Week Seven

Assignment 1

I was really impressed with the flow chart from the Lawrence Public Library. I found it very thorough, and was impressed with the variety of elements it covered, any one of which might have been "the thing" that hooked a reader. I especially loved the inclusion of some classic works at the end!


Assignment 2

The first article I read was "New Adult: Needless Marketing-Speak Or Valued Subgenre?" from Publisher's Weekly. In this article, the author described this new genre and the issues surrounding it as "slippery," "fluid," "in flux." I definitely agree; reading her article makes me think only more strongly that trying to pin down such a nebulous thing as age is a losing battle, and that trying to force it into neatness by subjecting it to endless subdivisions is a time-consuming and - in my opinion - pointless endeavor. Because age is so fluid, there will of course be gray areas between any two publishing classifications (just ask parents of young children, who have to figure out how to place their children along a spectrum of difficulty levels in children's literature!) But how do we know how far is too far to go with these subdivisions? Once the can of worms is opened, it is easy to imagine the slippery slope forming. We covered genre-bending books last week - how do we classify those books that are "sort of romance, but also sort of mystery?" Why does BCPL separate out its science fiction books but not its urban fiction? Some subjectivity is always going to creep into these supposedly objective organizational and institutional policies, but I think that at the core of each should be the needs of the customer, and in this article, Lucia Macro, whom the author quotes, admitted that the "New Adult" classification is useful primarily to publishers, and not for readers. In fact, the second article I read, "Who's buying Teen Books?" affirmed that many of these readers are not "new adults," but adults between ages 30 and 44. If they can bridge the age gap without any hesitation or utter humiliation, then 18-to-23-year-olds should be able to do it as well.

The second article I mentioned, "Who's Buying Teen Books? Lots and Lots of Adults" really struck a chord with me when it said that YA books appeal to adults for the "less complicated fashion" of their writing. Perhaps Teen books are less intimidating to adult readers who are less confident in their literary prowess or who just want the "quick literary fix without the padding." Perhaps teens are a kind of sweet spot audience, and the fact that many YA books are well-written enough to satisfy an adult reader's thirst for meaningful story and compelling characters yet simple and straightforward enough not to become heady or esoteric, means that these books strike the perfect balance. The appeal of depth without complication also struck me as I read several middle grade novels for our "Battle of the Books" event. What I enjoyed about reading these titles was exactly what the author describes in this article: simple and easy-to-read writing that incorporated meaningful commentary on serious subject matter.

I agree with Sue Corbett's opinion in her article "YA Comes of Age," that the spectrum of depth and quality in YA fiction is no different than the similar spectrum to be found in adult fiction. Sure, there are bound to be Teen books that suffer from all the flaws the genre's naysayers highlight: over-simplicity, vapidity, shallowness, mediocrity...But YA fiction does not hold a monopoly on easy satisfaction; there is plenty of quick, easy-to-read stories with not a lot of depth in adult fiction, but we know enough not to generalize this element to the entire canon of adult literature. The same is true of YA literature; as Meg Wolitzer asserted in her article "Look Homeward, Reader: A Not-So-Young Audience for Young Adult Books," "there’s just far too much variety in Y.A. to define it or dismiss it."

Assignment 3

I really enjoyed exploring Teenreads.com - they seem to make a real effort to come up with fun and engaging articles and features (I'm especially thinking of their "Side by Side" section, which is very clever, and the "Ultimate Reading List," which I wish I'd had as a teen trying to find "the best" books to read!) I appreciate the variety in their book reviews, but I also find that their intended audience can be easily gleaned by what kind of books they include and how often. By far their most numerous reviews are from the "Young Adult 12+" and "Youth Fiction" categories, with a large percentage being Fantasy and Graphic Novels. I also like that they have a Teen Board, which would hopefully keep their readership involved.

By contrast, Stackedbooks.org seems to be much more librarian-oriented. The two administrators, Kelly and Kimberly, are currently or have been librarians, and with drop-down menu items like "In the Library," "Professional Development," and "The Publishing World," it isn't hard to see where these librarian's focus for the site lie. One article I particularly enjoyed demonstrates this: a list of 6 Hardcover to Paperback Makeovers is fascinating to me, but not what I would think a teen reader would care to read about. Likewise with their more serious features: the most recent post, summarizing Kelly's contributions to BookRiot, one of which in particular also demonstrated the very librarian-tailored atmosphere of the site: "'Stories will Help You Understand Yourself': An Interview about Censorship with Kate Messner." This article revolves around the censorship of the YA book Messner recently published, The Seventh Wish, and analyzes the place of age-appropriate engagement with serious topics in children's and YA literature. Although I'm not saying that children and teens wouldn't be interested in this topic, this sounds a lot more like something a library employee would look for in a blog post - in fact the author directly encourages those who "work with children or teenagers and books" to read it.


Assignment 4

In both Harper Collins' and Random House' teen sections, I found a preponderance of sci-fi and fantasy, as well as a tendency to include dark subject matter in realistic fiction. Although Harper Collins' teen site, EpicReads, was disappointing both for it's location (tucked away at the end of a drop-down menu and swallowed up by the several children's categories it was lumped with), and for content (much of which was vapid vapid quizzes and shallow posts that seemed to exist more to make the site a Buzzfeed wannabe than a serious site about books), underneath it all it did provide a good perspective on these two teen book trends. Their list of the "17 Most Anticipated YA Books to Read in June," for example, reflects these tendencies with several fantasy and dystopian novels such as My Lady Jane and the Marked Girl, alongside dark, serious realistic fiction like The Loose Ends List amd Run. Random House follows the same pattern, with fantasy bestsellers including the Eragon and 100 Cupboards series and dark or serious realistic fiction such as The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and a Penny from Heaven. Some newer releases (I say newer, not new because one was released in 2014!) include All the Bright Places and Brandon Sanderson's Reckoners series, prime examples of realistic fiction with serious subject matter and action-packed dystopian sci-fi.