Historically, when you hear “Disney” or “the Disney treatment,” thoughts of white-washed, Euro-centric stories reinforcing hegemonic ideologies complete with merchandising opportunities come to mind. While Disney has not reckoned fully with their historical perpetuation of whiteness and racist caricatures, traditional gender roles, and heterosexuality, there has been a noticeable recent increase in the number of stories told by, for, and about people of Color across Disney properties, particularly through streaming offerings on Disney+.
 
Some of these stories are new intellectual property, but remakes of pre-existing Disney properties and adaptations of recognizable properties that are created by or starring people from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds have also proved lucrative for the studio. These movies and shows and the merchandise ecosystem that accompany them offer big and little screen mirrors for millions of children who identify with the diverse actors of Color cast in starring roles. However, diversifying stories previously cast or imagined with white actors has led to racist backlash online. A recent example of this was the online outrage about the casting of Halle Bailey, a Black actress, as Ariel in the remake of The Little Mermaid (2023). These manufactured conflicts, fed into an “outrage machine” through social media channels, often contain rhetoric of “loss” for dominant groups (Sackl, 2022).
 
In this contested and often hostile space, studios and networks like Disney continue to acquire rights to multicultural intellectual property, including popular Young Adult and Middle Grades Literature. So what does it mean for these books and series to be “Disney-fied” today? Disney’s corporate imperative to make money while also expanding their market to meet shifting demographics worldwide has led to more representation behind and in front of the camera, but what opportunities and challenges does this offer? One example of recent Disney-fication that highlights the hopes and challenges of the expansion of market share is the Disney+ adaptation of the young adult novel The Crossover.

The Crossover show debuted on Disney+ in April 2023, with 8 episodes executive produced and written by Kwame Alexander and teams from several production companies. We got out our notebooks to compare the new show to its source material. In signature Disney fashion, the show introduces viewers to young actors Jalyn Hall as “Josh Bell” and Amir O’Neil as “JB,” marking them as new members of the “Disney machine.” Supported by recognizable actors like Derek Luke as “Chuck Bell” and Daveed Diggs narrating in spoken word style as the poetic inner voice of Josh, the show embeds its new stars with known talent, potentially piquing the interest of adults who may see a familiar face in promotional materials.

One of the potential advantages of Disney’s corporate strategies is a focus on expanding existing properties into longer forms. Because of the choice to make The Crossover into a series (with the help of author Alexander who served as a writer on the show), supporting characters from the novel are developed more fully with storylines that were not present in the original text. For instance, Josh and JB’s mom Crystal Bell has an expanded storyline where she vies for a promotion from middle school assistant principal to principal at the school her sons attend. The show also includes new plot events that center and celebrate Black history and Black joy; in one example, the twins prepare for and attend a Harlem Renaissance-themed middle school dance. Without an emphasis on expanding the source material, fans of the book’s characters would miss out on these storylines. 

However, extended time spent on tense basketball games and worrying medical emergencies drives the plot of many episodes. This is in contrast to the text, where basketball is one aspect of JB’s world that he uses to help process his personal life and does not end up being the most important aspect of his story. Disney’s focus on creating marketable franchises with multiple avenues for profit may have contributed to the decision to foreground basketball scenes and minimize attempts to bring the poetry of the novel in verse to life. The show sometimes features visual flourishes that highlight Josh’s expansive vocabulary and inner monologue tied to tenderness and family dynamics, but they are secondary to the conventionally-filmed sports scenes.
 
Additionally, attempts to create dramatic tension in the show end up undercutting the impact of the book’s style. Most episodes are framed by jumps forward in time to see where the Bell family is now, including adding a future car wreck implying one of the twins becomes gravely injured and unable to play basketball soon after being signed to a professional team. These moments add higher stakes to the plot than were present in the book but do not add to the story in a meaningful way, while distracting from the artistry and the joy of the original text. The show ends with a cliffhanger, hinting that the story will continue in a future season, a recognition of Disney’s overarching goal to create long-lasting franchises.
 
The show also removes any reference to Josh’s locs, which feature prominently in the book, both as a source of pride and individual expression for Josh and a plot event when JB wins a bet and accidentally cuts off more than one. In fact, the actor who plays Josh has an afro throughout the show, and Black hair styles and preferences never feature as a storyline. Removing culturally-specific storylines like this may have left time for more basketball scenes, but eliminates a point of connection for viewers who identify with the characters’ experiences.
 
Overall, The Crossover series offers readers an opportunity to see their favorite characters come to life, and opens the door to practice critical literacy skills by asking questions like why aspects of the book were changed and to whose benefit. 

Some questions to consider when reading and making comparisons to screen adaptations might include:
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• How is this film or television show marketed to children, teens, and adults?
• What changes were made to the source material in the adaptation? How do these add to or take away from the original?
• Who benefits from the adaptation? Who benefits or loses from the changes made to the original text?

 
When thinking about watching these adaptations with youth, these questions become critical to ask. While shows like The Crossover and American Born Chinese have brought more diverse actors, stories, and cultures to wider audiences, that does not mean they are fully capturing the nuance of the diverse perspectives of their source material.
 
Questions also remain as to the size and scope of audience these shows are reaching given the lack of transparency streaming services have about their viewership. For the new Disney+ adaptation of Goosebumps (2023), Disney has been vocal about the shows success, while it is difficult to find news about viewership for both The Crossover and American Born Chinese, which have been available much longer but with less marketing and merchandising. This exploration of The Crossover demonstrates the complexities of adapting multicultural YAL in increasingly thoughtful and inclusive ways in pop culture while “caught between online participatory culture and corporate fan service, fan activism and conservative backlash” (Sackl, 2022). 

Padma Venkatraman is one of the earliest friends of Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday. We try to have her contribute at least once a year. This week she takes on the topic of censorship, a topic that is disrupting too the lives and livelihoods of authors. Padma shares a personal experience.  Thanks Padma.

​October was supposed to begin with the kind of event I love most: a visit to a school. Shortly before I was scheduled to travel, I noticed there was a message from the school, and I opened it, expecting to see what I am used to seeing the evening before a visit: a friendly, welcoming, excited note.
 
Instead, I was shocked to find that questions were being raised about the information on the slides I’d sent ahead to the school to download (as I always do). This is my usual procedure, whether I’m presenting a keynote to a ballroom full of adults or a workshop to a select few students in a classroom. I like to ensure that the host has a chance to upload my presentation to a laptop on site ahead of my visit, well in time to ensure that everything looks compatible. That way, we’re ready to go, without any wasted time (but if something goes unexpectedly and inexplicably awry with technology, I can always pop in one of the billion back-ups that I bring with me on flashdrives). It was amply clear that I was sending my presentation to the school ahead of time so they could ensure the slides were in readiness for my use – I had not sent them to be reviewed. Never before, in the many schools visits I’ve done for over 15 years (since the release of my debut novel), have I experienced a similar violation and breach of honor and trust. Ironically, this occurred during banned book week.
 
Concern was expressed that the students would not be prepared to hear about some “heavy topics” addressed briefly in my presentation. One of the issues was domestic violence; although my novel, THE BRIDGE HOME, which I’d specifically been asked to speak about, opens with an off-screen incident of physical abuse. In the numerous talks I’ve given all over the world since the novel was published, I mention that I have survived a difficult childhood, and so this scene in the novel was particularly hard to write. I never get into any detail of the actual trauma I endured, not even with a group of adults, let alone a classroom full of children! But I insist on making this simple statement because speaking my truth aloud has enabled many children (and even some adults) who were experiencing terrible situations of their own, to ask for help from a professional they trust in their own communities. My book and my talks have acted as catalysts to help other human beings take potentially life-saving steps to protect themselves from further harm and move to safety. This is the most rewarding gift my work has given me – the knowledge that my words have the power to change lives for the better.
 
Another topic that worried the school was child enslavement, although this theme is also central to THE BRIDGE HOME. Forced child labor is an implicit threat that hangs over the main characters in my novel, which portrays the horrific reality that so many homeless children face in India, where the novel is set. And, whenever I speak to groups in our nation, I feel it is vital that my readers also realize that hunger, poverty and child labor exist not only half-way across the world, but also in these United States. If a discussion ensues during the question and answer session after my talk, I refer to the example in THE BRIDGE HOME, in which Muthu speaks briefly about being forced to work for the owner of a sweatshop. After reading THE BRIDGE HOME, children all over the world have helped combat hunger and poverty in their own backyards by taking the initiative to discover how best to assist those children who are their neighbors but who lack socioeconomic privilege. Other groups of young people have reached out to collect money or provide other kinds of assistance for children in remote parts of the world. Each time I hear about such an effort, it moves me, and I am humbled that I have helped inspire child-led empathetic action. 

​Finally, the school did not want me to draw parallels and make connections between my novel BORN BEHIND BARS (which I’d also been specifically asked to speak about) and current injustices in our nation in terms of incarceration.  The protagonist of my novel, BORN BEHIND BARS, is the son of an innocent, poor, low-caste woman inmate in an Indian jail. In my author’s note, and in my presentation, I draw a parallel between the situation in India and current racist inequity in our country, where a disproportionate number of innocent people behind bars are Black. In the past, bi-partisan political efforts have tried to combat this injustice. Highlighting basic human values by speaking about this terrible injustice should never be considered out of place in any free society where individuals are respected.
 
A look at my biography should reveal that I once taught children in middle and elementary school. A quick perusal of my work should show that as an author, I prefer to center a character’s survival rather than getting into excruciating detail about any cruelty they may have suffered. My talks and my books allow my readers to see the inhumanity that exists in our world in an age-relevant manner, so that they may strive to create a better future. I am sensitive to the kind of reader I once was – a child who had nightmares for weeks if she ever came across graphic descriptions of violence. My goal is not to frighten but to inform, gently but accurately, so that readers’ hearts are touched, their minds strengthened, and their spirits ultimately uplifted.
 
In the numerous author events I have conducted with similarly aged children all over the world, I have always been humbled by the deep, lasting and meaningful connections my work has generated. My goal as an author is to increase respect, acceptance and compassion amongst us. When someone opens a book I’ve written, I hope they are opening a door, not just to a different time or place, but into the minds and hearts of my characters. I don’t write to entice readers to escape (although I respect authors whose aim is entertainment). I write to invite readers to engage by exercising their empathy – and thus empower themselves.
 
I love speaking with audiences of all ages – but there is always something extra-special about connecting with young readers. Much as I wanted to visit the children at the school that raised such unexpected concerns, I could not, in good conscience, change my program and omit discussing three vital themes in the books I was invited to speak about. The school chose to cancel my visit at the last minute, adding yet another incident that needs to be counted and added to the files documenting censorship. And I chose to write about it because recording these hateful acts is vital in our fight to preserve every child's democratic right to access to books that I consider to be packages of compassion.
 
In BORN BEHIND BARS, one of the characters says “Fear is a Lock. Courage is a key.” The desire to censor my carefully and caringly prepared presentations was, I believe, born of fear, as is every challenge my books have met. The recent spate of book banning has resulted in my receiving fewer invitations to speak than when I was a debut author. Inordinate numbers of  the books being banned in our nation today have been written by authors of color or authors who are part of the LGBTQ2+ community. Banning our voices is an attempt to erase our existence; a hateful exclusionary act rooted in fear. But my colleagues and I hold the keys of courage, and we will continue to create books that unlock mutual understanding in our society and our world. 

Until next time.

Our post this week is produced by Wendy R. Williams and Fio Moulton. 

​Manga are Japanese comics. These works are similar to graphic novels and are often printed in black and white. They are read from right to left, starting at the top right section of the page. Manga tends to be published as volumes in a series, and many serve as the source material for anime (animated TV shows and movies). Part of what makes manga so appealing is there are many different kinds to choose from. There really is something for everyone! 

Three traditional manga categories include the following:

• Shojo: These stories are geared toward a young female audience. They usually focus on romance and friendship. Some examples are Sailor Moon, Nana, and Cardcaptor Sakura.
• Shonen: These stories are geared toward a young male audience. They tend to include action, fighting, and friendship. One Piece, Naruto, and Dragon Ball Z are some examples.
• Seinen: This category of manga is aimed at adult readers. These stories may contain violence, psychological elements, and more mature themes. Sample titles include Attack on Titan, Death Note, and Berserk.

 However, manga has evolved over the years, and these labels don’t necessarily reflect the current state of manga today. Often category clichés have been used to subvert audience expectations and play with the reader. For example, a series might begin in a typical shojo style and suddenly switch to a much more serious and violent one (e.g., Puella Magi Madoka Magica). Some series don’t even fit neatly into any of these categories at all.
 
We are a mom and son team who both really enjoy reading manga, but our tastes are very different. Below, we each provide our perspective on this form of visual storytelling.

​Reading manga is a wonderful break from the other reading I do for my job as an Associate Professor. These books transport me to other worlds, expose me to new perspectives, and sometimes make me laugh out loud. I am intrigued by the characters, themes, settings, and art.
 
My favorite manga series is The Way of the Househusband, which is about a former yakuza gangster who is now a stay-at-home husband. He approaches domestic activities with great zeal and intensity, whether it is preparing a meal, cleaning, or shopping for groceries. The over-the-top exaggeration of the importance of simple everyday tasks is hilarious. Another series that drew me in right away is Parasyte. In this eight-book science-fiction series, the protagonist is infected with an alien parasite, who gives him superpowers. Ultimately, he and the parasite have to work together to overcome evil forces. These books are unlike anything I have read before. The art style is beautiful, the story is packed full of action, and even the parasite becomes an endearing character as the series unfolds.
 
I have also enjoyed reading Baron: The Cat Returns, which is about a young girl who is carried off to a cat kingdom, where she is to be married to a cat prince. This book is fast-paced and full of action and humor. Not all manga is a good fit for the secondary classroom, but Baron: The Cat Returns is a book that would work. It could also be paired with the Studio Ghibli film, The Cat Returns (Morita, 2005), which follows the manga closely. 

I began reading manga around age eight. The art styles appealed to me due to the unique character designs and attention paid to the eyes and hair. Some of my first series were Sailor Moon, Fairytale, and My Hero Academia. I enjoyed both typical shonen and shojo works. Shonen, I could appreciate for its intense fight scenes, and shojo, for its drama and emotional impact.
 
As I got older, I noticed manga as a medium began to change as well. Stories were beginning to break the mold and challenge readers’ expectations. It didn’t matter whether a series was aimed at female or male readers, and people of all audiences enjoyed all kinds of stories. As I’ve matured, my taste in manga has as well, and I’ve expanded my library. Junji Ito, especially, has been one of my favorite authors and artists because of his detailed style and effective use of horror. He uses Lovecraftian Horror and the idea of a mysterious entity taking over the world (or a city). One of his most famous works, Uzumaki, depicts a town becoming overrun with spirals until the pattern becomes all-consuming.
 
One of my favorite series is Bungo Stray Dogs. The story features characters based on canonical authors as they commit crimes and/or solve them. Something I love about this series is its unpredictable and chaotic nature. Each character is captivating in some way, and even some of the most evil villains end up being likable. Almost no one is “good” or “bad”; rather, they sometimes end up doing “good” or “bad” things, depending on the circumstance. Some authors featured are Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Edgar Allan Poe, and Bram Stoker. 

Whether you are new to manga or an experienced reader of this form, we believe there is much to enjoy in the artwork and narrative features of these texts. In his book, Making Comics, Scott McCloud (2006) lists eight storytelling techniques commonly used in manga:

1. “Iconic characters”
2. “Genre maturity”
3. “A strong sense of place”
4. “A broad variety of character designs”
5. “Frequent uses of wordless panels, combined with aspect to aspect transitions between panels”
6. “Small real world details”
7. “Subjective motion using streaked backgrounds”
8. “Various emotionally expressive effects such as expressionistic backgrounds, montages, and subjective caricatures” (p. 216).

McCloud’s list helps to explain what makes this Japanese form of storytelling so unique.
Regardless of your age or interests, there is probably a manga series out there that you would enjoy reading. We hope you enjoy exploring the world of manga! 

​McCloud, S. (2006). Making comics: Storytelling secrets of comics, manga and graphic novels.
William Morrow.
Morita, H., dir. (2005). The cat returns. Studio Ghibli.

Until next time.

Roots and Leaves by Dr. Chris Crowe

I’m old (next month I’ll begin my 48th year of teaching), and I like YA books, and I like history, and I like finding ways to bring all that stuff together. 

Don’t worry, I’m not going to wax nostalgic about the good old days of YA literature, but because I’ve been teaching—and reading and writing–for so very long, I’m going to share some important stuff about the past, stuff that I believe every scholar or teacher of YA literature should know. In the 4th edition of their YA literature textbook, my old friends Ken Donelson and Alleen Nilsen wrote, “professionals ought to know the history of their own fields” (545), and maybe because I am a Boomer with one foot planted smack in the middle of the 20th Century, I agree. In a field that tends to focus much, if not all, of its attention on what’s new and current, we shouldn’t forget the roots of all these new and current books.

About 23 years ago, I wrote an article for English Journal that traced the family tree of the people who had shaped the teaching of YA literature. In a chapter I have in the forthcoming Oxford Handbook to Young Adult Literature, I took a different angle and wrote about the origin and evolution of our field. In this blog post, I’m going to discuss significant books in YA history that are, whether we recognize it or not (and, of course, I think it’s essential that we recognize it) are foundational precursors to some of the best of today’s YA books.

My YA literature course this fall is entirely based on this premise because I don’t want my students to be like the urban children we sometimes hear about, and laugh at, who don’t know that eggs come from chickens or that milk comes from cows. The first item on my course syllabus is a quotation from Michael Crichton’s novel Timeline (1999): “If you don’t know history, then you don’t know anything. You are a leaf that doesn’t know it is part of a tree.” I won’t have time in a single semester with a bunch of undergraduate English majors to cover all of the history of YA literature, but I can make sure that my students know where this semester’s books come from (and, no, it’s not Amazon). By the end of this course, I hope my students know that the contemporary books they read in my class are leaves from a robust noble, old tree.
The tree of literature has very long and deep roots, and it would be impossible and foolhardy to start a YA literature course with Beowulf or Pamela or even Oliver Twist, Little Women, or Seventeenth Summer. My not-so arbitrary starting point for my YA literature course is The Outsiders, a novel I consider to be the main branch of contemporary YA literature. I’ll have my students read that novel as a genre-defining text whose influences can still be found in nearly all YA novels published today. With each book we read after that, students will look for The Outsiders’ fingerprints in the book they’re currently reading.
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I started thinking about using this approach in my YA literature class some years ago when dystopian YA stories dominated bookstores and movie theatres. It seemed that many people believed that the dystopian trend started out of nowhere or out of the creative genius of its authors, and I was surprised that anyone rarely suggested that The Giver (1993) might be a precursor to that current YA dystopian literature trend. ​

My approach this semester is kind of an adaptation of a traditional assignment called the classic bridge where students had to match a YA novel with a canonical one and then explain the connections (plot, setting, theme, whatever). Rather than matching a single YA novel with a classical work, my students will read pairs of YA: the antecedent matched with one of its prominent descendants. Nearly the entirety of our semester’s required reading will be paired books that I selected. 

So after setting the stage with The Outsiders and a lecture on the history of YAL, students will read A Wizard of Earthsea as the precursor to YA fantasy, and they’ll watch a brief PBS interview with Neil Gaiman where he claims, “I don’t think Harry Potter could have existed without Earthsea having existed. That was the original, the finest, and the best.”

This proclamation will surely rile my students, most of whom are ardent fantasy readers, and I hope that will set them thinking about elements from Earthsea that appear in their favorite fantasy novels. They’ll then get to choose their own YA fantasy novel that is a leaf from the Earthsea tree.
​
After this opening pairing, we’ll continue our reading with Lisa, Bright and Dark (1969), one of the first YA novels to directly address mental illness/neurodivergence, with Francisco Stork’s Marcelo in the Real World (2009), a novel that broadens the issue of neurodivergence while at the same time addressing other contemporary issues.

The next pair matches A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ but a Sandwich (1973) with Jason Reynold’s Long Way Down (2017). Both novels examine the plight young Black men face in the inner city and the importance of loyalty and family. Reynold’s novel’s ambiguous, provocative conclusion mirrors the conclusion of Hero in remarkable ways.
Long a mainstay of my YA literature course, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (1977), is the first book in the next pairing, and it sets the stage for The Hate You Give (2017). Both books feature strong families with fathers and uncles who complement each other with plots thickened by the unrighteous challenges fomented by racism and racists.

We then take a break from reading pairs to read a handful of Robert Cormier novels in literature circles. Cormier’s unforgiving, unflinching realism pushed back boundaries that made space for scores of realistic, even bleak, YA novels that would appear in later decades.
Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes (1983) and The Serpent King (2016) are the next pair, both books benefiting from the space created by Cormier’s bleak books. Central to these two novels are close friends relying on their friendship and their own courage to face the conflicts imposed upon them, with Crutcher’s creating a model that’s magnified by Zentner’s book.
YA books in verse have a fairly long history, with Mel Glenn’s books setting the stage for full, unified narratives in free verse, and my students will read Make Lemonade (1993), a novel that raised the stakes and the complexity of verse novels; alongside it they’ll read what may be the pinnacle of YA verse novels, The Poet X (2018) to see how wonderfully the field has evolved in 25 years.

English majors tend to be ignorant of narrative nonfiction, so our next reading combo will be Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World (1998) with Steve Sheinkin’s Bomb (2012). Nearly any one of Sheinkin’s books would serve well in this pairing, but the current blockbuster movie Oppenheimer makes Bomb especially relevant this semester. Both books rely on narrative technique to tell amazing stories, but Sheinkin’s book shows how the expectations for research and the inclusion of extra-textual features have changed.

Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak (1999), is such an important, foundational work that students won’t have to read a matched novel. Instead, we’ll discuss all of our reading to date with an eye for Speak’s influence throughout the field.
Graphic novels are another genre that’s unfamiliar to most English majors, and while it might make sense to point to Maus as the root of all YA graphic novels, I choose to have my students read American Born Chinese (2006), a book that’s more explicitly YA, as their intro to the genre, and then students are allowed to select a more contemporary YA graphic novel to pair with American Born.
​
The final required reading is what might be the pinnacle of recent YA fiction, All My Rage (2022). Students will consider that novel with the perspective of all the YA books sthat have come before it—at least all the YA books we’ve read in the semester.  After discussing the merits of Tahir’s award-winning novel, we’ll look for traces from the past, for evidence that shows how this fine novel is a leaf from the grand old YAL tree. 

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Of course, students will read more than just these pairings. Next semester they’ll end up reading at least 32 YA books, but the takeaway, I hope, will be an awareness of the long and excellent history of YA books that have been published since 1967. With each YA book they read after my class is done, I want them to remember that new books have antecedents, books that opened doors, paved paths, and made possible the new, exciting books we’re reading and celebrating today.

Check it out! You won't be disappointed.  Gia and I had a great time, we hope you do as well.

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

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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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.

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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​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 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. 

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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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