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| Editors: | |
| James Blasingame | James.Blasingame@asu.edu |
| Lori A. Goodson | lagoodson@cox.net |
Your Position: Are you a high school teacher? The Publisher Connection
M. Jerry Weiss, Editor
Jersey City State College, Jersey City, New JerseyIs Anybody There?
by
M. Jerry Weiss
ALAN is an important and influential organization. Among its purposes is toinform, and I would like to know the answers to a few very important questions.In order to make this as simple as possible, please copy the page that containsall the questions, and then fill in your answers.
Middle school teacher?
College professor?If you're a teacher, what grades do you teach?
What subjects?
Do you use young adult literature as part of your curriculum?
Please list the titles and/or authors you are currently using.
(please attach additional pages if necessary)
Are you using paperback editions?
Are you using hardcover editions?
Are there titles or authors you would like to use, but you aren't at this time? If so, please list them.
For what reasons aren't you using them?
How often do you change your curriculum and select othermaterials?
What criteria do you use in selecting materials?
Are there any professional journals to which you refer forrecommendations? If so, please list the titles of thejournals.
Please send responses to M. Jerry Weiss, 125 Montclair Avenue,Montclair, NJ 07042.
Why am I requesting this information? In the past several months,some publishers have decided to "downsize" their staffs. As a result, keypeople in editing and marketing children's and young adult books have losttheir jobs. One reason cited is that the market for such books in schools andlibraries is flat. Publishers feel they can't afford to maintain a staff toserve schools and libraries. There are not enough sales being generated.
Is this true? Having talked to a few book jobbers, the people who handleschool sales, I am told that quite a number of schools order the same booksover and over. In fact, if a popular author has written a new book, that titlemight not catch on for quite some time. Yet, within the past year, some of themost popular authors of young adult literature have produced some interestingnew works: Paul Zindel's Loch (HarperCollins); Gary Paulsen's TheCar (Harcourt Brace) and Father Water, Mother Woods (Delacorte);Joan Lowery Nixon's Shadowmaker (Delacorte); Richard Peck's The LastSafe Place on Earth (Delacorte); Sonia Levitin's Escape From Egypt(Little, Brown); Avi's The Barn (Orchard); M. E. Kerr's Deliver UsFrom Evie (HarperCollins); Robert Lipsyte's Michael Jordan(HarperCollins); Madeleine L'Engle's Troubling a Star (Farrar StrausGiroux); Ann Rinaldi's In My Father's House (Scholastic); ColbyRodowsky's Hannah in Between (Farrar Straus Giroux); Chris Crutcher'sIronman (Greenwillow); Sue Ellen Bridger's Keeping Christina(HarperCollins); Carolyn Cooney's Driver's Ed (Delacorte); CynthiaVoigt's When She Hollers (Scholastic); Walter Dean Myers' The GloryField (Scholastic); and Julian Thompson's The Fling (Henry Holt).
Again I want to emphasize these are just a few examples. I admit that in somecases reviews might have been mixed. But, in the long run, I wonder how manyof these books will be a part of the school's library or part of the teacher'slibrary or adopted for small-group or large-group reading.
Why is this important? Recently, I had the opportunity to talk with anaward-winning author and was told that, because of the changes in sales, thepublisher was hesitant to offer a guaranteed multi-title contract as wasoffered in the past. Of course, this piece of news would disturb a well-known,popular author who counted on the advance payment as a part of living expenses.So sometimes good writers have to leave their editors and publishers and goelsewhere. Such a decision is not easily made.
At the same time that I'm making these observations, I have been reading avariety of books that I really feel are quite good and deserve more exposure tostudents. Someone has to bring them into the classroom and let students knowthey are there to try them out. Here are a few: Bjarne Reuter's The BoysFrom St. Petri (Dutton); Sharon Creech's Walk Two Moons(HarperCollins); Joan Bauer's Thwonk (Delacorte); Chris Lynch's GypsyDavey (HarperCollins); Adam Rapp's Missing the Piano (Viking); NancyFarmer's The Ear, The Eye and the Arm (Orchard); TheresaNelson's Earthshine (Orchard); Diet Eman and James Schaap'sThings We Couldn't Say (Wm.B. Eerdmans); Milton Meltzer's editededition, Frederick Douglass: In His Own Words (Harcourt Brace); AllenSay's The Ink-Keeper's Apprentice (Houghton Mifflin); Robin McKinley'sA Knot in the Grain and Other Stories (Greenwillow); Lori M. Carlson'sedited edition, American Eyes: New Asian-American Short Stories for YoungAdults (Henry Holt); John Marsden's Letters from the Inside(Houghton Mifflin); Mary Stolz's Cezanne Pinto: A Memoir (Knopf); SusanPower's The Grass Dancer (Putnam); Neal Shusterman's Dissidents(Tor); Samuel R. Delany's They Fly at Ciron (Tor); Janet Bode's Trustand Betrayal: Real Life Stories of Friends and Enemies (Delacorte);Stephanie S. Tolan's Who's There? (Morrow); Kim Chapin's The Road toWembly (Farrar Straus Giroux); and Sid Hite's It's Nothing to aMountain (Henry Holt).
Yes, I know that, in every issue of this journal, pages are devoted to reviewsof books. I also can appreciate the fact that a reviewer of a particular bookand I may not agree on the quality of that book. But more times than not, Ihave been intrigued enough by a review that I go in search of that book. I amthankful that the review caught my attention.
It's because I enjoy reading so many books that I can play a game within my ownhead called "thematic units." When I read a book, I immediately think of aunit in which I can place this book for students to explore. It's mentalgymnastics for me. But for many years I never adopted a single textbook forthe whole class to read unless an author is so unusual and has intellectuallysnared me in such a way that I think the world is waiting for this book.Leonard S. Marcus has edited such a book, Lifelines: A Poetry AnthologyPatterned on the Stages of Life (Dutton). This book of poems, whichfeatures such poets as Mark Strand, Ogden Nash, Edgar Lee Masters, EmilyDickinson, Maya Angelou, William Butler Yeats, William Wordsworth, StevieSmith, Mel Glenn, and Gwendolyn Brooks, among others, provided a literarysee-saw ride, hitting me emotionally with highs and lows.
ALAN has offered me the opportunity to hear and meet authors at the NCTE annualconvention. I look forward to hearing authors; however, I also enjoy listeningto teachers and professors sharing their insights and reactions to books. Imust admit that at times I wonder if I've read the same books as some of thosepeople talked about. Yes, I have returned to books to read once again fromanother perspective. And on many occasions I've altered my initialimpressions. These experiences have had a tremendous effect on me as reader,student, and teacher.
But I'm sort of tired of hearing what are "the best" or "the prize-winners," orthis month's literary selection. There are too many adults trying to pickliterary tastes for too many young people. I love to read about the variousstudents' choices of the books they really like best. I sincerely hope thatthose are honestly chosen by the students and not from a pre-selected list thateliminates books that might offend some person or group.
Yes, I know that censorship exists. I've been told by many that they would notuse any book that has any hint of AIDS, homosexuality, sex, or profanity. Ofcourse, there are debates in some places as to whether students should readbooks by culturally diverse authors at the expense of eliminating certain major"white" authors. How will students ever know about such writers if they arenot exposed to them in the classrooms and libraries?
As we approach the twenty-first century and people are still worrying aboutstandards and goals, I'm still saying that I continue to learn every day of mylife, and I can't see how my formal education, as it was in the "dark ages,"prepared me for the leap I made, post-doctorate, into this wonderful field ofyoung adult literature. Don Gallo, with his numerous and invaluableanthologies, is doing more to acquaint so many with some of the importantwriters who could affect students for the rest of their lives. Do publishersreally know how important Don Gallo is to education? I honestly believe thatKen Donelson and Alleen Nilsen, Arthea "Charlie" Reed, Leila Christenbury, RuthCline, Dick Abrahamson, Betty Carter, and Beverly Kobrin have provided richresources in the form of professional books.
What is the future for young adult books? I hope it is a flourishing andhealthy future. I hope that we teachers are doing a better job in raising thelevels of reading ability, and I'm not just referring to test scores. I'mtalking about developing a love of reading within young men and women that theywill carry with them for their whole lives. I am encouraged that there are manyreading discussion groups developing among people of various ages both in andout of school. Let me recommend Albert French's Billy (Penguin); YvonneS. Thornton's The Ditchdigger's Daughters (Birch Lane Press); JaneYolen's The Devil's Arithmetic (Puffin); Sid Hite's Answer MyPrayer (Henry Holt); Virginia Lynn Fry's Part of Me Died, Too: Storiesof Creative Survival Among Bereaved Children and Teenagers (Dutton); DavidLipsky's and Alexander Abrams' Late Bloomers: Coming of Age in Today'sAmerica: The Right Place at the Wrong Time (Times Books); Mary Leonhardt'sParents Who Love Reading, Kids Who Don't: How It Happens and What You Can DoAbout It (Crown); and T. M. McNally's Until Your Heart Stops (ANovel) (Villard).
I am not saying my lists are better than yours. I am not setting myself up as"super-reader." This is to remind all of us that promoting the sales of booksand the use of school and public libraries is a very good idea. The publishingmergers that have taken place this year should be of concern to each of us.ALAN members need to play a more active role in finding ways to make sure thatgood books and their readers will make for a happy match.
