Loose Ends

This will be the tenth and final blog entry for EDU 320. It's been an interesting semester, full of "big ideas" and really fun discussions. In the spirit of "wrapping things up" I am to talk about the book that had the most significant impact on me over the course of the semester. While I will say that I learned things from all the books we read, whether I enjoyed them or not, the book that I still think about often, the book that I found the most astonishing and beautiful, has to be Brian Selznick's The Invention of Hugo Cabret.

This book really made me re-think many things about how stories are told--I firmly believe that Selznick's approach is unique. Furthermore, the perfect intersection of form and content is something I will take with me to aid in my own creative endeavors. To write a story about a boy who falls in love with books and silent movies, in the form of a half book-half "movie," is so satisfying. The form and content of the book are indistinguishable, fully integrated. In that way, it is like a poem--a sustained poetic expression disguised as a children's book.

The way that all of Selznick's interests, from early movies, to automatrons, to magic, to clocks, to Paris, all come together is as magical as the automatron's squiggles forming an image. The fact that readers, especially children, can follow his associative leaps and imagery (again, the terms of poetry seem to fit perfectly) just shows the deftness of his craft work. The book is a metaphor for itself--it is brilliantly conceived.

But more than that? It is beautiful. It is unexpected. It is original.

I think I tend to devalue the current children's literary creations as being "not as good as what I grew up with"--but this book threw all that out of the window. If I learned nothing else in this class, it is that great artists and writers are still working towards children's literature. For a few writers, at least, artistic integrity is still more important than marketing. To sum up--this book gave me hope.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian

by Sherman Alexie, was one of the best books we've read this semester, by far. It was a heartbreaking and really funny story of a boy living on a reservation, who decides to go to school off reservation lands, where he is the only Native American--making him an outcast in both worlds. The insight into Native American lives was staggering--definitely a look at a culture that mainstream America has been trying to ignore, successfully, for over two hundred years.

The concept of intertextuality, a cultural studies mechanism for analyzing literature based on its place within literature, genre-wise, and in specific allusions to other texts, applies to Alexie's novel in many ways. First though, the most moving line in the novel, for me, was a reference to the opening of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." The speaker in Alexie's novel begs to differ--he says that on the reservation every family is unhappy, and it is for the same reason: alcohol. This claim is proven again and again with heartbreaking clarity throughout the novel.

But on a more "general" level, Alexie's novel is working within a multitude of genres, making its intertextual ties complicated indeed. The novel is marketed as a young adult novel, and it certainly has much to do with books about teenage protagonists coming-of-age, dealing with society's problems, aspiring to be more than their parents. It also fits in with Native American literature, determined to showcase the positives and negatives--the realities--of life as a "Part Time Indian." It is also a confessional work, within the "diary" tradition of writing, ala Sylvia Plath. On that same note, it is a semi-autobiographical novel for Alexie's real life--always an interesting study. Then, through the narrator's art work it also plays with the comic book tradition, through both traditional cartoons of characters and beautiful sketches hastily taped into the book's pages.

That The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian lies at the juncture of so many traditions is not what makes it incredible. However, the fact that it can use references to each of those traditions and tap into all the connotative associations inherent in them, DOES. Alexie uses all the genres that come together in his novel for its own enrichment. The reader falls into the rich, intertextual web of the book, and then emerges hours later, astonished by the wealth found within its "YA" covers.

The Giver

I would say that The Giver by Lois Lowry is one of the greatest young adult novels of all time. It is as perceptive and alarming as its compatriots in distopian literature, and as heartbreaking and uplifting as its fellow bildungsroman. The book works on so many levels, and has not become dated in recent years, as many once revolutionary works of YA fiction (Judy Blume comes to mind) have.

There are definitely a few scenes that I think will stay with me for the next five years (and have stayed with me for the previous 10, since I first read the novel). Firstly, the scene of the 12 year olds receiving their assignments. To know exactly what you will do for the rest of your life, decided by someone else, and be utterly happy with it is still kind of a fantasy of mine. Unfortunately, real life doesn't work that way, and I'm sure I would not be satisfied even if it did. Still, I can feel that anxiety of that scene in my bones. It is an incredible evocation.

The other, and I still remember reading this scene when I was ten years old, is when Jonas's father kills the baby twin who weighs less. I remember this, not for the horror which ensued after reading about his calm injection into the baby's forehead, but because I realized immediately that I did not hate him for what he had done. It was at that point in my life that I realized the difference between people who do not know what they are doing, and those who are accountable for their actions. Jonas's father knew physically what he was doing, and yet because of his society he is not culpable--has no real knowledge of the relative worth of life and death.

Books like The Giver impact lives, if read when one is most receptive to them. That is the greatest power of YA literature, I think--its incredible effect on the sponges that pick it up. I remember being a little sponge, my whole world rocked by every good book I picked up...and I thank Lowry for teaching me something that, at least in a small way, shaped my view of the world.

Signifiers and the Black Aesthetic

I will be honest--the "Black Aesthetic" is something I know very little about. However, I am fascinated by the Black Writing model, which compares black literature world wide as sharing certain characteristics. Such a wide race-based model seems a little improbable, or perhaps too general to be especially helpful. However, the specific characteristic of "signifyin(g)" (the use of words which have multiple connotative meanings) does seem to have relevance in this area of study.

Just thinking about the spiritual (referring to heavily encoded and symbolic religious songs) tradition, the importance of name symbolism, and symbolic storytelling in Black culture (and I'm aware I'm painting with a VERY broad brush at this point...but then, so are Black Aestheticists), signifying makes sense.

In the Angela Johnson book, First Part Last (winner of the Coretta Scott King Award) there is much she does not make explicit, there are whole worlds of implications in the structure of the story, its settings, even the rhythm and language of the book seems to be signifying something greater than a tragedy in the life of one teenage boy.

However, to say that Bobby, through the lens of signifying represents all hopeless black teenage boys who have disappointed the high hopes their families had for them is taking it too far...so clearly this signifying tool can be a dangerous one. I don't think I know enough about the theory and its applications to fully explicate where the line is between viable connotation and conjecture, but I do find this idea interesting and would be interested to further study it.

What I Saw and How I Lied

by Judy Blundell won the 2008 National Book Award, a very high distinction bestowed by writers themselves--through the National Book Foundation. Having read the novel, I have an idea about why that might be.


First, about the book. What I Saw and How I Lied tells of seventeen-year-old Evie, living in America immediately after World War II, and the events surrounding a fateful trip to Florida. It deals with falling in love, first sexual experiences, mothers having affairs, fathers involved in shady business, hurricanes, murder trials, and ultimately, the financial and social results of World War II in America--including anti-Semitism.


This is fairly heavy material, and the book's treatment of it only serves to heighten the drama of the events within, rather than, as is typical of YA historical fiction, downplay them in favor of more personal discoveries. The plot is somewhat convoluted, and relies heavily on the naivete of the narrator to provide dramatic revelations later in the book. Evie's "coming-of-age" is not the joyful event one might hope for, but an upsetting one, in which she learns to lie, to protect her family whether they are right or not.

It is in this aspect, the complexities of "coming-of-age" that Blundell deserves her award. After all, she is working in a tradition, and although Evie is no Holden Caulfield, Blundell manages to meld all the disparate elements of What I Saw and How I Lied in Evie's internal journey, and still keep all the drama she desires. In this book, I see a breaking of the marketing rules that seem to constrain so many YA authors, and yet, a novel that still lies squarely and undeniably in YA company.

Evie becomes a sophisticated young lady over the course of the novel--from being afraid to step on a crack, to lying under oath in order to save her guilty parents. The type of emotions she feels are typical of YA novels: a realization that the world has shades of grey, sadness about the loss of a first love, confusion about sex, disillusionment about adults, and so on. However, the way she acts is not typical--she manipulates the situation completely, discards her former friends, and sends her father's wealth (acquired from the "Gold Train"--the confiscated goods of Holocaust victims) to Jewish refugees. Basically, Evie engineers the solution to what seems like a hopeless situation, by acting absolutely ruthlessly, by lying, as the book's title suggests.

In Blundell's National Book Award, I see admiration for a daring author, by her fellow writers, all caught in the same marketing trap that is YA lit. Blundell was honored for writing a complex character in a meticulously detailed historical setting, and most of all, for a truly gripping and thought-provoking read that never descends into sentimentality. In short order, an unusual young adult novel all around.

Do these things make me like the book, or Evie, for that matter? Not especially. But it was certainly unlike any other YA book I have read, and for that I appreciate it, and Blundell's accomplishment.

YA Verse Novels

A recent trend in young adult literature is writing novels in verse--as series of poems. As any reader of poetry would tell you, most books of poetry tell stories. They at least pick up repetitive imagery and setting, often character as well, so this distinction of "novel in verse" seems a little bemusing, strange. For me though, it seems like a definite marketing tool, and obviously guarantees a wider readership for books of poems, if they can be targeted as teen novels.

However, the experience of reading a book of poetry and a traditional novel are very different, and this is not really reflected by the YA marketing. Poetry is not prose, it does not intend to give a wide-angle, epic lens (except, obviously, in the case of epic poetry, but even in that case, the poetry is broken up by seemingly random ekphrases and tangential anecdotes, so the argument still somewhat applies). In any case, modern poetry, as a rule, facilitates image, emotion, and specificity, much more than plot and exposition.

While reading Make Lemonade, a novel in verse by Virginia Euwer Wolff, I was not given the color of the characters' hair, or the details of their city--but I knew exactly what the floor in Jolly's apartment looked like, or the way the television had no vertical hold--I could absolutely picture the silhouette of Jeremy staring into the pot where his lemon tree would grow.

Poetry has more gaps than prose, it demands more of the reader. So, what does this mean for the YA reader, and the marketing of novels in verse? Poetry definitely carries a stigma in middle and high school--either it is associated with "boring" literature classes or mocked as something only "emo kids" write. There is very little appreciation for poetry as a craft, for the things poetry can achieve that prose cannot, taught in school. Besides Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, and some British Romantics, teens pretty much have to come across poetry of their own accord.

This is both the opportunity and the downfall of these "verse novels"--as far as I can tell. Yes, they have a lot of stigmas to overcome, just by being poetry, but they are also a fairly accessible introduction to poetry itself. Generally featuring straightforward language and relatable characters and scenarios, perhaps they will induct younger readers into the demands of reading poetry. Even facilitate a love of the writing?

One can hope, at least.

The Wide World of YA Lit

What am I learning about Young Adult Literature?

Perhaps that during all those years I wanted to prove to people how intelligent I was by reading classic literature, I missed a lot of gems. Of course, I read a good deal of YA lit, good as well as bad, but I always felt a sort of shame in getting books from the "kid" section of the library. I shouldn't have.

Although I moved almost entirely away from YA books by the time I was fourteen, now, in this brief revisiting, I am reminded vividly of how mixed I was, how mixed up everyone was, in middle school. That was when I most needed these "young adult" books--these finding yourself stories marketed for teenagers. For when I was in sixth grade and I heard one girl call another one a "fat whore" in the locker room. For when my friends and I were testing out the limits of our profane vocabularies amongst ourselves, for when we were discussing shaving our legs for the first times.

Young Adult Lit may be a marketing tool for books, and maybe that's okay. Because these books have an audience, and need all the marketing help they can get to find it. I think I am realizing how much of who I am was established when I was in middle school (although I know many girls still read YA lit into high school and it serves them well). But reading about a wider world probably encouraged me to seek such a place--theoretically, it makes sense that it would.

The best YA books seem to be stories that had to be told, and just happen to be happening to young people. That's how I felt when I read Sarah Dessen's Someone Like You for the first time, or Francesca Lia Block's books, or even Tamora Pierce's Alanna fantasy novels. They were about teenage pregnancy, AIDS, knighthood, but they were valid, they were reassuring. They were about important stories to me, as much as the Odyssey was an important story, or Romeo and Juliet. I think the idea that people read books for reassurance that they are not alone is true of all literature, but most especially of YA lit.

It's so important, when you're thirteen and confused as all get out about everything in the world, to read something that validates how "not alone" you are. To empathize with a character, to see an internal journey that belongs to someone else, yet is not so far removed from your own. This is not to say that children's books, or adult books, or "classics" can't fill this void--they absolutely can. But it is to validate YA lit, and the specific purpose it serves. It can be so easy to trivialize "kid" things, to look down on transitions one has already made. But the best writers of YA lit seem to eternally live within those transitions, and simultaneously reassure that yes, you can make it through to the other side.