WEEK 3 YA Firsts: Seminar Readings

Holley, Pam Spencer. ‘Best’ Book Selection Through the Years. Young Adult Library Services, 8(3): 32-37.

-"High school students were the intended audience, and adult titles formed the bulk of the final list of thirty new titles" (Holley, 2010). 

Similar to my thoughts about Anthony Bernier's paper I could help but wonder, who better but young adults to talk about what they want? As we have made note of in class we shouldn't try to compare our experiences as teens with teens today, as they are quite different, therefore why do adults librarians, reviewers and so forth think that they know any better than teens about what they want? 

McCoy, Karen. What Teens Are Really Reading. School Library Journal, 58(1): 32-34. 

-I agree wholeheartedly with McCoy's statement that, as of January 2012, "The sense is they're [vampire novels] are being replaced by books about supernatural beings, particularly zombies and angels, and, of course, there's a huge shift to steampunk and dystopian" (McCoy, 2012). I personally think that of the 110 books that I read last year anywhere from 80-90 of those books fell within one of these categories (if not a combination of them, for instance, Lia Habel's "Dearly, Departed", a zombie steampunk novel.

-On the note of McCoy's statement, "It's difficult to predict the next shift in YA and Middle Grade books" (2012). I personally feel that we are shifting away from the aforementioned paranormal/ dystopian novels and because of the rise of New Adult literature that contemporary will once again come to dominate YA. 

Melanie D. Koss and William H. Teale. What’s Happening in YA Literature? Trends in Books for Adolescents. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 52 (7): 563-572.

-Admittedly one of my pet peeves in the world of YA is the emphasis on, "YA literature considered to be high quality (award winners)..." (Koss and Teale, 2009), and on the idea that anything less than award winners aren't deserving of being read or are "inadequate". Add "Young Adult Literature-  Any young adult literature" into the following image and you have my opinion on the matter: 

-I was really taken aback by the finding that "Books were coded as to whether or not they had gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or questioning characters. The majority of the sample did not, but at least one GLBTQ character was found in six of the titles (10%)" (Koss and Teale, 2009). Since 2009, a mere 4 years ago, I do think that we have seen an uprise in the number of GLBTQ characters- especially with the inception of such authors as Malinda Lo (personally I can name 10 books off of the top of my head who features GLBTQ characters). 

WEEK 3 YA Firsts: "The Outsiders" by S.E. Hinton

Hinton, S.E. Speak, 1967. 

Pages [180p.] [$8.99.] ISBN [014038572X]

From Goodreads: "According to Ponyboy, there are two kinds of people in the world: greasers and socs. A soc (short for "social") has money, can get away with just about anything, and has an attitude longer than a limousine. A greaser, on the other hand, always lives on the outside and needs to watch his back. Ponyboy is a greaser, and he's always been proud of it, even willing to rumble against a gang of socs for the sake of his fellow greasers--until one terrible night when his friend Johnny kills a soc. The murder gets under Ponyboy's skin, causing his bifurcated world to crumble and teaching him that pain feels the same whether a soc or a greaser."

Admittedly going into this book I was somewhat determined not to like it- for one reason, it's completely out of my comfort zone (that being YA pararnormal and dystopian/ post-apocalyptic), for another, I had to read it for school (I cannot recall having ever finished a novel for school in its entirely, especially during high school). However, all that effort to not like it was to was to no avail- when all is said and done, I really enjoyed this book and it's safe to say that it completely exceeded my expectations (that's not to say, however, that I believe that it's the "best" and "most popular young adult novel of all time" as the cover boasts).

After finishing this book the two elements which stick out to me most are the emotions and the relationships. In reading YA over the years I have grown so accustomed to the male characters being "bad boys"- cocky arrogant, and charming to the nth degree, however, despite all of that they have nothing on these boys. I've come to realize that those "bad boys" are fooling themselves, their "badness" (and all of the emotions surrounding it) is such a facade and superficial. These boys, from Soda, with a larger-than-life personality and who brings a smile to everyone's face, not unlike the beverage he derives his name from does, to Darry, stuck in a "between" state, due to putting his brothers before himself, to Dally, who isn't near as jaded as he lets himself come off of as, to Johnny, who, out of his death, inspires new life, to Ponyboy, a young man truly trying to find where he fits in the crazy world that he was born into, experience real and raw emotions- while they certainly have swagger, they aren't afraid to cry whenever need be (it was refreshing and I think that authors of the twenty-first century could certainly learn a thing or two from this author of the mid-twentieth-century). As for the relationship element, I can't remember the last time I read of such a strong family unit, despite many of these boys not being related by blood. These boys could always count on one another, even during those times when they may not deserve it.

I can understand how this book is a first in a number of ways, the first book written by Hinton, but also the firsts for many of the characters- the first time that Ponyboy truly understood how much he meant to his older brother Darry, the first time that the boys saw a different side of Dally, the first time that Johnny was able to not only stand up for himself, but for those around him, the first time that the Socs and the Greasers realized that they weren't all that different from one another, and the first time that the Greasers were able to become more.

WEEK 3 YA Firsts: Readings

Coats, Karen. “Young Adult Literature: Growing Up in Theory,” in Handbook of Research on Children’s and Young Adult Literature, eds. Shelby A. Wolf, Karen Coats, Patricia Enciso and Christine A. Jenkins, New York: Routledge, 2011: 315-29. IMS stack NO LOAN PS121.H22 2011

-"... there remains a sense that YA literature is a house you pass on the way, and not a destination in and of itself. It may be because YA literature is in fact the literature that I would prefer to read even if I didn't make a living doing so that I would argue strenuously for a shift in this perspective .. I would like to see more critical conversation emerge that treats YA literature as a destination literature, rather than an in-between phenomenon that is useful for pedagogical applications and/or diverting entertainment before readers enter into the more serious work of studying capital L literature" (Coats, 2011). 

I have read dozens, if not hundreds, of "adult" books over the years, however, I always find myself drawn back to YA. 

-"... and today's adult librarians and reviewers come to disdain the repetition of the same themes, characters types, and conflicts, looking instead for something fresh" (Coats, 2011).

While I do love YA I, as a reviewer, do realize that it does have its flaws. I would like to see fewer love triangles, less generic dystopians, and overdone paranormal beings (ie. vampires and werewolves) and more along the lines of CINDER by Marissa Meyer, THE UNBECOMING OF MARA DYER by Michelle Hodkin and THE SEA OF TRANQUILITY by Katja Millay. 

Zusak, Marcus. “Point of Departure,” in Handbook of Research on Children’s and Young Adult Literature, eds. Shelby A. Wolf, Karen Coats, Patricia Enciso and Christine A. Jenkins, New York: Routledge, 2011: 330. IMS stack NO LOAN PS121.H22 2011

-Being an avid YA reader, almost exclusively a YA reader, both of these papers resonated with me more than I could have ever imagined, Karen Coat's especially. Both authors were able to articulate ideas and thoughts that I have thought countless times over the years.

- I cannot even begin to tell you how many times over the years I have had to defend YA among not only my peers, but some of my best friends, many of them of the opinion that "YA doesn't count." 

-Some parts of the papers which really spoke to me were: 

-"I think I can safely say that without Young Adult literature, I wouldn't be a writer; I certainly wouldn't have written the books that I have- because as a teenager I was fairly typical in that I kept a lot of what I felt to myself. I didn't talk to a lot of people about what I truly wanted or believed, or how I wanted things to be. In the end, I had those conversations with books. And they were young adult books" (Zusak, 2011).

While I may not be a YA writer I can relate to Zusak's sentiments. For as long as I can remember I had wanted to become an anthropologist- get my masters, my doctrine, the whole nine yards. However, as I went further and further into my undergrad I realized that, while I loved anthropology, it wasn't my passion, that my passion was, in fact, YA literature. It was this passion that encouraged me to pursue a MLIS.