Another great post over at Chasing Ray.
What A Girl Wants #4: The Girl vs. Woman (When it Comes to Reading) was a fascinating read. For me, I just love reading different author responses and perspectives. Colleen posed the question of the need for YA titles for girls.
These two quotes stood out for me.
Sara Ryan talked about what some people may think what YA may be:
“I’ve noticed that many adult authors of YA want to ‘give us something to think about’ and ‘change our lives.’ Those are the kind of books the teachers make us read in school. But the truth is, when we go shopping for a novel and spend our money, we just want to be swept away and entertained.”
I think most teens want to be taken into a different world and more specifically to be entertained. For me as writer, that is my first goal to take a reader into a new world and a different situation. But also, I want to give teens something to think about as well—but it should not be the major focus of the novel—I think teens are smart enough to realize when they are getting a sermon. I believe in nuance and I think teens are sophisticated enough to understand it.
Margo Rabb talked about how important books are to teens:
“The books that I read as a teenager were so incredibly important in shaping who I am, in figuring out who I was and who I wanted to be, that I sometimes wonder who I would’ve become without them.”
When I was a teen, it was a very volatile stage and really without books, I don’t know how I would of made it. It was in books where I found kindred spirits to let me know that I wasn’t some maladjusted kid but I was just Karen and that was okay. I didn’t need to conform to the high school “authorities” that didn’t match my personality.
For a long time, I really didn’t want to write YA. I wrote primarily middle-grade because that was just a great period in my life. My young adult years were very hard. Middle-grade novels are where I had my first success—it’s how I got my agent. Even the novel that I’m working on now started out as middle-grade.
But here I am. Writing YA.
I think the reason I’m now compelled to write YA is that it is a formative period—especially with teen girls and everything that they are facing today in this world. I agree with what Sara Ryan stated in the blog post, it is about respect. Respect for girls who need to have their current life experience explored and empathized. To show that being a teen girl is a rite of passage and not something to be endured.
You should definitely go over and read the blog post at Chasing Ray
Other Posts You Might Like:
- SLJ Interview with Coe Booth
- Teen Girls are NOT Fragile
- It’s 2009 Right?
I don't know how or why I didn't read Empress of the World back when it came out -- I only just noticed it again when I saw that Sara Ryan has written a sequel*.
Nicola Lancaster is, by choice, spending her summer at the Siegel Institute Summer Program for Gifted Youth:
hypothesis: taking an actual class in archeology will serve to confirm nicola lancaster in her lifelong dream of becoming an archaeologist.
At home, Nicola Lancaster knows lots of people from her classes and extracurriculars, but before her summer at Geek Camp, she'd never had any real friends. At the opening ceremony, she meets the flamboyant computer programmer Katrina, the tell-it-like-it-is-unless-it's-about-himself Isaac, and Beautiful Hair Girl, AKA Battle.
Before long, Nic realizes that her feelings for Battle go far beyond simple friendship. Then she discovers Battle feels the same way...
The characters are extremely likable -- so much so that I forgave the girls their love of Weetzie Bat. But, speaking of, I do think that this book is a good example of why to avoid detailed descriptions of clothing in anything other than genre fiction:
Katrina has a white dress with pictures of buildings and people silk-screened onto it in black--it's like she's wearing a silent movie--neon green tights, and purple combat boots. She has her hair up, clipped into several clothespins that she has spray-painted silver.
Heck, give her a crimping iron and some squiggly earrings and you'd have a Claudia Kishi original. And I could have done without all of the jodhpurs. But none of that was particularly important. Just a little distracting.
Nicola's deadpan delivery and her eye for ironic and incongruous detail make her a great narrator:
Anne and I get in line for O'Riley's Food Service while Doug gets his lunch out of one of the coolers. As we approach the front of the line, I see that it's apparently run by the Mexican branch of the O'Rileys.
The focus is very much on Nicola's response to her relationship with Battle, rather than on other peoples' responses. There were a few incidents with homophobes, but due to Nic's unique voice, the moments mostly serve to highlight the stupidity of the bigots, rather than to make Nicola feel bad about herself. I found the Cream Puffs Incident especially satisfying.
It's a warm and honest story about awakening and discovery. A definite must-read for fans of YA GLBT lit, and I'd give it to fans of Better Than Running at Night, too.
*Which I will be reading ASAP. It's about Battle in college.
