The Whole National Book Awards and the Death of Genre and Stuff
(This post is for publishing nerds only. And probably not interesting for anyone other than me. But anyway, please come see me live and in person at the Main Library in Columbus, Ohio on Tuesday at 6:30. There will also be a smaller event at the Hilliard Branch of the public library at 1 PM that day. 4772 Cemetery Rd / Hilliard, OH 43026.)
So, okay. The National Book Award finalists were announced yesterday, and one of the finalists in the books for young people category, David Small's STITCHES, was not published as a children's books and arguably is not a children's book. This has led to a bit of a stir. (The stir is probably also partly due to the fact that the most heralded book of the year, WHEN YOU REACH ME, was not a finalist.)
Full disclosure: I know and really like David Small. I also really like the book STITCHES. And I know and really like some of the judges in the category. (It's a small pond.)
To be honest, I have lately become totally uninterested in the question of whether a book is or is not for children. Ultimately, I think it is kind of a how-many-angels-can-you-fit-on-the-head-of-a-pin question.
It's also a question that's starting to matter less. The main reason books are organized the way they are is that it makes it easier to sell them at bookstores and circulate them at libraries. As acquiring (and reading) books become less physical experiences, we'll have the opportunity to think differently about how we relate one book to another. (In fact, the Internet is already doing this in some interesting ways.*)
Books for teens will become books for teens because teens read them. Not to sound like a capitalist or anything, but I kind of look forward to a day when the market is free enough to tell us how many angels are on the head of each pin.
*Like, for example, my YA novels do not live in the same part of the bookstore as Katrina Vandenberg's brilliant book of poetry. But our audiences have gotten so intertwined that Amazon says we are "frequently bought together," the online equivalent of being in the same genre. These books have nothing in common except that the same people like both of them, but I would argue that "the same people like them" is the ideal definition of genre.
posted by John Green @ Thursday, October 15, 2009
45 Comments
45 Comments:
All I have to say is thank you for introducing me to Katrina Vandenberg's poetry. It's absolutely beautiful.
john green is not an author of books for young adults. he is an author.
don't let the man chain him down!!!
As a YA librarian, I wholeheartedly agree. I purchase the graphic novels for our YA department and I never think "Was this written for a teen?" I think "Will a teen be interested in this?" I do the same thing when buying for my non-fiction sections.
Unfortunately, it's harder to do when purchasing regular fiction. There are just so many books being published and not enough time to peruse it all. Then there's always the fear that you'll put an adult book in the YA section (or on a YA book list) that has "objectionable" material and suffer a storm of raging parents.
At the end of the day it's just easier and safer to order from the YA section of the catalogs. That's something I think we need to fight against. As a teen I almost never read YA books and it never occurred to me that the adult books I read weren't written for me.
Maybe the YA section of a library is more about the librarians' need to serve the group they want to serve and no one else. It helps to keep those pesky kids out of the adult areas and those pesky adults away from mine.
To be clear: I WANT to be an author of books for young adults. I have no other literary ambitions.
I just want the market to make those decisions, instead of marketers.
whoops -- that was me posting as anon above (comment #2).
your ambition is noble indeed. of course, a fair amount of your audience is not young adults, and they feel sheepish going into the YA section in Borders with all the belly shirt covers. well, at least a few of them do. but i understand the necessity of marketing schemes.
I recently read The Great Gatsby (finally) - and though I quite enjoyed it, I remarked "well, this is merely a slightly less polished john green novel!"
Which is a roundabout way of saying I am awaiting the next Great American Novel from you.
"of course, a fair amount of your audience is not young adults, and they feel sheepish going into the YA section in Borders with all the belly shirt covers."
I do have to admit to feeling a little more awkward than usually when I have to saddle up to a 13 year old to pick up the book I've been looking forward to. Nothing against 13 year olds (I wish I had been reading more of this at 13!) but there is still that moment of "ahh..."
I read "She's Come Undone" at probably far too young an age. But I'm only scarred when I remember it.
What this has to do with anything I don't know. But reading this post made me think of that.
Let's face it, awards only seldom have anything to do with the actual audience reading a book: The Caldecott has more than once in the recent past gone to an artistically brilliant picture book that didn't have appeal to the typical picture book audience of 3-to-9-year-olds--and I don't just mean Hugo Cabret.
I don't think it really matters, except maybe to authors who might, because they won an award or a nomination, receive a larger advance on their next book, or have more money devoted to its publicity [I'm trying not to start an advance discussion 2.0.]
For readers, word-of-mouth from like-minded readers is and always has been the most powerful way to find the Next Good Read. Although that's not infallible--I read a major bestseller that became a blockbuster movie not shown in the Vatican because four people whose taste I respected and shared told me how good they thought it was. I read it and was severely disappointed because it didn't reveal anything I didn't learn in a college.
--As for the angels, why would they bother with pins when they can dance wherever they want?
Just because you are a 'Young Adult' does not mean you cannot read 'Adult' books, or 'properly' understand them. Granted there may be some teenagers who do not fully appreciate or comprehend some books, but their might be some adults who are in the same boat.
The same goes for adults (or perhaps older teenagers) who wish to read YA fiction. I hate the stigma that goes along with the YA grouping/genre, just because it is written with younger people in mind or has been branded that way, doesnt mean it has no depth to it or have aspects for all ages.
In my mind a great 'YA' book is one that can appeal to ALL ages. Ironically, it is often then ceased to be called a YA book.
It is the children who should be able to say whether a book is or is not for them, just because an adult enjoys a book doesn't mean a child can't and vice versa.
I don't believe that age should govern what we read, or what society views as acceptable for us to read.
We should be able to have a free choice in literature, despite age, damn it.
But is anyone saying, "Stitches shouldn't be read by teens because it's an adult book?" Maybe they are, I hadn't heard of this until five seconds ago, but I doubt most people are saying that. If we're going to have categories, shouldn't they have boundaries? Otherwise they don't really function as categories. Maybe this is me being a literalist, but if we're going to call it a CHILDREN'S award, shouldn't CHILDREN's books (and by that I use the most easily quantifiable definition of "children's books", those being books that are published by children's imprints) be the only books eligible?
It's hard enough to get respect for being a YA/children's author as it is--YA is constantly being put down; how often does an article run in a newspaper/magazine to the tune of "OMG not all YA is stupid who knew?" The point of such awards is to give recognition and kudos to those people who write for teens and children, and that's a good thing, because there are wonderful books being published, on purpose, for teens and children. I'd be interested to see how this conversation would go if it was the other way around--a crossover YA title being nominated for a so-called adult award.
Obviously teens/children will read what they read, but when you're talking about awards that are supposed to recognize children's books/authors for excellence and then books published by adult houses are nominated--doesn't that just defeat the purpose?
I have been a moderator on the Writer's Digest YA Fiction forum for a few months, and (judging by writing style and a few personal e-mails I've received) it's striking how few contributors to that forum are over 25 or so. Most seem to be teenagers, in fact.
A recent contributor apologized for possibly posting in the "wrong" forum - the YA Fiction forum instead of the Literary Fiction forum. I welcomed him/her with the rejoinder that all posts in the YA forum should be "literary", and apropos to John's comment that he has no other literary ambition than to be an author of books for young adults, his and many other quality YA authors' writings could be described as "literary". As Katie stated so well, YA fiction is more of a description of a reader's choice than a genre.
Now - if I could just persuade more young forum posters to produce less derivative fantasy/vampire "stuff" ...
I might be a bit slow or maybe it´s the Glee music busting out the speakers that makes me less concentrated - but I didn´t understand the Angels on a pin-conclussion.
I think that your definition of "literary" varies. I like John Green's books (especially Paper Towns) because they have depth to them, and if that is YA then so be it. There are "adult" books that don't have any critical thinking attached and don't enhance the reading experience. More people need to realize that reading for content is better than reading a book because a label tells you to.
Ever coincidental! I was just at the bookstore yesturday and picked up STITCHES n read for a while...
it was in the Biography section...which i spose is fitting to the content....
I think that using Adult, Young Adult, and Children as genre dividers seems to be a very spacial construct. While suitable for corralling small people in a portion of library or store where everything will appeal to them, is on shelves of the appropriate height, and can be pawed relatively indiscriminately, it simultaneously confines those same kids to the limits of their expected understanding. A sixth grader should not have to explore three separate locations to find good reference material on a subject, (for example: Dinosaurs), and should also not have to make the same journey in search of an interesting story.
I see genre lines defined by content. That would make Young Adult Fiction defined not by its supposed target audience, nor by those who enjoy reading it, but rather by being stories related to the remarkable experience of adolescence, whether it related to romance, self-realization, or simply adventurous youth.
so, completely unrelated...
i was watching old brotherhood 2.0 videos
and you and hank were talking about Teen Read Week
you were all like, "its this week, Oct. 16!"
and i was like, OMG!! Oct. 16 was yesterday!
and then i was like, i wonder when teen read week is this year?
i think ill read the copy of An Abundance of Katherines i got signed in La Grange (xD).
so i googled it, and google told me it was next week.
but then it told me there was a theme.
"read beyond reality" or something
i dont have any books to read! i want to read a book i haven't read before, and the only book that i was going to read that is not reality-ish is the last days by scott westerfeld, and i finished that yesterday.
Ahh!!
Help!!
[my problem seems a lot lamer now that i reread that, but i still kind of want your suggestions =) thank you!!!]
I have to agree with Anna (in both her comments above).
Would all of the "lets do away with categories" folks feel the same if they were the author of the front runner (WHEN YOU REACH ME) for a major YA literary award (which brings sales and attention to YA in general) and instead an author that wrote a non-YA book got the nod?
Why have categories if you aren't going to follow them when picking nominations? It simply doesn't make sense. It'd be the same as DON'T LET THE PIGEON DRIVE THE BUS winning an Edgar Award. Or John Grisham winning a Printz award for his latest lawyer book. It ain't right, I say! :)
"...I just want the market to make those decisions, instead of marketers..."
I understand your noble intent, John, but it isn't feasible.
Marketers HAVE TO make the decision of what is YA because it directly effects HOW something can be marketed. Cover selections alone are a huge dividing line between YA and Adult. The hardback cover for Paper Towns for instance, appeals to teen girls, not grown women and certainly not men. I'm a grown up, but I bought it because I already had read you previously -- to be honest I wouldn't have picked up that book if I wasn't looking for it. The paperback cover looks more like a "boy book" by far, in fact, I almost bought the paperback of PT because I only read the "John Green" on it and thought it was new.
I think that the edges of all of the genres are quite a bit fuzzy. That being said I think that we should maybe do away with genres. And let the reader decide whats best for the reader. Parents can't exactly be on top of their kids at all times, not that they would when their kid went to the library.
John did you see the recent report at ALA.org - "Florida Library to Label YA Books by Age, Not Maturity?" I can't believe that a library caved to pressure from a parent group. While all the parents' demands were not filled, they did manage to get the library to remove "high school books" to a shelf outside of the young adult room. Wonder if teens will be required to show I.D. to prove their age.
Speaking of awards and such, congrats on being #1 on the Teen's Top Ten List this year!
-Jessica (a librarian-in-training, and a huge fan!)
"But our audiences have gotten so intertwined that Amazon says we are 'frequently bought together,' the online equivalent of being in the same genre. These books have nothing in common except that the same people like both of them, but I would argue that 'the same people like them' is the ideal definition of genre."
I disagree with your statement about the "ideal" definition of genre. Just because the "same people" like two or more types of books, does NOT define the genre. I know people who like both cats and dogs, but that doesn't mean the two animals are now one species! I like to think of genre in a loose sense-- a species of books.
Consider YA books, where the definition of the genre is based partly upon the target audience, if it happens to appeal to adults that really shouldn't affect its genre classification. It's just a book with broad appeal. So if the author's intent is to tell a story for 5-yr olds versus 16-yr olds, then I think it's necessary to have some boundaries. (And not solely for business purposes either.)
To quote one of my favorite comedians, "Every book is a children's book if the kid can read!"
I miss Mr. Hedberg.
Well, while we're on the topic of determining YA-ness, congratulations on "Paper Towns" winning the number one spot on the YALSA Teens Top 10 for the year!
As Katie said, books that are shelved for teens are generally done so just to get the teens interested; actually, Twilight et al are on the adult shelves at my local library. While the sparkly vampires are generally shelved as YA and marketed as such, they're obviously read by a wider audience.
However, I think that generally (at least in my school-library-and-teacher-experience) the question isn't as much about who the literature is written FOR, but instead who needs to be "protected" from it. There is a large number of adults who believe that it's not that YA readers can't read those texts, but because there are events in it that YA readers can't process "correctly". For me, it's been more the argument that kids will only become aroused and then turn into oversexed heathens if they read something that mentions sex. Period. But sparkly vampires are safe material.
These are the same people who think that abstinence-only education means that because kids don't HEAR about sex, they won't THINK about it or DO it. And there are students who think the same way.
And what I forgot to get around to in my previous post (d'oh!): the YA books are split up in the public library where I live now... the "safe" ones (Abundance of Katherines) are in the YA section, the "scary" ones (Paper Towns & Looking for Alaska) are in the adult sections. I hope this isn't the norm. But I think this mentality is the same one that decides book awards should be separate.
Just wanted to congratulate you on your hard work, brilliance and success! I love your books! I am a school library student in my last semester and wanted to share that a vendor just brought Paper Towns in an MP3-CD to sell my supervising teacher--he expressed the popularity of the book in both paper and audio forms!
For what it's worth- I agree with your argument here. Some people get it, and some don't...those who get it write to connect with the reader- whatever their age. You CLEARLY get it!
The ideal YA section,in my opinion, would be split up thusly:
YA FOR THOSE WITH BRAIN POWER
(you,Levithan,Bray...)
YA FOR THOSE LACKING IN TASTE
(No names mentioned, but it rhymes with Shmephenie Shmeyer.)
I think it's importent for adult books to be seperated from YA, simply because of the styles in which the books tend to be written. However, it sometimes does seem unfair that literary jewels like LFA are placed on the same shelves as MY VAMPIRE BOYFRIEND WHOSE ROCK HARD ABS BLINDED THE ZOMBIES. Obviosly, the former is vastly more intellectual than the latter, but that doesn't mean it's adult material. A lot of YA is lacking in substance, and is written in pink fluff. So when a great book like LFA or STITCHES comes out, we automatically assume that it's above the capacity for young adults' Twilighted brains.
Which sucks.
Kelsey touched on something I need to comment on.
As far as everyone heralding PT and slamming Everything that isn't PT, don't people realize that Twilight and easier books like it are valid ways to enter reading for normally reluctant readers?
My niece NEVER read until she discovered Twilight, and now only a year later she gobbles up books like Speak and 13 Reasons Why on a regular basis.
And, for as much as everyone throws around the term "critical thinking" on these blog posts, critical thinking doesn't always mean analyzing a poem (which, for me, was too laboured in PT) or figuring out why Margo's dog was named that name, to make a reader feel smarter.
Sometimes "critical thinking" can mean looking at say, Edward Cullen, and knowing that isn't a healthy or realistic relationship and talking about why. The evident theme of Twilight is: Don't make another person your god or you quickly lose your identity. This is also pretty much the same theme in every JG book, too. Imagine that!
I'm not a huge fan of the Twilight books, but that doesn't mean they aren't valuable for the segment (apparently a very large segment) of the population they are meant for. I like JG books and I usually buy them the first week they hit the shelves, but even so, they don't feed critical thought any moreso than any other book I read. It's what YOU bring to the book, not what the book presents to you on a platter.
I like the way you think, person-who-chose-to-be-anonymous. I actually really enjoy Meyer's books; they're some of the only "fluff" I can stomach. But aside from that, writers like Meyer make my life easier. I don't know how many books I got kids to read last year because SHE had liked them first, and some of those are incredibly challenging texts. One student in particular picked up Julius Caesar, my least favorite of all Shakespeare, because I guess at some point she said it related to The Host... and then the girl loved it! I was surprised and excited.
And you're absolutely right - you can think critically about anything. That's one of the reasons I got so hooked on Harry Potter... people were picking apart that text in every way possible, and I really missed that when I graduated from college.
Side note: mlc2boys, I'm also in my last semester of library school. *dances*
What I would like to say is that I am a teen and I read Jane Eyre and loved it in eighth grade. I have also read The Fountain Head, Wuthering Heights, etc. And I have a life, and friends, and go to parties, so on and so on... Just because I am young does not mean I am unintelligent or lack the experience or whatnot to comprehend something an adult would read. Yeah, adults have lives longer, and undeniably have experiences that I can't have had yet - but some of my friends have lived more, (or through more)than a lot of adults I know. Sometimes age doesn't mean a thing.
Classics are hard to come by. Thanks for giving me new books to reread over and over again. I almost like John Green books as much as Madeleine L'engle books, and that is a high compliment.
If you're really doing NaNoWriMo this year it would be nice if you updated before november. Because I doubt you'll update then, I couldn't possibly go an entire month without your blog.
My English teacher recently asked to see what I was reading (it was An Abundance of Katherines) and I told her about how I enjoyed your other book, Looking For Alaska, as well. My friend explained to our teacher how Alaska was being taught in some schools, and how it managed to be a good book while still making you think. Our teacher proceeded to read the back of Katherines, said, "Hmm. Printz, it must be good," then said "Well tell me when you're finished with this one, I've got some 'older' books that you might find more satisfying." More satisfying? What universal authority proclaimed that a book has to be "older" to be satisfying? Is it your belief, as a distinguished author, that just because your books are classified as "YA" they should be considered subpar novels?
~I.D.Beaux
I'm reading all of the National Book Award finalists right now and I read Stitches by David Small and I thought it was okay. I thought that some of the content was kind of mature and if I had children, I probably wouldn't let them read it. But I agree, it doesn't matter what it's published as, what matters (or who matters, rather) is who reads it. And if children read it, then that makes it a children's book.
As a author trying to get published, it's kind of a pain. I want my books read by teens as well as adults; yet if i wanted to add more adult content into my work, it slips away from young adult. The issue with this is that I could loss a very large market. If I was established I wouldn't really care, but I'm new. New could also mean a risk to publishers.
Update your blog. Please
John, are you alive?!?!?!
As a 24-year-old 8th grade Language Arts teacher, I absolutely loved this book! I read it with my 15-year-old cousin, as part of a project for her sophomore English class. While there is some mature content, I guarantee many of my students would love Looking for Alaska, especially because of the male narrator. Despite the fact that society thinks I should be reading "adult" literature, I proudly proclaim to be a lover of "Young Adult Literature." I guess it's a good thing I teach 8th grade...keep up the good work!
he's alive....but perhaps engrossed in an intense session of jumping jack-pushup-dance move?
Hey, so just as an aside that's completely unrelated, I'd like to say that I talk about vlogbrothers (kind of a lot) in my most recent journalism research paper. If I don't get an A for awesome, I'll know that my professor is not a Nerdfighter.
John I miss your witty blogs :( I suppose NaNoWriMo might be making you're fingers fall of tho...
John, I've found a place where you can buy Gus the Bug! You have to buy the whole phonics series, though, and they don't list any authors. I hope this helps anyway!
http://www.lamppostpublishing.com/mcp-phonics-practice-readers-a.htm
no way!! you found gus the bug???
way to go!
I'm in my first year of college with an undeclared major. When I first was considering majors I was thinking whatever could help me be a publisher and now I'm not so sure because a lot of things you've pointed out in your latest blog posts. Maybe I could help make it better, who knows. I really don't have any idea what to major in but I keep leaning towards something book related that doesn't involve writing because I'm too self conscious about that.
Anyway, thanks for everything. I've watched all the vlogbrother videos in less than a week. I suppose that makes me a nerdfighter (in training?). I look forward to whatever comes next!
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