This wonderful post was published while I was on vacation in Mexico. I didn't have the internet access that I had hoped for. That was probably a good thing. We had a great time, but I did have access to what i needed to give Morgan Rath credit for her work. She did the research for this column as part of senior thesis project at Arizona State University. Great work Morgan. We hope to hear more from her as she leaves the university.

​I wasn’t sure what to expect as I began my senior thesis project back in September 2015. I did know what my topic would be though: a visual and rhetorical analysis of how young adult novels were marketed. I have always been a fan of young adult novels, and with a background in public relations and marketing, this was the logical and most appealing topic selection for me. Plus, I figured it would give me something unique to discuss in job interviews, a thought that is on the mind of any college senior.
 
With the topic nailed down, I embarked on an eight-month journey into the world of visual and rhetorical analysis as it pertains to young adult novels. I wanted to know what visual and rhetorical elements marketers were using to draw in the young adult crowd. Rhetorically, I used the concepts of logos, ethos, pathos, and kairos. Visually, I utilized the principles outlined by Dr. Frank Serafini in his novel Reading the Visual. I applied these criteria to the Big Five publishing houses’ (Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, Macmillan, and HarperCollins) young adult web platforms. For example, Epic Reads is the interactive web platform created by HarperCollins to push out it’s YA titles. I also applied the visual and rhetorical analysis strategies to the respective web platform’s Facebook and Twitter pages. 

Finally, I selected five books to analyze from each of these sites based on their homepage placement: the book that was placed closest to the top of the page, furthest to the left, and the largest. Based on that, my five novels were Morrighan: A Remnant Chronicles Novella by Mary E. Pearson, Other Broken Things by C. Desir, A Gatlin Wedding by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, Anna and the Swallow Man by Gavriel Savit, and Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard. I examined the cover design, jacket copy, and the novel’s Goodreads page, as well.

I was instantly shocked to find that two out of three of my selected novels were novellas, which are available exclusively as e-books and are shorter, companion novels to a series. The fact that in two cases, these were the books selected to be front and center on the homepage was quite interesting. E-book sales have hit a rough patch, as of late, making way for audiobooks to emerge as the latest trend. But it seems that in the young adult world, e-books are still experiencing a moment. While I was initially shocked at the finding, it does make sense, considering that Generation Z, known for being very tech savvy, is the target audience for these YA marketers right now, or at least I had assumed.
 
Pertaining to the visual analysis, there was never an actual person depicted on the cover of my chosen novels. Instead, cover designs included objects and stick figures. My rationale for this: Using objects instead of human cover models allows a larger portion of the YA audience to relate and picture his or herself as the main character. 

​The rhetorical side of my analysis is where I discovered my most interesting findings. Pathos was the standout rhetorical technique implemented by publishers. While there were a variety of emotions tapped into, nostalgia and female empowerment were utilized most frequently. While it can be argued that stand-alone novels are the latest tend in young adult literature, four out of five of my novels were part of a series. Phrases such as “the gang is back” (Gatlin Wedding) and "the story continues” (Glass Sword) were very common.
 
Even more interesting, phrases playing up on feelings of female empowerment were used quite frequently in social media posts, as well as website and jacket copy or text. There was a lot of emphasis on the female protagonist within each novel and her conquest to survive, protect her family, etc. This observation caused me to wonder: Why is the emphasis on female readers? To the best of my knowledge, there are males who read YA, but they are obviously not the targets on these platforms. Since they are not the targets here, where are publishers connecting with this male audience? 

My study brings up a lot of interesting questions pertaining to gender and audience when it comes to YA novels. While I made some interesting discoveries, there is so much more to look into. How do young adult males select books to read? In addition, at the start of this study, I assumed that Generation Z was the target audience; however, people 18 and up actually account for 80 percent of YA book sales. So, is Generation Z even the target audience for these marketers anymore?
 
Now here I am, eight months later with a lot of new revelations, but even more questions spinning in my mind. I find myself confused but more eager than ever to enter the publishing industry and begin my search for answers. It is an exciting field that I know will teach me something new about young adult novels and marketing strategies everyday. So while I am officially a college graduate, I don’t think it is time for me to give up my title of student quite yet…

This week Dr. Jeffrey Buchanan, the English Education Coordinator at Youngstown State University, review the history and operation of the departments annual English Festival. I know there are other festivals out their that bring in students. If you are associated with one, I would appreciate knowing the details. Thanks Jeff. I hope to here from more of you soon.

​On the Monday immediately following the 2016 YSU English Festival, the Festival Committee sits down to review its most recent, and to plan its future, work.  Eleven committee members—YSU English department faculty including one recently retired member, YSU’s Writing Center Coordinator, retired secondary school teachers, an Associate Provost, and a former student who went on to earn a MA in YA Lit—tell stories of their experience of the Festival.

​This year, about 750 student participants visited us each festival day.  (The Festival is a three-day event, although each student attends only one day.  Senior high students (grades 10-12) attend on Wednesday; junior high students (grades 7-9) attend on Thursday or Friday.  Each festival day, students take part in a series of activities, presentations, and contests—workshops in prose or poetry writing, an impromptu essay contest, discussion sessions on one or more of the books on the year’s booklist, presentations by YA authors, like this year’s guest, Matt de la Peña (mattdelpena.com), a Not-So-Trivial Pursuit game, small group sessions designed to provide historical or cultural context for one or more of the festival books, a collaborative writing contest called Writing Games, and presentations by people who have made their professional lives in the field of YA literature, as this year’s guest, Steve Bickmore, has done.)

Around 175 schools are represented.  Each school brings up to 30 students and two or three adults—teachers, librarians, parents.  One adult (or sometimes two) must judge one of the day’s contests.  One adult must serve as a Festival monitor.  But our guests, Dr. Steve Bickmore, Matt de la Peña, and Dr. Randy Testa (you can read more about Randy's interests here), also do sessions just for the teachers; the Festival, you see, isn’t just for the kids.

One week later, we are reviewing the 2016 Festival again for our Advisory Board.  We have our art contest winners scrolling via powerpoint in the background.  We play a couple of original musical compositions, winners of our music competition.  We recite this year’s major story, the “Festival Flu,” and how Matt de la Peña avoided its grasp and how Steve Bickmore wasn’t so lucky.  We single out teachers and volunteers and students who acted extraordinarily, and we marvel at how extraordinary an ordinary three school days can be.

​And then we talk about 2017.  The 2016 Festival is five business days past, but the Festival Committee must move on.  We already have our featured authors.  2017 festival participants can anticipate hearing presentations from E. Lockhart (emilylockhart.com) and Gene Luen Yang (geneyang.com), but we have to assemble and distribute a summer reading list before our committee members disperse for the summer.  From this gross list of 20-25 books, we will pick seven books for a junior high list and seven books for a senior high list.  Those lists will share one or two or three books in common, and they will feature one or two or three books from our festival authors.  Those seven books will be the books students will be required to read to attend the Festival.
 
We are still scrambling to thank all our 2016 volunteers, to pay our bills, and to put our materials into boxes to be stored for next year.  At the same time, we are brainstorming programming changes, and fundraising sources; we are revising policies and rewriting informational material; we are still learning how to effectively communicate with local schools, our local communities, and our professional colleagues.

The YSU English Festival now boasts a 38 year history.  We joke that we keep doing it because the students keep showing up.  It may also be true that we keep doing it because we are afraid of what will happen if we do not.  The Festival is a service project, an unwieldy and remarkable collaboration among a committee, an academic department, a university, and a host of local and sometimes not-so-local schools and communities; the Festival is a teaching opportunity as hundreds of students participate in reading and writing activities centered on young adult books; and the Festival is a scholarly activity, an event where the richness of the encounter among teachers, authors, students, and librarians energizes the intellect.  In fact, at the 2016 NCTE conference, the YSU English Festival’s Gary Salvner, the one festival committee member who has been involved in all 38 festivals, will receive the ALAN award (http://www.alan-ya.org/awards/alan-award/) for a career-long dedication to YA Lit, a career in which the English Festival has figured prominently.
 
I wish I could explain more accurately what the Festival is or describe what exactly it does to students and teachers and committee members.  To be honest, during most festival days, I’m holed up in room with 450-550 impromptu essays and the 30 or so judges who will read them each at least twice.  Then, I move with the better essays to another room where 20 or so judges will read them each at least twice more.  There is much to tell about that experience, just as there is a story about what we had to do to rearrange the festival program when Dr. Bickmore was knocked over by the flu.  And then there are stories Dr. Bickmore can tell himself.  And stories Matt de la Peña can share.  And each of the festival committee members has stories of their individual experience, including Gary Salvner’s experience of 38 festival years.  And then there’s the students—over 100,000 in our 38 years.  And the teachers. 

​Mostly, I am simply proud, proud of all of the people dedicated to this crazy thing.  I may not know what it is, but I know for sure that it is a good thing.  Yes, I know, that is the easy way out—to call the English Festival a “good thing” instead of trying to articulate all the ways it celebrates reading and writing and values collaboration and teacher work.  And while I’m on the easy road, allow me to proceed a little farther.  Instead of my trying to tell you what the Festival is, let me just invite you to come visit it.  Then, I assure you, you will understand the pride that invests the words of this blog post.  Come to Youngstown and visit the Festival.  You’re all invited.  In fact, this is the perfect forum in which to invite you; we want to invite you to be part in the same way that Steve Bickmore has invited you to be part of the field of YA literature with YA Wednesday.  Now we’ve got to get back to planning for 2017.
 
Contact me to ask questions about the YSU English Festival and especially about coming out to visit:  [email protected].  The 2017 Festival is April 26-28.
 
Jeff Buchanan
Co-Chair, YSU English Festival Committee

This thoughtful post is produced by Jeffrey Kaplan, an Associate Professor Emeritus at the College of Education & Human Performance at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida.

Recently, as Joan Bertin noted in her keynote, Scholastic recalled Ramin Ganeshram’s A Birthday Cake for George Washington (Scholastic, 2016) (illustrated by Vanessa Brantley-Newton), a children’s picture book with a seemingly innocuous title because it featured illustrations of Hercules, a chef and slave owned by America’s first president, smiling as he prepares a desert for Washington; backlash ensued, though, for portraying slaves as subservient, docile, and complacent.

 Incensed at this recall, Bertin remarked,

“No one is saying you should teach a book that isn’t…very good…The problem is once [it’s been published]…pulling it is an extreme act. I’m hesitant to use the word the burning word, but it disappears a book. How do you confront all the issues that people have in their life without feeling a little unsafe?”
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So true. Controversial reads have figured a long as the printed work has existed. I had a professor who once remarked that the two single most important inventions were 1) the printing press and 2) indoor plumbing. Safe to say, the world is a far better place for the invention of both.

On April 16, 2016, Bank Street College of Education, New York City, sponsored a seminar entitled “Who Are You to Say? Children’s Literature and the Censorship Conversation,” a dialogue with experts on today’s controversial and challenged books for children and young adults. Featured was Joan Bertin, Director of the National Coalition Against Censorship and a fierce advocate for bringing good books – controversial or otherwise – into the hands of young people. 

The Bank Street College seminar on censorship featured a number of controversial reads for children and young adults that I would like to bring to your attention. Of particular note were the following books –
It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies: Growing Up, Sex and Sexual Health_ ​(Candlewick, 2014) by Robie H. Harris and illustrated by Michael Emberley, a children’s illustrated picture book which not surprisingly has become one of most banned books of the past two decades. Acclaimed for its frank and honest explanations of bodies, families and sexuality; this cleverly designed, densely packed read is meant to teach children 10 and older about sexual health, emotional health and relationships. 

Complete with full-color comically drawn pictures of naked people, this frank and informative read comes fact-checked by medical experts and remains updated. With millions sold, this eye-opening read provides current information about puberty, pregnancy, AIDS, birth control laws, sexual orientation, internet safety, and sexting.

Yet, even in this day and age of changing morays and everything you can imagine on cable and the Internet, this good work brings significant challenges for both teachers and librarians.

"I was warned by several people not to do this book - that it would ruin my career," author Harris said in her remarks at Bank Street. "But I really didn't care. To me it wasn't controversial. It's what every child has a right to know."

Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out by Susan Kuklin (Candlewick, 2015) is a moving journalistic account of the struggles of six transgender or gender-neutral teens. Photographs and candid comments augment the compelling narratives of each these adolescent awakenings.

No stranger to controversial topics – Kuklin’s two previous reads included No Choirboy (Henry Holt, 2008), about adolescents on death row, and What I Do Now (iUniverse, 2001) about teenage pregnancy – this latest journalistic endeavor has found displeasure from those who feel the topic is unsuitable for classroom discussion and unsupervised reads.

Naturally, Kuklin disagrees. Her motivation for writing Beyond Magenta stems from her awareness that “kids are getting hurt, some getting murdered, and no one has a voice.” For her publisher, Candlewick, as they mentioned at the Bank Street conference, the book proposal was a no-brainer; a groundbreaking concept that has proven its worth in sales and distinction.

Tyrell (Scholastic, 2006), Kendra (Push, 2008) and Bronxwood (Push 2011), all by Coe Booth, are three complementary reads about being young, Black, poor and living in the Bronx. Combining the raw rhythms of street lingo with the harsh realities of inner city urban life, Booth’s protagonists struggle to escape the circles of poverty, the lure of sexual temptations, and the easy money of drug dealing. Fast-paced plots, strong language – (most notably, the n-word is used frequently) – and well-developed characters take readers on a journey through a life all too-familiar for many inner city kids.
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Booth says, though, that her books are frequently – what is often called – soft censored. Often, she finds her novels not on the young adult literature shelf, but in the back of the library, reserved for adults seeking ‘street’ or ‘urban’ literature.

“Sometimes,” Booth remarks, “my book is displayed in a glass case during Black History Month….where it can’t be removed.”

Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass by Meg Medina (Candlewick, 2013) tells of a Latina teen who is targeted by a bully at her new school. A sensitive read about a young girl facing both puberty and bulling issues all at once, this compelling narrative deals honestly with how one poor and abused Hispanic adolescent defies stereotype and succeeds in spite of herself and the world itself.

Using frank language and portraits of human frailties, Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass, though, has seen more than its share of unamused parents and school administrators. In fact, Medina recalls how she was once disinvited from a public school presentation because of the title of her book alone.
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Angered and appalled, Medina fired back a poignant response –
“For me to come to your school and distance myself from my work feels disrespectful of me as an author, but worse, it feels dishonest in dealing with the students, most especially those who are on the receiving end of harassment that already makes them feel ashamed.”

The Hired Girl by Laura Amy Schlitz (Candlewick Press, 2015), a book of historical fiction, tells of a young teen who in 1911, runs from her abusive family who live on rural farm in Pennsylvania to find work as a household maid with a rich Jewish family living in Baltimore, Maryland. Funny, poignant, and in diary form, this multi-layered read looks back at an America that once was, but, like the young girl herself, has slowly evolved into a more secular and enlightened twenty-first century.
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What makes this work controversial, though, is the narrator’s expressed racist attitude toward blacks, Native Americans, and Jews. Much like Huckleberry Finn raises the hackles of those who object to use of the name ‘Nigger Jim’, The Hired Girl is often criticized for its prejudicial content. Yet, as any casual reader can easily recognize, the narrator – an adolescent coming of age at the turn of the century – is not the author, but the voice of a young girl who reflects the prejudices of her time.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth (Balzer + Bray, 2012) is the heartbreaking rendering of a twelve-year-old girl, living in rural Montana, whose parents die in a car accident before finding out she is gay. Now alone and truly an only child, she moves in with her old-fashioned grandmother and ultraconservative aunt. Trouble ensues, though, when she falls in love with her new best friend, a girl. Shocked, her aunt sends young Cameron to a summer camp that practices Christian ‘conversion therapy,’ in the vain hope that that she can be taught to ‘live the right way.’
Naturally, this book is controversial on several levels – one, illustrating gay teens, and two, portraying Christian righteous behavior. What makes this book unique though is that the author asks readers not to judge its antagonists – the young girls’ aunt and the leaders of the conversion camp – too harshly.
​
Her objective, as she says, is to provide a full-bodied portrait of how difficult an issue – sexual orientation – is for those who have only known male-female relationships. Thus, Danforth’s intriguing narrative – the coming of out of lesbian teens in the face of a conservative community – has been praised and attacked by both sides of the censorship issue – by those who feel the portrayal of both victim and abusers is too even-handed. And by some, for the topic itself.

What all these books demonstrate, though, and what the Bank Street Conference on Censorship in Children’s Literature proves – is that the topic of censorship itself – the banning of controversial books geared for adolescents – even in this age of enlightened thinking, changing social morays, and every conceivable website – is still very much a challenge for educators in our nation’s schools and libraries.

 That makes our job as advocates – as those who love to read and believe that reading saves lives – even more vigilant and significant.

Our job is to recognize that the printed word is sacred and that we should to do everything possible to make good books available to young people who deserve to learn hard and often, discomforting truths.

Making Joan Bertin’s remarks at Bank Street ever more important - “how do you confront all the issues that people have in their life without feeling a little unsafe?”

When I arrived at LSU in 2008 I was fortunate to work with both Jackie Bach and Sue Weinstein. I learned so much from their example and kindness. In addition, there were other people who helped me find my way. In the midst of a political climate that seems to cause conflict and division, I would like to focus on the work of a former colleague, Ann M. Trousdale. Ann's work inspired others while she was a faculty member at LSU and her latest work continues to do so.
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Since I have left LSU, I am not always aware of everything that has been going on among my former colleagues. A co-worker at LSU, Kenny Varner, introduced me to Ann’s latest project. She has written a wonderful book about a remarkable man, Clarence Jordan. I knew next to nothing about the details of the life of Clarence Jordan, but I knew about some of the fruits of his labor. Any summary would be inadequate, but I will attempt to provide an introduction. The title of the book is Cotton Patch Rebel: The Story of Clarence Jordan. 

Ann has written a biography about a man whose work has influenced a great many people from humble farmers to American Presidents. Most adult readers will know something about Habitat for Humanity and the post presidency work of Jimmy Carter.  What most of us don’t know is the story of Clarence Jordan and how his life and efforts provide a model of charity and social justice that, in part, inspired the initial mission of Habitat for Humanity and provided one of the charitable avenues of President Jimmy Carter’s work.
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Ann’s book provides an introduction for children, adolescents, and adults to the life of a man whose work was guided by his understanding of Christian charity. In the early 1940s Clarence and his wife along with Martin and Mabel England moved to a farm near Americus, Georgia and founded a Christian farming community that welcomed both white and black farmers, sharing resources and ownership. The book narrates the efforts of an early civil rights project. The members of Koinonia, the name of the community, worked together to withstand the efforts of racial segregation, lack of official government support, and physical threats. You can find a further description of Koinonia Farm here. In the late 1960 the community welcomed Millard and Linda Fuller. While the names might not be immediately recognizable to you, their work is. They are the founders of Habitat for Humanity and The Fuller Center for Housing. In fact, the current President of the Fuller Center for Housing, David Snell provides an introduction to Ann’s book below.

Clarence Jordan is also famous as a preacher who had the unique ability to preach sermons in colloquial language. He cleverly used American locations as analogies for places in the New Testament. Eventually, he wrote a version of the Gospels of Matthew and John in his book, Cotton Patch Gospel.
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Clarence Jordan spent his life striving to help people lift themselves. His efforts are remarkable. This small volume is not only a wonderful biography, it can also serve as an introduction to the civil rights movement. Reading this book reminded me of the power of one person’s action when they act with conviction. It inspired me to move forward and try more actively to do good work. Any group of students, especially those studying Georgia history,  should include Cotton Patch Rebel: The Story of Clarence Jordan as a supplement to understanding the civil rights movement in Georgia, the role of Habitat for Humanity, and how an American President is connected to this legacy. By extension, I wonder what other under recognized, if not unknown, biographies, stories, and events would help us teach more completely a state’s history? I would be interested in other biographies and works of non-fiction that we should include in our school and classroom libraries. If you have suggestions, send them along. We all know students who reluctantly read fiction, but inhale non-fiction. We need to remember to provide them with as many resources as we do for those who love fiction genres such as science fiction, fantasy, and realistic fiction.