ALA Midwinter report, part 1: children's and young adult

[deborah]

ALA Midwinter report, part 1: children's and young adult

True Story being used here for Metaphorical Purposes: I'm a butcher's daughter, and used to watch the sausage being made. Now I'm a vegetarian.

I don't suspect that's going to happen -- quite -- with my opinions of the words the American Library Association awards to children's and young adult literature. After all, they have a fairly good record. Being an ALA Notable winner is a good hint that a book might be worth reading. Might. Still, the sessions were enlightening to watch.

The sad:

1. Free-form discussions were divided by genre. First multicultural (read "Hispanic", although one panelist pointed out that we're making a mistake to use the collective term "Hispanic" as if it meaningfully described people from one coherent culture), then fantasy and science fiction, then graphic novels, novels in verse, poetry, romance, GLBTI literature (well, GLBT, anyway), fiction for poor readers and At-Risk Youth™, and finally, finally, "everything else", with a vibe of "now we can do the real books". Although a couple of times something would slip through: Strangers in Paradise got mentioned under GLBT-friendly literature, not under graphic novels.
   
2. The ALASC Notables discussion I attended contained at least a few people on the panel who tossed around the generalized and undefined term "children" like it was going out of style. Maybe at the very beginning of all of their discussions they actually sat down and agree what they mean by "children". Maybe they were very specific defined terms as used by the panel members. But if so, they have some pretty wacky ideas about appropriateness. According to their own charter, children are defined as up to and including 14-year-olds. Yet panel members were finding books inappropriate because they were too heavy for little hands, as if a non-fiction book for 14-year-olds were expected to be simultaneously appropriate for five-year-olds. Moreover, there was plenty of "this is too gross for children", "this is too violent for children", and "this is too boring for children". Maybe these discussions were all in shorthand and the various panel members knew what each other meant, but I would have been happier as an audience member hearing "I feel that the violence level doesn't fit in the narrative of this book / is developmentally appropriate for the book's implied reader, and here's why / is poorly written and here's an example".
   
3. The BBYA discussion I attended had a panel composed almost entirely of people who generalized from their personal reading experiences to the value of the book. This was most amusing because people were reading from notes, instead of responding to one another. One person would say "this book is exciting! I stayed awake all night reading the fascinating prose!" The response would be "no person could possibly enjoy this book, because the prose is so dull and plodding." First of all, generalizations drawn from anecdotal preferences; secondly, generalizations which denied the validity of the previous anecdote. Fooey.
   
4. What on earth was the BBYA committee thinking when they dominated Great Tree of Avalon, Hollow Kingdom, and Close Kin? And when they voted for Hollow Kingdom in their straw poll 13-1? (I don't know how Great Tree of Avalon fared, and I don't think I want to know.) GToA is purple prose, terrible writing quality. HK is well-meaning but uneven, like a bit of amateur Labyrinth fanfiction in which the author left off the nonromantic bits because they bored her. And Close Kin? The conclusion of CK: goblins need to kidnap elf brides to keep their gene pool fresh, but since elf men are violent, misogynistic, brutal, and stupid, elf brides are better off being kidnapped, and it's the best fate they could hope for. Then they can grow up to be spunky! Also pretty. I am not exaggerating. I would advise that you all read the book but you'd have to wash your minds out with soap afterwards. It's not even well-written to make up for the vileness. And the panel moderator talked about how excited she was for the next book.
   
5. The backlash against adequate backmatter in non-fiction has begun. *sigh*
   

The good:

1. Re (1) above: Free-form discussions included graphic novels, GLBT-friendly literature, and fantasy, and I think everyone in the room really wanted to know what other people recommended.
   
2. Re (2) above: Sensible people on the Notables panel verbally smacked around the "precious little hands" people. I don't know if they changed the overall vote, but at least they didn't let the rhetoric stand.
   
3. Overall, lots of very smart and knowledgeable people who were very excited about recent children's and young adult books were wandering around all weekend, sharing their experiences with one another. None of the usual "why did anyone bother writing anything after Charlotte's Web" I'm used to from people outside of the field.
   
4. Publishers seem to be doing a decent job of publishing for high schoolers, an age which is usually abandoned entirely to adult science fiction, romance, and classics. Librarians were excited about getting this new literature into the hands of their students.

Comments

[kumquatmay]

Notables, generally is always illogical. ALWAYS. They base their decisions on random opinions with no real basis or arguments, and are wicked snobby and old-fashioned in a lot of their tastes. Or have been in past years.

BBYA has a totally different critera for judging their books. For one, my guess is that some of those anecdotal readers comments are coming from kids themselves. I think the contradictory information is actually useful, because too many times they'd be discussing a book I hated with a passion, and saying how lovely it was etc.etc. I'd rather hear the other dissenting preferences during a discussion. I like BBYA because they tend to actually consider both what makes a good book and whether or not that book will actually appeal to teens.

The nomination process is random by the by--I think any librarian can nominate a book, and it gets seconded, etc.

Quick Picks is ALL about what is appealing to teens. ALL. Quality helps, but QP seems to me to be the most realistic of all the committees, focusing on what teens will actually like to read, instead of what grown-ups think they ought to read.

[deborah]

And yet, for all the messiness of their decision-making processes, Notables and BBYA have extremely good track records. The primary reason that was so confused by the ugliness of the panel discussions is that, in general, well-meaning but ultimately failed books like The Hollow Kingdom notwithstanding, they usually pick books which have popular appeal in the target age group and also have high literary quality.

I find Quick Picks to be suffering from a certain amount of split personality disorder. I've never bought into the "as long as they are reading" argument, and I don't think that it's YALSA's place to give awards to books simply because they're popularly read; if librarians need that information, they can turn to best-seller lists. Given that, I think that a Quick Pick should follow the maxim: First, don't suck. And most of them don't -- in fact, most of them are extremely high-quality books. (That DIY Girl book, for example, is fantastic! Humorous ass kissing aside, one area in which Quick Picks excels is in nonfiction and informational books. The other awards, which do focus on so-called literary quality, often end up bypassing the kind of entertaining anti-quality informational books which can be extremely useful for readers but which are never going to meet the particular set of standards that the other awards, even the Siebert, need to aspire to. On the other hand, given that there was a time not that long ago when people felt analyzing the "literary quality" of any informational books wasn't meaningless procedure, and then along came Russell Freedman and we all taught ourselves new ways to read, it's completely conceivable that the accepted definitions of quality will grow again to give us standards allowing us to recognize the best of those genres which are currently largely excluded: how to books and reference books, for example.)

[continued]

[kumquatmay]

I'd agree with you on the track record for BBYA. But on Notables, I think the good track record comes from the good nomination process, not the decision making itself. I think Notables tends to lean more towards the "this is a book that will be good *for* a child" mentality, rather than the "this is a good book that has appeal to children" mentality.

[deborah]

But every year, a few books make it onto the Quick Picks list that probably should have had another pass at an editor before the even left the publishing house. Vampire Kisses, for example. And sometimes I wonder if there are people on the Quick Picks panel who feel "oh, this is amateurishly written, so my reluctant young readers who are all, like, stupid, will like it!" I'm well aware that's not a fair sentiment, and I'm sure it's not even remotely true. But the very fact that the list ever leaves me feeling that way is a bad sign. Clumsy writing simply shouldn't be rewarded in less there are some other extremely redeeming features.

I have no objection to trained adults making decisions about what should be on these lists. After all, as an adult, I might find a large amount of reading pleasure from reading a Georgette Heyer novel or from reading the latest Catherine Coulter. But I'm also capable of seeing the difference between the two books: the latter which might give me an immediate rush of reading entertainment but is otherwise potato chips, unhealthy and likely to make me feel sick if I eat too many; and the former which gives me the same immediate rush of reading entertainment but also contains depths, intelligence, cleverness, and layers. I feel no shame about reading either, and I might individually recommend either book to a friend based on what I felt he or she needed to read. But I would never slap an award on the Catherine Coulter (except possibly a reader's choice award). As a teenager -- and I was a very smart and well read teenager -- I'm not sure I was either is capable or is willing to make that distinction. If you'd asked me at 14, I doubt I could have distinguished for you that Madeleine L'Engle writes substantially higher quality books than Piers Anthony. All I knew is that I enjoyed reading both. I didn't know that one would stick with me and the other wouldn't, and I didn't know all the way is in which the Piers Anthony books were kind of bad for me.

That isn't to say the kids' choice are invalid, and it certainly isn't to say that kids shouldn't pick whatever books they want to read, no matter how lacking in literary merit. As an adult, I read plenty of books that are lacking in literary merit, and I don't see why readers of all ages should be able to. It's just that I'm not sure if the Quick Picks committee members all have the same goals. Some of them, I think, seem to agree with my general sentiment: YALSA shouldn't be in the business of giving awards to actively bad books. But I think some people might see the Quick Picks is more of a handy tool for librarians, a form of best-seller list: just so you know, teens will read these. The criteria, at least officially, set standards for quality which our objective and not based on teen readership. I don't know how much the panel members take those into account.

[kumquatmay]

I also agree, nonfiction in QP is awesome (esp if I say, wrote it, heh). I think they've gotten a bit better over the years in moving away from teh as long as they're reading arguement, though yes, some clunkers do end up on the list. (Though I would say that some clunkers have ended up on the BBYA lists in recent years as well.)

the number of clunkers has greatly decreased in recent years, partially because I think the librarians on the QP committee don't fall into the trap of thinking that poorly written = stupid readers will like it. If anything, I've seen livelier discussions about the level of writing from QPers than I have a notables (where sometimes it seems a reputation is all one needs).

And though I know I am like the only person on the planet who feels this way, I would argue that Piers Anthony is better than Madeleine L'Engle. But that's just because I really dislike her stuff (I know, I know, only person on teh planet...)