Background: Two days ago, Roger Sutton (the editor of Horn Book) blogged that “adults whose taste in recreational reading ends with the YA novel need to grow up.” The comments, predictably (but intelligently), exploded, including a couple of smart posts by my friend Deborah, who expanded on the subject in her blog.
In a comment Sutton ameliorated the above by saying, “My problem is not with adults reading children’s books with/for pleasure; it is with the belief that children’s literature encompasses in itself the range of human experience, that it has and can give expression to pretty much anything worth expressing. Or worth reading about.”
And yes, absolutely. Moderation in all things, I say. I think Sutton and all the angry librarians in his comment log basically agree on this: if you’re reading only one thing, be it 19th century English literature or YA science fiction or biographies of famous men, you’re missing out. And I agree with Deborah that we’re all missing out, all the time; we have to make choices about how to spend our time, and of necessity those choices leave a lot unexplored.
But the discussion seems to be about what we “should” read, and that’s interesting to me. “Should” why? Because we simply enjoy the experience of reading it? Because it Says Something Important About the Human Condition? Because it will edify us in some other way (by teaching us facts, say, or by exposing us to a point of view we don’t share)? Because we work with books and need to keep up with what’s published in our field?
90% or more of the books I read, I read for the last reason. If I don’t read YA novels by the cartload (sometimes 2 or 3 a week), I have no idea what to say when one of my 7th graders asks, “Ms. Parenthetical, what should I read now?” Familiarity with the literature written for my students makes me a good librarian.
Of course, I became a middle school librarian for a reason, and it wasn’t the fame and fortune. At least some of it was because I love these books. Gavin asked me in yesterday’s post what qualifies as YA lit, and I gave a quick answer. Here’s a somewhat longer one: YA literature is often about becoming who you are, about discovering new things about yourself, about being powerful even when others don’t think you can be.
Why do books with these themes still appeal to me, at 29? I firmly believe that we’re all still becoming “who we’re going to be when we grow up.” I’m still figuring myself out and finding my own strength, at least as much as I was when I was thirteen. It does occur to me, though, that so much of how I learned the world when I was a child and teenager was through books, and my current worldview is still largely shaped by what I read then and read now. So am I stagnating myself by reading the same sorts of things I read when I was a teenager? Am I denying myself a lens through which to filter my growing-up process, by only reading books about people who’ve done a lot less growing than I have?
I think I maybe am. When I was a kid, my mom made me read one “classic” for every Baby-Sitters Club book (you can imagine how well I stuck to that rule). I think this year I’ll try to read one “grown-up” book for every 2 or 3 YA books. Maybe I’ll think they’re slow and boring. Maybe I won’t learn anything new. But I feel like it’s time to find out what that other floor of the library is all about!
Question: Ok, grown-up-type people — what should I read?
11 responses so far ↓
1 Jaime // Mar 7, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Awww, c’mon- it was kind of the fame and fortune.
I spent the 15 minutes between school and rehearsal being mobbed by 8th grade girls. I felt all kinds of famous. And Ilana gave me cashews. A fortune of nuts! I am glad I am not 13, but I must admit that in my head I feel much less different from my kids than I sometimes think I ought.
2 Michael // Mar 7, 2008 at 7:18 pm
I just spent four trying (heh) days in a building with a staircase that winds around an empty cage in the middle (where some staircases have a many-stories-tall empty space instead). It reminded me of Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife, which you should read if you haven’t.
3 bloodstones // Mar 7, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Water For Elephants – It’s the only novel I’ve read in a sitting for a really long.
4 Anonymous // Mar 7, 2008 at 11:47 pm
Ok but here’s the deal – you have to respond to this comment and recommend some YA books for me. I’ve just finished Flora Segunda and Peeps and am looking for my next fix.
Set This House in Order – Matt Ruff
A beautiful, haunting, compelling story about multiple personality disorder that will leave you wondering what sanity really is.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay – Michael Chabon
…made me believe in super-heroes all over again.
Gentlemen of the Road – Michael Chabon
…was almost titled “Jews with Swords” ‘Nuff said. Fun, easy read.
Eros: The Bittersweet – Anne Carson
Dense, hard, complex, gorgeous reading about the nature of desire and love as seen through Sappho’s poetry. Her language is as rich and textured as Sappho’s poetry. One of my very favorite books. When I first read it I would get through five pages at a time before I was exhausted and filled with the need to write.
Nine Horses – Billy Collins
Contains this poem: http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=239
He is my favorite contemporary poet.
Night & Horses & The Desert – Robert Irwin
A history of Arabic literature told easily and colloquially with lots of well-translated excerpts. We’ve become so inundated with this notion of Arabs and Islam as barbaric terrorists – this book reminded me what a sophisticated and beautiful culture they come from.
Everything is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer
You will love this book. I promise. Even if you ignore everything else on this list, read this one.
If you can’t handily find any of these in yon library and are interested, I’d be delighted to lend them to you.
5 Aatish // Mar 8, 2008 at 9:43 am
That last comment was me btw. :-)
6 allen // Mar 8, 2008 at 10:08 am
I don’t think that you’re necessarily stagnating yourself by reading primarily young adult fiction, as long as you’re not sticking with books written when you were a young adult. We as a culture are constantly developing new vocabularies that we can use to describe ourselves. There are a lot of new ways to grow up, new paths opening up all the time that have been made possible by these new vocabularies. So I think that it’s unfair to say that reading today’s young adult books is reading the same types of things you read when you were a teenager. They’re not.
Ok, to be fair, I suppose there are also new ways to be an adult that are being created that are more likely to show up in “grown-up” books than in YA….
7 Sam // Mar 8, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Michael, bloodstones, and Tish —
I have read Time-Traveler’s Wife, Water for Elephants, and Kavalier and Clay! And I loved all of them!
Apparently I’ve read everything that’s good for adults. I can go back to reading YA with a clean conscience. :)
8 Sam // Mar 8, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Allen –
That’s an interesting idea! Do you have any examples of new YA books with these new vocabularies?
There are definitely new ways to be an adult. Douglas Coupland is sort of the canonical example (since he coined “Generation X” and all), but there are oodles of books about being a thirty-something without a spouse and kids that didn’t exist when I was a kid.
9 Deborah // Mar 8, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Last was unemployed and a rule for myself that every time I went to the library I had to get at least one book off the classics/modern classics shelf (think trade paperbacks published by Vintage). Many of them I returned unfinished but I adored Remains of the Day.
10 allen // Mar 9, 2008 at 8:52 am
Ok, I’m not the best person to ask for examples out of YA novels, especially around here. But, as examples of personal descriptions that exist now that didn’t exist 15+ years ago, how about: kicker (fine, blogger), thug, teen internet entrepreneur, riot grrrl (ok, maybe), gangsta… And that’s not even getting into characters like well-adjusted homosexual or transgenerdered teen.
11 » Grown-up Table: The Abstinence Teacher, Tom Perrotta Parenthetical.net: Musings and snark about YA lit, libraries, and geekdom, from an overly opinionated middle school librarian. // Apr 14, 2008 at 3:52 pm
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