DR. BICKMORE'S YA WEDNESDAY

The 2023 Whippoorwill Book Award: Representation of Multiply Marginalized Identities by Chea Parton and Erika Bass

9/8/2023

Erika L. Bass is an Assistant Professor of English Education at the University of Northern Iowa. Her research focuses on writing instruction, rural education, and teacher preparation; often those areas converge. She is currently working on a book manuscript on critically placed writing with rural high school students, conducting rural-focused book studies with secondary English teachers in her state, and writing feedback partnership to help preservice teachers engage in providing writing feedback to high school students. She is also a member of the Whippoorwill Award Committee for rural Young Adult novels and serves as the academic advisor for the English Teaching program at UNI. In her free time, she enjoys taking her dogs for walks and playing slow-pitch softball.

Chea Parton grew up on a farm and still considers herself a farm girl. She has been a rural student, a rural English teacher, and is currently a visiting assistant professor at Purdue University where she works with future teachers through the Transition to Teaching Program. She is passionate about rural education. Her research focuses on the personal and professional identity of rural and rural out-migrant teachers as well as rural representation in YA literature. She currently runs Literacy In Place where she seeks to catalogue rural YA books and provides teaching resources, hosts the Reading Rural YAL podcast where she gives book talks and interviews rural YA authors, and serves on the Whippoorwill Book Award for Rural YA Literature selection committee. You can reach her at readingrural@gmail.com.

The 2023 Whippoorwill Book Award: Representation of Multiply Marginalized Identities by Chea Parton and Erika Bass

Now finishing its fourth award cycle, the Whippoorwill Award continues to recognize quality rural literature for young people. Every year, the award committee selects up to ten books that portray and honor the complex experiences of rural cultures and communities. The award was created with a desire to help young rural readers, teachers, librarians, and other community members locate books that position rural people as more than just the butt of a redneck joke. This fourth cycle celebrates books published in 2022, and the winners include ten books diverse in genre and representation that depict rural people and experiences in nuanced ways and celebrate rurality, even as they tackle important social issues and challenges in rural places.
Several of the criteria the Whippoorwill Committee uses to evaluate submissions revolve around the representation of rural identities (The Whippoorwill Committee, 2020) including these:

The literature portrays characters and settings accurately and authentically in terms of physical characteristics, social and economic statuses, intellectual abilities, and other human attributes.
The literature avoids stereotypes of rural people and places by representing the complexities of the situation, problem, and/or people.
The literature contributes to the body of diverse YA literature by providing representations of diverse people and places.

In our deliberations, members of the committee find ourselves frequently returning to how and whether submitted and winning books continue to complexify, deepen, and add nuance to our understanding of what rural identity is and what qualifies as a “rural book.” Anecdotally, over these past four cycles, the selection committee has noticed an increase in the number of submissions featuring multiply marginalized rural representations and identities. Rural identities are already at the margins or marginalized, in that they are often portrayed in stereotypical ways or as foolish, backward, and less deserving of success or excluded from mainstream or valued pursuits and accomplishments. Many characters in this year’s Whippoorwill winners are multiply marginalized because they are rural and have identities that intersect with other marginalized identities including LGBTQIA+ identities; feature characters who are Black, Latinx, Indigenous and bi-racial; or have a disability. Even this year’s genres invite readers to consider multiple marginalization. Several titles are from the horror genre and/or feature the supernatural which tend to be considered pedestrian and less than realistic fiction. We have also begun to notice how in- and out-migration tend to play a frequent role in helping us analyze and think about rural culture and identity-building.

Horror and Rural Identity

The identities of both places and people play a huge role in the construction of horror stories. In 2022, author Liz Carey compiled a collection of Rural Monsters, Myths, and Legends, stories originally published in the rural online news source and then compiled into a book published for adults. In the teaser summary, Carey noted that rural places have “forested woods…remote lakes…and sprawling fields…[creating] plenty of room for the wild and weird to take root” (Carey, 2022, unpaged). However, rural horror stories are not always as simple as being far fetched or scary; in fact, “they offer a valuable window into the unique culture and community of places often unseen and underappreciated” (Carey, 2022). Examining the impact of monsters, myths, and legends can highlight important nuances of the rural communities in which those events happen.
Likewise, horror is rooted in primal empathy because mortal humans all share the same weaknesses and are connected to one another by our fears of death, disease, and loss (as well as our search for joy, love, and community). So, “to learn what we fear is to learn who we are. Horror defines our boundaries and illuminates our souls” (del Toro, 2013, p. xi). Further, horror provides opportunities for readers to acknowledge, name, and critique the worst aspects of our world—to critically read what is “wrong with the world” (Link & Grant, 2014, p. vii)—and who they are in it. Horror doesn’t shy away from the negative aspects, from the monsters, of the world so that we might call them by their names and vanquish them.
This year’s winners include several texts that use horror conventions to invite critical thinking and discussions about rural people and places. Angel Falls by Julia Rust and David Surface explores generational trauma and healing through the use of the preternatural and the geographical features Carey (2022) describes. The Weight of Blood by Tiffany D. Jackson invites readers to face rural sundown towns and their role in the systemic oppression of Black folks. Man Made Monsters by Andrea L. Rogers traces how systems of White supremacy and Indigenous oppression have impacted past, present, and future generations of rural Native people. The Gathering Dark, a collection of short stories from contributing editor Tori Bovalino, explores a number of issues salient to rural places such as the conflict to leave or stay, feelings of isolation and connection, and what it means to be an insider/outsider of the community. All these stories face and critique social issues that exist in rural places; however, none of them paints rural people and places as all bad—or all scary. The treatment of rural communities and the issues that exist in them invite nuanced and critical readings of the identities of rural people and places, asking us to think about how we can make the world better.

Queer Identities in Rural Places

Just as horror gives us a specific look into the darkness that exists in the world, the number of submissions of books containing queer rural identities provide evidence of folks who are striving to bring light into darkness. In our current cultural moment multiple legislative decisions, all-to-frequent book bans, and near constant political rhetoric have made life more difficult for folks with queer identities, including those in rural spaces. Rural identity is complex; it includes both objective and subjective components. This means that rural identity is tied to places of residence and work, but also social and cultural meanings (Cain, 2021). Growing up rural means taking on many societal and cultural perceptions and reconciling those with individual perceptions of identity. Rural students develop an understanding of themselves as individuals and how they identify by reconciling their self-perceptions and how they are perceived by others (Ketter & Buter, 2004). Because of this, rural students who are navigating identity exploration are often marginalized and are underrepresented. The increase of submissions featuring rural LGBTQIA+ identities helps to “negate the assumption that rural students are monolithic and that rural areas lack diversity” (Cain & Willis, 2022, p. 75).
Award winners telling queer rural stories this year included stories with characters that both accepted and struggled to accept their LGBTQIA+ identities, and stories where their LGBTQIA+ identities were both challenged and heart-warmingly accepted by families and community members. For example, The Complicated Calculus (and Cows) of Carl Paulsen by Gary Eldon Peter features a gay main character who knows and accepts his queerness as he works to navigate how that identity fits into the greater identity landscape of the people around him. In A Little Bit Country, readers see both—a character who tries to hide and deny his queerness and another who accepts it openly—while occupying a rural town. Among other salient themes, many of this year’s winners highlight the complexities of navigating rural places as queer youth. They don’t shy away from the challenges that queer rural young folks can face, but they also don’t depict rural places as wholly homophobic, offering readers an opportunity to engage with a more complex understanding of rural places.

In-/Out-Migration

Rural places and people are not static. Rural people frequently out-migrate and leave their rural towns when their line of work or goals or interests lie outside of their rural hometown (Parton, 2023). Despite the dominant narrative that in order to be somebody, rural young folks must leave their hometowns, sometimes they leave and stay gone for good and sometimes they return (Carr & Kefalas, 2009; Parton & Kuehl, in press; Sherman & Sage, 2011). Whenever geospatial borders are crossed, cultural exchange happens and the people and places are changed in the process, revealing aspects of the cultural practices and knowledges associated with those places (Parton, 2023).
Three of this year’s winners featured in-/out-migration in ways that invite readers to think about how we define rural identity and what qualifies as a rural book. In Rachel Bird by Becky Citra and Vicious Is My Middle Name by Kevin Dunn, the main characters move to live in rural places that belong to their mothers but not to them. Rachel, in Rachel Bird, moves with her sister to live with grandparents she’s never met on a remote Canadian ranch. Though she is from people who have generational ties to the land, Rachel does not (initially) identify as rural and it takes time before she chooses to learn the place of her people. Syd, in Vicious Is My Middle Name, moves to live with her grandparents in rural Appalachia. She too is from the people but not the place. Like Rachel, she learns and cares deeply for that place throughout the book, eventually fighting for its survival.
An out-migrant story, Phil Stamper’s Golden Boys tells the story of four friends from rural Ohio who end up in nonrural places during the same summer. One travels to France to study abroad, one travels to Boston to save the trees in Boston’s park system, one stays with family in Florida to work at their arcade, and one takes an internship with a senator in Washington, D.C. Although the majority of the action does not take place in a rural setting, Golden Boys is a Whippoorwill Book book because it tells the story of four rural people. Despite leaving their rural town, all the boys grapple with and maintain their rural identities. As rural people in nonrural places, their interactions with nonrural people reveal and highlight rural culture and knowledge.
One final identity that we saw this round (and that we’d like to see more of) is the representation of rural people with disabilities. There are characters with disabilities in both Golden Boys and Air by Monica Roe. Air, in particular, addresses the challenges of having a physical disability in a small rural place, particularly in terms of infrastructure. Emmie’s school's lack of accessibility for folks who use wheels for mobility drives the action of the plot. Her story gives readers the opportunity to think about rural infrastructure and support as well as what it really looks like and means to help someone.

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Gothic Humanization: A Useful Principle from Gothic YA by Jesse Bair

8/30/2023

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A former English Teacher, Jesse is the LGBTQ Coordinator at Utah Tech University pursuing both his passion for social justice work and independent scholarship. When he is away from his institutional duties and community outreach, they engage in research topics anchored around the EcoGothic, MidWestern, Rural, and Film Studies.

Gothic Humanization: A Useful Principle from Gothic YA by Jesse Bair

Whereas ghosts and monsters are staples of the Gothic genre, what I hope to share with readers is that such entities are the product rather than the cause of conflict in horror stories. Jeffrey Weinstock notes, in his introduction to an anthology discussing the American Gothic, that “the central topic thematized by the Gothic is inevitably power: who is allowed to do what based upon their subject position within a particular society at a specific moment in time” (2). In other words, what is meant to scare us is in itself a reflection of a power struggle.
Labeling one a monster is itself the act of dehumanizing a population or force wherein the labelers gain power over whomever/whatever they aim to vilify. For example, think of Dr. Frankenstein renouncing his responsibilities as a father by declaring his creation as a monster instead of his son. Ghosts are also not spectral forces of nature that come from nowhere, but are instead supernatural representatives of disenfranchised folks striving to be heard in death since they were muted in life.
Much remains to discuss, but for the purpose of this publication, the Gothic is not so much about scary elements but rather how disempowering one group leads to said group becoming a monster to either assert its existence or by those aiming to assert control over them.

Gothic Humanization, a term I created, is then the act of readers seeing past the imagery we’ve been conditioned to fear and instead empathizing with the disenfranchised labeled as scary. Gothic Humanization is then a principle, a gift from what scares us to help ease tensions birthed from an “us versus them” mentality that spans across genres and fields of work: heroes and villains, soldiers and enemies, as well as the marginalized and the police. The United States is perhaps more divided than ever as it and nations across the globe wrestle with resolving generational crimes in lieu of the comforts bred by such inequality, yet my hope is that the book recommendations below serve as practice grounds for us to help students learn the empathy necessary to ease instead of exacerbate the tensions that vilify all of us.

Ghost Boys by Jewel Parker Rhodes, and I am Alfonso Jones by Tony Medina are two of my favorite pieces of Gothic YA because they are a textbook case of ghosts representing the muted voices of the departed. Both follow the deaths and spirits of two adolescent black men who lost their lives at the hands of a police officers. Guided by the ghosts of those who died before them, both narratives echo the injustices committed against African American and Black people in this country, thereby humanizing their struggles, while also humanizing the lives of the cops who shot them. As Rhodes’ piece is a novel and Medina’s is a graphic novel, both provide a bountiful opportunity as a pair or as elements in a text set discussing how all involved in systemic racism — black and white — are affected by a centuries old claim for power that asserts itself even today.

For students yearning to explore the worlds of Japanese manga, there are numerous storylines rife with examples of humanizing opposing sides but perhaps none does as good of a job than Demon Slayer by Ryoji Hirano and Koyoharu Gotouge. The story follows a classic fantasy tale of a gifted young man joining comrades in progressively defeating a supernatural villain. In this case, the young Tanjiro joins a secret organized collective of demon slayers set out to vanquish the minions of the conniving demon lord Muzan.

Where the overall plot mirrors much of action manga, the story separates itself by humanizing its monstrous antagonists. Without giving spoilers, never have I felt more empathy nor more compassion for monsters passing on to hell for their murderous crimes. As the departed take their final steps, I dare say that the demon is left behind and the human is laid bare onto Hell’s flames, and that is why I set aside space for a potentially eye-opening read for both teachers and students looking for an independent read.

Freaks of the Heartland by Steve Niles and Greg Ruth is an excellent graphic novel for educators looking for a Midwestern and or rural piece that tackles the negative impact that maintaining homogeny in a community can have on parents and children. The story follows a young boy as he frees his brother from the barn that his family has locked him up in for years because of his physical deformities. As they escape, the siblings come across other children with similar monster-like figures, another human-like sibling, and witness the pain of the parents who hid and, in some cases, killed their deformed offspring. A heartbreaking story at points, yet a hopeful one that encourages hope for a better tomorrow the closer the children get to leaving their hometown.

While a movie, Rob Letterman’s cinematic adaptation of Goosebumps is what led me to the idea of Gothic Humanization in the first place. Specifically, Jack Black’s characterization of R. L. Stein has a relationship with his infamous puppet Slappy is an overt allusion to Dr. Frankenstein and his unnamed monster. The humanization in this case, and what I argue the film does masterfully, is detail how both Stein and Slappy are both human and monster — worthy of empathy and worthy of scorn. If with 8th graders like I tried, or even in a unit with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein for older audiences, possibilities for classroom discussion abound.

References
Weinstock, J. A. (2017). Introduction: The awareness gothic. In J. A. Weinstock (Ed), The Cambridge companion to American Gothic (pp. 1-12). Cambridge University Press.

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Facing Difficult Family Situations in YA Literature by Dr. Katherine Higgs-Coulthard

8/23/2023

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Katherine Higgs-Coulthard is an Assistant Professor in the Education Department at Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Past-president of ICTE, and a teacher consultant for the Hoosier Writing Project, an affiliate of the National Writing Project. Dr. Higgs-Coulthard’s passion for story informs her research on the teaching of writing, her work as a teacher educator and YA author, and her advocacy for teen writers. In 2013, she founded the Get Inked Teen Writing Conference, which offers opportunities for teens to write alongside published YA authors. Her YA novel, Junkyard Dogs (Peachtree Teen, 2023), highlights issues of teen poverty and homelessness.

Facing Difficult Family Situations in YA Literature by Dr. Katherine Higgs-Coulthard

One of the things I love the most about working with teens, both as readers and as writers, is the way they take books so incredibly personally. They get emotionally entangled in stories that let them see beyond the superficial trappings of a life into the characters’ hearts. When characters they know and love face adversity, teens root for them like they would a close friend. This is especially true with characters facing difficult family situations.
Even though I knew this already as a teacher and mentor of teen writers, I was still surprised during my first school visit for my debut YA book, Junkyard Dogs when the students were more interested in discussing protagonist Josh Robert’s family dynamics than the mystery around his missing father. While their questions seemed very specific to Josh’s situation (“How could Gran treat Josh like that? Doesn’t she love him?” “Why doesn’t Dad take Josh and Twig with him?”), what students actually wanted to know was what causes families to fail one another and can anyone survive despite their family’s dysfunction.

And that is the amazing thing about stories. Readers can lean against the guardrail and peer into a canyon of chaos, not as voyeurs, but as apprentices. Characters in tough situations lay down breadcrumbs for potential paths through the thorns readers will face in their own lives. Pairing this examination with writing fiction provides an opportunity for teens to respond to the complications in their own lives through the veil of invented characters.
The following books are about different topics, from winning the lottery to encountering an ancestral spirit, but each has resonated with the teens I work with and led to deep conversations and complex student writing about what it means to be a family.

American Road Trip by Patrick Flores-Scott looks deeply at the impact of economic recession and military service on families. Told from the perspective of high school senior, Teodoro Avila, the story follows T as he sets out on a road trip with his sister, Xochitl, and their brother, Manny. As the siblings travel along the West Coast to New Mexico, T learns that the war has impacted Manny to the point where he considers suicide. While the impromptu drive cannot heal Manny’s PTSD and depression, it can provide time for the process to begin. Although suicide is an incredibly difficult topic to discuss, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reports that nearly 20% of high school students state that they have had serious thoughts of suicide and 9% have made an attempt. The Avila Family’s experiences can provide a supportive frame for sharing mental health resources and creating opportunities for teens to get help.

Losers Bracket is informed by author Chris Crutcher’s work as a mental health counselor and follows fictional character Annie Boots as she straddles the social and economic divide between her biological and adoptive families. Although Annie’s birth mother struggles with addiction and her older sister is raising a young child by herself, Annie still cares about them both and creates opportunities to see them against her adoptive father’s wishes by playing multiple sports. When her nephew goes missing, Annie learns that people can come together to help in difficult times and that all families have complex dynamics. A major theme of the book is nature versus nurture, which opens up opportunities for teens to consider the influences in their own lives.

Everything You Want by Barbara Shoup explores what happens when Emma Hammond’s dad wins $50,000,000 in the state lottery and her family goes from being weird to dysfunctional trying to figure out what to do with it. Emma’s a freshman in college, still in love with her former best friend Josh who dumped her. Unfortunately, he’s at the same university and behaves horribly to her whenever she sees him. Her perky roommate Tiffany is even worse—commandeering their room all weekend so she can spend time with her boyfriend, forcing Emma to take shelter in the psych lab with Freud, the goose that’s the subject of a class experiment. Money is freedom, she thinks—and everything that’s good in her life. This story raises great questions for teen readers about the relationship between wealth and happiness as Emma and her family spin off in different directions, threatening all they hold dear.
She is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran also considers the impact of money on family dynamics. Jade Nguyen’s estranged father is willing to help pay for her college tuition, but only if she comes to visit him in Vietnam over the summer. The French Colonial house that her father is restoring is beautiful, but it hides a terrible secret that threatens to devour Jade and her family. While this story is rooted in a horror, the heart of Jade’s story is the secret she carries about the last conversation she had with her father before he abandoned his wife and children in America. Jade’s experience lends itself to deep conversations about blame and forgiveness in families.
Family is the first thing we know, but it takes our whole lives to understand what it means to be part of a family. The stories listed here provide opportunities for teens to root for characters who are navigating difficult terrain and may even help them find their own path.

References:
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2021). Key substance use and mental health indicators in the United States: Results from the 2020 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (HHS Publication No. PEP21-07-01-003, NSDUH Series H-56). Rockville, MD: Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Retrieved from https://www.samhsa.gov/data/

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Coming of Age Stories for Adolescents by Dr. Margaret A. Robbins

8/2/2023

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Margaret A. Robbins has a PhD in Language and Literacy Education from The University of Georgia. She is a Teacher-Scholar at The Mount Vernon School in Atlanta, Georgia. She has peer-reviewed journal articles published in The ALAN Review, SIGNAL Journal, Gifted Child Today, Social Studies Research and Practice, and The Qualitative Report. She recently co-edited a special issue of English Journal. Her research interests include comics, Young Adult literature, fandom, critical pedagogy, and writing instruction. She can be reached on Twitter at @writermar and on Instagram, too: @dr.margaretrobbins

Coming of Age Stories for Adolescents by Dr. Margaret A. Robbins

The popularity of the recent Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret film, based on Judy Blume’s beloved novel, reminds us of how much we all love coming of age stories, regardless of our numeric age. As a Humanities educator and scholar, I’ve always had a fondness for coming of age stories because they can help us connect. This past year, some of our high school freshmen student leaders decided to create a book club to help them get to know middle school student leaders better. The long term goal of the book club, if we’re able to keep it going this coming school year, is to foster more connection between middle and high school students, particularly younger high school students, and make the transition to high school easier. In this blog, I’ll discuss the two books we read and discussed this year. I’ll also discuss other coming of age novels I’ve read recently as well as age and/or classroom recommendations for younger and/or older adolescent students. I teach students who are at the younger side of their adolescent years, but my reading interests focus on both middle grade and YA books.

A Mango Shaped Space by Wendy Mass: Mia Winchell is a bright, creative middle school student who has a rare processing difference known as synesthesia, where she sees the world in different colors. She’s hesitant to tell her friends, even her close friends, and this causes her to feel disconnected. However, upon learning more about her condition, Mia finds a whole community of friends with similar experiences and learns to better articulate her story to others. In the meantime, she’s able to process her grief of her grandfather’s recent death through her relationship with her cat Mango and her artistic talents. Middle and high school students alike in the book club enjoyed the novel. I believe it would be a good book for students aged 10 and up to read.

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott: This book club session with the middle and high school students had all female students, which made for an interesting dynamic. The novel tells of the March girls (Jo, Meg, Amy, and Beth) and the challenges they face during and after the Civil War, as their father has to be away for a long time. A lot of our book club conversation was around how the novel would be different in the modern day. In particular, would Jo have gotten married and/or had children, or focused more on her career if she’d had more options? Students had mixed feelings about Amy, as I always have, but appreciated her growth during the novel. Overall, the students thought this novel “held up” even though it was written a long time ago, which encouraged a discussion about what makes a book a “classic.” While I think this book might be better suited for high school and more mature middle school students, I think it’s perfectly appropriate for students ages 10 and up, as I read it in late elementary school.

The Surface Breaks by Louise O’Neill: This is a book I chose to read on my own time this summer, after reading and writing about Asking for It by the same author for the SSAWW conference in Ireland in 2018 and also for another YA Wednesday blog. I’d recommend it more for older high school and college aged students, as it has some sensitive content in it (attempted sexual assault, body image issues, fatphobia, excessive drinking). I thought the pacing of the book was a little bit off at times, and the end in particular seemed rushed, especially considering some of the sensitive content of the book. Some of the characters would have benefitted from more development. I did enjoy the book, though, and I appreciated the feminist perspective. In particular, I was interested to see how the Sea Witch was portrayed in a different, more positive light, what options the little mermaid had for her future, and how her father the Sea King was portrayed differently. For older students in particular, it would be interesting to compare and contrast this novel to the new The Little Mermaid movie and consider how and why we need to rethink and re-imagine our fairy tales as our understandings of the world emerge and evolve. The book is dark at times, but it’s also beautiful with some riveting descriptions of the ocean world.

The Magician’s Daughter by H.G. Parry: I learned about this book when reading The New York Times and thought it sounded interesting. There’s some discussion as to whether or not it’s a YA novel, but the narrator and the main protagonist is a sixteen-year-old girl who has grown up with a wizard and his familiar, a rabbit, in a magic castle. Due to circumstances beyond her control, Biddy (Bridget) has to leave the castle and familiarize herself with the real world, which she has wanted to do for a while, yet proves more challenging than she anticipated. This story has a lot of classic hero’s journey elements, and I believe it would be a good book club choice and potentially a good classroom read appropriate for students 12 and up. The book takes place in 1912 in England, and I love the historical fantasy elements and what a reader can learn about how the Industrial Revolution affected England. Like both Little Women and The Little Mermaid, this novel can be a good springboard for discussion of how women’s roles in stories are continuing to change. The writer drafted the novel during the 2020 lockdown period and writes about how it was “a light” during that time, and Goodreads reviews have hailed it as “a warm hug.” I think the theme of magic and light during dark times is one that will resonate with many people right now.

As the summer season continues, I’ll keep reading more coming of age middle grade, YA, and new adult novels, both for myself and for my students. What are some of your favorites? Email me and let me know. I’d love to keep this middle and high school cross grade level book club going, so I’m open to books within those age ranges. Coming of age can happen during any phase of life, and in particular, it’s a theme that resonates with my younger adolescent students. Happy summer reading season to all!

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Celebrating Positive and Nuanced YA Disability Representation for Disability Pride Month by Dr. Caitlin Metheny

7/26/2023

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Caitlin Metheny is an assistant professor of English Language Arts education at University of South Carolina Upstate; she has taught courses in secondary ELA methods, K-16 writing methods, children’s literature, and young adult literature. As a disabled teacher educator, she is passionate about children’s and YA literature with nuanced disability representation. Her research primarily focuses on critical engagement with these texts for readers and educators. She is also currently serving a 5-year term as co-editor of The ALAN Review (TAR).

Celebrating Positive and Nuanced YA Disability Representation for Disability Pride Month by Dr. Caitlin Metheny

“I’m sick… And I don’t wish that I wasn’t. And I don’t really care how uncomfortable that makes you anymore” (Moskowitz, 2019, p. 276).

The above quote is said by disabled teen, Isabel, in one of my favorite YA novels that shows a positive disabled identity, Sick Kids in Love, which is an excellent book to celebrate Disability Pride Month!

Disability Pride Month takes place every July to mark the anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which was written into law in July 1990. While defining disability pride varies for folx who have differing disabling conditions, many agree that it is a time to highlight disabled identities, celebrate the disabled community, draw attention to achievements of that community, acknowledge the nuance and wide range of disability experiences, and reflect on successes for disability inclusion in society. Disability Pride Month also highlights existing ableism and injustices in our society and draws attention to progress and changes yet to be made.

As someone who became disabled at the age of sixteen from treatment for bone cancer, who also didn’t identify as disabled until I became immersed in Critical Disability Studies scholarship during my PhD, I can understand why disability pride id difficult to define. How can I be proud to be disabled when life with a disability is difficult in a world created for nondisabled bodies? How can I take pride in calling myself disabled when society has taught us to believe this is a sad existence to be avoided at all costs? For many disabled people and disability justice activists, disability pride is a both/and situation, not either/or: you can feel positively about your disability and recognize that being disabled is challenging because of disabling conditions and the prevalence of ableism (Pulrang, 2021).

To me, disability pride means having a (mostly) positive sense of self (looking at your, internalized ableism), accepting my disabilities as important elements of my personal identity, being proud of myself for navigating ableism and a world that does not always accommodate my body, while also acknowledging that sometimes being disabled is painful, challenging, and just plain sucks. Both/and. This acknowledgement of both/and disability nuance has become central in both my personal life and my role as a teacher educator and scholar of YA literature centering disability.

As Rachel R. Wolney and Ashley S. Boyd wrote in their May 24 YA Wednesday post on disability representation in middle grade novels, it is important, but also challenging, to find and teach novels with disabled representation that do not reinforce discrimination or perpetuate harmful stereotypes and assumptions. I would like to expand upon their advice on selecting texts that reject disability stereotypes to propose highlighting books that explicitly address the nuance of proud disabled identities: characters who possess a (mostly) positive disabled self-image while also drawing attention to ableism and its detrimental effects for disabled people. This work is incredibly important, but it can also be challenging for folx who do not identify as disabled, are not closely connected to the disabled community, and/or do not have experience critically reading YA literature explicitly to interrogate disability representation. As Wolney and Boyd recommended, Patricia Dunn’s (2015) book is a good entry point to approaching disability representation critically; I would also recommend Lessons in Disability: Essays on Teaching with Young Adult Literature, edited by Jacob Stratman (2019).

To help determine if disability representation is positive, proud, and nuanced when making YA text selections, please consider:

Disabled characters written by authors who share the same disability. While many in the YA community have, understandably, moved away from the term #OwnVoices, it is incredibly important to consider author positionality as it relates to authentic and accurate disability representation. The phrase “nothing about us without us” has been tied to disability rights and activism since the 1990s and we should remember this sentiment when selecting book titles about disabled characters because—through my own and others’ research—authors who write from the position of the same disability as their characters are less likely to perpetuate ableist stereotypes and can more accurately represent the nuance of disabled lived experiences. Further, disabled authors are better equipped to balance positive and frustrating moments in characters’ disabled identity to create that both/and nuance I am advocating for. That is not to say that all nondisabled authors write poorly developed disabled characters—I have read and enjoyed many such books—however, those texts may require a more critical lens when reading.

Disabled characters—and plots—who reject disability stereotypes and common fictional tropes. Historically, disabled characters: served as narrative tools to teach valuable life lessons to nondisabled characters and readers; were seen as innocent and child-like (and deserving of pity) or strange and villainous (and, thus, avoided); were viewed as courageous and inspirational simply for living with their disability; were seen as super human if they could accomplish things despite having a disability; were only seen as valuable if they were cured, fixed, or able to overcome an aspect of their disability by the end of the narrative; were killed off by the end of the narrative. I could go on forever about common tropes of disability in fiction and media, so for the sake of time and space, this Book Riot article provides a bit more detail to help you understand and identify these stereotypes in texts, so you can ultimately highlight books that move away from the perpetuation of these narratives.

Be critical of authors and characters who casually use ableist language or disability euphemisms throughout books. Ableist language includes, but is not limited to, words and phrases that were once used to describe disability, but have since become connotations for other terms. For example, “lame” was a common term to historically reference a physical disability and has now become synonymous with words like “bad” or “uncool.” Similarly, people often use words like “insane” when they mean “surprising” or “unbelievable.” Ableist language also includes misusing words that can trivialize a disability or perpetuate negative assumptions. For instance, saying “I was paralyzed with fear,” “Are you deaf?,” or “My sister is so OCD.” Disability euphemisms include avoiding the term “disabled” by using terms like “differently-abled,” “special needs,” or “handicapable” to refer to a person with disabilities. While most folx who use these euphemisms mean well, they ultimately perpetuate ableist assumptions that disabilities are bad and undesirable. Disabled is not a bad word and to be disabled is not a bad existence. Thus, if ableist language is used throughout a novel, or within an author’s note, educators should draw attention to the terms and engage in critical conversation with students about what the author actually means to say by using the term/phrase, how the term might affect a disabled reader, how the term perpetuates negative views of disability, and how the author may have written a sentence with more inclusive language.

Disabled characters who show a positive sense of self and show the challenges of living with a disability in an ableist world. Below, I explain what this might look like in four of my personal favorite YA books for nuanced disability representation to celebrate Disability Pride Month (and all year long!):

The Silence Between Us by Alison Gervais (2019) has been my go-to recommendation when folx ask me for a book with good disability representation. It is an excellent example of disability pride as readers follow Maya, a proudly Deaf teen, as she navigates a transition from a Deaf school to a traditional hearing school and its lack of appropriate accommodations for her. This book allows readers to examine many layers of systemic and personal ableism (as well as to reflect upon their own implicit biases about disability), as well as to interrogate numerous disability stereotypes. Maya proudly rejects societal pressures to “fix” her deafness, she navigates ableist educational settings and draws attention to accessibility challenges, she disrupts the common ableist assumption that Deaf people desire to be hearing, and she is given the space to feel good about who she is while also expressing frustration as the only Deaf person in her family and school. This novel is inspired by Gervais’s identity as a Hard of Hearing individual living in a Deaf community.

Sick Kids in Love by Hannah Moskowitz (2019) is a favorite feel-good book of mine for its depiction of invisible disabilities and the challenges that come from looking “normal.” Readers follow two main characters, Isabel and Sasha, who meet in a hospital while receiving treatment for their chronic illnesses—rheumatoid arthritis and Gaucher’s Disease, respectively—and who bond over their shared experiences. This novel is an excellent example of disability pride because we see two characters who illustrate the nuance of disabled identity formation for teens with invisible disabilities whose families and friends misunderstand them and make assumptions about them and their capabilities. Sasha has always accepted his identity as a “sick kid” and his character often explicitly calls attention to common ableist views (and then disrupts them). Conversely, Isabel has some elements of a positive disabled identity, but she shows readers numerous examples of internalized ableism, as well as how sexism and ageism intersect with her illness to negatively affect her self-concept. Through her friendship with Sasha, she learns to question her own internalized ableism to develop a more prideful disabled identity. This novel was inspired by Moskowitz’s own experiences as a teen learning how to balance looking “normal” while living with the daily symptoms of a chronic illness.

Breathe and Count Back from Ten by Natalia Sylvester (2022) is a great book to understand the complicated relationship disabled people can have with their disabling conditions. Verónica has never wanted anything as badly as she wants to be a mermaid at a local Florida freshwater spring attraction; however, she has hip dysplasia, a very painful physical disability that will require (another) surgery in her near future. This novel presents an excellent examination of nuance because Roni is able to appreciate her body and feel frustration when it doesn’t work the way she wants. Similarly, Roni appears to have a positive self-concept early in the novel, yet readers see glimpses of internalized ableism and its negative effects on her life, such as when she hides her surgical scars and lies to her family and medical professionals to hide her pain. Readers also see how numerous marginalized identities can affect disabled people by witnessing how Roni’s culture, her family’s immigration status, and their socioeconomic status complicate the circumstances of her disability. Roni’s personal experiences—including her dream to become a mermaid—are directly inspired by Natalia’s Sylvester’s life.

Where You See Yourself by Claire Forrest (2023) is a new favorite that I can’t stop raving about for its nuanced disability representation! Readers follow Effie, a wheelchair using high school student with cerebral palsy as she sets her sights on college applications. Unlike her nondisabled peers, Effie’s decision process is more complicated than just picking the best program for her career goals, the hippest town, or the prettiest campus. Her college choices (and the towns that surround those colleges) must go through a rigorous analysis process to determine the accessibility of physical spaces, as well as accommodations and support systems in place for disabled students. This novel provides numerous examples of ableist beliefs, especially toward wheelchair users, highlights issues of access and “reasonable” accommodations (which are often determined by nondisabled people) in public high schools and other public spaces, and draws attention to common exclusionary practices and policies that negatively affect the lived experiences of disabled students. Effie’s characterization also shows readers the complicated nature of internalized ableism and how possessing a proud disabled identity changes daily, depending on various circumstances. Forrest’s lived experiences as a wheelchair user with cerebral palsy inspired this novel.

More YA books I recommend for disability pride—all written by disabled authors who show the both/and nuance of positive disabled identity while also navigating ableism—include:

Darius the Great is Not Okay & Darius the Great Deserves Better by Adib Khorram (2019 & 2021)

Disability Visibility: 17 First-Person Stories for Today (Adapted for Young Adults) Edited by Alice Wong (2020)

Hell Followed with Us by Andrew Joseph White (2023)

One for All by Lillie Lainoff (2022)

The Reckless Kind by Carly Heath (2021)

This is My Brain in Love by I. W. Gregorio (2020)

This is Not a Love Scene by S. C. Megale (2019)

Do you have any books to add to the list?

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The state of Orthodox Judaism’s representation in YAL by Dr. Heather Matthews

7/12/2023

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We welcome back Heather J. Matthews today! Heather's focus on representation--especially concerning Judaism--can help classroom teachers consider how their own students can critically examine whole-class or independent texts.

Dr. Matthews is an assistant professor of literacy at Salisbury University. She specializes in diverse representation within children’s and young adult literature. Heather can be reached at hjmatthews@salisbury.edu.

The state of Orthodox Judaism’s representation in YAL by Dr. Heather Matthews

In writing this post, I am making a major assumption. I assume that you, the reader, are familiar with the Bechdel Test, named after its creator, cartoonist Alison Bechdel. Bechdel observed in the mid-1980s that representation of women and girls in movies was seemingly unbalanced – that is, characters who were girls or women seemed only to serve the purpose of furthering a man’s narrative. The Bechdel test, as it is now known, asks consumers three questions about the media in question: are there are least two women, do those women talk to one another, and whether their topic of conversation about something other than a man (BechdelTest.com, n.d.). If the movie cannot pass through these three requirements, it fails the Bechdel test. While the Bechdel test was originally applies to movies, the rules can be applied to most forms of media, like television shows or books.

I have been obsessed with the idea of the Bechdel test for a long time, and would highly encourage you, dear reader, to play around on the Bechdel test’s website to check for your favorite movie. I think you may be surprised.

But what does this have to do with young adult literature? While I assumed that the Bechdel test is well known, I assume that the subsequent representation tests which examine other identity aspects are not. There are a multitude of other media representation tests like the Bechdel test, which you likely haven’t heard of – for example, the Waithe test, which requires that Black women who must 1) be in a position of power, and 2) is in a healthy romantic relationship (Wide Angle Youth Media, 2020). There are tests for gender, sexuality, race, ability, ethnicity and religion, as well as other identity aspects and identifiers. Of importance for this blog post is the Josephs test, which seeks to examine representation of Orthodox Jews (Levy, 2021).

For those who are not in the know of Judaism and its spectrum of beliefs, let me give you a quick and dirty overview: There are many denominations, or streams, of Judaism. However, three streams are more well-known due to their population size and/or visibility. These streams can be imagined on a linear spectrum from more to less observant of the practices of Judaism. On one end of the spectrum is Reform Judaism, which tends towards liberal observation of practices – Reform Jews tend to be less observant of ceremony, and tend to allow for exceptions and modernization in practices. In the middle of the spectrum is Conservative Judaism, which has some Reform aspects (for example, women can be rabbis) but also follows tradition and ceremony more closely than Reform Judaism (for example, attending religious services more often). On the other end of the spectrum is Orthodox Judaism, which tends to be stricter in terms of the ways in which Judaism is practiced on a daily basis; dietary rules, gender rules, dress rules, and other religious rules are closely followed. Because Orthodox Jews are most visible due to clothing and hair practices, they tend to attract the most attention in public and in the media.

With this in mind, the Josephs test deals specifically with Orthodox Judaism representation. Like the Bechdel test, there are several requirements that a piece of media must pass through to pass or fail: 1) Are there any Orthodox characters who are emotionally and psychological stable, 2) Are there characters who are Orthodox whose religious life is a characteristic but not a plot point or problem, 3) Can the Orthodox character find their Happily Ever After as a religious Jew, and 4) If the main plot points are in conflict due to religious observation, have any of the writers done the research required (Levy, 2021). While I would posit that the Josephs test can, and should, apply to all Jewish representation, the test’s origins specifically name Orthodoxy, and so this blog post will focus specifically on Orthodox Jewish representation in young adult literature.

So, with the Josephs test in mind, I am naturally led to the question, “what is the state of Orthodox Judaism representation in YAL”? It won’t surprise you to know that the pool of YAL which features explicitly named Orthodox Jewish main characters is quite small – however, it does exist. Take, for example, Potok’s The Chosen (1967), which tells of two Orthodox Jewish teenagers living in New York during the mid-1940s as they grow into adulthood and their own identities. This book is popular where I am currently located, and many local 6th graders read The Chosen as part of their ELA curriculum (much to my surprise and delight). Potok’s body of work makes up a significant amount of the Orthodoxy representation within YAL, with The Chosen being his most well-known text.

Here is where the Josephs test comes in. Does The Chosen pass the Josephs test? Well, it really depends on who you ask. In regards to question 2 (is the religious life of the character a characteristic instead of a plot points), there is a major stumbling block. Both of the main characters, Reuven and Danny, are Orthodox Jews, but the entire story of The Chosen revolves around their embracing or rejecting Jewish practices and beliefs, to the point where family ties are tested and expectations comes short for most of the involved characters. In fact, by the end of the book, dual protagonist Danny has rejected the external markers of his Jewish practice by cutting his hair and beard. This symbolic rejection of his Jewish practices is the ending of a built up tension which dominated the entire plot of the novel.

Of course, a main issue with The Chosen is that the text is quite old, and the dual protagonists are thrust into situations which are not necessarily relevant to modern Orthodoxy. One must wonder how more modern portrayals of Orthodox Judaism in YAL stack up in terms of representation. As case study, I would like to propose Isaac Blum’s The Life and Crimes of Hoodie Rosen (2022) and Leah Scheier’s The Last Words We Said (2021). These two books, published in the last two years, both feature Orthodox Jews as main characters. Yehuda (who goes by Hoodie) and Eliana (who goes by Ellie) represent modern Orthodox Judaism through realistic fiction, but both books take vastly different approaches in how Hoodie and Ellie’s Judaism affects their lives and the plot points of the story.

These books made such a splash in their Orthodox Jewish representation that both books have won major literary awards, as well as a fair amount of buzz in the Jewish kid lit scene. But, do they pass the Josephs test? Can these young characters maintain their beliefs in the modern world? Are they emotionally and psychologically stable? Are their Jewish identities a characteristic instead of a plot point?

I would like to leave these answers up to you, and highly encourage you to seek out and read these books. I would also encourage you to critically examine the next Orthodox Jewish character you come across in media, and ask yourself about if this character would pass through the Josephs test – more likely than not, as the television show Nurses episode “Achilles Heel” proves, the answer will be no.

References:
Bechdel Test. (n.d.). Bechdel Test Movie List. https://bechdeltest.com/
Blum, I. (2022). The life and crimes of Hoodie Rosen. Philomel Books.
Scheier, L. (2021). The last words we said. Simon Pulse.
Levy, Y. (2021). Want to represent Orthodox Jews accurately? Take this test before production begins. Jew in the City. https://jewinthecity.com/2021/03/want-to-represent-orthodox-jews-accurately-take-this-test-before-production-begins/
Potok, C. (1967). The Chosen. Simon & Schuster.
Shafer, E. (2021). NBC removes ‘Nurses’ episode from digital platforms following backlash over Orthodox Jewish storyline. Variety. https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/nbc-removes-nurses-episode-backlash-orthodox-jewish-storyline-1234914536/
Wide Angle Youth Media. (2020). Media tests for diversity and representation. Wide Angle Youth Media. https://www.wideanglemedia.org/blog/media-tests

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A Place to Fall in Love: The Importance of Rural Love Stories by Dr. Chea Parton

6/28/2023

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Chea Parton grew up on a farm and still considers herself a farm girl. She has been a rural student, a rural English teacher, and is currently a visiting assistant professor at Purdue University where she works with future teachers through the Transition to Teaching Program. She is passionate about rural education. Her research focuses on the personal and professional identity of rural and rural out-migrant teachers as well as rural representation in YA literature. She currently runs Literacy In Place where she seeks to catalogue rural YA books and provides teaching resources, hosts the Reading Rural YAL podcast where she gives book talks and interviews rural YA authors, and serves on the Whippoorwill Book Award for Rural YA Literature selection committee. You can reach her at readingrural@gmail.com.

A Place to Fall in Love: The Importance of Rural Love Stories by Dr. Chea Parton

I know the Hallmark Christmas Movie season is over (for now), but one of the things I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is the role that place plays in romance and love stories. For example: there are specific places that people propose that are considered more romantic than others and some that are considered decidedly not romantic at all. The Hallmark and Lifetime movie channels have built a holiday TV empire with movies that have predictable city to country/small town story lines that have started to migrate into other seasons. (Analyzing these formulaic plot lines and why people love them so much would be an entire project unto itself, which I’ll put on my to-do list for future me.)

YA is no stranger to love stories either, which has been a subject of some contention. On the one hand, authors like Maya MacGregor have discussed the important role YA love stories play in identity construction, representation, and allowing readers to dig into what is/should be considered (in)appropriate and (un)acceptable in relationships. In the piece linked here she writes, “Narratives that include romance, in particular, have a unique power to not only reflect back a reader’s identity and legitimize it, but also to establish the vital, priceless baseline of what is both normal and acceptable in relationships.”

On the other hand, teen readers like Vivian Parkin DeRossa have expressed frustration that YA love stories are unrealistic and don’t match with what most teens understand about love and what they’re looking for in their relationships. DeRossa writes, “YA tends to treat teenage relationships like they’re going to last forever. Many epilogues show the main character and their love interest happily married. But that’s not how most teen relationships shake out. Long-term love just isn’t something a lot of teenagers think is realistic at this point. Sure, some of my classmates will end up marrying their current boyfriend/girlfriend but most will breakup before or during college. And they know this.”

I’ve read a few rural love stories recently, and they have me thinking about the role that place plays in these stories, especially in relationship to MacGregor’s point about its role in validating identities. Dating and romance in rural places are shaped by geography in specific ways. For example:

Finding someone to date might be difficult. A family friend and I were trading engagement stories recently and she (partially) joked that she made sure she wasn’t related to her now husband before they started dating.
Dating someone in another town can require significant travel time which limits dating before driving age, and depending on finances, after driving age.
Finding things to do might involve farm chores or other geography-related activities. My mom and stepdad used to work together castrating hogs on/after their dates.

So, seeing these kinds of experiences validated in stories that feature romance in rural places helps to expand what rural young folks consider romantic. Hollywood and other popular media tell us that going out to a fancy restaurant and spending lots of money on dinner and/or a movie is what a “date night” is, but I guarantee that my mom and stepdad learned a lot about each other doing farm work than they wouldn’t have had the opportunity to discover if all of their dates consisted of conversation over food. Not that you can’t learn about each other that way, too, just that you might learn different things important to rural life in the context of rural work and living.

And place layers with other universally important aspects of romance such as consent, sexuality, and ways and reasons to choose a partner—sometimes in ways that are affirming and at other times in ways that provide readers opportunities to be critical of how characters navigated their romantic relationships. Below are a few rural romances that I think are worth checking out and why.

Bend in the Road by Sara Biren allows readers to think about how place and rurality factor into relationships through the interactions between the main characters—they are both insiders and outsiders to the farm where the book takes place in important ways. Farm succession features heavily, which is such an important issue for rural agrarian folks and I was both surprised and tickled to see it handled so well in this book.

Grave Things Like Love by Sara Bennett Wealer features a main character trying to navigate which boy is the right boy for her. She makes some important mistakes and being privy to her experiences and thoughts as she works to learn from them helps readers see that we don’t always get it right—we don’t always pick someone who is best for us—but that we can learn through those mistakes. Our missteps help us to learn what is important to us and for us in a relationship, and sometimes (maybe often?) those important things aren’t what we find in popular media. This story features examples of what rural dates can look like, the conundrum of having to drive a bit to meet up with your date, and the visibility a romance can have in a rural space.

Someday We’ll Find It by Jennifer Wilson is one of those books that offers important opportunities for readers to point out the problematic and toxic things that can feed relationships and their longevity. In small populations, it is statistically logical to believe that you may not ever find anyone else, so staying with someone who is toxic or abusive might seem like it makes sense. This book provides important space to critique that. It also illustrates the double standard often experience by rural girls and women when it comes to relationships.

A Little Bit Country by Brian D. Kennedy does a wonderful job of highlighting some of the obstacles a queer person might face in a rural community. Kennedy does an excellent job of embracing nuance and complicating stereotypes about rural people through this book. A queer relationship might not be the only kind of relationship that a rural person might want to hide but visibility in small towns can make that difficult. It also captures the way that tourism—in this case related to country music, but agri-tourism is a growing industry—can complicate things due to the transience of outsiders in the community.

There are many more books that could be on this list—these just happen to be some that I’ve read most recently, so if you have recommendations, I’d love to hear them. I’m also going to keep studying on the role of place and romance in YA, so if you have thoughts about that, I’d love to hear them too.

After writing my way through these thoughts in this blog, I do think rural representation in YA love stories is important, and I hope you’ll consider picking one up yourself, using them in your classrooms, and/or recommending them to both rural and nonrural readers in your life.

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Queer Shame, Pride, and Joy by Dr. Christian Gregory (he, him, his)

6/22/2023

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Dr. Christian George Gregory is an Assistant Professor at Saint Anselm College, teaching courses for preservice teachers in methods, pedagogy, the graphic novel, and Young Adult Literature. He has written chapters on the history of both YAL and the graphic novel and published in English Journal, English Education, the Journal of LGBTQ Youth, and the International Journal of Dialogic Pedagogy. His research interests are diversifying the canon, dialogical theory, and queer studies.

Queer Shame, Pride, and Joy by Dr. Christian Gregory (he, him, his)

For this YAL Wednesday post during Pride month, I invite you to celebrate Queer and Trans* Young Adult Literature (QT*YAL). My title marks both the history, present state, and futurity of QT*YAL. As scholars have noted, the history of QT*YAL was marked by the common trope of “bury your gays” and “dead lesbian syndrome” in which characters enter narratives only to be punished for, presumably, the crime of identity (Hulan, 2017; Rofes, 2004). With the advent of gay rights movement came an emergence from shame, with the rallying cry, “Out of the closet and into the streets” (Gregory 2021). From this visibility came YAL narratives of coming out, coming-of-age, and coming to, in fits and starts, pride.

The proliferation of QT*YAL titles in the past decade testifies the increased interest in queer narratives (Lo, 2011). Yet simultaneous with such progress has come notable pushback and restrictions. Book-banning and other forms of censorship have spread quickly across the nation in a partisan wild-fire.

For this post, I hope to remind teachers of the value of these stories, knowing that queer and trans* students will find their way to these stories whether teachers elect or not to include them in curriculum. As states, districts, and schools are often their own political eco-systems, I urge instructors to consider the variety of ways to introduce these books to their students: through curricular choices, self-select reads, excepts, or school, public, or personal libraries. Each of these stories I here highlight has immense formative value for queer and trans* youth. There stories are far more than reflective mirrors. They refract the multiplicity of identities like diamonds.

One scholarly note: For Halberstam (2018), trans* embraces the “unfolding categories of being organized around but not confined to forms of gender variance” and the asterisk refuses “to situated transition in relation to a destination, a final form, a specific shape, or an established configuration of desire and identity” (Halberstam, p.4). I use trans* to the variety of emergent identities and possibilities of more.

Flamer, by Mike Curato (he/him)

Biracial and Catholic, 14-year-old Aiden Navarro spends one week away at Boy scout camp in the summer before his entry into high school. At camp, Aiden confirms his strengths (knot-making or knowing all the campfire songs), and admits his challenges (archery). He also makes new friends, who appreciate his talents and humor, fights back against his bullies, and awakens to his attraction to his long-haired, football-playing friend Elias. Through this, Aiden finds inspiration in the courage and resilience of Christian Saints like St. Sebastian and Marvelverse icons, such as Jane Grey. Aiden’s caring top-knotted scout leader Tom provides an “orientation” lesson on how to find true north with his compass. When Aiden queries why there are two norths, a magnetic and true north, Tom responds, both as scout leader and queer mentor: “There is no ‘right’ north, really. This is all about figuring out how to get where you need to go. It’s not always straightforward” (p.203).

For LGBTQ+ students: Aiden’s complex intersectionality of identity (Filipino-American, Catholic, and gay) provides students the intersectional identities he navigates on a daily basis. Semi-autobiographical, Flamer depicts both ideations of suicide, its failed attempt, and the crucial message that “when you think the fire is out…you are wrong […] the fire isn’t done burning” (p.352; 358). Queer students have urged their parents to purchase copies, as noted by children’s book author Katey Howes in her tweet to Curato: “my 15 y.o. (proudly bi) daughter read FLAMER in an afternoon and demanded I buy her 3 more copies which she plans to “secretly deliver” to “friends who really need this book” So thank you. Seriously. Massive Thank yous” (Howes, 2020).

For Teachers: Flamer is one of the most contested banned books nationwide; it is a true-to-life queer BIPOC coming-of-age story. As such, it includes hate language, particularly among boys trying to regulate masculinity among themselves (Pascoe, 2007); it also depicts sexual anxiety, romantic fantasy, and a lights-out masturbation session among boys at camp. Nothing is explicit and all seems brutally authentic. This is a work that, even in writing about suicide, values queer life. This is a book that may truly save lives.

Pet by Akwaeke Emezi (they/them)

From ogbanje transgender Nigerian writer Akwaeke Emezi comes this allegorical fantasy of monsters and angels and how art may provide imagined strategies to respond to untruths and suppressive forces. Trans* protagonist Jam and her family reside in Lucille, where monsters have been bested by angels. Jam searches for this history, and knowing that anyone can forget what monsters look like, she retreats to a library of books. Meanwhile, her mother, Bitter, has finished a painting of hybrid creature, which, with a drop of Jam’s blood, comes to life as Pet with the single purpose to “hunt” everyday monsters, not yet known or seen. In the end, this indelible allegory concerns hunting sexual predators and unearthing the often hidden, unspoken crimes of child abuse.

For LGBTQ+ students: The details of Jam’s identity formation, her claim of being in the wrong body, her self-advocacy for hormone blockers and trans* health options, her parents loving support of this identity, functions as a timely counternarrative to today’s anti-trans* legislation. Further, the narrative follows the trans*-protagonist on a quest narrative for justice rather than a more common, valuable narratives of gender formation (See Gender Queer). By illustrating trans* lives as heroic, justice-seeking, and protective of children, Emezi engages in a speculative world-building where queer and trans* students can imagine themselves agents, activists, and heroes.

For Teachers: Provides examples of trans*-supportive families, networks, and alternative family structures. Trans*, queer, and non-binary characters populate this speculative town. As such, the fiction both reflects and imagines queer positive family groupings with the BIPOC community.

All Boys Aren’t Blue, George M. Johnson (they/them)

A memoir at the intersection of Blackness and queerness, Johnson recounts his middle-class upbringing in New Jersey. Their story encompasses a coming-of-age story that tackles various queer phobias (homophobia, femmephobia, transphobia) and how the extended Black family structure, imperfect as it is, finds space for support and acceptance. Johnson’s positionality is that of the queer friend, advocate, mentor, guide, and support. They are best friend, brother, mother, and chosen family, telling tales, citing cautionary facts and figures, and offering queer front-porch advise, seasoned with bon mots, clever comebacks. Johnson’s a hard-won coming-out story, as they write, “We see coming out stories all the time…what we don’t see is what led up to that moment. How many times a person tried to push past that barrier to get to that point” (p.237).

For LGBTQ+ students: Johnson’s memoir plumbs the depths of intersectionality. Whether it is code-switching between gendered language or between racial identity, Johnson often finds himself double-dutching between two fast ropes of identity: “it was me jumping between personas: the person I wanted to be on the inside versus the person society told me I had to be on the outside” (p.69).

For Teachers: Johnson’s work reminds educators of the “creativity of children” who may “not met the acceptable standard of gender performance” (p. 59) and who may not conform to strict binary ideas about manner and mannerism. This book addresses Johnson’s double marginalization in ways that other works may not address. They must content with queerness within their familial structure, blackness and queerness within their white, Catholic high school, and queerness within their historically Black university. Notably, a chapter on sexual assault and incest, which likely led to its ban from libraries, is complex, fascinating, and responsibly managed. Knowing that sexual coming-of-age is often delayed for queer folk, a “second adolescence” (p.274) lived later, Johnson provides what they never received: a chapter devoted to sexual education, including narrative, reflection, and data and stats on HIV transmission in Black queer communities.

Gender Queer: A Memoir, Maia Kobabe (pronouns: e/em/eir)

A coming-of-age/coming out graphic novel regarding the complexity of identity. The work begins in shame, an act of masking, with paper and tape, a cartoon book project titled “Gender Queer” and ends, years later in a classroom, as Kobabe, teaching middle schoolers, considers whether and how to share eir pronouns the class. Those last words, “Next time, next time, I will come out” (p.238) illustrates the complexity facing queer and trans* teachers face. The breath of the narrative contains the confusion, elation, and stops and starts of gender queer identity construction.

For LGBTQ+ students: Most remarkable about this memoir is the authentically cloudy journey sense of self-discovery: of one’s body, sexuality, gender presentation, neurophilosopy, and identity. This work, exploratory, revelatory, provides non-binary and/or trans* students with language and thinking that can clarify the confusion of identity formation.

For Teachers: Kobabe’s work, one of the most contested in the book bans, is such a mirror into the internal anxieties facing non-binary, gender queer, and trans* people. Chapters, passages, sequences and page spreads may provide a helpful frame for classroom discussion. The constellation of family, friends, and most of all, books (fiction, fantasy, comics, and science theory) reinforce the value in reading and its heuristic effect on identity.

The Paradox of Shame, Pride and Joy

While some works address shame surrounding queer and trans* identities (Curato, 2020; Johnson, 2020; Kobabe, 2020), often the authors write a pathway out toward some self-affirmation. From the shame’s dull pain or confusion’s fog, pride seems to be the destination. Yet pride is not without its complications. As wonderful as pride is, it can be an armature against heteronormative, homophobic, and transphobic structures. One needs pride to combat these counter forces. Pride is a defense, a reclamation, an assertion of one’s value to non-queer folk. Pride is an antidote to shame.

Queer joy is another affect altogether; it can be an incredibly private expression, though often it expresses itself publicly. Yet public or private, queer joy serves its maker first and those with whom it is shared, second. Further, in its expression and presentation, queer joy, fountain-like, returns to its source. It need not, as pride so often does, combat shame; it often feels the result, at least in the moment, of a shame-free zone. Needless to say, queer joy is often shameless.

Shame. Pride. Joy. All such affects are embedded into today’s QT*YAL and seem reflective of the specific, paradoxical state in which we reside. Queer youth are experiencing pride, joy, and, shame all at once. Queer students are more visible, and, at the same time, more vulnerable (Paris and Cain Miller, 2023). Teachers and students today reside in pride and joy, while contending with the real toll psychologically from systemic homophobia and trans*phobia.

Queer Joy

Let’s end in joy. In the works mentioned, one might tease out moments of transcendence, of joy: in the mastery of a basket weaving failure and exchange of jokes in summer camp in Flamer; in the trans*-heroic, self-knowing protagonist of Pet, and finding just the right floral pattern of self-presentation in Gender Queer. In All Boy’s Aren’t Blue, Johnson writes hopefully that their queer liberation would come by going away to college; but in truth, it came form the power of identifying with Beyoncé. It’s not that Johnson wanted be Beyoncé; as he writes, “I wanted to be me, in Virginia, and dance to her. I wanted to BE ME dancing to her” (p.231). Her power afforded theirs. Her passion, theirs. Her joy, theirs.

Johnson’s moment of queer joy came through their immersive experience of Beyoncé, a pleasure analogous to reading. Each reader’s connection to a character’s queer joy forges a parasocial relation – a friend, a mentor, a form of support. And queer youth need support. Sometimes it comes in the form of family. Sometimes friends. But it can also come from stories and characters to reflect and refract their own experience. In reading about another, queer youth find the space to be and to encounter and reflect on all the emotions that come with queer being. The landscape of queer joy is a most crucial part of queer affect. It is a space not visited often enough.

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Using YA Pedagogy to Authentically Assess Student Learning by Dr. Amy Piotrowski, Hannah Barker, and Tiana Leakehe

6/15/2023

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Dr. Amy Piotrowski is an associate professor of English education at Utah State University. She teaches undergraduate courses in English education and secondary education as well as graduate courses in literacy education. Her research focuses on digital literacies and young adult literature. Before going into teacher education, she taught middle school Language Arts, high school English, and college composition in Texas. Her work has appeared in journals such as English Education, Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, and Utah English Journal.

Hannah Barker is an English major with an emphasis in teaching in her senior year at Utah State University. Before studying English teaching, she studied music composition and music teaching at Brigham Young University-Hawaii. She has a great passion for teaching the arts and enjoys studying and implementing creative and personalized teaching methods.

Tiana Leakehe is an English major with an emphasis in teaching at Utah State University. She will be entering her senior year this coming fall. She is committed and excited to use YAL in her future classroom. As a Pacific Islander, she is passionate about making education multicultural and believes that YAL is a great tool to help to do so.

Using YA Pedagogy to Authentically Assess Student Learning by Dr. Amy Piotrowski, Hannah Barker, and Tiana Leakehe

Assessment. Just the word can evoke dread in both students and teachers. What are the possibilities when assessment is a creative way to show off what we know, rather than being the educational equivalent of a root canal? In my (Amy’s) Teaching Young Adult Literature course, we talk about assessment as activities that provide evidence to teachers about what students have learned and what students need further instruction on. Jennifer Buelher argues in her book Teaching Reading With YA Literature for more authentic and meaningful assessments. She calls for assessments that both draw on students’ aesthetic responses to the text and challenge students to critical analysis. In other words, assessment should include “both personal and analytical work” and get students to “engage in continued learning and meaning making”(Buelher, p. 113).

The final assignment I have my preservice teachers complete in Teaching Young Adult Literature is to design an activity to assess student learning about one of the novels we have read that semester. Drawing on Buelher’s book and its chapter on assessment, preservice teachers create the handout they would give students with instructions for the activity, how the final product their students create will be assessed, and a rationale for the activity they have designed. Two of my preservice teachers, Hannah and Tiana, share here what they designed for a culminating activity. In Hannah's activity, students create book jackets about Lisa Klein’s Ophelia, while in Tiana’s activity, students create leaflets based on Kip Wilson’s White Rose. These are examples of activities that assess student learning that go beyond traditional assessments. Hannah and Tiana also share what they learned about assessment by designing these activities.

Book Jackets and Ophelia - by Hannah

Creativity is an essential part of learning. Throughout my time both as a student and as a teacher-in-training, I have come to realize that I learn much more when I am given some sort of choice in the learning, some way to be creative. For our YA Pedagogy class, I chose to create an assessment that incorporates inventiveness and personalization while also guiding all students towards the same learning goals.

This assessment was centered around the book Ophelia by Lisa Klein. The book is a retelling of the classic story of Hamlet from Ophelia’s perspective. It’s an enjoyable way for students to dive deeper into Shakespeare while also allowing them to immerse themselves in the best elements of YA fiction. The assessment itself is the creation of a book jacket. Each section of the book jacket calls for a different requirement: The front cover needs to be an artistic illustration, the student’s own interpretation of the front cover of the book. The front cover flap needs to contain two themes from the book, including two quotes to support those themes. The spine contains the title of the book, as well as a small image or symbol that the student decides represents the book well. The back cover contains a 500-word review of the student’s experience reading the book. They also have to answer at least one reflection question from a list provided for them on the handout. The back cover flap contains a 300-word analysis on a single character from the book using evidence from the text. The students may choose whether they would like to make it online or on paper.

There is plenty of room for student choice and creativity in this assessment, as every part of the book jacket calls for the student to create their own individual answer or to choose how to do something from a list provided to them. It is an authentic way to assess student learning because I am able to see how well the students understood the book and its themes through their short responses- I can even see how well they understood based on the illustrations and creative symbols they choose! There is plenty of room for creativity and individuality in YA assessments.

White Rose Leaflets - by Tiana

Oftentimes, the most meaningful part of reading for students is the personal connections they make to a book. These personal connections become even easier to make with YAL because of its ability to speak to students' interests and questions. When it comes to assessment, this personal side to reading seems to get lost. Traditional multiple choice tests or papers typically just ask students to recall information or apply their knowledge analytically. Although these are important parts of assessment, they lack the personal qualities that engage students. Assessments should emphasize the importance of those connections that students make by asking them to expand upon them. Because reading is personal, assessments should be too (Buehler, p. 113).

I practiced making assessments personal by creating a project that goes along with a piece of YAL titled White Rose, by Kip Wilson. This book is a great resource for young readers to get an accurate account of the historical events that happened in Germany. It also allows students to empathize with real people from the past and includes themes of morality, identity, and bravery. Readers learn that Sophie and the other members of the resistance group created and handed out leaflets which included the truth about the Nazis. In this project, students will create their own leaflets, where they will tell the truth about the book by including important themes, characters, events, and personal connections they made. The White Rose group took an issue that included many details and condensed it into a leaflet that would get the most important parts of their message out to readers, students are able to empathize as they attempt to do the same thing. This project not only assesses students analytical skills, but also asks students to explain how they personally connected to the book.

References
Buehler, J. (2016). Teaching reading with YA literature: Complex texts, complex lives. National Council of Teachers of English.

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Contemporary Takes on Star-Crossed Lovers by Roy Edward Jackson and Erinn Bentley

6/7/2023

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Roy Edward Jackson holds degrees in Education, English, and Library Science. He has worked in public education in a variety of roles for over two decades. Currently, he is working on doctoral research concerning the rise in LGBTQIA+ book challenges in school libraries. He resides in Pennsylvania with his husband and menagerie of pets.

Erinn Bentley is a professor of English education at Columbus State University. When not mentoring her pre-service teachers, she enjoys leading students on study abroad programs and traveling with her family.

Contemporary Takes on Star-Crossed Lovers by Roy Edward Jackson and Erinn Bentley

Romeo and Juliet premiered over 425 years ago. For many readers, it is the first, and sometimes only, experience with Shakespeare. It may feel like a binary experience for teachers regarding students' responses to it; students seem to either love or hate the text. However, that love/hate response may not be as content driven it may seem. It could be more about access to the language and structure which can feel obscure and difficult for young readers. As teachers, we often incentivize our students to finish the text with promises of movie and book adaptations. This may be the wrong approach from many young readers. What often happens is after trudging through the text, with its difficult language, the a-ha moments come through in the adaptations. Oh, I get it now, that’s what that was about. There is something special about Romeo and Juliet that tugs at young readers with themes that are meaningful to them. Themes of love, class structure, duality, and fate. These themes resonate today 425+ years later. These themes are timeless and never tiresome. Perhaps though, the incentives that are offered after the reading may be better suited by reversing the timing. Reading, and watching, updated adaptations first gives the access point for readers to enjoy, and not trudge, through the original text. Three books are fantastic access entry points into one of Shakespeare’s most often taught plays in our schools. They are Romiette and Julio by Sharon M. Draper, If You Come Softly by Jacqueline Woodson, and Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackmore.

Sharon M. Draper’s 1999 YA novel, Romiette and Julio, surprisingly doesn’t read dated for today’s young readers. The publishing date would indicate a bit of antiquated references; however Draper has constructed a strong novel with the right touches of timeliness that make today’s young readers relate to the overall structure. Romiette is a young African-American student born and raised in Cincinnati. A city nicknamed the Queen City of the West, is wisely chosen as the location. Romiette Capelle comes from local royalty with her ancho, newscaster father and local, boutique store owner mother. The family is well regarded and renowned. Julio Montague is a mid-year transfer student who recently moved from Corpus Christie (another aptly chosen city) Texas. As a Hispanic student of a modest means family, Julio struggles to find footing in school where he is marginalized. The two meet in a chatroom online, only to find they attend the same school. The novel follows the plot of the play with themes of class and race highlighting the story. The two go public at school with their relationship and spark the ire of a local gang, the Devil Dogs, who reign at school. While it has a different ending, Draper’s novel shines as a modern day adaptation with supporting characters that are fully fleshed out and matching well with Rosaline and Benvolio to the original play. The technology and newscasting resonates today for readers. In addition, Draper has utilized Romiette’s dreams in the book to show the power of foreshadowing, something that can get lost in the original play when a young reader struggles with the obscurity of the language. Romiette and Julio has accessible language, structure and plotting that make this a strong vehicle to gain entry into the text it originated from. Reading this prior to Shakespeare's text allows for students to not get bogged down and instead have a connection to the original play.

Jacqueline Woodson’s If You Come Softly takes more liberties with the original story, but perhaps packs a more heartbreaking punch than Draper’s adaptation. If You Come Softly is the story of Ellie, a white, Jewish girl from Manhattan and Brooklyn born Jeremiah who is Black. They meet at Percy Academy, one of New York’s most elite, and expensive, private academies. While both come from affluent families, Jeremiah is often mistaken for being a scholarship kid based on his race and position on the basketball team. Woodson wisely taps into the tropes and stereotypes that many Black young students are plagued with in American schools. This is shown when Jeremiah is erroneously placed in remedial classes with no justified reason. The love story is the heart of Romeo and Juliet, and it is the heart of Woodson’s novel. While the families are not warring against each other, the war that the two face is a society that has placed such stigma on race, particularly the Black race in America. Ellie faces little stigmatization at Percy, yet Jeremiah faces it routinely in and out of school. While Woodson doesn’t cast the story as closely as Draper did, the role of the nurse in Shakespeare’s text shines in Woodson’s novel where Ellie’s housekeeper, Marion, plays a highlighted role. Woodson packs a gut punch of an ending when Jeremiah, just after leaving Ellie for the evening, is gunned down in Central Park by the police for simply being a young Black man with a basketball in his palm. A novel published in 1998 sadly resonates all too true to the tragedy of young Black lives lost wrongly to the police over 25 years later. In fact, the tragedy of the ending is a perfect entry point for preparing kids for the tragedy of Shakespeare’s play when read after If You Come Softly.

Set in an alternative historical reality, Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackmon tells the story of two star-crossed lovers through their alternating points of view. Persephone (Sephy) and Callum reside in England in the early 2000s; however, this England is split by class and race: Crosses (dark-skinned people) are the ruling class and control the noughts (light-skinned people). Sephy (a Cross) is the daughter of a wealthy and powerful politician and Callum (a nought) is the son of Sephy’s nanny. They are best friends until Sephy’s mother fires Callum’s mother, forcing the teens to keep their ongoing relationship a secret. When Heathcroft, a Cross secondary school, allows a select number of noughts to attend, Sephy is thrilled to be reunited with Callum. Both, though, quickly realize that no one accepts their friendship. As Callum’s family becomes increasingly angered by the Crosses’ unjust governance, his father (Ryan) and older brother (Jude) join the LIberation Militia (LM) and are accused of bombing a local shopping center. Things disintegrate quickly for Callum’s family, as his older sister commits suicide, his father is arrested and imprisoned, Jude goes into hiding, and Callum is expelled from Heathcroft.

In typical star-crossed lovers fashion, a series of miscommunications leads to the couple’s separation, leaving Sephy to attend a boarding school and Callum to join the LM. When united years later under unusual circumstances, they resume their short-lived romance before Callum is forced to go back into hiding. Soon, Sephy discovers she is pregnant. Once this news is made public, Callum meets her for a midnight tryst, is discovered and arrested. Sephy’s father then presents both lovers with a heart-wrenching decision, ultimately sealing their fates.
The similarities to Romeo & Juliet are numerous, and this novel would pair well with the play or as an alternative reading. That being said, Noughts and Crosses also stands on its own as a literary text. Considering Britain’s colonial past, reimagining people of color as the more powerful race allows readers a unique perspective to examine racism. The Jim Crow-like laws, segregated schools, biased justice system, and hate-filled epithets in the novel, sadly, can be compared to current events here and around the world. The novel also offers quieter moments for readers to consider. For example, when a nought is injured at Heathcroft, Sephie is told, “‘They don’t sell pink Band-Aids. Only dark brown ones.’” Sephy admits, “I’d never really thought about it before, but she was right…Band-Aids were the color of us Crosses, not the noughts.” In Sephy’s world, the Crosses erased noughts by ensuring every television advertisement, magazine model, and first-aid bandage only matched their skin - much like our own country’s past and current history.
In addition to providing provocative themes and text-to-world connections, Noughts and Crosses offers characters who are flawed and realistic. Often in YA novels, the teenage protagonists are portrayed as heroes who are wise beyond their years. Sephy, on the other hand, is spoiled, immature, and naive through much of the first half of the novel, which is actually typical behavior for a 14-year-old child who has lived in a privileged, protected space. Callum is moody, impetuous, and stubborn - again, traits of a real teenager. Both characters disappoint their families, themselves, and each other, which I believe makes them more relatable and makes their relationship more poignant. While at the beginning of the novel they both dreamily imagine running off together, they adopt a mature and realistic view in their final moments together. Unfortunately, this realization comes too late, and readers are left wondering over the many decisions these characters made, and if they would have chosen differently. This novel is certain to spark impassioned discussions among student-readers.

Whether paired with the original Romeo and Juliet or read as an alternative text, these 3 novels offer unique opportunities for students to grapple with the universal themes of unrequited love, loyalty to family or friends, and the struggles associated with coming-of-age. We highly recommend adopting these novels in your classroom.

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Stay tuned for information regarding the Summit on the Research and Teaching of Young Adult Literature!

The 2023 Whippoorwill Book Award: Representation of Multiply Marginalized Identities by Chea Parton and Erika Bass

Gothic Humanization: A Useful Principle from Gothic YA by Jesse Bair

Facing Difficult Family Situations in YA Literature by Dr. Katherine Higgs-Coulthard

Coming of Age Stories for Adolescents by Dr. Margaret A. Robbins

Celebrating Positive and Nuanced YA Disability Representation for Disability Pride Month by Dr. Caitlin Metheny

The state of Orthodox Judaism’s representation in YAL by Dr. Heather Matthews

A Place to Fall in Love: The Importance of Rural Love Stories by Dr. Chea Parton

Queer Shame, Pride, and Joy by Dr. Christian Gregory (he, him, his)

Using YA Pedagogy to Authentically Assess Student Learning by Dr. Amy Piotrowski, Hannah Barker, and Tiana Leakehe

Contemporary Takes on Star-Crossed Lovers by Roy Edward Jackson and Erinn Bentley

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Stay tuned for information regarding the Summit on the Research and Teaching of Young Adult Literature!

Dr. Steve Bickmore​Creator and Curator

Co-Edited Books

Archives

Categories

Blogs to Follow

Dr. Steve Bickmore
Creator and Curator