It’s been about two weeks since Ruth Graham’s link-baiting post about adults who read young adult literature. I read it, of course, because just about everyone I know sent me a link and asked me what I thought about the idea that adults should be ashamed to read YA. My response, short version:
My response, long version:
I don’t know who Ruth Graham is, nor do I care. She’s entitled to her opinion and I suspect it’s more moderate in real life. No, I don’t think adults should exclusively read young adult literature. The general theme of my book club should make it obvious that I don’t think anyone should stick to one category of fiction, to say nothing about genres. Reading only young adult literature would be like eating cereal every day for the rest of your life. Reading only young adult fantasy (or dystopian, horror, romance, etc.) would be like eating Cheerios every day for the rest of your life. Torture. Pure torture…for me.
Some people really like cereal. And some people could swim in Cheerios for the rest of their life and be content. Good for them. Let them eat cereal! If they miss out on something great from the adult section, they miss out. And guess what? Those who refuse to read young adult will probably miss out on something great, too. It’s the curse of partisanship.
The other day I stopped by the school and picked up four enormous boxes of new books for the library. I have hardcovers and paperbacks of all sizes for grades K-8, maybe several hundred, and rather than wrapping them with protective film in a quiet library on an empty school campus, I decided to bring everything home so I can do one or two books per day in front of the TV. As I was loading up the books, I realized how few of them I’ve read. The fact is, young adult is not my go-to category when I’m looking for something to read. That’s going to change this summer.
I’ve decided that I should read more young adult literature because I work (for free) with kids and books. I love what I do. Love it. I truly believe it’s what God put me on this earth to do, and I want to do this to the best of my ability. I can’t sell kids on books I haven’t read. If you work with kids, you need to understand what they like, watch, and read. Period.
I’m already doing something similar with my Newbery challenge, and this will be an extension of that admittedly lofty goal. Donalyn Miller does a “book a day” challenge every summer to help her catch up with what the kids are reading, and I’m planning something similar. I’m lucky I work with K-8. On some days, I’ll be reading a picture book.
I mentioned this summer reading plan on Instagram (I’m @TheMrsKendall), and I was asked for super quick book reviews on the books I read. I’m all for it, and I even bought a book review plugin for the blog to help me organize the blog posts.
The beginning of this post is a test run on this new plugin using the first book I’ve read from the library pile. Please excuse the kinks as I get used to the technical stuff that always confounds me. For example, the review should be at the end of this post. Oh well. I’m also trying to see if I can format the posts so that I can review more than one book at a time. No one wants to read dozens of book reviews on kids books, I know. If it looks like I can’t do multiple reviews per post, I’ll post them all during the weekend so you can quickly skip past the ones you don’t want to read.
As an avid reader who works in publishing, I don’t give a rip what people are reading, as long as they’re reading. The attack on TFIOS movie was completely moot to me after hearing a theater full of young girls reciting lines along with the actors the very first time they saw the film.
1. Love your new profile picture.
2. That’s the point, right? Who cares as long as people are reading. I mean, I could do without people making hundreds of thousands of dollars reading dino-porn, and the 50 Shades thing drives me nuts, but at least they’re reading something. She’s probably the same person who shames kids, especially boys, for reading graphic novels.
And dino-porn is officially my new favorite genre. Making a case for my company to add a new imprint immediately.
Oh, there is no shame in my game. I love reading YA Fiction, among many other things, and make a special point of doing so in the summer. For one thing, I like it, and it also gives me something to talk about with my nieces. It’s win/win!
Looking forward to more of your snapshot reviews!
Thanks! I like that you call them snapshot reviews. I’m calling them that from now on. :)
And I agree about having something to talk about with kids. It’s why I’m going to read the Wereworld series. Mikey loves it, so it will be something we can talk about.
What a strange article. I love young adult fiction- maybe because I’m a teacher or maybe I just enjoy it. To me it’s entertainment – some people watch mindless tv, some people spend a lot of time on Facebook. Downtime is downtime- I don’t like the idea that we should be ashamed for not wanting to better ourselves with every moment of our pleasure reading. It’s just like music. I love the Beatles but I have to admit that when Lada Gaga comes on, I sing along. I just finished (and liked) the Uglies series.
I don’t watch fluff TV either, so maybe that’s why I don’t find YA that horrible a concept.
Curious question regarding the book review plugin. Is 3 stars the highest? Or does it only show the number of stars needed to indicate your rating? The way it shows now, it would appear as though “Beastly” is rated just shy of excellent, which I know to be a rating you don’t typically give out, and therefore assume it’s actually 2.5 stars out of 5 – just shy of mediocre.
Gasp! This is such an astute observation! I love that you know the likelihood of me giving a book top rating is slim to none. ;) I’m going to email the plugin developer and share with her your comments. Thank you!!!
Well, you know how I feel about that article :/ . I envy your boxes of books!
Beastly’s not bad, I liked Cloaked too by the same author. I think they’ll be ok. He spends most of his time pining, LOL.
Oh yeah, I have $1000+ worth of books in the trunk of my car. I need to move them before something happens to them. That would really, really suck.
Strength training for the day!
Also, have you read Holes yet? So good! So smart! People who give YA fiction a bad rap should read Holes!
I just wanted to share that I recently read The Giver, on your recommendation, and also because, from your description, it seemed to exemplify the type of book my son loves to read as of late. He and I passed it back and forth in a semi-competitive type way, and kept checking in with one another as to which part we’d gotten to. It was the best experience, topped only by a visit the following week to my brother’s house. My teenage nephew was there, and, well, just so *chatty* the way 14-year-old boys are with their aunts…until he heard me mention The Giver. He’d just read it for school, and he and I immediately launched into a discussion of it – longest conversation we’ve had in a couple of years, and it led to a few others that included sharing of some family stories, etc. Double score for me – and for you, Jules!
I have to second what Connie says above – reading books alongside my kids (children’s lit, “boy” books, YA…) has been so much fun over the years. My older two are now 17 and 15 and we loved the Harry Potter heydays (when Rowling was writing them and there was such anticipation). My niece and nephew (several years older, and pretty much the same age as Harry, Hermione, and Ron when it was winding up) were similarly obsessed. I had some great conversations with them too, and I could never understand why my sister-in-law (whom I love dearly, and hate to criticize…) didn’t read the series alongside her kids. I kept thinking, “Don’t you want to know what they’re SO excited about?! Aren’t you curious?!”
First – I read that slate article and all I could think is what a miserable person she must be. Second, my 17yo read TFIOS a few years ago.She loved the book, loved the movie. And yet somehow she managed also to (voluntarily) read, last week, Pride and Prejudice and that John Irving book that we are going to read here. Right now she’s reading Tale of Two Cities. But I promise when John Green comes out with a new book, she’ll be at the front of the line to read it. And I have spent the last three nights at the gym (yay!) on the treadmill reading detective novels, which apparently are the lowest of the low. Whatever!
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