Week 4 Reading Responses: YA Awards

This week in my YA class, colleagues of mine will be presenting a seminar on "Awards and Competitions for YA Material." We were assigned to read two articles: one of the prestigious Printz Award, and the other on the blogger-run Cybils award, but I will be focusing on the former.

The article, "A New Literature For a New Millenium? The First Decade of the Printz Awards" is an overall look at the winning and honour titles for the Printz Award, an award given to books that are not necessarily popular, but fulfill the award committee's requirements of "literary merit." I take some issue with this stipulation, or rather, the wording of it. On the one hand, I love that YA books are being recognized as having "literary merit" (whatever that is -- it is never explicitly stated in the article, though the overview of the winning and honour titles is supposed to give readers an idea of what this entails); I'm tired of telling people I read YA and they think that I'm merely reading "easy" literature. I'd like to play The Book Thief in their hands and see how "easy" YA is.

On the other hand though, this stamp of "literary merit" has an elitist undercurrent to it that rubs me the wrong way. It's like saying "if you don't read these books, you're not reading 'real' YA literature", and I wouldn't be surprised if this is alienating to some readers of YA (whether they be young adult or not.) Perhaps the Printz committee has more strict guidelines as to what "literary merit" is, but in my experience, I know this can mean different things for different people -- I wonder if this is a problem for the committee at all.

With all this said, I don't want anyone to think that I think the Printz Award is bad. I actually love the award and have discovered  many amazing titles because of it. I wish there was a way to outline that it's a prestigious award without using the words "literary merit" (though I don't have any ideas of my own. Anyone have any thoughts on this?)

Week 3: YA Firsts - Seminar Reading

This week is class will be our first round of seminars. To prepare for them, our classmates assigned us some readings to do our their topic (our two topics this week are 'Finding Out About YA Material' and 'Trends in Contemporary YA Lit'). One of the seminar readings in particular stood out to me: Karen McCoy's "What Teens Are Really Reading." In this article, McCoy tries to peg which YA novels among the slew that are published every year are going to have "staying power." To do this, she turned to school and public librarians.

This article peaked my interest for two reasons. First off, I am curious why McCoy would turn solely to school and public librarians for her survey. On the one hand, I do understand that she is trying to decipher which YA books are likely to pass the test of time so that they can be incorporated in library collections, but I still wonder why she decided to disregard the audience these books are aimed to. One could argue that teens are more susceptible to current and hot trends and that librarians may have more foresight in what will remain popular or become staples of YA. But do librarians really know that much better? I'm still undecided.



I also wondered how librarians are to balance the line between choosing materials that are popular and follow current publishing trends versus 'important' works that may continue to impact YA. The top 20 list that McCoy presented at the end of the article did not seem representative of 'important' YA to me, despite her initial claim that she was looking for books with 'staying power.' This is merely my own personal opinion, but it looked to me like the list comprised solely of books that were popular at the time. I am not opposed to commercial fiction and I do not think that a YA book has to be an award winner to be deemed 'good' to pass the test of time, but this list was still lacking, for me, in books that are and have been made staples in YA. The only book I would argue that will potentially pass the test of time is The Hunger Games.

All in all, I wasn't particularly impressed with McCoy's efforts. I understand what she was trying to do, but I don't think she managed to accomplish it. Her survey completely disregarded teens and the list she compiled only seems to be comprised of 'popular' and 'commercial' fiction which I doubt will have staying power. I said earlier that it could be argued that librarians may have more foresight in disseminating what will be 'important' in YA fiction, but McCoy's list only showed me that librarians are just as susceptible to trends as anyone else.


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

9364 Week 2: Reading Response #1

For this week's reading response, I decided to focus on Claire Snowball's article “Teenagers Talking about Reading and Libraries."

What struck me the most about this article is that it appeared to focus on something that I feel has always been obvious to me: teens have a wide array in reading tastes and reading habits. Too often I find people make broad assumptions about the reading tastes of teens (the most common of these has been, in my personal experience, “boys are often reluctant readers” – assumptions about reading habits and tastes in teens often seems to hinge on gender, a myth that this article thankfully dispels, I think.) The findings of the focus group described in the article demonstrates that making these kinds of assumptions is pointless because no teen fits into one mold; there are certainly commonalities to be found, but from what I understood, there was no trends that occurred throughout all or even most of the participants.

There were some smaller trends, such as non-readers admitting that they would reading some books, but only if it dealt with subject matter they were interested in. Again, this only highlights the breadth of taste that teen readers have, as well as highlighting the variety of habits. I also appreciated the discussion on the variety of materials teens will read, and how the author never demeans the reading of magazines or the Internet – they present it as a legitimate material for teens to be reading, and I think that teens should be encouraged to read no matter the format. The fact that many people only perceive the reading of books as ‘legitimate’ reading is highlighted by many of the participants who described themselves as non-readers by in actuality read a lot of magazines.

The focus on teens’ reactions to reading graphic novels was also of interest to me. Oftentimes, graphic novels are perceived as gateways to reading for young reluctant readers, but this article, in continuing with the running theme of variety in reading habits and tastes, debunks this common myth. There was a broad range of reactions to graphic novels, reflecting the variety of reading habits and tastes in teens. You can’t categorize or compartmentalize them; just as many reluctant readers in the study were not interested in reading graphic novels then those who were, and vice-versa with avid readers.

Librarians should make note of this wide variety of reading preferences in teen readers and use it to help with collection development. If librarians make broad assumptions about teens and what they read, it could hinder their collections and potentially drive teen readers away. By focusing on having variety in their collections, they could potentially attract all kinds of teen readers and help break stereotypes about teens and their reading.


Works Cited:

Snowball, Claire. 2008. “Teenagers Talking about Reading and Libraries.” Australian Academic and Research Libraries 39(2): 106-18.

9364 Week 2: Teens, Reading and the Library - YA Book Review

Our second assignment for week 2 of my LIS 9364 class was to find a review of a YA book from a professional or mainstream source and then provide a critique on it. My critique was influenced by the criteria presented by the CM Magazine and VOYA's Reviewing Guidelines.

The review I chose to critique was Kirkus's review of Just One Day by Gayle Forman (click the link to be directed to the review), a new title which has been released just this week.

The first thing that struck me about this review was that it initially appeared to not have a complete bibliographic description. At the top of the reviewing one can find the title, author, recommended age-range, and links to websites that sells the book. However, there was no ISNB, publisher, publication date, page count or price. It took me awhile to notice that the aforementioned information was included at the bottom of the page, and not at the top with the rest. Most book reviews that I have read keep all this information together (usually at the top of the page), so I am slightly surprised that Kirkus formatted their review in this way. To me, it makes more sense to keep the bibliographic information all together in one place. However, I can see how having some of the information at the bottom I suppose can keep the top of the page from appearing cluttered.

I found the review-proper to be much more informative. Despite its brevity, it conveys a lot of information about the book and paints a fairly clear portrait of what the novel is about. The synopsis of the plot that the reviewer provides is not overly long and provided useful information such as the genre of the novel (it is clearly a contemporary novel), literary conventions used (it is described as a "coming-of-age novel"), and prevalent themes (the reviewer discusses the novels use of Shakespeare as a vessel for exploring identity). There is some criticism leveled against the book, but it is stated clearly and succinctly and may help readers judge if the novel is a good fit for them (reluctant readers may not be willing to wait out what the reviewer felt like was a slow beginning to experience a satisfying conclusion).

The review is written in a clear and concise style that appears to largely fit into VOYA's guidelines (it avoids use of the first person, it uses the active voice, etc.) which makes it easy to read and gets its point across with as little as possible. I appreciated how much the reviewer was able to convey with so little, and I think potential readers will be able to fairly gauge whether they think this novel is worth their time. It provided a insight for myself which I will be taking into consideration when I get around to reading the novel myself (which I plan to do.)


Works Cited:

"Kirkus | JUST ONE DAY by Gayle Forman." Kirkus Reviews. N.p., 1 Dec. 2012. Web. 9 Jan. 2013. <https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/gayle-forman/just-one-day/>.

9364 Week 2: Teens, Reading and Libraries - Depiction of Youth in the Media

This week, my class was assigned to look at a piece of local news concerning young adults and to comment how they were depicted and how this could potentially affect youth services in libraries.

The piece of news I chose to scrutinize was a succinct article in the London Free Press titled "Accused teen a Lucas grad" (which can be read here.) I was initially drawn (though not necessarily in a good way) to the short, perfunctory title that was very vague, but still manages to make it clear that a 'teen' has been 'accused' of something. Having previously read Anthony Bernier's article Representations of youth in local media: Implications for library service, I felt that the title reflected the typical negative depiction that youth receive in the media which Bernier describes as "depicting supposed epidemics of violence, crime, drug abuse, mental illness, and immorality among young people" (159); this lead me to want to read the article proper, to see how the journalist would describe the Lucas graduate and to see if it further reflected the realities that Bernier outlines in his article.

The article never explicitly makes any judgment calls about Michael MacGregor (the young adult in question), but it still manages to perpetuate the stereotypes Bernier details in his study. The article states that "[t]hough many students had heard of the horrifying case, and knew MacGregor’s name, few of those asked knew him well", then proceeds to mention one that one girl on the school property (who is smoking no less; even just the inclusion of that minute detail is telling) that MacGregor was "nice" and "has a nice family" and finally concludes with MacGregor's disturbing behaviour on a social media site in which he discussed "violent sex acts and fantasies about rape and torture" with his 31 year old female partner. These details are presented as factually as possible making them appear objective on the surface. However, presented in this order, the article is implicitly stating that while MacGregor may have appeared to be non-threatning and even "nice", it was a facade for his unstable mind and violent behaviour. Overall, the article perpetuates the stereotypes of youth that are so prevalent in the media: they are prone to violent crime.

So what does this all mean for YA library services and policies? Bernier lists several ways in which these depictions can be harmful. If librarians and library administration hold these negative prejudices against youth it could negatively influence library policies. This is seen in the Californian library incident (detailed at the beginning of Bernier's article) which restricted youth from visiting the library between certain times because the staff did not want to tolerate their behaviour (this very same incident occurred at a  library in my hometown which was situated across the road from a local high school, so this is a problem that is potentially wide-spread.) By enforcing these kinds of rules, libraries risk alienating youth which in turn could impact the availability of resources for youth in the libraries; if teens are not going to the library, it makes it harder to justify creating resources and services for them. The sensationalism of the media can potentially hurt youth services offered by the library and is something that all librarians should be aware of and to consider critically. 


Works Cited:

Bernier, Anthony. 2011. Representations of youth in local media: Implications for library service. Library & Information Science Research 33(2): 158–167

O'Brien, Jennifer. "Accused teen a Lucas grad ." The London Free Press. N.p., 7 Dec. 2012. Web. 9 Jan. 2013. <http://www.lfpress.com/2013/01/07/accused-teen-a-lucas-grad>.

Introductory Post

Hi there! My name's Michelle, and this is my YA blog. But first, a little background:

I'm currently a student enrolled in the Masters of Library and Information program at Western University in London, Ontario. I've already completed my first semester and will be starting my second this coming Monday. One of the courses I've enrolled in this semester is the LIS 9364: Young Adult Materials class. We are required to keep a blog, where we are to post reading responses and anything else of note that we think is relevant to either YA, librarianship, or both.

With that in mind, the kind of things you'll find on this blog will be school related, and probably links to discussion about things going on in the field of YA and youth librarianship. I may also post book reviews of YA titles I happen to read over the course of this semester.

I do already run a book blog over on LiveJournal, where I have been sporadically (my posting has declined considerably because of school) posting book reviews, though it's not exclusively YA, which you can find here.