Article to read: Grown up girls...

Finally, an article about YA lit written by someone who knows about YA lit! (Please take note of this, Wall St. Journal, Atlantic Monthly.) Sarah Ockler, author of the wonderful 20 Boy Summer, has a piece in Woman Around Town that you all might enjoy reading: Grown up girls come out of the YA book closet. She nails some of the reasons why adult women love YA lit, like "YA spans the shelves with diverse sub-genres" (though I'd also love to see a heading that says "YA spans the shelves with diverse formats") and "YA authors write to compete." I mean, not that we needed more reasons to recommend YA lit to adults, but it never hurts to have them.

Dirty books done dirt cheap

There's been a fair amount of YA lit pearl-clutching in the media this week. Amid all the "Twilight isn't good for girls" whining, I must turn your attention to the clutchiest of all clutching, from the first name in second-rate journalism, the New York Post.

In the Post, Andrea Peyser laments the publication of Jake Wizner's latest YA novel, Castration Celebration: Dirty Teen Tale is a Cut Below. As one who's actually read Castration Celebration, it is my educated guess that Ms Peyser read the first ten pages and the last ten pages, then made haste to her keyboard to lament the state of today's YA publications. Oh yes, teens have all sorts of deviant sex, she knows, but what is it doing in a...gasp...book? I want to know why YA librarians are struggling to keep their jobs, but Ms Peyser got paid to write a review of a YA novel she didn't even read all the way through. Had she bothered to do so, she'd know that CC is an over-the-top modern melodrama, part script and part romance, and the amount of actual sex in the book is, by my recall, almost nil. (There might be a sex scene near the end, but if there is, I've forgotten it.) Buried in all the silly talk of castration are teens trying to deal with hormonal insanity, family breakups and the loss of friends. These same teens who write castration plays also go above and beyond their call of duty to support a friend in need. Not that Ms Peyser would know that, of course; it happens in the middle of the book. Oh, and taking a potshot at Jake Wizner? NOT ON. Authors are not their books.

If you want the weekend edition of the Dumb Statements About YA Lit Tribune, go here: Did You Notice The Difference Between Classic Young Adult Books And New Young Adult Books? from the ill-constructed and poorly written Gossip in the City. Those darn YA books just don't have good messages anymore! I mean, really, it's simply impossible to find a book about discovering who you are through travel, or loyalty and talent. And you'll never, ever find literary books about science and religion, heck no.

Honestly, are these people visiting the same bookstores I am? Because if all you see in a teen section is The Clique (and I enjoy the Clique books!), you're either willfully blind or your bookstore needs new management.

...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:

The book you sell to yourself

This weekend, as Twilight opens in thousands of theaters, I have great plans to go to my local movie theater, relax with a box of popcorn, and see a movie full of adventure and romance, starring a very hot male lead.

Quantum of Solace is going to be FANTASTIC.

My preference for Daniel Craig over Robert Pattinson aside, I just had to link to this interview with Stephenie Meyer in today's Chicago Sun-Times: 'Hooked' by 'Twilight' film. For the most part, it's an average interview, but this part made me squint:

Ask her why these books are such a hit and she smiles warmly and says, "For me, it's an absolute mystery. I wrote these books for me and I don't know why people have responded. But no one was supposed to read these but me."

Either I'm misinterpreting, or that is the most mind-boggling statement I've read this month today. Who does Stephenie Meyer think she's kidding?

Look, I understand wanting to write for yourself. Faulkner said it best: If the story is in you, it has got to come out. I understand having a cool dream and wanting to write about it. And once it's out of you, you can decide that these books are for you and no one else is supposed to see them. Then you can put them in a drawer and forget about them for a while, maybe forever. These are all quite acceptable things to do with your story. It's also quite acceptable to come up with an idea, put together a manuscript, shop it around, and maybe sell a bestselling novel.

But if you're going to say the philosophy behind the former but actually do the latter, either stop saying or doing. If no one was supposed to read the book but you, then it wasn't a good idea to shop it to major publishing houses. If you always meant to shop it around, then you shouldn't say it was written for you and no one else should have seen it because publishing is anything but a solitary process.

Either one is fine, really. Just tell me which it is.

A statement as thin as paper (towns)

It's great when a young adult novel gets good press, right? It's great when a writer for a college newspaper gives a glowing review to a young adult novel, right? Sure. But it's not great when the review, specifically this review of Paper Towns from The Ithacan, begins with this:

The young-adult genre has been riddled with uninspiring novels that lack any kind of creativity or originality. Shuffling through the mundane “Gossip Girl” spin-offs and “Twilight” rip-offs has made finding a substantive novel as easy as finding a needle in a haystack.

To Monica Watson, writer of the review, I have a few questions:

1. What was the last YA book you read, other than Paper Towns?
2. Have you talked to any YA literature professionals what the state of the YA market is today?
3. Did you visit a local library or bookstore to see what's available in the YA world right now before making that statement?
4. Are you kidding?

I think this review really does a good job of capturing what makes Paper Towns special, but to say that Paper Towns stands out because the rest of the YA literature world is so lacking in quality is ridiculous, uninformed, and untrue. Paper Towns is not a needle in a haystack. It is a needle in a stack of needles. It is one of many outstanding YA books published this year alone, and one of hundreds published in the last five years. The first Printz award was given years before Green even wrote the first draft of Looking for Alaska. Trust me, no one envies the amount of work the Printz committee has to do this year, and that's a good thing. Contrary to what Ms Watson seems to believe, the number of quality, literary YA books is only going up every year. Every year, the Printz committee's job gets harder. Every year, there are outstanding books that redefine what a YA book can be and do. One cannot write off an entire genre based on the quality, or lack thereof, of two series.

Are there mundane Gossip Girl spin-offs? Yes! And they're fun to read! It's not a crime to write what's popular, and it's not a crime to write a bad YA novel. The deity of your choice knows there are just as many bad adult novels, percentage-wise, as YA novels. I'm happy that Paper Towns got this great bit of press, but please, journalists of the world, do some research and talk to some professionals before making unfounded statements about YA literature.

I can so relate! Can you?

In reading this article at Boston.com on urban teens who read street lit, I was particularly intrigued by this quote:

Millner's 14-year-old niece had read the "Gossip Girl" and "A-List" series but yearned for books with characters with whom she could identify.

In addition to this article on street lit, the "Thrilling YAs" program I went to at the YALSA YA Lit Symposium addressed this same question. "Kids enjoy books because they can relate to the characters," was Patrick Jones's statement in a very small nutshell. My problem is that statements like this always make me wonder what a "relatable" character is. The only answer I have is "It's something different to everyone."

I guess if you held a gun to my head I would tell you that teens can relate the best to characters whose lives are sort of like theirs. That, however, is a flawed statement. Probably the most relatable character of the past 10 years of YA is Harry Potter, and the number of HP readers who live in a magical castle and were born to fight one of the greatest evil wizards who ever lived is, as far as I know, zero. What made Harry relatable was the relationships he had with Ron, Hermione, and his other friends, and how he always tried to do the right thing. His life had some high wizarding drama but he also worried about getting a date to the school dance. Despite his reputation as the wizarding world's savior, he had the worries about first love and identity that we all do. He fought with his friends but made up with them, just like we do.

It's this "just like we do" mantra that always made me wonder why so many readers of the Twilight series saw Bella as relatable. She has friends, just like we do! She participates in extracurricular activities, just like we do! Oh, wait, she doesn't do either of those things. She has no hobbies or interests, like any human being does, outside of her boyfriend. She's supposed to be "different" and "weird" but there's no proof of her being either of these things other than the author telling us it is so. Instead, she gets the perfect boyfriend because she smells good. Since none of us can smell blood or know what our own blood smells like, this is a gap between Bella and the reader. A huge one. The very reason for the romance around which the plot is centered is something that we cannot relate to because it's physically impossible for us to do so.

Going a little younger in children's literature, my favorite Newbery winner of all time (and my husband's, coincidentally) is From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg. I did not grow up anywhere even remotely near New York. I never saw the Metropolitan Museum of Art until I was 17. I don't have brothers. But I related to Claudia because I knew what it was like to want to see the world outside of suburbia while still being comfortable and wearing clean clothes. I understood what Claudia meant by wanting to go back to Connecticut "different." Claudia's adventure was about seeing the world outside of home and school and holding a secret that would set her apart from everyone else. Those are amazing things to have, and Mixed-Up Files is an amazing story of wanting. Claudia endures because we all want something special all to ourselves, and I'm not talking material possessions.

So maybe I have something more than "It's different to everyone." Maybe I also have, "It all depends on matters of the heart." Blair, Serena, and Massie don't have much in common with urban teens superficially. But let's be fair here: They don't have much in common with middle-class suburban teens, either. One could say that the Gossip Girl and Clique series are pure escapism, a fantasy set in the real world, but I think there's more to it than that. I think it's that readers of books about other teens, whether those teens are urban or suburban, rich or not, want to know that there are some experiences that are universal, or that there are experiences to look forward to. Really, how many teens see themselves in Tally Youngblood? Doesn't seem to matter; those books are crazy popular. If it's all about teens seeing themselves in books, then why are the majority of the Teens' Top Ten picks speculative fiction?

Obviously there's more to being relatable than a familiar environment or the "just like me" factor. It's about "just like me" and "just like I want to be" and "just like I could be." Perhaps even "just like I was."

The first rule of YA is...

...you talk about YA, extensively.

For your media coverage pleasure, here's an article that covers edgy YA novels but never mentions, y'know, those three books.: 5 Recommended Novels for Young Adults, in the Desert Sun (Palm Springs, CA). I love, LOVE that they mention Fight Club, because when I worked with a local high school on their suggested summer reading list, Fight Club was one of the first books I added for juniors.

The Sorting Hat declared me a Reading Ravenclaw

In today's Telegraph: Harry Potter readers "can be split into four types". From the article:

Each type conforms closely with one of the four houses found in Harry's school Hogwarts, Professor Stephen Brown of Ulster University said.

His research found 'Hufflepuff' readers take the tales at a slow, steady and systematic pace and enjoy re-reading the books over and over.

'Gryffindor' readers are eager and energetic and will devour the latest Potter book in one sitting, but quickly move on to new things.

'Ravenclaws' are subversive and take the stories with a pinch of salt, while 'Slytherin' readers are not fussed about the books.

They prefer the films but pretend to have read the books when it suits them.

That's the start of it, anyway. What interested me in particular was this later quote, which followed some "O noes the Potterdammerung is dying!":

"Only the Hufflepuffs are totally loyal to Harry, the Gryffindors are already moving on to other things, the Slytherins never really liked him anyway and the Ravenclaws are too busy writing their own fan fiction or posting spoof videos on YouTube."

If you ask me, I think this demonstrates that both the Hufflepuff AND the Ravenclaw readers are "totally loyal to Harry." If you weren't loyal to the intent and world of a series, you wouldn't make the efforto to write fanfic about it or take the time to make spoof videos or post them to YouTube. The Hufflepuff readers, if one goes strictly by this article, are content to read the books, enjoy them, and maybe discuss them with their book clubs. The Ravenclaw readers, on the other hand, are taking the time to speculate as to what happened before, or is happening offstage during, or will happen after the events of the Potter series. They're not satisfied by what appears on the page because Rowling made it clear that the wizarding world was so deep and so rich in history both light and dark. The Ravenclaw loyalty is not just to Harry, but to his entire world and all the people in it.

I caught the notion of fear from this article, too, a fear that Harry Potter will go away forever since there are no new books and nothing to learn about what happens next. I say this is ridiculous. There's interest in plenty of books that no longer have sequels coming out, and as much as we can speculate there will simply be things about the Potterverse that no one but J.K. Rowling will ever know. Whether we write more fanfiction or go on to other books, Harry will always have a place in children's literature history. And while I'm on the topic of Hogwarts houses, I also get the impression that Stephen Brown is more a Hufflepuff reader: loyal to the text but not delving too much into it. If that were the case, he'd know that Hogwarts houses are not about what you are, but what you value. But that's a discussion for another post.

(In terms of Hogwarts houses I think I'm more a Slytherin anyway.)

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.

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?

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?

The Clique is not Anne of Green Gables. Also, water is wet.

Today, ABC News has an article about Lisi Harrison's Clique series that's not fantastic, but it's not bad, either: The Clique: Chick Lit for Teens and Tweens.

At least this one gets the "o hai there iz books for teens published after 1945" out of the way early, in the first section, titled "Not your mom's childhood books." It reads:

Status means everything in the books. And the mean girls rule.

"Anne of Green Gables" this ain't.

No, really?

I confess, I am a bad YA librarian. I have read exactly one of the Anne of Green Gables books and that is all I plan to read. Why? I don't find them interesting. I read it when I was that "perfect" age to read them and I found Anne's life dull. I couldn't relate to her. I'm a city kid and I couldn't picture anything idyllic about life on a Canadian farm. My lack of reading Anne aside, though, this is another case. Here, the authors are trying to compare two completely dissimilar books and make them seem similar because 1) they don't know anything about YA literature other than Anne and The Triumvirate That Must Not Be Named or 2) they think all books about teen girls must have similar themes or 3) they want to get a book in there that their target adult audience will have heard of and has possibly read or 4) all or some of the above or 5) none of the above (but I wouldn't bet on it).

I think the authors of the article are missing something major. Yes, status is important in the Clique series and the mean girls rule, but this is hardly the first appearance of the mean-girl-rule in YA literature. Blubber, anyone? How about Daphne's Book? Although they get media attention now, mean girls have been around in YA literature for decades, giving their classmates hell. I think what the big deal is surrounding the Clique books, though, besides the fact that we now have the technology to make millions of books in a print run if we want to and can therefore reach a much larger audience, is the fact that the Clique books are some of the first to make the mean girls seem almost sympathetic. In their ostentatious behavior, Massie, Dylan and Alicia really show that money can't buy happiness. When the girls go to battle, in the end it comes down to their wits, not their wallets. If we think back over teen books that feature a mean girl, I would say that a good majority of them (just my educated guess, no statistics here) paint the mean girls as someone who is entirely unsympathetic, perhaps in the author's attempt to make us root for the main character.

The attempted humanizing of a mean girl was one of the big failing points, I felt with Marcella Pixley's Freak, a book that really gets what bullying is about...until the last ten pages. During the last ten pages, the main character, Miriam, sees that the mean girl might be treating her badly because of problems at home. I think this is supposed to make us feel better about Miriam's treating her nemesis with kindness, but to me it felt very manipulated, an attempt to make us understand why the mean girl was mean and show how good and virtuous the fairly unlikeable Miriam was. It's not that I don't think a mean girl could have dimension, but the last ten pages is not the place to put it in. In opposition to this, Harrison shows us from the get-go that the mean girls at the center of the Clique series have both hearts and insecurities. Beyond the drama, I think that is what makes the Clique novels fun to read.

The rest of the article is actually fairly uplifting, interviewing Lisi Harrison and describing times when she's visited groups of girls and talked to them about how life is a lot more than just labels. I do have to say hooray for that. It's just that there's so much depth in the genre that the mainstream media doesn't get, depth they could get if they would actually hire someone to write who did research into YA lit besides The Triumvirate That Must Not Be Named. One would think that if teens are the leaders of tomorrow that the media says they are, someone would acknowledge that their books go beyond labels and romance.

A nice idea, but you're late for the funeral

An article in today's SF Gate does quick reviews of three YA novels involving dead main characters, or those who can speak to them: Zombie Blondes, ghostgirl, and Dead Connection. It cites Twilight, of course, as a big factor in the popularity of dead characters in YA lit.

It's not a bad article, but I have to wonder: Where has this writer been for the past three years of YA lit? Dead characters have, erm, risen in popularity over the span of a few years and even if Twilight had never been written they'd still be around. One of the discussions the "Dead, Dying, and the Undead" Popular Paperbacks subcommittee had at Annual was the shaping of the list. Did vampires and zombies belong on the same list as books like Dead Connection and Looking for Alaska? Did we want books that explored how people died, or just what they did after they came back to life? How could books about vampires compare to those about losing a friend? Do we want them all on the same list? I think it's really easy to look at the genre superficially and say, "Books about the dead/undead are popular because of Twilight," but that's way oversimplified. There were, are, and will always be popular vampire books in YA. They're probably an easier sell now because of Twilight, but that's not the only factor.

In YA, teens have been dying for decades for one reason or another. Despite this article's narrow view, there's a huge range of books about dead, death, and the dying in YA fiction these days. (In fact, that will be the featured October BCCLS Book Bonanza list.) Watch for a review of one coming shortly.

It's Still Not Easy Completely Missing the Point

There are not one but 2 YA lit stories in Newsweek this week, so I'll blog about the Anne of Green Gables story first: It’s Still Not Easy Being Green. Subtitle: 'Anne of Green Gables' turns 100 this year, but she's the most modern girl in the bookstore.

You know what else isn't easy? Continually seeing so much fail when it comes to mainstream news sources covering YA literature.

I will be the first to confess that I was never a fan of Anne of Green Gables. I read the first one and then I think my mom bought me the other seven books in the series, but I couldn't get past page 40 of book 2. I don't think it was Anne so much as it was my dislike of the setting. I have never liked any book that could even remotely be described as "quaint." Despite my not being a fan of the series, I could not believe it when I read this:

That "Anne" has survived so long—and, with 50 million copies sold, so strong—is a small miracle considering the state of young-adult literature. It's rare to find a best seller with a strong heroine anymore, in large part because, although girls will read books about boys, boys won't go near a girl's book, no matter how cool she is. Even in Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" series, the strong, grounded Bella is willing to chuck it all for the love of her vampire boyfriend. "The literary smart girl is still showing up in literature, but she's often the sidekick," says Trinna Frever, an "Anne of Green Gables" scholar.

Trinna Frever must be an Anne of Green Gables scholar to the point of not reading any other YA literature, because her statement is patently false. First, Bella Swan is neither strong nor grounded. She is completely without a sense of self, a spineless wimp, and a Mary Sue of epic proportions. Second, the idea of boys not reading books about girls is well on its way to being outdated. BOYS READ TWILIGHT. Every year, I pick an equal number of books for Talk It Up with male and female protagonists and never once have I seen a boy shy away from a discussion just because the book had a female main character. The boys my colleague in BCCLS and I have led in discussions loved Hope Was Here, I am not Esther, Dr. Franklin's Island, Magic or Madness, Kiki Strike, No Shame, No Fear and many other books with female protagonists. It's simply not true that boys refuse to read about girls.

Third, it's not true that books with smart female protagonists don't become bestsellers. A sampling:

• Tithe by Holly Black


• Uglies by Scott Westerfeld


• Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr


• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak


• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins...which is not a bestseller right at this moment, but it will be when it's released


• Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen


• Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, which has gone from bestseller to modern classic


• Cathy's Book by Sean Stewart and Jordan Weisman

and many, many more.

Fourth, if I see one more article that cites Harry Potter, Twilight, and Gossip Girl as all that there is of YA, I'm going to throw something. Are these three series insanely popular? Duh. You have to live in a cave to not know that. But I don't go around telling the media that all adult literature is John Grisham and Janet Evanovich, so media, please give the HP/GG/Twilight triumvirate a rest until you can tell me what the Printz Award is.

Generally: Are there books with smart girl sidekicks? Sure. One can't help but think of Harry Potter and Percy Jackson, to start. But their existence, and the bestselling status of these particular books, does not change the fact that books led by smart girls do exist and are bestsellers. Oh, and that they're enjoyed by boys, too. So perhaps the larger question is: What is a modern girl, and why is Anne such a prime example? I'm assuming that a "modern girl" is smart. Okay, but there are book smarts and street smarts and people smarts and athletic smarts and artistic smarts and more. A modern girl stands up for herself. Well, there's certainly no shortage of those in YA lit. Does a modern girl have sex? It wasn't an issue in Anne, was it? What's a modern girl's social status like? Fact is, there is no one definition. Clearly, the author of this article has an idea, but hers is just one idea.

I've talked before about boy books and girl books so I won't rehash too much of that here, but I find it frightening and disheartening that an Anne of Green Gables scholar knows so very little about the larger world of YA, and so very little about the reading habits of teens. Just once, I wish Slate or Time or Newsweek would interview a YA librarian, or a literary agent, or a bookseller, or anyone else who knows about what's really out there in the YA world. Of course, I also wish Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki would come strolling through the front door of the BCCLS office and take me to lunch in the Metallicar. Any bets on which will happen first?