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For those of us not on the ALSC discussion list, can you summarize the highlights? I think Marc Aronson mentioned this on his blog awhile back, but I haven not heard much about it since then. Are they putting it to a membership vote?

Jonathan

Apparently, the whole thing has been mooted for a year because of a procedural error ALSC made in notifying membership of the proposed change. So no vote will be taken until 2011.

Sorry to have missed you, but one of my kids insisted on celebrating their birthday.

I was particularly inspired by the story of Angela the Pumpkin.

~mwt

Oh, Lisa, you California moms are all alike, letting the kids walk all over you and getting ponies and clowns at their birthday parties.

Ah, selfless Angela, "who has agreed to become a pumpkin pie." She's a role model for us all.

Yeah, a model for what happens when Thornton Burgess channels the Apostle Paul.

~mwt

Great fun was had by all watching Roger Rabid go after those pesky parental affirmation guides posing as picture books.

Still, it could be fun to have an "I love you more than that other book loves you" award. Maybe the trophy could be a bottle of syrup?

HI Roger, I don't get what you mean about age level of service. Service for what? thanks for clarifying.

betty t
tiselfar at visi dotcom

Betty, ALSC is both cleaning up some confusing language and proposing changing the age of children served within the scope of ALSC's mission. Right now it is preschool through age fourteen/eighth-grade, but the Board proposes changing it to birth through thirteen. There is no controversy about the birth end of things but quite a bit about fourteen to thirteen. The overlap with YALSA (which covers twelve through eighteen, I think) periodically results in turf wars between the divisions, and I thought I read that this latest results from YALSA asking ALSC to drop down to twelve, from where, presumably, YALSA would pick up. Personally, I think the overlap is fine and reflects the way youth library services are provided in this country. Any change would also mean that all the book award committees would have to rewrite their charges, which is a nightmare of red tape.

Love it! What are you reading-is it the art book for babies that you mentioned (I think I can make out the title on the spine, but not sure)?

Yes, that is Art for Baby. The picture we are looking at is Natasha by Julian Opie.

You were born to be a grandpa! Who knew?
leda

Adorable! (Both of you!)

Awwwww.

I had a friend tell me that being a grandparent is the one thing in life that really is as good as everyone says. Congrats, Roger!

Wow. Complete cutie pie. What books does he like?

Well, he's really liking the new Tom Rob Smith Secret Speech and the latest Sophie Kinsella . . . .oh the baby. We brought him a bunch of books, but the one that seems to work best for him at 3 months is Art for Baby, an oh-so-chic oversized board book from Candlewick of black-and-white images from contemporary art (Keith Haring, Bridget Reilly, etc.) He was magnetized by this one line drawing of an almost full-sized face of a dot-eyed woman with long hair. I'm sorry I don't remember the artist. The more abstract images in the book didn't do a whole lot for him, but I was amazed at the connection he clearly made to a stylized representation of a human face. Do we arrive with that built in?

I really thought no one could compete with my baby, but that little peanut comes close. Mazel tov!

Miles is adorable. What a cutie! Congratulations.

Yes-we're born with a fascination for faces. There's been some fantastic research on babies and faces. There was a study in which researches arranged three dots into the shape of a face, and babies liked looking at that arrangement over the other arrangements of the three dots.

There's a very cute series of board books called Busy Books...(Busy Pandas, Busy Kitties, Busy Chickens, etc). Color photographs of adorable animals and very simple text.

perfection

I have to say it. There is no other way.


Aaaaaaahhhhhhh!

Jane

Happy New Year back to you!

OMG, what a cutie! :)

Que lindo!

What a sweetie-baby! Those eyes -- babies' eyes get me every time. And he has such expressive-looking eyebrows. He must be an absolute delight to the whole family.

Thanks for sharing!

I have to say that Lelac totally lost me in the last paragraph.

Being disappointed in a bunch of little kids (because, yes, 5th graders are still little kids at heart) because they want the bad guy to get their just desserts and the good guy to prosper seems pretty mean-spirited. Is real life that simple? Of course not. But wouldn't it be nice if it were? Wouldn't it be nice to escape to a universe where that's the case? Say, in a book that you curl up in under the covers after a hard day at school?

I can't remember any of the titles, but the genre of white kids dealing with major life problems was certainly prolific enough when I was a kid. I personally didn't like them, but they were certainly hot and they certainly won all the major awards. I remember endless books showing up at the library about teen pregnancy (the older sister, as the protagonist would be younger), drug abuse and alcoholism, sexual molestation, severely broken families, homelessness, death. This would have been in the late 80's, and my understanding from my younger sister is that [white] children's literature got even more dire in the 90's. I think the past decade has seen a backlash to those uber-real books in all the fantasy books.

So maybe the books she's talking about are just a decade behind the trend, but to claim that no such books exist with white protagonists is just bizarre! They might not be popular with her kids, or with the kids at the elite private school, but they do exist.

I would bet almost anything that if Almagor pushes too hard in her direction, she's just going to teach her students that the only books worth reading are the really "thought provoking" ones, and if you're not going to read those and mull endlessly over nuance, then don't even bother reading anything.

I guess I should mention that I haven't actually read any of the books being discussed, but it very interesting to read both sides of the debate here. Thank you for publishing both. And congratulations on the grandson!

I recently rewatched all episodes of MAPP & LUCIA, and I vowed to start saying "au reservoir" in that weird fabulous Lucia-ish voice - but then I forgot. Thanks for reminding me!

First, I'm glad Almagor is not teaching my child. Second, I am sad that she is teaching somebody else's.

I am thankful for Ms. Flake's response. She got it right. And apparently, my kids know she gets it, too, because her work is always disappearing from our library.

Author, Neesha Meminger wrote recently that people of color know white people than we know ourselves because we are always bombarded with your perspectives, your images, your standards.
Whites on the other hand assume they know us. Newsflash: You don't. And don't talk to me about your experiences because Ms. Alamgor's assessments prove that even with exposure you still get it wrong.

If Almagor doesn't know where to find the diversity she thinks our children deserve, here's a suggestion: Ask a person of color. I could give her list that would take her more than a year to get through.

As an African American parent who is a voracious reader I have lost patience with the complaint about the quality and availability of good literature featuring people of color. Ask us.

If you want more options then start demanding that publishers stop pigeon-holing, rejecting and under-representing our writers. Start reading our literature and promoting it. And by the way, while I love the established writers she mentioned, we have more than a dozen, quality writers. Make a greater effort to find us. Of course, you could ask us and finding us would be easier then.

As people of color, we know all your popular writers. We read many of them, too. We can't walk into a bookstore or read a blog without seeing you. When will you be able to say the same?

I'm annoyed. We are not invisible. We are here just as plain as the nose on your face. The next time you decide to tell us about who we are, you might think to ask us first if you're on mark. Most times, you not even close to the target.

While I talked about quality and availability, I failed to address the teacher's specific complaint about the type of stories with POC characters. POC writers do write fantasy, sci-fi, adventure, romance and dystopia. The problem is most publishers insist that black writers can only write historical fiction, urban fiction that focuses on poverty or dysfunction and christian lit.

Additionally, our writers don't always write about poor urban youth who come from broken homes. How can she mention Woodson and not acknowledge this writer creates characters who have stable families and different economic backgrounds? Johnson's, First Part Last is not the stereotypical ghetto drama. Both kids come from stable, middle-class families. And do check out Paula Chase Hyman. Her characters are well-adjusted teens going through the same drama as white teens.

There are many things in this article I could comment about but I will foucs on this,

"About the most popular novel in this category is Sharon Flake’s The Skin I’m In, which won the CSK John Steptoe New Talent Award in 1999 and which sometimes makes the summer reading list even at majority-white schools such as the one at which I used to teach."

Its the end that gets me, "sometimes makes the summer reading list even at majority white schools"

Why such surprise? Sharon Flake is a well established award winning author. Her books have something to offer all students. As do the works of other authors of color.

Should schools with a White majority only have books with White protagonist on their summer reading list?

The next White person who wants to dissect Black children's authors please bring some new names to the table. I am tired of seeing the same authors being criticized or praised.

And Coe Booth's abilites have been well established and documented. So if that's the first name that comes to mind, you need to think a little harder.

How about -
Traci L. Jones or Tonya C Hemgmin
or G. Neri

I'm a little confused as to why people are seeing Lelac's essay as an attack on modern black YA fiction. It seems more like she's found this interesting difference between YA books by white authors featuring white protagonists and YA books by black authors featuring black protagonists, and she's trying to explore that and guess about it. She's basically saying, "hey, I've noticed this thing about goodness and badness, and it's interesting, and I don't at all push my students away from these books, in fact, I buy them new copies every year, but I wonder what it is about these books that makes them reject morally ambiguous books like Make Lemonade and demand books like Skin I'm In." I don't see any criticism of modern black literature, I certainly don't see anywhere in the text where she's taking away books from children. In fact, she fondly and charmingly describes how her students love Skin I'm In, etc., so much that she buys them NEW HARDCOVER COPIES EVERY YEAR: "These are the books that get reread twice before they are relinquished; the books that never get checked in, only passed to the next child in line; the books I must buy new and in hardcover every quarter in order to keep up with backpack-related wear and tear."

When she says "I do want to push them toward a richer matrix of options," I don't think she's saying "I want to stop them from reading this." Every good teacher sees a child reading one book and says, "oh, you like that one? you might like this one too!" Yet she also seeks to put herself in her students shoes and asks WHY they choose they didactic books: "But I believe that the purpose of story is to help us explain our lives to ourselves; and these are the stories they are choosing."

The last line is especially telling: "Go ahead and call me a hopelessly unliterary child person: if this is what my children choose to read, I have to entertain the possibility that this is what they need to be reading." Here, Almagor reveals that it is not LITERARY QUALITY that is most important to her, but her students' love of books. She is saying, "I have to put myself in their shoes and understand why they love these books."

Last point--I really don't think she is in ANY way saying that white YA lit is better than black YA lit. I think we can all agree that there are MORE books written by white YA authors, and, as such, there are more TYPES of white YA books--and one of those types is the individual child adventure novel where the child (perhaps unrealistically, perhaps not) saves the day and typically saves the antagonist to boot (or defeats the monster/dragon/witch/or at least recognizably non-human). She provides Harry Potter as an EXAMPLE--Harry is able to save himself, save the day, and even save Draco Malfoy. She certainly isn't saying HP is BETTER than popular black YA; she's saying it's different. What is wrong with recognizing difference?

Almagor seems to me like the type of teacher who actually (a) considers and reflects upon why her students love to read certain books and reject others (b) encourages them to read and buys them new books (c) has a true love of children and combines that with her love for teaching reading. That's a heck of a lot better than a lot of teachers I can think of.

Please don't get mired down in Flake's ad hominem attacks and misreading of Almagor's essay.

Roger, back me up here. Does a CLOSE reading of Almagor's essay REALLY show that she "hates" black literature and is a "terrible" teacher as the commenters above suggest? I think not.

CloseReadingRock,

Why is it we are always misreading whites?

Where do we argue that she has said white literature is better? My problem is her limited knowledge of the breadth of black literature and therefore her skewered conclusions.

No one has said or implied hate and I'm surprised you didn't accuse us of implying racism. Honestly, your response and her essay are so predictable it would be funny if it didn't have the negative impact it does.

My issue with her essay is that it demonstrates a misreading of our work. And I am tired of white teachers, readers, publishers and bookstores harping on the same notes. Almagor's essay perpetuates narrow definitions of our experiences and the work written by black authors.

Woodson for example. What a poor choice for her to use. If you know Woodson's work (22+ titles), you know that Woodson writes characters across social-economic class,traditional and nontraditional family units and varying themes. Woodson writes affirming work that while it tackles complex issues, does not paint poc characters as one dimensional, sympathetic characters. Almagor ignores this as reduces us to familiar, archetype. That is my problem with Almagor's essay.

My problem is her comparing our work to white writers. Has she not read enough black literature to compare black writers with other black writers? Why is white the benchmark? The point isn't that there are more white writers rather the issue is that Almagor hasn't read enough to know black literature like black people are diverse. We are not monolithic. Stop assuming you know my experience. Stop implying that to be urban means poor and black and downtrodden. What white people don't live in cities and none are poor? Read Lena by Jacqueline Woodson.

I run a library. We have fantasy and sci-fi. I keep up with trends and what moves. My kids don't read it. But I make it available. I'll say it again, my perspective is broad. I read multicultural literature. I introduce my kids to writers who look like them and whose experiences mirror their own. I also teach them the world is bigger than than what they know and in my library, people of color means inclusion. The world isn't black and white- it's colored.

CloseReadingRocks,

When I speak, I don't hide and I have a name. Feel free to address me and Doret directly. I'm not 'some people.' We posted using our active, linked accounts. If I'm going to engage, I don't hide behind anonymity- another common behavior among readers who quickly jump in to defend.

Have you considered that Doret, Flake and I make any valid points?

Color Online,

Thank you for your interesting reading of my comment--I had never thought someone could see it as racially-charged and motivated, but now I will be more cautious. (It was really just about the text.) And I am sorry for saying that commenters thought Almagor hated black literature and was a terrible teacher; I was exaggerating. What one commenter really said was that Almagor is "mean-spirited," and another said, "First, I'm glad Almagor is not teaching my child. Second, I am sad that she is teaching somebody else's." I think the second does IMPLY that the commenter thinks Almagor is a bad teacher, though I don't know if that means a terrible one. Not my call, so I shouldn't have said anything.

As to why I don't post using an account and my real name, that's because I am still in school and choose not to splash my name across the internet until I am an adult. When I'm all grown like you, I'll make that decision.

Thanks again for your time,

CloseReadingRocks

What ClosingReading Rock said gave me a lot to think about and it helps me see how others may interrupt this article. So thank you for that.

Things will change when we start understanding each other better.
As much as I disagree with Almagor's article at least its getting people to talk.

It also lead to Flake's wonderful response that should not be ignored.

It's good that Almagor's and Flake's articles will forever be linked. They provide a good balance, which will hopefully encourage more disscussions.

Color Online asks, quite reasonably, why white literature is the benchmark. And it is a fair question - why.

What does not seem to me fair is to ask whether it is the benchmark. To wit, and there are dozens of other ways to go about this: In 2009, there have been five films based on children's books released: Hotel for Dogs, Coraline, Race to Witch Mountain, Harry Potter, and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Upcoming are Where the Wild Things Are, Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Out of those seven, not a one features a black main character. And as far as I can tell, not one is by a black author.

And I'm not endorsing that status quo. But it is the status quo, and I don't think that the status quo can be grappled with unless it's at least accepted as the status quo.

And I, at least, am troubled by the idea - which Almagor seems to me to compellingly present - that the books featuring black characters deal more heavily with characters who are on the problem end of systemic social problems.

Especially given that children are not stupid. They are well aware that the entire culture is put together in a way that screams at them that stories with white characters are the norm. And so when all of the books that feature characters that look like them are visibly different - and more troubled - than the "normal" books.

Is this a problem? I can't see how one could seriously argue that it isn't. If the books about black kids are heavily - not even exclusively, but heavily - about trouble, and the books about white kids are adventure stories that get made into hit movies, that's a problem.

Ditto to what Phil says.

Are the books flying off the shelves in the library - yes. Because they are assigned by teachers as class assignment or suggested by librarians. I went to the local library a few years ago and asked for books outside the stereotype and was given selections that still felt didactic, preachy, and message filled in a way that mainstream books are not. They feel more like lectures than stories my daughters can immerse in.

I remember giving a book, written by a well-known author to my daughter. When it was time to return it to the library I found it buried in the laundry. She tried to BS her way through a synopsis to prove she read it until I finally said, "thats okay - I didn't like it either." I was at her dance rehearsal and a young man had the same book. I asked him how he liked it and his eyes lit up and he gave me a generic synopsis that told me right away he didn't read it but was trying to please me. I finally said, "I didn't think it was very interesting" and suddenly all of the children - mostly African American - chimed in on how much they hated the book and how boring it was. But I can't tell you how often I hear an adult say the "love" the book and flock to booksignings by the author.

See - that's the problem. The "gatekeepers" decide what is an authentic voice and the adults revel in the cause - but no one - let me repeat NO ONE is really having an honest talk with the target audience which continues to hide the books, puts off reading them, and cries when we push them to finish the assignment(s) but is passing along Harry Potter and Twilight and Artemis Fowl to their friends. No one captured them in B&N pre-ordering the graphic novel version of Artemis Fowl.

I will tell you - after about a hundred school visits in the last few years where I often substitute mainstream fantasies, and adventures for the didactic civil right or poverty filled works the school selects (I do read the school selection first) - the kids prefer my selection based on the expression and the questions asked and the request for other titles like those.

That's not to say there aren't works outside the mainstream that are good and joyful and that children will read for pleasure outside of a school assignment. Elizabeth Bluemle is compiling a list of everything she can find (didactic or not) So far she is up to 500 titles. But if that 500 is out of a total of 25,000 trade books produced over the last five years - we have a lot of work to do.

Richard Peck once said we write for children we never were. I'll add to that. We write for children we don't take the time to get to know then wonder why they enter High School with a third grade reading level.

As a former adult literacy educator I worry that we are so busy shoving books down the throats of kids that we like, that we don't take the time to ask them - or excite them - by providing more of what they gravitate on their own.

And there's the rub.

One only needs to look at sales figures to realize there is a correlation. Which creates a catch-22. If ethnic books don't sell, don't take a risk on those that are outside the box. Only - that creates a death spiral for the "genre."

As Phil said - my kids want Coraline and Harry Potter and Graveyard Shift and Twilight and . . . ( apparently so do the kids I interview for college).

What children want is an adventure or a dramatic story in which their color is not the central theme and where adversity is about just being a kids - not being a "Black kid."

Me - I'm going off to tutor my non-pregnant, non-ebonics speaking, debate team, tennis team, second chair flute kid who is working on her Latin and Geometry homework from her "deep in the inner city" public school. Something you won't find in a book because - according to gate keepers, kids like her and her classmates aren't "authentic."

Phil said ... "Is this a problem? I can't see how one could seriously argue that it isn't. If the books about black kids are heavily - not even exclusively, but heavily - about trouble, and the books about white kids are adventure stories that get made into hit movies, that's a problem."

Phil - my daughters are reading over my shoulder and send you a hug with two snaps up. Your message was right on time.

If we were discussing a literary world that harbored as many African American YA authors as there were white YA authors this conversation would be clear.

If we were discussing an atmosphere where publishing houses actually put copious amounts of marketing money behind African American YA writers this discussion would be clearer still.

And If we were discussing a true understanding of writer's creative processes and that black author's creativity shouldn't be dictated by a culture that has had centuries of writing books that would be considered the "norm" when mainstream African American children's literature is barely forty years old--- this conversation would be more balanced.


But for Christine to say that children just want books about adventure or just being a kid is an oversimplification of what children truly want.
Not all children want adventure. And yes there are actually large numbers of black children who want to read books about people who look like them as there are many white kids who will read those same books and vice versa. And again-- to oversimplify all the books mentioned ( and not mentioned) as preachy, stereotypical and filled with ebonics, is truly offensive. . . And ethnic books?! Is that how you see books written with black children in them?
Sad. How about books with Hispanic or Asian children?

I suppose we've dismissed the myriad of books written by white authors who write stories with teen pregnancy, rape, bulimia, drugs, broken homes, alcohol addiction and violence coursing through their pages. They don't seem to stand out because hundreds of books by white YA authors are written each year while there are only a handful of YA books written by black authors.

Maybe when the scales are more evenly weighted (and I don't think that will be happening anytime soon) I could find my way to at least trying to understand Ms. Almagor's "unliterary"-- and seemingly reluctant championing of those books that her students love to read.

Leota2, is anyone in this conversation suggesting anything other than that we would like to see more books written by black authors?

That, I think, is the point we all agree on.

I feel like we're talking past each other here - nobody, so far as I can tell, has accused Flake's writing of being "preachy, stereotypical, and filed with ebonics." I don't think anyone has even accused Flake's book of being bad as such.

What has been criticized - and what I take Almagor to be criticizing when she says that she wants to "push them toward a richer matrix of options" that includes books that "complicate these very questions of goodness" is that she is frustrated by the degree to which a particular genre of book is largely (not exclusively, but largely) coincidental with black YA literature. She is frustrated that black YA literature can, to any extent, be characterized as a genre.

It’s not that African American writers only write certain stories it more a matter that the predominately white publishing industry will only publish what they want about us.

I am African American writer of fantasy or speculative fiction whose first novel will be out in 2011. What I can tell you is that most publishers, editors and agents (the gatekeeper of traditional publishing) do insist that African American writers can only write historical fiction (slavery and civil right era only ), urban lit that focuses only on poverty or dysfunction, romance, erotica and Christian lit. Send out stories or novels where the black protagonist in either a present,future or an alternative world is a powerful hero on an authentic hero’s journey such as Harry Potter’s and you can’t believe how fast those manuscripts get kicked back in your face with all manner of insulting comments, from “black people don’t read fantasy to white people wouldn’t read book with black people as hero’s in them.” Writers of color and those white writers, who know the score, talk about this issue all the time but we’re not holding our breaths that traditional publishing is going to change anytime soon.

Also I will challenge the statement that “What children want is an adventure or a dramatic story in which their color is not the central theme and where adversity is about just being a kids - not being a "Black kid.” If this is the case then we could just leave thing as they are now by slapping some color on a white character in a book and be good to go. However, as a writer this is what I know, the full range of the culture and history of characters has to come through in the writing or the story or novel becomes a wall that hems readers in, not a window where readers can see a bigger, wider world. Or worse yet, the story or novel becomes this dead thing that insults readers by adding to a growing pile of stinking stereotypes and lies.

Most young people I have talked to, especially black young people interested in Harry Potter, Twilight and Artemis Fowl, are thirsting for adventure or dramatic stories that portrays young African American people and other people of color dealing with the issues in their lives (including the problems of racism and violence.) from the most powerful, positive and mystical aspects of their cultures. I and other writers of color are working very hard to write these kinds of stories, now if only the publishing industry would let more of us in.

As Ms. Sharon G. Flake states:

“ The world isn’t simply white or black, nor are the messages in black young adult literature. Like our white counterparts, our work is rich and diverse, complicated and funny, tragic and heartwarming. The boxes black authors sometimes find themselves in aren’t so much of our own making, but often put there by people who think they know us and like to tell us who they think we are. All authors worth their salt want to be analyzed, critiqued, and studied — it means people think your work has value. But we hope the critics get it right when they write about us and the children we create for the world. And we hope they let our readers — both black and white — fly, even if the route they take is not across the ages or on the wings of a dragon, or even if it is. If people will let us be free to be the storytellers that our readers know us to be, they will see we have no limits, nor place any on our characters.”

Thanks

Leota2

I didn't say those children ONLY wanted scifi and fantasy. That seems to be an excuse to dismiss the central message so eloquently reiterated by Phil and LaFreya - that ethnic children want what other children want. They want what other children have. But they don't want it wrapped in an environment that is constantly telling them they can't aspire to be part of that world.

An "adventure" can occur in one's own backyard without fantastical elements. But what is happening is there is a mind-numbing sameness to the small percentage of literature featuring children of color (any color). And publishers seem more interested in catering to adults than the end user - the child who should be learning to read for pleasure (rather than to please a parent or teacher).

Amazon suggested an interesting option when I was searching for a book mentioned above. It was "Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading . . . " by Kelly Gallagher.

One of the comments posted cites excerpts similar to what many of us are trying to get across and could easily be applied to the choices - or lack thereof -provided by publishers:

"....The flow I want my students to experience in their reading lives was first described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1990) in Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Csikszentmihalyi describes the flow as 'the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for th sheer sake of doing it.' (1990, 4). The flow is where we want all our students to be when they read, the place Nancie Atwell, in The Reading Zone, describes as the place where young readers have to 'come up for air' (2007, 12)."

Students, asserts Gallagher, should spend at least 50 percent of their school-based language arts time engaging with self-selected texts.

...Action continues, however, by becoming unyielding advocates for reading. "When the decisions upstairs play a role in permanently damaging the literacy development of our children, " Gallagher writes, "it is time for us to take a stand...Make a stink. Make it happen. Of all the battles we face, this is the one worth falling on your sword for. If none of the above steps [to providing students with access to books] work, go teach somewhere else. No one should consciously be a part of a system that ensures that kids fail. That's unconscionable." (Gallagher, p. 46)

Amen.

At the risk of turning on people who are mostly agreeing with me...

I have made no claim that black students or any other sort of student (I prefer this to the term ethnic, since it seems like every student has some ethnicity) want, and I would be floored if it turned out that all black students want the same things.

I have said that I think it unfortunate that the world of black YA literature is a more narrow than the world of mainstream YA literature, where mainstream, we have to be honest with ourselves, is largely a product of and for white middle class culture.

Should Sharon Flake be tossed out of the library? God no. Clearly she's a sharp, moving writer who writes books that motivate kids to read. Are her books perfect? No. Are they good? Yes. Are they enough? No.

Christine, I wish you would tell us what the book is which "all of the children - mostly African American - chimed in on how much they hated the book and how boring it was. But I can't tell you how often I hear an adult say the "love" the book and flock to booksignings by the author." I'm guessing you don't want this discussion to be derailed into debating a particular book, but as a white school librarian (who works with many black students), I'm wondering if I'm one of those adults. I'll take your point and be sure to ask and listen to the kids about their own opinions.

Christine said what I meant to say so much better than I said it. I agree with her completely. (I'm also curious as to what the book was!)

Christine,

"Mind numbing sameness." Wow. I suppose the writers should pack up their laptops and become welders. Sorry I'm so flip--not the forum for that.
I guess I find some of your judgements pointed and a bit hostile. I don't need to be agreed with so I have no problem acknowledging that.

I was not totally dismissing your basic premise about adventure and fantasy. But of course children are not cookie cutters and economic differences, social norms and peer pressure all come into play when children are choosing what they like to read. I believe adults give themselves too much credit for influencing children's likes and dislike--even in literature.

I've done story times in the burbs where children thought animorphisized animal stories were wonderful--and so did I; but the same stories fell flat in the inner city. What does that say? Nothing much. Maybe kids in apartments have less dealings with pets and don't thrill over them as much as children who have yards. Maybe another group of kids on the next block would have loved the animal
stories.

I have been in classrooms for many years and I will agree that adults can project their worship of a certain author or book on children. But of course in MANY situations they are the only adults talking to these children at all about literature. And I think we need to admit through all this talk about reaching other environs--- that not everyone goes home to bookshelves full of books. I deal with kids on a daily basis with not one book in their home.

Ultimately, I am not worried that these kids can't get into Narnia. I just want them to open up a book and read it and want more. That in itself will change their life. A true reader will read and discover more. This is not supposed to be social engineering.

Truly, I cannot believe that any of the books mentioned in Ms. Almagor's article deem to preempt African American children from joining
--what world? Are their worlds lacking somehow?
We are just talking about books here--right?

I'm sorry, it seems that everything that you say hits me in all sorts of wrong places. But passion is passion--on both our parts.

Namaste.

Roger, I am intrigued by this discussion, and hope that Sharon's thoughtful and passionate response will be included in a future issue of Horn Book.

This debate reminds me of those in the 1980s about adult fiction by African American authors. At the time, the critique was that African American female authors were portraying African American men in a negative fashion. From my professors at Michigan, I gather that the debates were very intense indeed.

My response to this debate about Black YA fiction is analogous to my response to that long-ago debate about gender in Black fiction that happened when I was a child: the very fact that we are having these debate shows that the range of publications featuring characters of color is still far too limited, almost 10 years into the 21st century.

We ought to freely and readily acknowledge that YA fiction is not divorced from the context of a society where race matters, where Black people have been historically caricaturized in American life and letters, and where Black literacy was met with severe punishment during much of our nation's early history. It makes sense that the first century or so of Black publishing should have been concerned with this legacy, and that post-Civil Rights authors of Black fiction for children, teens, and adults tend to still deal with the real conditions of our circumstances. I absolutely love Sharon Flake's work because I KNOW people like that. Growing up in inner-city Detroit, I KNEW people like that. I can attest that my students in Detroit kept taking her books and not returning them. Her book, *Who Am I Without Him?*, may have saved the lives of girls who are in abusive relationships in a sociocultural milieu where they do not often receive affirmation in language and stories that they can related to. These middle and high school girls need not only books that will stimulate their imagination, but that will help to underscore the reality of their environments.

As I read Lelac's article, I was reminded of one of the most famous Black characters in all of American literature - Bigger Thomas. For many years, I was angry at Richard Wright for creating such a monster. I agreed with James Baldwin's critiques of Wright's *Native Son*. Yet as I grew up and began to experience this extraordinary yet confounding country of ours a bit more, I understood that Bigger was less of a commentary on Black manhood than he was an indictment of the society who created him... Mary Shelley had the same impulses more than a century before. Perhaps we ought to read these characters in YA fiction whose badness seems inherent as part and parcel of our literary tradition.

I am thankful for Black authors like Sharon Flake, Walter Dean Myers, and Angela Johnson. I'm also thankful for Tanita S. Davis, Sharon Draper, Martin Mordecai, Virginia Hamilton, and dozens of others who were not mentioned. May many others follow in their footsteps.

--Ebony Elizabeth Thomas

Ms. Thomas,

Thank you. I'm in Detroit. I wish you had an active account. I do. Please contact me.

You are too young to be a grandpa!! Congratulations! Hugs to Ricardo!!

A new reader! Welcome, Miles. : )

OH. Thanks. He is dear.
I still wonder what he will call you: PeePaw, Grampy, Big Poppa, Opa...

Grandparents' Day at our school brings the list of funny grandparent names and I wish you could have one of my favorites: Elizabeth and Katie's grandmother was called "Hankie Pankie." The best.

Robin Smith

What a cutie! Congratulations!

What a sweet little man. Congratulations!

He looks just like you! Oh, wait...
(What a civilized time to give birth, by the way.)

Aww! Congrats! Much good health and happiness.

You will LOVE being a grandfather. So many books to read to an ardent listener.

Aw - what a sweetie. Congrats, Grandpa :)

Congratulations!

How wonderful! Congratulations all around.

He's absolutely gorgeous! Such a shana punim. Congratulations. Enjoy.
Irene

Welcome to the world! Congratulations.

What a sweet little baby -- let him stay up all night!

While books for adults similarly try to bring readers around to their point of view, the position is much more mano a mano, not directed from above.

With books for younger children, it may be different, but as a YA writer, I have to say that I'm not--consciously, at least--directing from above, but looking at the reader at eye level, so to speak.

Even middle grade is more complicated, if I think about it honestly. But my experience (and of course, I filter for things I enjoy reading) has been that YA really isn't about looking at or presenting viewpoints from all that different a place than adult fiction is.

(I put that badly. I didn't mean that YA doesn't have a different perspective than adult fiction, just that it's not a from-above perspective, in my experience.)

I'm 22. Most of the novels I read are young adult (and I'm writing a young adult novel of my own) but I do read adult novels from time to time. (The Life of Pi is one of my favorite books.) Most of the non-YA books I read are nonfiction, though: history, psychology and true crime. Do you have an objections, Roger, to someone who reads YA novels and adult nonfiction?

Let me say again that I am making no judgments about what people choose to read--children's books, romances, Faulkner, whatever floats your boat.

In my line of work I regularly--not frequently, but regularly--meet people who upon learning who I am or what I do, say "oh, I only read children's books." They say it as a point of pride, continuing with "because those are the best written." This is where I have a problem--not with what they are reading but that they are proud to read only children's books, that it indicates a keen delineation of taste that only the cogniscenti share. I don't get this from people who only read mysteries, say, or sci-fi or romance. They just like what they like. I understand that the general ignorance and sentimentality about children's books in the larger culture might make one defensive about having a taste for them, but let's not go overboard.

I have great respect for children's & YA literature. I derive great enjoyment from it. I read it pretty much exclusively until I came to college, but here is the thing: though they are good, they aren't everything. Good YA novels, like any other good literature, derive from their historical and literary tradition. If, for example, you read Chris Crutcher's Whale Talk without knowing anything about Taoism, some of the points are lost. (Same with the Earthsea books, actually.) If you read Octavian Nothing having studied British imperialism, the American Revolution, 18th century science & society, you will get a lot out of it and make a lot of connections that you will not have otherwise. If you read His Dark Materials, the whole thing is a lot more interesting with Genesis and Milton under your belt.

The point is, YA books are good--but a sophisticated reader is not satisfied with the last incarnation, with the end product, with what is, if we are being frank, generally easier to read and less substantial than its source material. (Yes, it is good, yes, it is substantial, but there is more.)A sophisticated reader--of any age--wants to know what things mean, where they came from, and how they fit together. If reading just YA is enough for someone--without any interest in why and how it exists--I think that's both lazy and rather dull.

I agree with Roger. My liberal arts education: let me show you it.

Heh. I actually do hear this sort of thing from romance and SF/fantasy readers as well. (And don't disagree, when put like that, that reading in any one genre is potentially limiting, though having a home/preferred genre is not.)

Roger, you say: "In my line of work I regularly--not frequently, but regularly--meet people who upon learning who I am or what I do, say "oh, I only read children's books." They say it as a point of pride, continuing with "because those are the best written." This is where I have a problem--not with what they are reading but that they are proud to read only children's books, that it indicates a keen delineation of taste that only the cogniscenti share."

My take on that would rather be that because children's literature is so patronized in the wider critical circles, we feel the need to make outrageous statements like this to wake people up to the fact that there is fabulous writing in children's literature. Not necessarily pride reading nothing else...just a shock statement. I've said it many times in just that way...and it's not even true in my case. (Yep, I'm a liar.)

To take this is another direction...I'm someone who reads both adult and chidlren's literature recreationally, but I do find often that my recreational response to chidlren's literature gets in the way of my professional response. On a daily basis I have to actively separate my appreciation of a children's book from my critical brain. At the same time I find that my public library colleagues who don't read children's literature recreationally also tend not to choose to review it professionally...just because they don't really like to read it. This then puts a whole new layer on how I read reviews of children's literature; if I suspect that most reviewers are actually "fans," I have to suspect their evaluation of the audience for the book, and look actively for evidence in the review that they considered a REAL child audience. The evidence isn't always there. I'm probably guilty of neglecting it myself.

People can read whatever they want, but the reflexive smugness of the person who says, "Oh, children's and YA books are so much better than adult books! That is all I read!" makes me somewhat ill. For one thing, it is a gross generalization. For another, why on earth would anyone be proud of limiting his or her reading?

It also makes me wonder if these people read *Weekly Reader* for their news coverage.

While I agree with some of your points, and am certainly anti-smugness in generally, I think you're overlooking something major with your condemnation here:

WHAT one choses to read and HOW one reads it are two VERY SEPARATE THINGS. I went on an ill-fated date lately with one of those "I believe everything the NY Times says about ART" people and although his recently read books were no doubt more "literary" than mine, I can guarantee you that he read No Country for Old Men with but a tiny fraction of the care, intelligence, analysis, acuity, and, yes, MATURITY with which I approach even fluffy books like Princess Mia.

I would not deem someone reads Flannery O'Connor blindly because "that's what's done" any more inherently "mature" than I would deem someone who exclusively reads YA lit and is proud of it. What matters is HOW a person engages with their reading, not what they chose to read. As long as their brain is on, any reader is mature in my book.

I don't get this from people who only read mysteries, say, or sci-fi or romance.

Clearly, you have not been around enough SciFi people...

Oh God, Cassandra Mortmain, must everything be so heavy? I like to read Flannery O'Connor because she's so creepy. And I'm sure if I were taking a class or reading an article on her, I would get additional insights that I would enjoy. But while your date might have been an obnoxious name dropper, I don't think it's any less pompous to brag about the WAY you read! For Pete's sake, life is busy and hard enough, aren't we talking about reading for fun? This reminds me of the time Deborah Brodie told me I could only go the Met if I studied the opera beforehand.

And I'm not the Elizabeth who posted at the beginning of this thread, I'm the one who posts fairly often here and is 47. Roger is staying at my apartment right now, and Come Back, Little Sheba was a sad play, but Epatha Merkerson was GREAT. Of course, although I was very moved by the loneliness of both the central characters, I'm sure I would have been more moved if I had watched the play with acuity and MATURITY.

I didn't mean to imply that my way is the only way to read- and, to be frank, I don't do it to be SERIOUS, I do it because that's how I enjoy reading. I engage closely because it's fun for me. I just meant to point out that there's more to the issue of reading than what you choose to read and plenty of immature things can be engaged with in a mature way.

And I can also guarantee you that most of my dates aren't treated to an exhaustive description of how I read- I only bring it up here for argument's sake :).

C'mon Roger: YA adult readers "need to grow up"? I read anything I can get my hands on - adult fiction, definitely adult fiction (i.e erotica) and YA and midgrade fiction. Not only because I'm a kids writer (Feral, Orca Book Publishers April 08, Keeper of the Light, Conciliar Press 06, Royal Monastic Conciliar Press, August 08). I like kids books just as much as adults books. The writing isn't overall better or worse - there are brilliant books in all those categories. I read what catches my interest and what moves me. But to suggest that I need to grow up because I read kids' books? No. You're off track there.

bev, i think that you, like many readers, missed roger's point and keep missing it. he has never said there was anything wrong with reading kids books, or with enjoying kids books. what he keeps saying is that it is kind of lame to read ONLY kids books. just like it would be lame to only go to operas and not see musicals, to dismiss rock because you think only classical is worth listening to. to refuse to visit the museum if it didn't have just the one kind of art that you think is worth looking at.

it's really starting to bother me that people can't follow this argument. read anything you want. but if all you read is kids books, i think you are pretty intellectually limited. just as i would if the only thing you read was military sf with oooh lasers and stuff.

Yes, Bev, I would be off track--not to mention self-delusional!--if I were suggesting that adults should not read kids' books. But I never suggested that, so I guess we're on the same page.

Anonymous 10;40 PM has it EXACTLY RIGHT! What a shame we've had to read through pages of gush about "how much YA fantasy etc means in my life". It would appear that no one actually read the initial post but seized the opportunity to declare their allegiance to a medium that was never challenged. If only she had made this intelligent statement FIRST!

I find time to keep up with both only because my library finally carries audiobooks. I can keep up with adult reading through listening on my commute.

Tee-hee. I spent Tuesday reading an adult recommendation of Roger's from last December-- The Exception by Christian Jungersen. 500 pages of bloat, if you ask me, which is why it took up only a day--I skimmed. But I can't stop myself from looking for tips, and maybe one of these days I'll get around to the books he mentions he's reading this weekend....

I forgot that damned Japanese mystery (Grotesque) at Elizabeth's. But the first fifty pages (about the cruelty of adolescence, ironically) were GREAT.

Like Zee, I get a lot of my adult books via audio. Just started Middlemarch . . .

"Let me say again that I am making no judgments about what people choose to read"

Um, except that you are making judgments. The "grow up" line? That was a judgment.

I do love you defending being smug about people's reading choices by pointing the finger at people being smug about their reading choices. Masterful.

I actually agreed with the first part of the post, about revealing the ending when it would be relevant to the adult purchasing or recommending the book. And you have a point with the wealth available to readers in books written for adults. But that last statement? Not good.

"Grow up"? Yeah, you're right, that's a judgment. But it's true (for me): I can't take seriously a grownup who doesn't read grownup books on the grounds that they aren't as good as children's books. Can you? People who "learned everything they needed to know in kindergarten" or who find "ineffable wisdom" in The Giving Tree--nope, wouldn't trust 'em with my kids.

I'll admit it always seem strange to me when people ONLY read books meant for children. The same way I'd think it odd if they ONLY ate "kid food" (fluffernutters?) or ONLY listened to "kid music" (Though I do love Dan Zanes!).

This is not to say that children's books aren't great, complex, well written, etc. Or that adult work is *better*. Only that the bulk of children's booksa are meant for... well, kids! The dramas of the YA world are different than the issues facing adults.

That these same readers might get something *else* from checking out some adult book.

(They might not, I guess. But from my own experience, though I LOVE to read middle grade, I learn more about myself as a person from, say, Chabon or Irving or whomever)

I wonder what some of the people commenting here would think of someone who only watched kiddie tv. Barney and Sesame Street. If they met a grown man who sat around at night, alone, drinking beer and watching the Teletubbies...

I mean, the writing on Sesame Street *is* far better than the inanity of reality tv.

As a writer too, I find that when I'm reading an adult book I'm looking for ways to bring the craft over into my writing for kids. To push my writing. When I read adult poetry, I'm thinking about sentence structure, internal rhyme, and how I might use them in picture books.

I guess it just seems a kind of arrested state, a weird barrier to me. It seems extremely limiting. A closed circle.

Just my 2 cents.

xoLaurel
http://laurelsnyder.com

Roger, but you know that I never actually want to grow up! I read a lot of "adult" books when I was really young, both classics and contemporary at the time (70s and 80s.) And then, I did decide that I really enjoyed reading Children's and YA lit more, more often, than reading "grown-up" books since, um, I don't find "grown-up issues" categorically or entirely appealing in novel or nonfiction forms. (Same way that I don't find shows like 30 Something or Sex and the City appealing... they are just whiny, and I'll tell you, whiny middle-aged men and women are much less savory than bratty children! Of course, I'm not saying good adult novels/nonfiction are all like those soap-operas! I do find popular adult fiction like The Kite Runner both well written and yet very heavy-handed in their attempts to encapsulate human experiences.)

Anyway... I don't know that we (those of us prefer reading good children's books for fun) "need to grow up," only that we need to admit: sure, we can be a bit arrested in our mental/emotional development. And at the same time, I can be proud of it. It's my life, after all, not someone else's. As I see it, as long as I am happy and not out destroying the world (which I am somewhat capable of doing, haha,) it's safe to keep me around, even as friends!

So it was YOU, Roxie, who took down Go-Krida!

And now, wreaking havoc in Second Life, mwahaha... But, seriously, I do enjoy certain non-children/YA authors and have little patience with MANY books published, supposedly for children and teens! (I still need to read Spook City, I know!)