Death and renewal

Dear Annie,

I haven't read Virgin Suicides either.   I feel nervous about suicide books in the same way you feel about anorexia books.  No matter how awful the suicide, I fear that some teenagers are particularly vulnerable to seeing it as an attractive choice.  You talked about "anorexia porn"; I have the same worries over a romantic vision of suicide.

The idea of dying young -- by whatever means -- is hugely attractive in YA.  As one comes to terms with one's own mortality, reading about those who don't make it becomes wildly interesting.  So that's one reason The Fault in Our Stars, about teenagers with cancer, is so popular.  I haven't finished reading it, but it's also a really good, well-written book.  There's one other element which contributes to its wild popularity.  John Green, the author, is a master of social marketing.  When he twittered the title of the book last summer (more than six months before its publication date), The Fault in Our Stars became an online bestseller.  He and his brother Hank have a video blog which (I confess) can get a little addictive.  Here's his entry the day the book was published.

Back in January I wrote about the store going through an expansion.  The first step was re-carpeting the whole space.  Then we knocked down some walls and spread out into the retail space next door.  And on Monday, the book section finally got its new shelving.  So right now the floor is littered with piles of books waiting to go onto different shelves.  Sports books are moving into the space previously occupied by mysteries, but I can't move mysteries until I shuffle early chapter books to the right, but first teen & adult books have to move -- to the current location of the sports section.  So stuff ends up on the floor, even though there's more space.  The only area that's just about finished is a lovely new Star Wars, fine arts and gift book section in the alcove that used to house Play Doh (which has moved into the new space).  I'll post photos once it's all in order.

We talked about the teen & adult section two weeks ago in the context of adult books for the YA audience.  I've just found a blog within the School Library Journal called "Adult Books 4 Teens."  It seems to deal mostly with new books, but I'm keeping an eye on it.

Have a lovely time on your spring break.

Love,

Deborah

Death, two ways

Dear Aunt Debbie,

I'm going to do something tonight that I don't usually do: recommend two books which I have not actually read.  Both fall under the category of edgy issues in YA books, though neither is focused on anorexia.  (I agree with you -- all novels about eating disorders, even those in which the protagonist is exceptionally damaged by the experience, make me worry that kids reading them will use them as blueprints to develop eating disorders of their own: a kind of anorexia porn.)

The first is an adult novel which can be read as YA: Jeffrey Eugenides' The Virgin Suicides.  It is, in fact, about suicide: the suicides, within a year, of five beautiful young daughters from the same family, as seen by the neighborhood boys who watch them.  A good friend and grad school colleague of mine used to teach this book at the beginning of her Women's Voices course, using it to engage HS students in questions of how societal forces shape our understanding of femininity, and how the girls involved are objectified by the boys, who don't really know them.  I read and loved Middlesex, Eugenides' lyrical, generational saga narrated from the point of view of a young hermaphrodite; I'd trust him to take on the issue of suicide.

The second is a proper YA novel that has taken my students by storm. The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green, is a girl-meets-boy story which takes place in a cancer support group.  (We've mentioned Green before in the context of gay YA.)

In recent weeks, I've seen a number of students carrying it around, and two (one HS freshman, one junior) chose to recommend it to the entire class as a Minutes gift.  Today I asked the freshman, Nicole, if she'd mind writing a few sentences about why she liked it so much.  She lit up like I'd given her a prize.  Here's what she wrote:

The Fault in Our Stars gives you a sarcastic, young cancer-ridden girl who has given up on life and gives you hope, along with an idealized, pretentious boy who pulls on your heartstrings.  I read it and just wanted to get up and make the world better and devote the rest of my measly life to making people happy.

A resounding endorsement!  Have you read either?

Love, Annie

Gay lit 2: YA and younger

Dear Annie,

Many thanks to Tatiana for that great list of gay YA books.

I just read a new one written jointly by David Levithan, author of Boy Meets Boy (mentioned in Tatiana's list) and John Green:
Will Grayson, Will Grayson.  It's told in two voices, of high school characters both named Will Grayson who have met each other  by chance.  One is gay and comes out during the course of the book.  The other is straight with a close friend named Tiny Cooper, a huge football player who's flamboyantly gay and during the course of the book writes and performs a musical about his life.  Tiny and gay Will fall in love.  There's lots of humor and strong emotion and feel of what high school life is like.  There are a few homophobic classmates, but the focus is on figuring out who you are and how to be in love.  Tiny verges on the edge of being overdone, except for the fact that he's such a likable character.  One cares about all the people in the book.

Geography Club focuses on a high school with a meaner student body.  Several gay and lesbian kids find each other, then create a club with a name so boring they figure they'll be the only members.

I'm working my way into the younger middle-grade area.  James Howe, best known for his Bunnicula series, has done a series which started with The Misfits, about four middle school kids, one of whom is gay, who have been called names and ostracized for years. They organize against it and go on an anti name-calling campaign. A little heavy-handed, but a good read for middle grade kids. Howe has done two different sequels on individual kids in the group:
Totally Joe focuses on the gay kid. He has a crush on a boy who's not ready to come out, there's some harassment, but there's also lots of adult and peer support.

Howe's an interesting author.  He's also written early readers and picture books for much younger kids, including the Pinky and Rex series (written between 1990 and 2001).  I just re-read
Pinky and Rex and the Bully the other day.  Pinky is a boy who loves the color pink; his friend Rex is a girl who loves dinosaurs.  In this book, a boy teases Pinky, accusing him of being a girl.  So Pinky decides that he'll stop liking pink and try to conform to the bully's perception of how one should be a boy.  He gets talked out of this idea by a wise elderly lady and stands up to the kid who's been teasing him.  Of course we don't know Pinky's or Rex's sexual preferences, but it's refreshing to have a book for young kids which hits the boys-can-do-many-things theme. 

Love,

Deborah