Month: September 2019

Is the hype around Graphic Novels Legit?

B

Graphic Novels are all the rage in the Junior Book reader world. I have patrons come in who only want to read graphic novels. Initially my thoughts are “great! More readers!” Picture Book readers are transitioning into chapter book readers because of Graphic Novels. Yay! Kids reading longer books. BUT- I see a lot of these kids that are unwilling to transition out of Graphic Novels into novels without pictures.

Wait – you want us to read something in which we won’t have pictures?!?!?! Yes, Yes I do.

Now some authors are giving us good stepping stone books such as Dork Diaries, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, My Life as a YouTuber, Stick Dog, and the Middle School Series by James Patterson. Taking away the blocking and just adding some pictures throughout, giving the kids a higher word count. This is great! But still, I struggle to get many of these readers to transition into books without pictures on every page.

Beyond the fact that many of these readers are not transitioning into long term readers of fiction, I struggle with some of the intentionality in the layout of a graphic novel.

The blocking, or panes, of graphic novels lead to a natural flow of the book and the story. When done correctly, this is fluent and seamless without unnecessarily breaking up the story. But this can also be a great tool to break up the action and the story! Yay for versatility!

I have seen a larger number of graphic novels that are being published lately that are dealing with heavier subject matter but these books are aimed at Junior readers. A lot of people seem to be of the opinion- as long as it’s a graphic novel it’s fine for my young child to read because it’s basically a picture book. WRONG!

Nope! Not correct. Very different mediums of art and book!

A lot of the heavier subjects that can be discussed with Junior book readers are getting graphic novels, which can be a good thing. But we need to be on guard. Many of the graphic novels dealing with heavier subjects, such as sexual orientation and juvenile delinquency, move through things at a very rapid pace. The friction of people disagreeing with their actions and the conflict is often very quickly resolved. If this happened in a normal novel, the writer would be harassed for not fulling fleshing out the problems and creating characters that are two dimensional. And yet, in graphic novels I see it happening often.

May I suggest a solution? A simple one? Take more intentionality in the graphic novels you are writing. When there is a big moment of conflict take more panes to describe it. You have to be aware to slow down the action. Adding panes draws out the conflict. You as the author may not read it quickly and keep moving, but most kids will. Most kids are not reading it to get every nuance. They are just trying to get their reading minutes in and want the action.

Don’t hear me wrong, I love graphic novels! I absolutely love them! I think they are great tools! I adore Ben Hatke’s work (I honestly wish I could frame some of it for my house!). Hatke does a great job of taking the necessary time to discuss the action and taking as many panes as needed to get his point across. I greatly respect this man as an author.

As Authors, let’s make sure we take our responsibility seriously. We have the ability to shape minds by what we publish and what we create for others. Let’s not take this lightly.

I was going to add “let’s not take this lightly, especially those of us who write for children and teens” but I realized something. Everyone is affected by what they read, not just the young minds that are still being molded. We are all affected. Let’s do ourselves a favor and write with intentionality no matter what we write.

Keep Sparkling,

B

Religious depiction in YA Literature

B

Diveristy in YA gets a lot of hype and I totally understand that! We need Diverse authors! We need diverse characters! But diversity is about inclusion, not exclusion.

“These days it’s relatively easy for teens to find genre fiction that includes characters who are queer or people of color, or realistic fiction where such characters are depicted in well-rounded ways, not framed simply in relation to their marginalized identities.”- Laura Simeon- Kirkus YA edictor

I hadn’t thought much about this in regards to religion until I read an article in the September 2019 Kirkus.

“Religion in Mainstream YA titles seems to be conspicuous either in its absence or as the focal point of a problem- typically a young person struggling against oppression … There are a number of young adults for whom religion is a positive parts of their lives, to a greater or lesser degree, not a a huge source of angst. For these young people, faith offers a framework for doing good in the world, answering important existential questions, and feeling connected to family and community, among other things.” – Laura Simeon- Kirkus YA editor

Hmmmm. You mean we can have characters that are religious and not have them completely turn away from their religion? You mean we can have books with characters who are religious but don’t define themselves by it? You mean we can have books about characters who practice their religion and actually appreciate that part of their life? Yes. Yes, and yes.

I’ve seen a push to include practicing and nominal Muslims in literature and I think that’s great. (If you don’t believe me, check out a past article I wrote) But once again- we can’t include at the expense of excluding others.

Simeon brings up a great point in her article that yes, there are publishing companies who are publishing their YA lit in hopes of “preaching” or “teaching” their particular religion. And, in my not so humble opinion, that’s okay. If that’s what the publishing house wants to do, great! Go right ahead! There are many people who are looking for that type of literature and I’m glad someone can provide it to them.

But let’s stop viewing religion as a bad thing, okay? Do I practice my own particular religion? yes. Do I condemn those who practice a different religion? No. Do I believe my religion is the right one? yes. But don’t we all? We all believe that we know what the right way of believing is- but this should never stop us from hearing about someone who believes differently than we do and this should never be a cop-out to make religion the “bad guy” in a story, or in life.

Let’s look at a few examples of some books I can appreciate that depict faith without it being the “bad guy” or the overwhelming topic of the book.

There’s something about Sweetie by Sandhya Menon. In this sequel to “When Dimple met Rishi” Menon takes on Rishi’s younger brother, Ashish, and his aversion to all things regarding Indian culture. Ashish ends up in an arranged relationship and learns to appreciate some of the Indian culture. The book is much more about his relationship with Sweetie than about religion but I want to commend Menon for her depiction of Sweetie. Sweetie is religious. She appreciates going to the temple and appreciates some of the religious aspects of her life. It’s not her overwhelming personality trait, but it is present. Menon shows this in a very respectful and natural way.

The Merchant’s Daughter- Melanie Dickerson. Melanie Dickerson has written a series of fairy tale re-tellings entitled “The Hagenheim Series”. Each story is set in Medieval times. This is the second book in the series and is loosely based on the Beauty and the Beast storyline. It features a wonderful heroine who is willing the do tough things to save her family. She also holds firm to her faith. It isn’t preachy and isn’t a part of every chapter but it is sprinkled throughout. Her Christian faith is real and true and, just as in Menon’s book, her religion makes her strive to do better in her life. Her faith is genuine.

Choosing up Sides by John H. Ritter. Luke Bledsoe has always been different because he is left-handed, and his preacher of a father has done everything he can to change Luke to the “correct” way of doing things. Now this book does have a lot of religion that is painted as the bad guy BUT Luke realizes something near the end of the book. He realizes that the Bible has things to say that are true and that his father hasn’t looked at the whole Bible. There’s also a wonderful moment when Luke says that he can’t imagine Jesus doing what his father did. That’s the point. Luke still has his faith in religion but it is his own journey to what he believes, not a cookie-cutter version of what others believe.

So there are books out there that do this well. That allow well-rounded characters who have faith. But we need to step away from religion as the “villain” in YA lit. Let’s not sell our teens short by ignoring fully fleshed out characters that have depth.

Keep Sparkling,

B

AR and Lexile levels- the death of the Recreational Reader

B

In my small town I have seen the deadly grip of AR on the hearts of my students. I see less and less students reading because they enjoy it and more and more hating to read.

I have a theory on why this is happening. I think it can be partly attributed to the fact that electronics have become so readily available to our students in their free time. What kid doesn’t want to play on a tablet? I know that I am continually telling my nieces and nephews, “Is this your phone? Then why are you trying to look at it?” when I am responding to a text.

Growing up I would never have attempted to look over my parent’s shoulder at what they were doing on the computer. That was not for me. That was my parent’s domain, not mine. But there seems to be this idea that “If it’s on a screen I HAVE TO LOOK AT IT!” or “It’s on a screen? It’s for me!” among many of the young patrons that come into my library, as well as the children in my own family.

But even more so than that our school system uses the Accelerated Reader program, or AR. Children are tested to see where their reading level is at and encouraged to read at that level or above. Is that a good thing? Yes! Is challenging kids not read things just because they will be “easy” a good thing? Yes! We should challenge kids to read hard things!

But here’s the thing- the kids are given a range like 4.5-5.2 and they can only read books within that level….. Yep. We have taken the vast unlimited supply of stories that is the library and told our students “Nope. Pick from these 150 books. Sorry if you like the Ranger’s Apprentice Series, it’s above your reading level. Sorry if you want a quick light read like Junie B. Jones. It’s below your level. No more enjoyment of those for you!”

It drives me nuts! And students have to reach a certain amount of AR points each semester! So they take a test to see how much information they’ve retained from the book and they have to get enough “points” to get a better grade in their Language Arts classes. Really? They can’t just read the book to enjoy it?

No wonder students don’t want to read recreationally anymore! We are raising a generation of children who love movies, not books. They like movies because they can just enjoy the action and the movement of the story. There is no stress for them. They aren’t going to be tested on it.

I think AR can be a good tool but we can’t keep limiting our students to only reading within a small level. I have seen reluctant readers become voracious readers over Rick Riordan. But when they get older and Riordan publishes new things, they aren’t allowed to read it anymore and my voracious reader becomes a begrudging reader.

Let’s re-commit ourselves to teaching kids to love reading, not following some pre-determined standards of what they “should” read. Let’s put great books into the hands of kids, not just books that they will know every word. Let’s challenge our kids!

Keep Sparkling,

B

Take a Break

B

As I wrote that title, I had some very specific lyrics from Hamilton go through my head, “Take a Break. Runaway with us for the summer let’s go upstate.” And Hamilton responds, “I can’t stop until I get this plan through congress.”

Hamilton take a break? Never! How is he going to get anywhere if he stops working?

How are you going to get anywhere if you stop working!

This was me this morning. I needed coffee in an IV. I had so much work to do! But I didn’t want to get out of bed. I need a break. Not motivation a break, and I asked myself

And the answer is (drumroll please) NEVER! But I need it.

So I decided. I’m taking tomorrow. Tomorrow is my day to rest. My day to take care of me. My day to make sure that what I want to happen, happens. And that’s okay. It’s okay to take care of yourself. If you aren’t taking care of yourself, you can’t take care of other people. So go do that this weekend. Take care of yourself. Take a break from everyone else. Take a break from the chaos and the stress and breathe. Eat some ice cream. Take a walk by yourself. Listen to the song you love on repeat for an hour. Take care of you. Take a break. You deserve it.

Keep Sparkling

B