitchy, tormented adolescent souls are still able to lose--and then find--themselves in the current wave of good reads.

- - -

"Sophisticated, witty, and urbane." These are adjectives usually applied to novels about high-powered women on the prowl or tell-all tomes about Washington's elite. Surprisingly, these words were lifted instead from gushy reviews about the new breed of books aimed at youth readers. Life can be treacherous and turbulent during adolescence. Raging hormones, mingled with intense social and educational pressures, are enough to make any teenager crawl under the covers and wait for the storm to pass. It takes stones and sensitivity to tackle stories about these often awkward and baffling years, and the new breed of writers has risen to the challenge in a way that is pleasing not only their audiences, but parents, librarians and school administrators alike.

The article mentions books like Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (though it spells Norah wrong) in addition to The Triumvirate That Must Not Be Named. It also has writeups of some old YA favorites, which I guess is the old generation of icky, angsty, inspirational books. A little long, but worth the read.

I'll tell you what's in a name

from Bookshelves of Doom: Mother names her child Reneesme Bella.

I say it could have been much, much worse. After all, the mother could have named her kid Carlisle. What kind of a name is THAT? And then, she could have added insult to injury by calling the kid Carlie, cause it's totally Carlisle + Charlie and not just a possible short form of Carlisle. Wait, wait, I've got it. The worst possible thing would have definitely been to name the kid Carlisle and then give her some middle name like Elizabeth.

(Mom, I'm totally kidding. I like being a Carlisle now that I'm a grownup. But I still think Reneesme Bella is a dumb name, and a terrible thing to visit on a baby.)

Review: The Boy Who Dared by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

I'm on a sprint to read books with multiple starred reviews because the time for putting the BCCLS Mock Printz list together is drawing near. Today's book: The Boy Who Dared by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

We begin with a Tuesday in the life of Helmuth Guddat Huebner, a German political prisoner in 1942. Tuesday is the day the executioner comes, and Helmuth wonders if today might be his last day on Earth. As we move from scenes in Helmuth's prison cell to the story of his childhood, we see a boy with a strong sense of justice, who is not willing to defy his own views and beliefs just because they are the beliefs of the majority. Helmuth is eight years old when Hitler comes to power, but even at eight Helmuth can see that not everything Hitler does is really in the best interests of Germany. Hitler may talk about protecting Germans, but Helmuth knows he is losing freedoms and being told what to think about non-Germans. He fights with his mother's boyfriend, a Nazi who believes that Hitler is in the right. He also defies his teachers, who want him to write pro-Nazi school papers. Because of his views on humanity and equality, Helmuth is encouraged to stay silent. But as we know, quiet people don't have books written about their lives.

Using information he hears from the BBC on a black-market radio, Helmuth begins distributing flyers that speak against the Nazi party and its propaganda. He is eventually caught by the Nazis and put on trial. Even with the knowledge that he is facing imprisonment, maybe execution, Helmuth refuses to stay silent or allow others to take his punishment.

The book is definitely worthy of all its starred reviews. It's a fast yet thought-provoking read, and I am always supportive of books that show young readers why defiance in an oppressive time (WWII or not) is never as easy as it looks. Bartoletti keeps the focus on Helmuth tight and shows the reader German history really well without going off into history data-dumping tangents. We see the struggle Helmuth must fight between speaking for what he believes is right and the knowledge that doing so could get him sent to prison, or worse. Bartoletti makes us understand why even those who did not believe in the Nazi ideals joined the party and fought in the war. There's also a powerful look at how the distribution and receipt of information influence people's beliefs.

With all this, do I think it's a Printz book? As much as I liked it, I'm leaning toward no. I would definitely buy it for my library, booktalk it, and perhaps even use it in a book discussion group. It's nominated to BBYA and is quite deserving of a spot on that list. I just don't think that it terms of "literary" it's in the same field as some of my other favorites. Not all books have to be literary, though, and I do encourage you all to take a look at this book.

Books: The anti-chocolate

Today's headline: New Study Proves Beacon Street Girls Fight Childhood Obesity.

A new study from Duke Children's Hospital indicates the Beacon Street Girls' popular book series helps tween girls improve their eating and exercise habits, and significantly improve their Body Mass Index (BMI) percentiles. The study was presented over the weekend at the Obesity Society annual scientific meeting.

More on this topic: Can Reading Help Kids Lose Weight? (Time Magazine) Can Reading Help Children Lose Weight? (ITWire). Editing to add: Youth lit used as weight loss tool (USA Today)

I'm intrigued, to say in the least. More specifically, I'm intrigued as to what it is about this particular Beacon Street Girls book that encouraged weight loss. I have to wonder: If this specific BSG book encourages weight loss, would other books encourage other behaviors, that is, behaviors that go beyond something like kids dressing as Harry Potter for Halloween and having impromptu Quidditch games in their back yards? The ITWire article says:

The special point about the book was that it contains special passages that pointed out the correct ways to live a healthy lifestyle. It also mentions ways to control weight, along with the use of role models and positive statements geared toward weight loss and healthy lifestyle.

Now, I have not read Lake Rescue, the book that helped with the weight loss, but it seems like it was engineered to send these healthy living messages. If that's the case, at what point does a book make kids change their ways and can other books have similar effects? Where does a book like this become didactic? One of the points librarians always make when faced with people who want to pull books from our shelves because they might "give children the wrong ideas" is that children do have the ability to distinguish between fantasy and reality. I don't doubt this for a second, but now it seems like, if you squint at it, these books exploit a blurred line between fantasy and reality. Yes, that's very tinhat of me, I'm just trying to go to the extreme on the other side. Has anyone read Lake Rescue? What's in there that would inspire tween girls to lose weight, and more importantly, what isn't in other titles for tweens that would inspire them to, say, travel the world or stop bullying or volunteer at an animal rescue?

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.

It's the little fizzy things that matter

I'm reading a book right now that...I guess it's set in Chicago, though the author never says exactly where the main character lives. And by "set in Chicago," I mean it takes place in the actual city, not the suburbs. This is somewhat important.

At one point in the book, the main character goes on a date, and the author describes a table in the pizzeria where said date takes place as being "sticky with soda."

Soda? What? No way. People from Chicago and Cook County (where I grew up) call that fizzy stuff that comes in cans "pop." Except for my mom. (Hi, Mom!) So I Googled the author and found that she's not from Cook County but Lake County, which according to the very highly scientific Illinois pop-vs-soda survey has a slightly higher incidence of calling that fizzy stuff that comes in cans "soda" than Cook County. Even more, people who live in Cook, Lake, and DuPage County have lower instances of calling it pop than the rest of northern Illinois. But the fact still stands: A narrator from Chicago is much more likely to call it "pop." My family has lived in Chicago and Cook County for generations and the only one of us who ever calls it "soda" is my mom. My friends and I at my Cook County high school? Called it "pop."

More stats on "pop" vs. "soda" vs. "Coke" can be seen here: Generic Names for Soft Drinks.

You'll notice, looking at the map, that all of New Jersey is olive green, meaning that 80-100% of the survey respondents refer to it as "soda." True story: For my very first Teen Advisory Board meeting in New Jersey, I said to the members, "I am happy to get you whatever kind of snacks you want, so if you have food allergies or if you like a certain kind of pop, please let me know."

They all looked at me as though I'd grown a second head and said, "It's SODA."

I never understood why anyone would call it "soda." It's called "pop" because that's what it does! Fight that logic, New Jersey.

A little friendly interview with Siobhan Vivian

It's almost the end of Impromptu Author Interview Month here at Librarilly Blonde, so I'm going out with a bang. Today's interview features the awesome Siobhan Vivian. Her first book, A Little Friendly Advice, has received praise from sites like Teenreads.com and Slayground. Although I'm not yet running a review of her Spring '09 novel, Same Difference (pictured above), do keep an eye out for it. Read on to learn about Siobhan's thoughts on writing, bad boys, and her plans for the future.


Carlie Webber: First, three cheers for a fellow Jersey girl! You're from NJ and now live in NY but your first novel, A Little Friendly Advice, is set in Ohio. What inspired you to set it there?

Siobhan Vivian: Oh Jersey, how I love ye!

It’s funny—during my MFA program, all my novels-in-progress were set in New Jersey. So when I started working on ALFA during my last semester of school, I was in great need of some new scenery.

I ultimately chose Akron, Ohio because I have a few close friends who live there, and I’d spent quite a bit of time visiting them, so I felt I had the lay of the land pretty much down. Also, Akron is a rad town! It has so many cool places—like Square Records and Revival and the weird old movie house—but it’s almost completely unaware of its coolness. Having lived in a few “flashy” cities, I found that lack of pretension refreshing. I also loved the disparity of wealth within the town and, of course, the humungous opulent rubber mansions. They are all old and charming and individual, not like the McMansions you always read about nowadays.

CW: Your second novel, Same Difference, is out in galley now and will be published in the spring of 2009. Tell us what it's about.

SV: Same Difference is the story of a girl named Emily who struggles with having two different identities/personalities—whether she’s in her typical suburban hometown with the best friend she’s grown up with, or having creatively inspiring adventures in Philadelphia with a super cool, wild new girl whom she befriends in a summer art class. Eventually, those two worlds collide, leaving Emily to try and figure out who she really is.

CW: How was writing your second novel different (or the same?) as writing your first?

SV: Same Difference is a very personal story, which made writing the emotional component a lot more difficult than I had anticipated. I also expected to feel confident with my writing this time around, having one published novel under my belt. Umm. Not. That state of mind set me up for a lot of angst and turmoil. Seriously, this book nearly killed me.

CW:You have a background in art. What parts of your art education did you incorporate into Same Difference?

SV: I had attended a pre-college arts program exactly like Emily’s during the summer between my junior and senior year of high school, and it changed my life. I drew endlessly on those experiences for Same Difference, including my very first time seeing Duchamp at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. After graduating high school, I returned to that university for undergraduate study…and also began to teach within the pre-college program.


CW: Everyone always talks about the appeal of the "bad boy" in YA lit, but your boys tend to be more "good boys." Why do the boys and boyfriends in your novels tend to be more artsy than bad-boy?

SV: Hmmm. This is a great question. I think I write “good boys” because, for me, the romantic component of a YA novel is usually the least interesting. I’m much more fascinated by the dynamics between girls, and the way friendships can evolve and change. Also, in my own experience growing up, I was way more emotional about my friends than I was about boyfriends. It was beat endlessly into my head – boyfriend come and go, but friendships are what really matter. When I’m reading a story about a “bad boy”, I tend to lose patience and sympathy for the main character. I keep my boys nice and artsy, so they can add fuel to the self-discovering journey of my main characters, but not steal the show from what I think are more high stakes situations and relationships.

CW: All authors who get interviewed in this blog must answer this question: What's one book, written by someone else, that you wish you had written?

SV: Easy. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks, by E. Lockhart.

CW:What's one piece of advice you wish someone had given you when you started your writing career?

SV: That writing doesn’t get easier. In fact, it shouldn’t get easier, if you’re really pushing yourself.

CW: What are you working on now, and what are your writing plans for the more distant future?

SV: I’m working on a new YA called Past Perfect. It’s about a girl’s evolving relationship with the brother she’s always idolized, discovering your sexuality, and being okay with your flaws.

As for the future, I’d like to continue writing YA novels, and hopefully carve out a nice and loyal audience for myself, so that the Powers That Be will continue to publish me. I’m also kicking around a few film and television ideas that I hope to spend some time developing. Basically, these last two years of being a full-time writer have been the most satisfying and creatively stimulating of my life. I want more more more.

Tales of a Fourth Grade You

Today's Entertainment Weekly Popwatch blog asks readers to share your formative Judy Blume experiences.

The first Judy Blume book I ever read was Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, and then I think it was Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret. after that. I might not have understood every word of the books, but I do know that Margaret helped me be fearless about bras and periods and all that other fun girl stuff, and Peter Hatcher, just like me, was the more conservative, fact-oriented older sibling of, um, a free spirit. Really, where would YA lit be today without Judy Blume?

In the Guardian: How to Write

Even though I have no interesting in writing a novel of my own, I love to read writers' boards and publishing blogs. I guess it's the same thing in my head that makes me love Project Runway even though I can't thread a needle. I like seeing what goes into works of art, and how industry trends shape. Today's Guardian has an essay series everyone who loves children's an YA books will want to read, titled How to Write.

Child's play: Writing for children means thinking about your own past, while staying in touch with young people now by Michael Rosen


Genre in Children's Writing by Linda Newbery and Meg Rosoff

Characters and Viewpoint by Linda Newbery, Michael Lawrence and Lauren Child

There are many more essays in the series. My favorite essay of the bunch is David Fickling's (he's the man behind books like Before I Die and A Swift Pure Cry): What next? Don't want to end up on publishers' slush piles? Read out loud before you get read. It begins:

Not everyone can sing. Not everyone can write. Even fewer people can sing professionally. Even fewer can write professionally. Do not be like those poor deluded souls who audition for the X Factor and clearly can't sing for toffee. There are far too many hopelessly written typescripts sloshing about on publisher's slush piles. They clog up the system and are a waste of everybody's time, particularly if you are a good writer yourself. There is a mistaken view that writing for children is easy. It isn't. There is another view that children's books today are of generally poor quality. They aren't.

Someday I want to meet this man just so I can shake his hand. The truth is, not everyone can do everything no matter how badly they want to. We all have talents, and we all have things that we will never do well no matter how much we practice or how good we think we are. For some people, that thing they will never do well is writing. But I'll let you decide on the rest of it for yourself.