Last week was a big week for Jason Reynolds and for the entire YA literature community. Being named as the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature is a remarkable achievement. His appointment follows on the heels of excellent authors who have also held the position (see the slideshow below). The field of Young Adult Literature is blessed by the books and by the contributors of these fine authors. 

Jason has a lot to offer scholars, librarians, teachers and most importantly, adolescent readers and future readers. Yes, that is right, even Jason was a once a future reader. He has stories to tell and, equally as important, Jason is a good listener. He is perfectly placed to encourage young people to share their stories. It wouldn't surprise me if in 10 to 20 years when the Library of Congress announces a another Ambassador that he or she will have a story to tell about reading, listening to, or having a conversation with Jason Reynolds.

I am forever in debt to Jacqueline Woodson for introducing me to the work of Jason Reynolds in a brief conversation. I am placing this post here as a way to mark Jason appointment. i will also be adding news, new book reviews, and other video that will help chronicle Jason's experience as the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature.  Enjoy the videos and the news stories. Bookmark the page and return every so often to found out just exactly what Jason is up to.

Author Jason Reynolds Speaks On His Latest Book, "Look Both Ways"

Jason Reynolds of the Long Way Down

Jason Reynolds On His Novel, "Long Way Down"

Author Jason Reynolds talks new book, gets a call from Queen Latifah

How poetry can help kids turn a fear of literature into love

Jason Reynolds: 2016 National Book Festival (Ghost)

Until next time.

Here is the first guest blog post of the new year and it is a dandy. Erinn Bentley discusses a project that involves teachers, preservice teachers, students and teacher educators. In reality, while Erinn and I have been to many of the same conferences and the same sessions our face to face conversation have been limited. We tend to meet just before or after a session or we pass in the halls on the way to something else and we chat for a minute. We do have a fairly robust communication through email and on the blog. She has contributed in 2017 and 2018 and will start the 2019 year. 

Even though I don't know her very well, I do know that she is a fantastic person. How? She reads to and with her children. In my book that makes a great person. In fact, her second post was about reading with her son, Noah. Her first post was about reading YA and children's literature with students on a study abroad program--they read Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter, and some of the Chronicles of Narnia in Oxford England. You see, she really is a great person.

For most folks, January marks a time for resolutions, clean slates, and fresh beginnings. For educators, though, this month is not quite the half-way point in the academic year. Returning to our classrooms after the holidays, we face restless students, looming standardized tests, and a long stretch until spring break. Back when I was a middle school teacher, I was always looking for ways to beat the “winter blahs” and bring energy and creativity into my classroom. As a current teacher-educator, I am still in search of such strategies. Recently, I had the pleasure of partnering with an awesome local ELA teacher, Kim Evans, to test out a creative strategy for teaching YA literature: The Book Bistro. Today, I would like to share our experiences hosting this Book Bistro among her 7th and 8th grade students and my pre-service English teachers.

​What is a Book Bistro?
“Book Bistro is an independent reading strategy for encouraging students to read books on their own, bring books to class for a scheduled event, and linger over books in a cafe atmosphere” (Kasten & Wilfong, 2005, p. 857). Kim and I scheduled our Bistro to take place in her classroom all day on a Friday in January. Kim’s 7th and 8th grade students were the “guests,” and my pre-service English teachers hosted the event. Prior to this day, my pre-service teachers had been enrolled in a YA literature class offered as a 3-week (abbreviated) January-term class at Columbus State. They had studied multiple texts and each chose 2 YA novels to share with the middle school students during the Bistro. (Note: None of Kim’s students had previously read these novels). 

Kim and I are neither the first nor last teachers to use this strategy to encourage, inspire, and support our adolescent readers. Other Book Bistro variations include:
​

• The teacher facilitates Book Bistro by choosing titles and assisting students in find the best “match” for them.
• Students facilitate Book Bistro by presenting self-selected texts to their peers (Kasten & Wilfong, 2005).
• Students partner with pre-service teachers as “pen pals” to read and discuss texts together through notebooks (Wilfong & Oberhauser, 2012).

 
Finally, if anyone is interested in seeing which titles were presented at our Bistro, please visit our class website. Together, we created resources for teaching Gratz’s Refugee on this site.  Additionally, each pre-service teacher created a website focused on 2 self-selected YA novels.
 
Bon Appetit! 

Until next time.

The New Year always seems to catch me by surprise. It always seems to be NCTE, the ALAN Workshop, Thanksgiving, get ready to end the semester,  and then hurry up and getting ready for Christmas. Spend time with friends and family and then all of the sudden it is the New Year.

As many followers of the blog know, I try to write twice a month and pass on the duties to others every other week. It makes for variety and it helps the blog cover books and issues that aren't always on my radar.  I try to make room for special topics or for people who have an idea that needs to be shared. I have quite a few ideas on the back burner for 2020. 

I also have a variety of contributors line up and ready to go. The following all have assigned dates and and are thinking about their posts: Erinn Bently, Nancy Johnson, Celeste Trimble, Kate Kedley, Briana Asmus, Deb Van Duinen, Gretchen Rumohr, Kelli Sowerbrower, Leilya Pitre, Jeff Buchanan, Jackie Mercer, Sean Kottke, Margaret A Robbins, Anne Bird Cramer, Ashley D Black, Cindy Koudelka, Ashley Boyd, Janine Darragh, Diane Srofano, Anita Dubroc, Lesley Roessing. Those in red are contributing for the first time. The others have contributed before and many of them over several years. There are several other past contributors who I hope will contribute in 2020 as well. We will see.

I will be spending a lot of time organizing and planning for the 2020 summit. The past two years have been great. It doesn't happen or go forward without the help of a lot of people. Unfortunately, one of the people who helped the most has moved on to greener pastures. Sheila Bray has worked as an administrative assistant in the Dean's office since I arrived at UNLV. Her expertise in organizing meals, creating contact lists, and working through a variety of snags has been hard to calculate. She left just before the break and I am sure it will take awhile to replace her and I have the sneaky suspicion that I will be on my own. 

The best news is that many of the moving parts are in place. We have keynote authors scheduled and we have a few others who will be participating and presenting as well. One of the interesting developments is that we will have a "shadow" children's literature day on Thursday that will intertwined with the research focus of the Summit on that same day. Matt will be the featured author on that day. This helps us integrate the elementary school personal in the Las Vegas area.

As you can see below, the all of the authors, Steve, Ashley, and Chris, are interesting and have books worth reading. So, get started. Their pictures link to their website.  The information about the summit will be update in Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday on the Summit 2020 page. You can submit a proposal to present at the conference a this link. Registration will be open soon.

We have been planning to include more children's literature at the summit. We have finally done it. Matt de la Peña is coming and he is a perfect fit. He has won the Newbery award and has books that fit every possible category from picture books to sophisticated realistic YA fiction. What a treat. You can register for just the Children's literature day. It will be a great day with a keynote from Matt and the opportunity to participate in a writer's workshop with him as well. Of course, I recommend that you register for all three days in order to hear and interact with every author.

Fortunately, I have the opportunity to attend a dinner or two hosted by a publisher. This year I was invited to a dinner by Source Books and I was blown away by I'm Not Dying with you Tonight. More to the point, I was totally engaged by Kimberly and Gilly. Their show needs to go on the road. They should be speaking everywhere. They can move you from laughter to tears and back again in a heart beat. I knew they need to be at the summit and speaking to Las Vegas teachers. Their frank discussion of racial tension in person and in their wonderful book needs all of the exposure it can get. I am especially moved move by their spirit of cooperation and collaboration. The friendship comes first as they model how to explore the difficult position we find ourselves in within our country, our communities, and our schools. Kimberly and Gilly, I can't what to host you at UNLV. 

Finally, after a long haul Shanetia Clark and I have this book in print. It is available on Amazon at this link. This has been a passion project for both of us and even though we have had some family issues that have slowed us down, it is here and volumes 2 and 3 will soon follow. We hope to be presenting on the content of all three at NCTE 2020. Stay tuned. As many readers of the blog know, diversity is under represented in YA and children's literature. This first book focuses on the four award winning authors who helped pave the way beginning in the 1960 and touching decades until today. Indeed, Mildred D. Taylor's final installment in the Logan family saga, All the Days Past, All the Days to Come, was just published. 

Of course, we hope you buy it. At the very least, we hope you request that your school or university library has a copy. 

Guess what? It is available from the publisher with a discount! Here is the link to the book on the Rowman and Littlefield site. Here is the link to the discount.

Okay, what are you waiting for click on the link.

Until next time. 

The year is rushing to an end. Of course, I still have work to do, but grades are in, the house is decorated for the holidays, some of the grand kids are coming for the holidays. The ALAN Workshop is over and I am still grateful for all of the help I received from the publishers. They helped guide much of my reading over the last year as I reviewed authors for the ALAN workshop. The publishers will see some of their authors represented in this blog post.

A few years ago I started selecting a few titles at the end of the year that I called Bick's Picks. I think I have made some decent picks over the years and many of these books end up in my syllabus for a YA Literature course or as a supplemental text in a methods course. You can check out the picks for 2016, 2017, and 2018.

During the course of my year I read a lot of YA fiction. As the year passes, I keep track of the books I keep thinking about. They pop into my mind as I write for the blog, work on book chapters or articles, as I prepare for my classes, or when I find myself in conversations with colleagues. I am frequently asked for book recommendation. I pay attention to the books that come to my mind as I discussion options with these students, teachers, friends, and parents. Of course, the ones I think about or recommend the most start making their way to my Bick's Picks list. 

One example of a frequently flier this year was Padma's The Bridge Home. It is a fantastic book and I found myself recommending it over and over again. Shout by Laurie Halse Anderson is another one that just seemed right to recommend to readers who knew some of Laurie's other books, especially Speak, but just weren't aware of her new book yet.

I love Jason Reynolds' work, but I must say (and I told Jason this) I just didn't get Look Both Ways for awhile. Then it dawned on me that I was reading a fantastic work of literature. I short story cycle that fits in with the legacy of Anderson's Winesberg Ohio, Hemingway's In Our Time, Steinbeck's The Long Valley and the more recent work, The House of Mango Street by Cisneros. I have already started an academic paper on this wonderful book. 

Many of you are fans of A.S. King already. I agree; she is a gifted writer. While she has a number of excellent novels, I think that Dig is one of the best novels I have read in several years. For me, the first two pages of the books stand as a short story that gives perfect insight into a couples complicated relationship.

​A few years ago Trevor Ingerson introduced me to Maria Padian's Wrecked. I was looking forward to next book. I loved How to Build a Heart. It is a remarkable book about family, heritage, and race. I think it should find its way to every possible awards list. I have refrained from ranking these picks, however, if I had to pick a top three, this would be one of them.

Several times during the year, I receive an invitation from an author or a friend of an author to read their book.  Two of the books that made the list this year came to me this way. Both of them happen to be books about mental illness. The first is The Book of Joshua. It is a powerful story by Jennifer Anne Moses that just keeps coming back to me. The second was brought to my attention by Chris Crowe--thanks Chris. He introduced me to Spencer Hyde and his wonderful debut novel, Waiting for Fitz. Fortunately, his publisher was as enthusiastic about Spencer's work as both Chris and I had become. They were able to support his way to the ALAN Workshop. He was one of four authors featured in this post who made their first visit to an ALAN Workshop in 2019.

The three other authors who were attending for the first time are Randy Ribay, Matt Mendez and Tiffany Jackson. If you don't know about them you will. That are all dynamic authors. Randy is also a classroom teacher and his solo speech at ALAN still has people talking. Matt Mendez debut novel Barely Missing Everything still has me shaking my head in amazement. I read all three of Tiffany Jackson's books over the past year. In reality, all three are excellent, but I just found out about her this year and I limit the list to books published in 2019, the current year. I started reading and I couldn't stop until I had all three under my belt. 

If you need a book to read over the winter break, all of these will do just fine. They are in no particular order, If you have read them send me your rankings. If you have a favorite, let me know. If there is a book I missed, send me the title (I read a lot, but I don't get to everything.). Some of these books don't need my help, they are by author who are well promoted or have a large presence on social media. I hope you have heard of most of these books. I hope you give them a try. I think you will find it well worth the effort.

Pick #1 Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay

Pick #2 How to Build a Heart by Maria Padian

Pick #3 Look Both Ways by Jason Reynolds

 Pick #4 Shout by Laurie Halse Anderson

Pick #5 Barely Missing Everything by Matt Mendez 

Pick #6 The Bridge Home by Padma Venkatraman

Pick #7 Waiting for Fitz by Spencer Hyde

Pick #8 Let Me Hear a Rhyme by Tiffany D. Jackson

Pick #9 Dig by A.S. King

Pick #10 The Book of Joshua by Jennifer Anne Moses

Until next week.

Mark Lewis is posting again in December after a busy conference season. It might be the start of a tradition. Last year he posted about Middle Grades Graphic Novels. You can find it here. If you have the time, browse through the contributors page. Mark has been a contributor from the beginning. Mark, thanks once again for helping out.

​At the 2019 NCTE Annual Convention, one of the keynote speakers was George Takei who had just published a memoir about the time his family was confined to internment camps during World War II. He chose to present the story, They Called Us Enemy (2019; written with Justin Eisinger and Steven Scott, and illustrated by Harmony Becker), in graphic novel format because he believed it would be more accessible to younger readers. I don’t usually embrace that argument since reading graphic novels and comics can be just as challenging as engaging with a traditional prose text, if not more challenging for readers unfamiliar with the apparatus included in sequential art that are essential to comprehension (see Brenner, 2011). Yet, there is broad scholarship on the efficacy of graphic novels to engage young readers:

​Takei’s memoir reminds all of us how certain groups have been and continue to be subjugated within U.S. society, which young readers should be exposed to as part of their English language arts and social studies curricula. So, if more youth decide to read Takei’s memoir because it is a graphic novel, then I have to applaud his decision. ​

​Another reason that I enjoyed They Called Us Enemy because it was a memoir, rather than a fictionalized account of Japanese internment, which personalizes a distant story of U.S. history. I believe young readers would also appreciate it for this reason since memoirs evoke a divergent evocative transaction between reader and text than fictional texts (see Yagoda, 2009). A memoir is a particular creative narrative that presents a memory of one’s life. I once taught a course on story and memoir with my doctoral advisor, Bill McGinley, and he explained memoir on the syllabus as the “difference between recollection and autobiography, between truth and honesty, between the past and present. Memoirs are occupied more with emotion than they are with information; they are often less panoramic than autobiographies, but more purposeful than recollections. Most important, they are not really about the past, even if their primary impetus is the act of remembering. The memoir is about how our past selves continue to inform our present selves, who we might become, and what we might be called to do.” Following this definition of memoir, I argue that youth deserve to engage with memoirs to not only learn about the diverse lives of distant others, but also to learn something about themselves. The confusion that young George Takei felt while imprisoned, followed by the indignation he felt as a young adult about what his country did to his family, can inform readers how oppressive acts have ripple effects in peoples’ lives beyond the singular moment. Here are a few other memoirs that might that explore aspects of living and dying that are worthy of consideration to include in an English language arts or social studies curriculum.

​References
Bakis, M. (2012). The graphic novel classroom: Powerful teaching and learning with images. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
Cook, M. (2017). Now I “see”: The impact of graphic novels on reading comprehension in high school English classrooms. Literacy Research Instruction, 56, 21-53.
Chun, C. W. (2009). Critical literacies and graphic novels for English-language learners: Teaching Maus. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 53(2), 144-153.
Connors, S. P. (2015). Expanding students’ analytical frameworks through the study of graphic novels. Journal of Children’s Literature, 41(2), 5-15.
Dungo, AJ. (2019). In waves. London, UK: Nobrow.
Findakly, B., & Trondheim, L. (2017). Poppies of Iraq. Montreal, Quebec: Drawn & Quarterly.
Frey, N., & Fisher, D. (2004). Using graphic novels, anime, and the Internet in an urban classroom. English Journal, 93(3), 19-25.
Gharib, M. (2019). I was their American dream. New York, NY: Clarkson Potter.
Griffith, P. E. (2010). Graphic novels in the secondary classroom and school libraries. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 54, 181-189.
Moeller, R. A. (2011). “Aren’t these boy books?”: High school students’ readings of gender ingraphic novels. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 54(7), 476-484.
Smetana, L. (2010). Graphic novel gurus: Students with learning disabilities enjoying real literature. The California Reader, 44(1), 3-14.
Versaci, R. (2001). How comic books can change the way our students see literature: One teacher’s perspective. English Journal, 91(2), 61-67.
Takei, G., Eisinger, J., Scott, S. (Authors), & Becker, H. (Illustrator). (2019). They called us enemy. Marietta, GA: Top Shelf Productions.
Tatulli, M. (2018). Short & skinny. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company.
Thrash, M. (2018). Lost soul, be at peace. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press.
Yagoda, B. (2009). Memoirs: A history. New York, NY: Riverhead Books. 

Until next time.

My memory of the 2019 ALAN Workshop is one of gratitude. I am thankful for the help and kindness of publishers who answered an untold number of questions and who supported their authors. I am thankful for the attendance of authors--both those who have been friends of ALAN for long time and those who were willing to risk a visit for the first time. Most importantly, I am thankful for the members of the ALAN family who decided to attend the workshop with us in Baltimore. I know there were many who wanted to be there, but had conflicts. I also know there were many who were there for the first time. In case you didn't catch it at the workshop, if you paid the workshop fee, you are now an ALAN member, a part of the ALAN family. 

I am also grateful for the ALAN executive committee, the ALAN officers, the elected board members, and an untold number of volunteers who help activities to run smoothly. The ALAN booth, the Breakfast and the workshop does work without all of the volunteers. Without question the workshop had a few glitches. Rest assured that as an executive board we are well aware of them and we are working hard to address them and remedy unsatisfactory situations. 

You can all be confident that you are in good hands with Ricki Ginsberg at the helm as President. The other officers, board members, and volunteers continue to amaze me with their knowledge and passion. So, hang on. I am sure that Ricki will usher in another great workshop. It you want to help right this moment, ask a colleague or a friend to join ALAN. We are stronger together.

For today, however, I solicited some memories from ALAN members. From my point of view. I thought the two keynote speakers were amazing and passionate about reaching and helping adolescents. All of the single speakers exceeded my expectations. I loved the people in conversations and those on panels. While I have read a book by most of the authors who attended, I have new books to read and authors who are now on my "do not miss their next book list."  

Take a look at the shared memories.

From Katie Sluiter
​ALAN19 was a little different this year, and I absolutely loved it. This was my fourth time being a part of this conference and the changes were definitely welcome. I was able to chat and interact with many more of the authors at the reception, favorites being those who my own 8th graders love so much: Raina Telgemeier, Mark Oshiro, Amy King, and Nic Stone.

Another highlight for me was the honor of moderating a panel of authors: Zach Smedley, NoNieqa Ramos, and Ismee Williams (I don't have a photo of this, but Noah took some).

The conference was the most stress-free I have experienced yet; I could sit and listen to all of the authors without distraction of people getting up for signings or having to decide between a signing or listening. I'm so glad because maybe I would have missed Randy Ribay, Elizabeth Acevedo, and Jo Knowles.

Mostly, my favorite part was spending time with my sister-friend, Dr. Gretchen Rumohr and her daughters Nola and Marcie. They are my bookish family and it was a treat to get literary with them!

From Jackie Bach
"Here are three authors who books can save a life: Cyndy Etler, Zetta Elliot, and Laurie Halse Anderson. It was my true honor to introduce the last panel at ALAN this year and listen to these three authors speak about their inspirational stories." ​

From Maria Padian
ALAN is a little like Literary Speed Dating. All those short, inspiration and energy-packed presentations from authors leave me fired up and hungry for more! They also prod me to take bigger risks with my own writing and really stretch.

That said: the personal high point of the conference for me was meeting my fellow panelist, Sylvia Zeleny. We were startled at how quickly and deeply we connected, and for me especially it was profound to see that despite the differences in our personal backgrounds and experiences we created characters who yearned for the same things and had much in common.

Thanks for including me this year, Steve. It was an honor to participate … and fun to see you!

Regards from Maria

From Crag Hill
I go to ALAN to spend time with colleagues from afar, talking books and writers and writing, to meet new teachers and scholars of young adult literature, and to encounter writers I had not been familiar with. My highlight comes from the latter: Listening to Randy Ribay speak about teaching literary theory. I didn't expect to hear something like this from the stage: "I believe," Ribay argued, "we can boil some of these [literary] theories down to their core ideas and train learners to apply critical lenses to ANY text." Huzzah! Here's a link to the speech:
https://randyribay.wordpress.com/2019/11/26/critical-lit-theory-as-preparation-for-the-world-2019-alan-workshop-speech/

Until next time.

In this Special Friday edition of Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday, Nancy Johnson explains her focus for the weekend picks for December 2019. She is going to focus on World War II. She explains her focus on this topic and then will make the weekend picks. Below, in slide show, I insert a few titles that I think are important as we guide students to books that focus on this important era in our history. Thanks Nancy.

​It's hard to imagine but 2020 marks the 75th anniversary of the end of WWII.  While it's been over seven decades since this dark period in global history, interest in WWII has not waned. Nor has there been a dwindling of books and stories that illuminate people, places, and events that occurred during these bleak years. 
 
Literature for young people (and adults) that takes place before most of us were even born continues to find dedicated, interested readers. While this isn't new -- WWII novels have found their way into hungry hands for years -- what's become available to today's teens are more books in all genres, not only compelling fiction, but also page-turning nonfiction, as well as graphic and illustrated memoirs. And all of it is impeccably researched.

But, what is it that continues this fascination with WWII? And specifically, what appeals to teens about books set during WWII? As I look at the literature that readers still choose to read, as well as new publications, I'm struck by some common connections. At their very core, we find universal themes relating to justice and injustice, hardship and triumph, the interplay of good and evil, and the discovery of everyday people who risked their lives for friends, neighbors, and sometimes even strangers. People who became heroes, even if we never knew their names. We can also find resonance from a generation that will soon disappear, but not without leaving fingerprints (and perhaps life lessons) that relate to issues today. 
​
​I'm also struck by the myriad questions ignited by WWII literature. How could this happen? What's the role of fear? What compels human beings to hate people who are different? How could they look the other way? Did they really not know what was happening? What allows humans to be complicit? What obliges them to resist? Can people be both good and evil? How do people endure? Survive? Forgive? What might I have done? 
 
And then there are questions that lean into who we are and the world we live right now, questions that force us to think about whether the world is different seventy-five years later -- Could this happen again? -- nudging us to raise questions that require us to wonder if we've created a better, more just world. What would I do if this happened today? Would I stand against evil? Would I advocate for others? Would I risk my life to save another? Have we learned anything?
 
This keen interest in history, particularly WWII stories, relates strongest through connection. When we read these "stories" -- real and fictional -- and identify common, contemporary threads, it's hard not to become deeply affected. We are invited to consider how WWII served to define the world we live in right now. Today's news reveals a political and cultural climate that echoes a time when people acted out of fear, and when there was explicit denial of some people as worthy, as human, as deserving of even basic human rights. Sadly, we don't have to look beyond national news to hear stories of how ordinary people have no control over their fate, to learn about abuse of power, the role of fear to intimidate, corruption and complicity, or to see aspects of government that subjugate "the other." Nor do we have to look very far to see young people taking a stand, exhibiting bravery and resilience, and making decisions on the side of morality. 

Perhaps that's the most dominant reason there is profound fascination in WWII stories. Literature raises questions of moral choice, which is what Antony Beever, English historian and author of several books on the Second World War, claims as the basis of all human drama (https://www.dw.com/en/moral-choice-explains-fascination-with-wwii/a-17881948). 

​And perhaps the appeal of WWII literature to teen readers is revealed in what Monica Hesse, feature writer for The Washington Post and author of three novels for teens set during this time period, believes: “I love that teenagers are openhearted and curious. Not only is this the time of life when they are becoming readers, it’s when they are becoming actors in human society and when they are struggling with what is right and wrong, what is easy and hard, and what kind of person they are going to be”  (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/06/13/books/14novels-bring-world-war-ii-to-life-for-new-generation.html).

​As another year moves toward the end, this month's YA Wednesday Weekend reads features historical reflection on WWII and invites us to consider not only the human drama, the darkness and despair, of this world war, but also the role of bravery and courage exhibited by everyday people, just like you, me, and your students. 
 
~ Nancy J. Johnson
Professor Emeritus, Children's/Young Adult Literature
Western Washington University

Until next time.

It is a busy time from many of us. Some of us had a busy week at NCTE and ALAN. Then a quick break to visit family for the Thanksgiving break. I hope all of you survived. If you did, and you work at a university,  you realize that you now have a final couple of weeks of classes and grading. I know that I do.

I appreciated Stacy Graber's willingness to produce a blog post. Whenever I need to remind myself to think deeply, I know that I can be inspired by any Stacy has to say. Before reading her current post you might want to check out some of her earlier contributions. They can be easily found by visiting the contributors page. 

​What is the takeaway from this philosophical argument for teachers invested in exploring a range of adolescent literacies in the secondary classroom?  We must understand how graphic texts work so we can conduct technical conversations on par with the traditional, literary ones we are accustomed to facilitating in order to authentically honor diverse forms of communication.  That said, I will propose a short list of exceptional (i.e., beautifully rendered, rich, evocative, etc.) works of YA graphica and offer remarks on how these books work in order to account for the fusion of art and literature.       

Key to the relationship between image and text in Small’s book is the cinematic and literary allusion base he draws from, implicitly and explicitly, to convey the texture of experience.  For example, as mentioned previously, the technique of exposing the seamy underside of midcentury America takes a page out of Lynch’s book, in addition to an homage to Polanski’s (1965) Repulsion found in the warping effects of isolation.  And, in terms of tracing a literary lineage, aside from the direct reference to Holden Caulfield in the narrator’s wish to live without interference among the Eskimos, Home After Dark seemingly owes a debt to Conrad’s (1899-1900) Lord Jim related to the protagonist’s catastrophic failure of nerve.  But the real literary deity presiding over Small’s graphic novel is Joyce Carol Oates in terms of the lurid details of true crime and unflinching portraiture of the darkest impulses in our friends and neighbors.  

​The bildungsroman is ultimately defined by a sense of grotesque initiation transmitted through a series of progressively more disturbing POV shots.  For instance, the world is revealed as vicious in a community’s collective commission of a homophobic hate crime, and diabolical in the grisly remains left by an animal serial killer.  No wonder one of the great chroniclers of childhood, Jack Gantos, praised Small’s capacity for wordlessly rendering the “inchoate chaos of youth.”   

In “A Lady’s Hands Are Cold,” the principal character functions passively as a piece of property until she is hailed on an errand of vengeance by a former wife and victim of the serial killer husband.  Guided by a morbid systematics—in the style of Shelley’s (1818) Frankenstein—the current wife pieces together the dismembered parts of a former wife while assembling clues to the mystery of the past and likely future.  No brothers arrive as saviors in this iteration of the classic tale; rather, the catalyst to change is the seeming transmigration of one wife into another, but the precise object of retribution is unknown.  In “My Friend Janna,” two young girls, guided by boredom and condescension, con the inhabitants of a town ravenous for communion with the dead.  And, as might be expected in a tale blurring ethical and supernatural dimensions, their ruse exacts a cost.  A kind of terrifying force envelopes the tricksters, the mark of an encounter with an incomprehensible source of power, and their bond alters from shared secret to joint curse.
​​
In both of these tales, Carroll uses color for narrative and expressionistic effect.  Meaning, color (e.g., red, blue, green, orange, white, and black) advances the elements of characterization and plot and offers an emotional vocabulary for expressing facets of experience that could not be conveyed as viscerally by realistic methods.  An example of this would be a close-up montage sequence featuring bloody utensils, the reddened lips and teeth of the serial killer husband gnawing a slice of rare meat, and the cherry-ribbon choker worn by the wife—implying her as quarry (Carroll, 2014).  Likewise, instances of aporia posed within the narratives defy logic and impart a sense of anxiety over ever resolving existential conflicts.  Perhaps Carroll is suggesting that we still contend with gender-based struggle and have not moved much closer toward resolution since the time of the Brothers Grimm. 

Peter Kuper, Kafkaesque (2018)
Could Kafka—the shy bureaucrat who invested years working for the Workers’ Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia in Prague —ever have imagined that his writing would be at the center of a range of international legal and academic battles?  I am referring not only to the controversy concerning ownership of the cache of materials produced by the writer as delineated by Balint (2018), but also the debates surrounding the impact of translation on our understanding of Kafka’s content and style (e.g., ranging from the Muir to Hofmann translations (Woods, 2014)).

Kuper makes yet another controversial, aesthetic decision in his rendering of Kafka’s story “The Trees,” by representing the speaker as a homeless person and shifting the locus of imagery from forest to city.  Perhaps readers might object to the liberty taken here with the original text, but the visuals are fitting in that they convey the central paradox/riddle of the story: What appears immovable yet may actually come unfixed with ease?  In Kuper’s inky, scratchboard drawings, the inert bodies of the homeless are subject to administrative removal and the tone of this ruthless action reflects the mournful dispossession of all outcasts, which surely reifies Kafka’s vision.
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In closing, there are many, fine graphic works produced for a young adult audience, and we need to engage in public conversations—like this one—to show our students entry points for interpretation and debate.         

Selected References
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Balint, B.  (2018).  Kafka’s last trial: The case of a literary legacy.  New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company.
Carroll, E.  (2014).  Through the woods.  New York, NY: Margaret K. McElderry Books. 
Kuper, P.  (2018).  Kafkaesque: Fourteen stories.  New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company.
McCloud, S.  (1993).  Understanding comics.  New York, NY: HarperCollins.
Small, D.  (2018).  Home after dark.  New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company.
University of Sheffield.  (2017).  In conversation with Dame Marina Warner: On Fairytales [Video file].  Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKSeHHgzjns
Woods, M.  (2014).  Kafka translated: How translators have shaped our reading of Kafka.  New York, NY: Bloomsbury Academic.
 
Biographical Statement: Stacy Graber is an Associate Professor of English at Youngstown State University.  Her areas of interest include critical theory, pedagogy, and popular culture. 

Until next time.

I am back from #NCTE19 and #ALAN19. My tenure of as the President of ALAN is over and I am overwhelmed with gratitude to the members of ALAN, the publishers, and the authors. Thank you! I also owe and incredible debt to my close friends and colleagues. Thank you! (If you were there, you know I lost my voice--still gone, and I am fresh out of offers you can't refuse.

I will recap #ALAN19 more next week. (Don't we all need a Thanksgiving Break?) If you have a short paragraph of one of your favorite moments, please send it to me as I prepare for next week. Adding a photo would help as well.

In brief, I am so thankful that Padma Venkatraman and Andrea Davis Pinkney for providing a foundation for Monday and Tuesday. All of the solo speakers were spectacular. 

Randy Ribay has made his speech public on this webpage. The title is Critical Lit Theory as Preparation for the World. It was an incredible speech. It validated the work I tried to do in the classroom. I thought for a brief moment that I should try it again. However, teachers in Randy's generation are figuring it out and modeling wonderful teaching. I will keep trying to prepare teacher who committed to the students they teach.

His work is fantastic. The novels are superb. I thought that the Patron Saints of Nothing was a fine selection for the short list for the National Book Award.

Check out the fliers for the Summit. We are updating the information soon; including the announcement that Matt de la Pena will be coming as a children's author (Wow! he has that and so much more). We will be have a few more surprise author visits to announce in the near future.

Until next time.

When most of you are reading this I am on the plane to Baltimore for #NCTE19. It is going to be great fun. Just below is a copy of my schedule. Come by. Join in with one of the sessions, sign up to write a blog post, or asking me about the 2020 Summit at UNLV on the Research and Teaching of YA Literature. I am so happy that Chea and Vickie, two graduate students at the University of Texas at Austin. They don't realize how much time they saved me this week by taking this on. Take it away.  

“[P]icture a place far, far less than suburbia and then imagine me, a few more rungs down that ladder living in a trailer rented from Fed-Me-Blueberries May Beth for as long as I’ve been alive. I live in a place that’s only good for leaving, is all that needs to be said about it, and I don’t let myself look back..” --Sadie by Courtney Summers

Sadie’s words reflect a frequent representation of rural people and places, invoking images of trailer-park poverty and the desire to leave it without a second thought. Vickie and I (Chea) are both from rural spaces and identify as out-migrated rural people, and though we recognize its lack of nuance and that its an incomplete rendering, there’s something about Sadie’s words and attitude that feel part of us too - that rings true in our bones. 
 
We left because we felt like we needed to. Because it felt like there was nothing there for us. Because the world felt too small. Because getting out felt like the only way to be successful. But now, working in an urban-focused teacher preparation program, we feel out of place and long to go back. But going back isn’t possible right now for many of the same reasons we chose to leave, so we make do with what we have, visiting home as often as we can.
 
In our lives as rural-identifying teachers and researchers, we’ve wondered about the opportunities (non)rural young people and preservice teachers have to interact with various and nuanced representations of rural identity in young adult literature. We’re also curious about how rural readers seek out or take up those representations because Chea has a hard time remembering reading any books featuring the rural and wanting to, and Vickie never really felt the need to. It’s these questions and experiences that have led us to consider how teachers might approach engaging their students in critical discussions around place in YAL.  

​Scholars have written about how the contextualized experiences of rural places and people are often underrepresented and essentialized, rendering rural places and people into stereotyped “single stories” (See Chimamanda Adichie’s “Danger of a Single Story”). To read more about these ideas, we recommend Dr. Amy Azano’s “The Other Neglected R” and Dr. Sara Webb-Sunderhaus’s “‘Keep the Appalachian, Drop the Redneck’”. Like Alli Behrens and Dr. Rob Petrone, we believe that interacting with representations of the rural and the various and nuanced experiences of the folks who live there are important to the cultivation of the identities and worldviews of students from all geographical backgrounds and classifications (i.e., rural, suburban, and urban). 
 
However, it seems that depictions of the rural in YAL are somewhat hard to come by. A quick Google search for “top urban YA books” turns out several curated lists featuring popular and critically acclaimed YA fiction. However, the search for “top rural YA books” yields far fewer results. Though there are representations of the rural in YAL, there aren’t that many. And those that are available can reflect distorted and stereotyped representations, that - like all texts - should be read critically. 

​In “Reading YAL for Representations of Contemporary Rurality,” it struck us how covers can overtly communicate a book’s connection to the rural, which is often connected to the book’s focus and content. Books featuring images of the rural (whether considered stereotypical or not) tend to situate rurality as integral rather than incidental to the plot. 

Recently reading Shout by Laurie Halse Anderson, we were completely surprised to find that Anderson’s identity as a rural person and experiences in rural spaces are featured in the text. Likewise, listening to her interview on the We Are YA podcast, Chea got super excited at hearing her describe herself as a country girl. (Hearing authors explicitly mention their rurality isn’t a frequent occurrence.) Shout’s cover art doesn’t nod to her “country” identity, nor does any description of the text. These noticings have encouraged us to think about how teachers might incorporate a critical perspective that asks about the place of a novel - especially the rural when it comes up unexpectedly.

Because not all YA books featuring the rural are “rural books,” we’ve chosen to discuss three books in which encountering the rural comes as somewhat of a surprise: Shout by Laurie Halse Anderson; Sadie by Courtney Summers; and Exit Pursued by a Bear. 
 
Laurie Halse Anderson describes Shout as “the story of a girl who lost her voice and wrote herself a new one” (p. 1). Through fiery verse, Anderson explores all the “accidents, serendipities, bloodlines, tidal waves, sunrises, disasters, passport stamps, criminals, cafeterias, nightmares, fever dreams, readers, portents, and whispers” (p. 1) surrounding the rape she survived as a teenager. Much of the book focuses on the rape itself and the process she undertook to heal and advocate for survivors of sexual assault. Part of that story involves her identity as a “country mouse” (p.19). Her inclusion and representation of the rural is nuanced, evoking the complicated positive and negative aspects associated with rural living and identity. The rural is positioned as a place of connection and healing as well as a place that is suffocating and boring. The closeness of community and reliance on one another are at once represented as supportive and stifling. Considering how Anderson both constructs and critiques the rural aspects of her identity can help readers from all geographical walks of life think about and question how place works to position people in society. 

Sadie, judging only by the cover and jacket summary, is a murder mystery that won and Edgar Award. While the driving force behind the plot is Sadie’s quest to find her sister’s killer and bring him to justice, other issues, such as rurality, poverty, drug abuse, and child neglect and sexual abuse, surface in the text. After Sadie also turns up missing, the host of a podcast dedicated to chronicling life in dying rural towns attempts to find her. Sadie’s journey and the search for her, spans both rural and suburban spaces, often leading to juxtapositions of the two. Rurality is often only painted in a negative light, describing Cold Creek as a place only good for leaving with Sadie making mental lists of all the things in the suburbs she can’t bear to allow herself to want. Although on a surface level the two different spaces serve as settings for the story, how Summers describes them through the podcast and Sadie’s eyes implores readers to consider how place might be accurately represented or distorted in those descriptions.

Exit, Pursued by a Bear (discussed recently by Stacia Long) chronicles the story of high school cheerleader Hermione Winters. After being drugged and sexually assaulted at a rural summer cheer camp while her parents were out of country, it is difficult for loved ones to reach her because of the rural location. The rural detective assigned to her case is described as unfamiliar with this kind of case and unsure of herself in interactions with Hermione after the assault. The school Hermione attends is also in a small town which impacts how she decides to seek health care (physical and mental) as she works to survive her assault in the healthiest ways possible. While the central focus of the plot is Hermione’s journey after the sexual assault and the rural setting seems incidental, considering how the issues connected to rurality are presented in the text can help bring students to an even deeper understanding of rural places, communities, and the text as a whole.  

Teachers and readers of these and other YAL texts that feature representations of the rural could consider the following critical questions:

• How is (rural) place functioning in the book?
• How are rural people, space, communities depicted in the text?
• How does it impact your understanding of what rural is?
• How does it impact your understanding of the themes in text?
• What (dis)connections do you share with the characters’ experiences?
• How do these depictions of (rural) places help us think about how society and identities are constructed?
• What can we do with this new knowledge?

We firmly believe in the benefits of critically reading place in rural YAL, and we’d love to hear about the ways you are doing this work in your classrooms. Please reach out to us with your stories and any recommendations for rural YA novels to add to our reading lists and share with our students.  
 
chea.parton@utexas.edu
 
vcgodfrey@utexas.edu
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Anderson, L. H. (2019). Shout. New York, NY: Penguin Random House.
 Azano, A. P. (2014). Rural. The other neglected “R”: Making space for place in school libraries. Knowledge Quest, 43(1), 61-65. 
 Summers, C. (2018). Sadie. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press. 
 Webb-Sunderhaus, S. (2016). Keep the Appalachian, drop the redneck”: Tellable student narratives of Appalachian identity. College English, 79(1), 11-33. 

Until next week.