Hi all! the ALAN Workshop is just around the corner. In fact, in four short weeks from the time I am writing this, I will be sitting on an airplane trying to sleep as I fly home. In all reality, I won't be sleeping. I will be reading my way through one of the books I pick up at ALAN Workshop.  

I previously shared keynotes, individual speakers, and authors in conversation in an earlier post. (If you missed it check it out now.) Now, it is time to share the panels. Panels are tried and true tradition at the ALAN Workshop. in fact, most new authors are on a panel for their first ALAN workshop appearance. I have heard some wonderful authors for the first time as part of a panel. For example, I heard Matt de la Pena, Coe Booth, Kekla Magoon, Cody Keplinger, Varian Johnson, Adriana Mather and David Lubar as panelist. I love their books and a small conversation sparked my interest. I pulled their book from the pile and started reading.

This year we have limited panels to only three authors. Sure, it would be great to have more authors, but I wanted to make sure new voices are heard. Some well established authors will be on panels this year. Not to marginalize them by any means, but to allow them to nurture and support some of the new authors or to share with authors who write in their genre, their style,  or who share similar themes in their writing.

We have ten panels, thirty authors and the list includes some of my very favorite authors. More important, some of these authors are some of my favorite people and prized members of the ALAN community.  Do you know them all? I doubt it? Check them out and get ready for a great at the ALAN Workshop.

All pictures are linked to the author's web page. Click on the link. Follow them on Facebook. Welcome them to the ALAN Workshop on twitter and include #ALAN2019. You can start to get to know them right now!

Until next week.

Do you remember the first time you read Kafka? Do you remember being confused, intrigued, or curious? I think your first experience with Kafka is memorable if baffling. 

Stacy Graber reminds that Kafka just might be perfect for more adolescents than we might think. Stacy is a frequent contributor to Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday and her posts always stretch my imagination. Before jumping into Kafka you might check out her posts on Jack Gantos, students and curriculum at the Youngstown English Festival, Updike and others, Kate DiCamillo, Julie Murphy and Joyce Carol Oates, and Semiotics.  Just so you know, none of these posts are quite what you think they may be. Stacy will surprise you.  

After all, I speak to my own past when I speak to you.  One cannot help being friendly.
--Franz Kafka to 17-year-old, Gustav Janouch

Sadly, the work of Franz Kafka is too often regulated by secondary school culture as literature ostensibly reserved for honors and/or Advanced Placement courses, which is elitist and myopic as his fantastic storylines and gallows humor stand to captivate all readers.  For instance, as a 16-year-old, I remember laughing in awe at the ironic punchline Kafka delivers at the close of “A Hunger Artist,” his unsettling short story focused on carnival freaks and foodways.  Read that piece and you will easily see that kids don’t need David Foster Wallace (2011) to help them puzzle out why Kafka is funny (however charming the explanation).  Young people will understand Kafka’s jokes and love him because he speaks directly to anyone who has ever 1) felt alienated or marginalized, 2) been reduced to bug status by a dictatorial powerbroker, and/or 3) intuited the absurdity of everyday life (--which undoubtedly includes all adolescents).   

In fact, there are so many reasons why Kafka would appeal to adolescents that it almost seems unnecessary to assemble the evidence except to acquaint him with a new audience.  So, toward that end, I will offer a few of Kafka’s themes that would resonate with young people, which I have drawn from patterns observable in his diaries (Kafka, 1975): problematic body-image/self-concept, struggle with anxiety/depression, conflict with a tyrannical father and/or oblivious mother, feelings of entrapment within the prison of a parental home, ambivalence toward intersectional identity, experience of social exclusion/degradation, fear regarding intimacy/sexual impulses, skepticism toward/defiance of authority, intense requirement for solitude, critique of school and work, and transcendence through creative pursuits and/or nature.

Again, toward introducing a new audience to the work of this modernist giant, I will describe resources produced for a young adult audience that do the work of orientation so a high school teacher could contextualize with confidence.

​Hortatory in tone but never condescending, Kafka talks art, literature, science, architecture, language, philosophy, and politics with the young man, while simultaneously offering him a window onto the precarity of his own existence embattled by nemeses such as tuberculosis, anti-Semitism, administrative drudgery, and loneliness.  Janouch’s impulsivity and occasional gaffes are borne patiently and affectionately by Kafka as Janouch reminds Kafka of his younger self (see epigraph); whereas, for Janouch, the conversations suggest a possible future career as a writer/intellectual.  And, though some critics have contested the fidelity of Janouch’s reconstructions, both Max Brod and Dora Dymant praised the account as faithful to the presence or aura of their cherished friend (Brod, 1937/1995, p. 216). 

For example, a dialectic of shame and sadism is transmitted through a single panel depicting an image of the father’s rage in the repellent presence of his son/insect in Crumb’s graphic rendering of The Metamorphosis.  Likewise, the futility of an outsider condemned to perpetual exclusion and bleak itinerancy in The Castle is conveyed by Crumb through a kind of cross-hatched, existential shadow puppet theater.  But the union between art and text is strongest in the graphic interpretation of Kafka’s story, “A Hunger Artist,” which Kafka finalized editing as he perished from laryngeal tuberculosis (Mairowitz, 1993, p. 144).  This work, through Crumb’s grotesque and hyperbolic rendering of carnivalesque binaries (e.g., emaciation/corpulence, youth/age, community/solitude, equanimity/compulsion, abstinence/carnality, and vigor/debilitation) makes visible an oneiric grammar of sanctification.       

Mairowitz and Crumb’s rumination on the enduring legacy of Kafka concludes with a representation of the pair as tourists wearing t-shirts emblazoned with Kafka’s image, which is an interrogation of the symbolic economy that greedily exploits the idea of Kafka but cares little about the referent.  

Indeed, Stach succeeds in creating a more multifaceted portrait of Kafka through a crisp collection of images matched with brief explanatory notes that reveal the writer as a beer-lover, admirer of slapstick humor, bordello patron, proto-techie, closet illustrator, exercise and holistic medicine enthusiast, admirer of indigenous people of North America, committed postcard writer, student of Hebrew, hater of mice, and perhaps even early anti-vaxxer (Stach, 2016, pp. 81-82).  Again, the idea in the array of portrayals is to communicate a less singular and more complicated if contradictory rendering of the artist. Yet, Stach may or may not ultimately disrupt prevailing notions as some of the most compelling primary sources (e.g., Kafka’s niece Gerte’s description of her uncle and Milena Jesenská’s obituary for Kafka (as cited in Stach, 2016, pp. 260-262; pp. 279-280)) confirm the imposing, haunted figure we believe we know.                 

Of course, this conversation would not be complete without consideration of multimodal, non-print sources that would further serve to frame and animate Kaka’s life and writing for young people.
 
Some of the best resources include the following selections:
Alain de Botton’s (2016) School of Life episode dedicated to Kafka negotiates the meaning of the term Kafkaesque through explanation of imbricated social, historical/biographical, political, and cultural tensions.  Additionally, the style of the video includes the series-characteristic cut-out dramatization and the art of Egon Schiele.
 
Will Self’s (2015) video-travelogue, “Will Self’s Kafka Journey: A Prague Walking Tour,” tracks the cultural critic as he tours biographically significant sites in Prague toward interpreting Kafka’s surreal meditation on the vicissitudes of public service, “A Country Doctor.”
 
Koji Yamamura’s (2007) animated imagining of Kafka’s story, “A Country Doctor,” is a nightmarish vision, which replicates the tone and kinetics of the story through the techniques of distortion, juxtaposition, and tableau.
 
David Foster Wallace’s (2011) reading of a piece originally published in Harper’s Magazine in 1998, “Laughing with Kafka,” includes explanation as to how DFW helps college students understand Kafka’s idiosyncratic sense of humor through study of conceptual metaphors reminiscent of Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980), Metaphors We Live By.

BBC Radio Podcasts. (2018).  In our time: Literary Modernism [Podcast].  Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndfxeQSCgM0&t=1534s
Brod, M. (1995). Franz Kafka: A biography (G. Humphreys Roberts, Trans.).  Boston, MA: Da Capo Press. (Original work published in 1937)
De Botton, A. (2016).  School of life: Literature: Franz Kafka.  Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4LyzhkDNBM
Deutsches Haus. (2017).  Is that Kafka? 99 finds: An evening with Reiner Stach and Kurt Beals [Video file].  Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCjjwBklJZg 
Janouch, G. (2012).  Conversations with Kafka (2nd ed.) (G. Rees, Trans.).  New York, NY: New Directions. (Original work published in 1968)
Kafka, F. (1975).  Diaries: 1910-1923.  (J. Kresh, M. Greenberg, & H. Arendt, Trans.).  New York, NY: Schocken Books. (Original work published in 1948)
Mairowitz, D.Z., & Crumb, R. (1993).  Introducing Kafka.  New York, NY: Totem Books.
Self, W. (2015).  Will Self’s Kafka journey: A Prague walking Tour [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niIf080qSfE
Stach, R. (2016).  Is that Kafka? 99 finds (K. Beals, Trans.).  New York, NY: New Directions.
Wallace, D.F. (2011).  David Foster Wallace: Remarks on Kafka [Audio file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzEO0qFFzwI
Yamamura, K. (2007).  Kafka’s, A country doctor.  [Animated short film/Video file].  Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDjmW-gIsKs&t=2s 

Stacy Graber is an Associate Professor of English at Youngstown State University.  Her areas of interest include critical theory, pedagogy, and popular culture. 

Until next week.

I hope you enjoyed browsing through the authors who will be giving solo speeches and participating in conversation at the ALAN Workshop that I posted last Wednesday. I know everyone is excited about seeing old favorites. At the same time, it is fascinating to put a face to the author of a book that you have found through a friend, on a library shelf, or through an Amazon suggestion.

I still think my favorite part of the ALAN Workshop is finding those new authors. Even if they have a few books under their belt, I love when I finally discover a whole new set of books to read. This is the case with Breeana Shields. Page Street Kids publisher put her name on the list and I found a new author to explore. If you are a fan of fantasy fiction, you are in for a treat.

Breeana has already published a companion set of fantasy novels--Poison's Kiss and Poison's Cage. (You just have to love a book that has a tag line that should Love is Lethal.) I loved reading about these two novels and they are on my list!

​But....

Breeana will be talking about her newest book--The Bone Charmer. I believe she has developed an intriguing premise and I have a ton of questions. If we are really lucky, she might give us some insight into The Bone Charmer's sequel, The Bone Thief. Fortunately, the cover for this book has already been revealed.

Poison Kisses, bone collections, snakes, and skeletons all suggest that perhaps these are books that might add to your Halloween holiday. What could  possibly go wrong in these fantasy worlds? Don't fret, they are all just an order away.

Until next week!

As many of us prepare for the ALAN workshop, reach the mid-point of a YA course, or await for the announcement of the National Book Award for Young People's Literature it is nice to be reminded that the classics still exist. Some of our colleagues in high schools, community colleges, and universities are still struggling to have their students read and respond to any literature. Over the last fifteen years, I have frequently wondered if what we over at the large university is is a true liberal arts education; one in which students are exposed to a full range of disciplines. Do we try to streamline students through a college degree that really equals job training instead of an education in the full sense of the word. Not that four years is ever enough. I readily admit to still learning. In fact, over the last week my students have forced me to reconsider my own thinking (maybe entrenched thinking) about teacher preparation.

I love it when Diane Scrofano suggests an idea for guest blog post. She keeps me ground in thinking about literature large ways. She reminds me that we can think bigger that a single text or a single way of teaching literature in a classroom. She has written about YA text and mental illness in a post that suggests the need for more diversity in the representation of this national issue. She addressed it again in a post that talked about Dear Evan Hansen in its form as a book and as a musical. Her first post for the blog took on Hamilton and YA historical romance. It doesn't surprise me one bit that she would want to discuss combining the classics and YA.

​When we study Wuthering Heights, we analyze changing attitudes toward race through postcolonial lenses. We see how tropes like weather, seasons, shared meals, and boundaries are used to convey themes. We look at the two different kinds of masculinity represented by Edgar and Heathcliff and how those two versions of masculinity are still at war in our own times. 

I love young adult literature. I love the classics. There should be no contradiction perceived here. Nothing starts out as a classic; most classics got famous because people liked them at some point. I’m all about giving our students that context to see why people loved these books once and how they speak to timeless human concerns and why we can love them again today. By the same token, I believe that classics aficionados shouldn’t be suspicious of all things YA or all things new. Even the classics were new once. How sad to not jump on a great new book because we’ve got to wait 200 years just to make sure it’s good?
           
​And yet these two factions war on. At YA literary events, there can be outright hostility toward the classics: You are an elitist because young people today can’t understand the outdated diction. Classics are too hard. Classics are too white. Classics are irrelevant. If you like them, you are out of touch with the youth. Worse yet, if you think that young people are actually reading the classics you persist in assigning, you are deluding yourself. 

This brings me to the approach of Berit Gordon in No More Fake Reading (2018). The cover features a blue-nailpolished adolescent girl hiding her cell phone inside of The Scarlet Letter. In Gordon’s approach, the solution to that problem is this: Don’t ask students to read whole classics or to read them by themselves. The teacher should pick snippets of the classics to read aloud and project onto a screen for the class. This will ensure that the students know enough of the story to be culturally literate. Then, the teacher will use the classical snippet to teach a transferrable skill, like identifying character traits or interpreting symbolism. The students will then apply these transferrable skills as they analyze young adult texts. Gordon insists, “we’re not teaching them everything that’s important to know in The Scarlet Letter; we’re teaching them how to read well” (81). She urges us to resist the temptation of “teaching the book, not the reader” (81).  The teacher and his/her classical snippets will take only about fifteen minutes of an approximately one-hour class period. The remaining forty-five minutes will be spent with students silently reading their independently chosen YA novels and making notes on character, symbol, or whatever the daily literary device was. As students read, the teacher will circulate to conference with students one-on-one about their novels. 

​But something about Gordon’s approach seems fundamentally backwards to me. Why give the challenging material a short amount of time but the easier-to-read books the bulk of class time? Why not use a snippet of a YA novel to teach the device-of-the-day and intrigue the students, and then give the bulk of the class time to students to grapple with the challenging classical text while the teacher is there to help? Gordon also asserts that students don’t read the classics, so rather than waste time on books the vast majority of your students won’t read, read YA instead; the readers ready for a challenge will be inspired enough by the classical snippets to pull the classics off the shelf and read them on their own. So, the few who would’ve read the classical work if it were assigned will end up reading it anyway; you won’t be depriving them of anything. Couldn’t it work the other way, though, in which the students are intrigued by the YA titles and can read those books independently? As a teen, I think I would’ve felt more confident reading a YA title on my own rather than a classic.

​Gordon’s equity-minded answer regarding classical fiction is that it gives our students “cultural capital” (24): “If we leave the classics out, we risk sending a message that our students can’t handle those texts, don’t deserve them, or won’t need them in the futures where they are headed” (26). But this argument, like the fluency argument, values fictional literature only insofar as it is a means to something else, like social mobility. While Gordon concedes that “Reading texts like Jane Austen’s actually activates parts of our brain that popular literature cannot” (25), she approaches the assertion that literature may be valuable for its own sake, but she doesn’t commit to this idea. The idea that classics help us understand universal truths about human nature, human history, and human language in ways that modern books cannot is an idea that seems overlooked in Gordon’s text. Furthermore, rather than explore why fiction, both classical and modern, is valuable because it helps students become thoughtful humans who better understand both themselves and the world around them, Gordon falls back on the because-it-will-help-you-in-college and college-means-a-higher-social-status argument. Admittedly, this is a tempting argument to make; it’s concrete and practical, and it doesn’t require challenging our culture’s widely shared belief that education’s purpose is social mobility.  

​So, while I might make changes, I’m still hanging on to Wuthering Heights. But is it because I live in the magical unicorn land of college, where I can ask more of students than high school teachers can and my classes are capped at twenty-seven, not thirty-eight as some of them were when I taught high school? Is it because it’s actually the last piece of classical fiction I’ve been able to hang onto in the composition-dominated world of first- and second-semester college English? When I teach composition, I use nonfiction. When I teach literature, Wuthering Heights is the only thing from before the twentieth century that I’ve got left on my syllabus. In my privileged position where I get to choose my own texts, have I forgotten the slog through whatever’s available in the book room? Am I merely nostalgic for the classics since I no longer teach a lot of them? Some semesters, I even do a YA-literature-themed introduction-to-literature course and don’t use anything classic at all. Should I practice what I preach and put more classics into my literature courses? Or is my purpose as a community college instructor different than that of a high school English teacher? Some people might argue that once a student gets out of high school, have they gotten their recommended dose of cultural literacy and I should teach more special-topics literature classes. I know I enjoyed going beyond the classics as a college student and looking at more modern works by the very people the classics excluded. It’s a lot to think about, especially as I find myself teaching future teachers, as I did last spring when our long-dormant children’s literature class was revived and I got to teach it. Who do you think should be more classics-heavy: high school or college? How do you mix the classics with YA literature?  

​Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights. Edited by Linda H. Peterson, 2nd ed. Bedford St. Martin’s, 2003. Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism.
Christodoulou, Daisy. Seven Myths About Education. Routledge, 2014.
Finkel, Donald. Teaching with Your Mouth Shut. Heinemann, 2000.
Gordon, Berit. No More Fake Reading: Merging the Classics with Independent Reading to Create Joyful, Lifelong Readers. Corwin Literacy, 2018.
Rosenblatt, Louise. The Reader, the Text, the Poem. 1978.
Styslinger, Mary E. Workshopping the Canon. NCTE, 2017.
Yang, Gene Luen. American Born Chinese. Color by Lark Pien. Square Fish, 2006. 

Until next week.

 Today's post on Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday gives a glimpse of about two thirds of the authors who will be visiting in Balitmore this Novemember 25 and 26 2019. Don't worry, we will be announcing the rest soon. Take some time to look over these authors. Browse their web pages (most photos are linked to the author's web page). Go ahead, buy a book to read on the plane. You might even look at one that has been on your shelf, but neglected.

Share this page with people who might be interested in the ALAN Workshop. If you are a publisher make sure your author knows we are promoting them in advance of the workshop.

The keynote authors are tremendous. Padma is one of my favorites. If you don't know her, catch up, now! I still consider Climbing the Stairs to be one of my all time favorite historical YA novels. The Bridge Home is taking the reading world by storm as a middle school selection for the global read aloud program.

Sure,  there are a good number of good African American woman writing young adult literature who have had an impact  during the last 30 years. Sharon Draper, Sharon Flake, Nikki Grimes, Jacqueline Woodson, Rita Williams-Garcia and Angela Johnson and Sheila P. Moses all come to mind. I would love to hear from any or all of them. However, when I consider that we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Coretta Scott King Award, I can't think of anyone more uniquely placed to review this history and talk about the impact of the award that Andrea Davis Pinkney. She is a winner of the award an editor, and a writer of both children's and YA literature. Her reputation as a writer is significant and important. Add that to her influence and knowledge as an editor and there is little more one could ask.

I am sure that you will find both speaker engaging and inspirational. Both are authors I admire and I asked for them. I was thrilled that they were available and willing to do it.

One of the benefits of being the ALAN President is talking with Publishers and listening to them pitch authors for the ALAN workshop (granted, most of that takes place through emails, not through passionate conversations). Once they pitch them, I get the primary responsibility of deciding who gets individual speaking slots.  I have to admit that it was hard to contain my excitement when these authors were offered.

From the day I was nominated, I knew I was going to try to include Jo Knowles. I have been a long time admirer and I just don't think enough people read her works. I wanted to do my part. The other five authors are emerging stars. I don't believe any of them been featured solo speakers at the ALAN workshop. True to my promise to host a workshop focused on the theme of identity and diversity, I think these authors deliver on that score in terms of who they are and based on the themes and characters that inhabit their novels.

Hang on, this workshop is going to be a wild ride. 

Yes, one of the rocketing stars of the YA world, Elizabeth Acevedo will be there. When she won the Walden Award her publisher helped her stay through NCTE and into the ALAN workshop. What a wonderful opportunity to hear her in conversation with our current lead editor of The ALAN Review, Susan Groenke.

Check out the pairings for conversations. There will be some great exchanges going on. Is your favorite author attending? If not, don't despair, maybe your new favorite is in one of these conversation. 

Does this look a great group of authors? You bet it does. Some of them are debut authors and have never been to an ALAN Workshop, some have been a couple of times, and few might be called veterans.  Whatever their stituation they will be welcomed by 500 excited YA fans. Once again, will you be there? Make sure to visit this link right away. We sell out every year!

You didn't see someone you are expecting? Hold on there is one more release coming in a few days.

Until next week.

Last week when I introduced one of the newcomers to the ALAN Workshop it was someone I knew. This is not the case with the the author Zach Smedley.  I can tell you that I can't wait to meet him. The sophisticated nature of his debut novel Disposing Nathan, might lead you to think you are dealing with an experienced author. I was surprised at how young Zach is and to find out how early he started writing.  

This novel is fantastic! I can't wait to be one of the 500 attendees who get to say " I meet Zach shortly after the publication of his furst novel at ALAN."  One of the great things about the ALAN Workshop is opening your box and browsing the covers. I am always interested in the books by authors I have never heard of before. You browse books a bit, you read the blurbs, you read a few pages and you settle in, waiting for the moment when you get to her a debut author talk about the new book.

As the current President, I have been fortunate to be able to read  quite a few debut novel over the past year. Can I tell you a secret? You are going to love the debut authors that will be attending this year. In addition, I have asked 
the publisher to put me in touch with some these authors in order to highlight a few "unknowns" before the workshop. Zach was one of the first to responded to my list of questions.  Below the photos I have attached a pdf of his answers. 

Have you registered for the conference yet. If you have registered for the ALAN Breakfast or the ALAN Workshop. Please follow the links found inside the ALAN webpage.

You will notice that I have given a review here, I have already based on the book to a local teacher. It needs to be in hands of kids. Besides, it is hard to be a starred review from Kirkus. Read the interview. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter. Get ready. He will be at the reception on the Sunday night before the workshop.

Until next time.

I grow old...I grow old.../I shall wear the bottom of my trousers rolled.    The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliothe

One of the things I love about going to conferences is the chance to hear from graduate students. I love their energy and their plans for the future of education. I have been working in education for 41 years. I can see the end creepying towards me. Okay, some days it feels like it is flying towards me. The ideas and research of graduate students is rejuvenating. 

I meet Stacia about a year ago, but at the ELATE conference last July I had the chance to hear her talk about her research project. It was fantastic. I loved what she was doing. I am waiting for her to finish her dissertation so I can read all aboutof her project. I knew right away there was a blog post in what she was presenting. When she was done, I told her so. She asked a few questions, we set us a date, and here we are. 

Oh, there is one more important thing, Stacia is working on her Ph.D at my Alma Mater, The University of Georgia--Go Dawgs!.

​Take it away Stacia.

I’m interested in how teachers respond when they learn that their students have been arrested for sexual violence. As the #MeToo movement experienced its resurgence[1], I came across many YAL books that explored young people’s experiences with sexual violence. Book lists are circulating on blogs, in popular press publications for young readers, and in mainstream news outlets. Many readers of these lists and the books featured on them have been motivated to learn more about what is happening in the news and how YAL books reflect the world.

​My conversations with teachers who used YAL to discuss issues of consent, sexual violence, and current events included questions about how teachers and other concerned adults were being portrayed in YAL that featured such assaults. When I read the novels with this thought in mind, I was both inspired and disheartened by their characterizations. My initial identification and also discomfort led me to think more deeply about characterizations of adults and their relationships with young adult characters in novels centered on sexual assault. 

Much of the YAL scholarship that focuses on sexual violence, along with other controversial topics, emphasizes its benefits for students. Teachers, according to many sources, should have these books in their classroom libraries and incorporate these stories into their literacy instruction. Yet adults, like student readers, have much to learn from these books.
 
Hadley (2018) pointed out that “one of the common plot devices in YA literature has been absent parents” (p. 24) or other adults. However, although they are often absent in YAL, adults who appear in the stories are “important in young adults’ lives no matter what presence they might have” (Gimalva, 2015, p. 1). Adults such as parents, teachers, coaches, and religious figures circulate through these books in remarkably interesting ways (Niemi, Smith, & Brown, 2014). They are present, yet also absent, at times even when present.

I am interested, along with my colleague Chea Parton, in exploring the ways that relationships between adults and adolescent characters are represented in YAL about sexual violence. YAL often reflects adolescent issues that fly beneath the radar of adult vision, such as sexual experiences, including assault. When adults read this fiction, then, they may gain insight into what young people experience and how it affects them socially and psychologically (Lewis, Petrone, & Sarigianides, 2016; Niemi, Smith, & Brown, 2014). 

​Hadley (2018) argues that YAL often positions adults as peripheral or even harmful characters in the lives of young adults. These stories can have real effects on the way that readers think about relationships between teenagers and adults. I have paid special attention to these relationships when the fiction includes a sexual assault.
 
Four #MeToo-era novels I’ve come across include first-person narrations from the perspective of a victim of sexual assault: The Way I Used to Be by Amber Smith (2016), Asking for It by Louise O’Neill (2016), Exit, Pursued by a Bear E. K. Johnston (2017), and Saints and Misfits by S. K. Ali (2017). Three out of these four novels feature White middle-class girls, characteristic of the genre even as it has begun to expand to include other intersectional identities. Two of the four have been discussed in YA Wednesday blog posts by Margaret Robbins, and by Luke Rodesiler and Mark A. Lewis, focusing on different aspects of the novels such as diet culture and sports in YAL. In the following summaries, I emphasize the roles of adults in how the characters experience and attempt to recover from the assaults.

Often compared with Anderson’s (1999) Speak because the novel is built around the protagonist’s struggle to find the courage to report her rape, Smith’s (2016) The Way I Used to Be spans Eden’s four years of high school. As the book progresses through her high school years, Eden tries to recover physically, emotionally, and psychologically from being sexually assaulted in her bedroom by her brother’s best friend. Her coping mechanisms involve self-destructive behavior as she does drugs, pushes away friends and family, and engages in sex with boys she doesn’t feel emotionally connected to. Throughout the book, the adult characters seem to Eden to be too unapproachable to talk with about rape. This distance severs her connection with her parents, creating the presence of absence of this critical relationship. She doesn’t talk about the assault until a detective begins investigating another rape by Eden’s attacker. But the book’s conclusion finds her still alienated from her parents.

In Asking for It (O’Neill, 2016), Emma—an unsympathetic character to begin with—is sexually assaulted by a group of boys at a party after she has been drinking and drugged. The assault is photographed and later goes viral when posted on social media. Emma suffers bullying and social ostracism as she struggles to return to school and normal life in the aftermath of the sexual assault. She has to endure cyberbullying in the form of posting and commenting on the photos, and hostile national media coverage of the sexual assault and social media posts. Rather than serving as supporters during this trying time, the adult characters in this book are often seen going through the motions of responding to Emma’s sexual assault. They file reports, provide her with a defense, take her to therapy, and offer other types of pro forma assistance that is not motivated by genuine care.  Or worse, they add to the critical, harmful, and judgmental evaluation of her character that is a part of the local and national conversation about her assault. Few characters emerge from the novel’s conclusion as sympathetic or admirable.

​Exit, Pursued by a Bear is described by Moore (2018) as an “almost fantastical depiction of allyship” for Hermione Winters, a high school cheerleader in the aftermath of being sexually assaulted at cheer summer camp. What makes this novel stand out from the other two is the powerful support from most of the characters in the book, both high school students and adults. Hermione’s first conversation about the sexual assault happens with the nurse and her best friend upon regaining consciousness. This conversation takes place in a sterile, medical institution with an adult who is a stranger, yet is conducted with compassion and support. Like this first conversation, all the adults who care for Hermione in the aftermath of the rape let her take the lead in determining what she needs to heal and seek justice. This book provides a rare depiction of adults serving in caring, empathetic roles with an assault teen victim needing their support. 

Saints and Misfits (Ali, 2017) is the exception to the genre’s emphasis on White characters in this sample. Janna is sexually harassed by a boy who is related to her best friend and regarded as a young leader in her mosque. Following the assault she refers to him as “the monster.” She actively avoids him at all costs and is too frightened to tell anyone about the traumatic encounter. She thinks multiple times about telling her uncle, the Imam of her mosque, whom she views as a supportive adult, because of the boy’s leadership role in the services. Janna fears the social repercussions of revealing her experience without concrete evidence, but after talking with her friends and sending her uncle a veiled and anonymous email asking for advice, she reports her harassment. Although Janna is fearful of the repercussions of coming forward about the monster’s sexual harassment, the adults in her lives, beginning with the Imam, exceed her expectations for care, compassion, and understanding. 

While reading these books and others in this genre, I thought about a number of questions that help me unpack the relationships between adults and young victims of sexual assaults in YAL. These issues are both of literary and pedagogical concern, and affect how the novels portray events that can help readers anticipate how they would act in the event of a sexual assault, or reflect on and make sense of their own experiences with rape.
 
Readers of these texts and others that center sexual assault could consider these questions, posed from a variety of perspectives:

Whether the readers of these texts are adults or young adults, it is important to remember that these books are representations of possibilities for how these critical conversations might unfold. The books I’ve highlighted and others like them offer the opportunity to think carefully and critically about the kinds of relationships that students have with the adults in their lives at home, at school, and in all the different spaces and places in their lives. 

Nonfiction   

1. Shout by Laurie Halse Anderson
2. I Have the Right To: A High School Survior’s Story of Sexual Assault, Justice, and Hope by Chessy Prout with Jenn Abelson
3.  Things We Haven’t Said by Erin Moulton  
4.  Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer
5.  Asking for It: The Alarming Rise of Rape Culture  -- and What We Can Do About It by Kate Harding

References
 
Hadley, H. L. (2018). Good mother/bad mother: The representation of mothers in recent Printz Award winning literature. The ALAN Review,45(2), 23-34.
 
Giamalva, A. (2015). Does family matter: The parental roles of young adult media. SLIS Connecting, 4(1), 1–11.
 
Lewis, M. A., Petrone, R., & Sarigianides, S. T. (2016). Acting adolescent? Critical examinations of the youth-adult binary in Feed and Looking for Alaska. The ALAN Review, 43(2), 43–50.
Moore, A. (2018). We believe her: Sexual assault and friend/ally/ship in Exit, pursued by a bear. The ALAN Review, 46(1), 15–27.
 
Niemi, N., Smith, J. B., & Brown, N. (2014). The portrayal of teachers in children ’s popular fiction. Journal of Research in Education, 20(2), 58–80.

Until next weeks.

Occasionally, as a teacher, you get to know a few students who don't take your academic courses. They are close friends of students, or friends of your kids, or they might be involved in extra curricular activities. For a number of years I, Dr. Bickmore, was a student government adviser. The students planned assemblies, pep rallies, speakers, and several dances. They did the bulk of the work and, well, I advised. This included running interference between them and the administration, other students, and other teachers. Through it all, I attended more events geared for adolescents than I care to innumerate.

Generally, I knew, or knew of, most of those who became student body officers, but not always. In my particular school student body officers also included the head cheerleader. So many of the activities interfaced with their activities and relied upon involvement. One year, part of group was an exuberant young woman named Becky Vallett. Becky was a joy to be around and I never witnessed her being unkind to anyone. Indeed, her dedication to hard work was contagious. 

Years later, through Facebook, I was friended by a young women with a small family named Becky Wallace. I little bit of exploration revealed that is was the Becky Vallet. After a couple more years, I realized that she had be come a budding YA author. I began to follow her. I asked her to serve on a small book award committee with me. Everything I remember about her energy, her intelligence and hard work was reaffirmed. 

I began reading her work and realized that low and behold she could write! She has worked in fantasy genre and has tried her hand at YA romance. I think she has hit her stride. I after reading Stealing Home, I knew I wanted to invite her to be one of the presenting authors at the ALAN Workshop.

Chance are you don't know this wonderful new author. I hope that you check her out before the ALAN Workshop, follw her page on Facebook, link to her webpage, and read one of her books (The Story Spinner, The Sky Lighter, and Stealing Home).

The next three links are interviews with Becky:

From The Sweet Sixteens 
From YA Interrobang
From Dawning of a Brighter Day
Below is a series of images: the first set are the images of her book covers. Click on them and you wil find an Amazon link.

the second set are images of Becky and of Chicago, the setting of her soon to arrive book Far From Normal. Who knows, maybe you just might find it in your ALAN box.

Don't run away to quickly, below the images is a set of questions that Becky has answered about her writing.

Stay tuned, Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday will be highlight other YA authors you may not know.
​
Until next week.

I love teaching my undergraduate class on YA literature. It is a ton of fun to revisit some of the classics from the early days of the classification. Deciding on the goals of a YA course can be tricky. Do you focus on history? Do you focus on pedagogy? Or, do you focus on a specific theoretical approach—Youth Lens, Feminism, or Queer theory? Perhaps you teach a courses to pre-service teachers and you want them to build a strong sense of what is out there in the various genres of this literature—fantasy, historical fiction, or contemporary realism. Another approach would be to focus on famous authors or authors who have won multiple awards.

Maybe, just reading books that have been on the short list for the National Book Award (NBA), would be a fun approach. Just having a class that focused on the winners of the NBA would be 24 books if you included the winner that will be announce in November of 2019. (In fact, I am a little disappointed in myself for not holding a spot in my course for the announced winner.)

I tend to focus on books that deal with race, class, and gender in some way that still provide a broad array of books from older periods and some that are more recent.. If you look at my page for this year’s course, I have skewed the selection to more recent texts. You can find my list of books at this link. I have books that recognize early trends in the classification and a chunk of books that represent winners of the NBA, the Printz Award, and the Newbery. 

The class has just finished day eleven and we have read eight books as a class and the students have read and discussed a graphic novel of their choice. I don’t want to bore you with the details of each class, but I would like to share some of the conversations and activities that we have covered.

The first eight books are listed below and I have provided a link to a review:
1.The Outsiders:  A newish review in the Guardian
2. Hatchet: The Original Kirkus Review
3. Holes:  The Original Kirkus Review
4. Merci Suarez Changes Gears: The Original Kirkus Review
5. American Born Chinese: Amazingly enough, there is not a Kirkus Review. Here is a review from The Open Book Shelf
6. Realm of Possibilty: The Original Kirkus Review
7. Death Coming up the Hill: The Original Kirkus Review
8. Brown Girl Dreaming: The Original Kirkus Review

Below are the Images:

In preparation for the class discussion, students read the book and a couple of short articles.  Several years ago I ediited an issue of First Opinion, Second Reaction.  In that issue, we asked authors to look at various "classic" YA texts. The first author captured how the book was recieved when it was first published. The second author dicussed how the book was viewed today or how it might be used in schools. 

In FOSR V7 I1 we covered the following books: I Am the Cheese, The Outsiders, Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack!, The Contender, and The Watson’s Go to Birmingham.

For The Outsiders, Jennifer S. Dail wrote the First Reaction and Sophia Tatiana Sarigianides wrote the Second Reaction.  both of these small articles show how a book can be used over time. 

I also provided an inclasses study guide to help with class discussion and to model what a future teacher might do in thier own classrooms.

See the handout below.

I also realise that most of my students are significantly younger than the book.  Many of the allusions in the book might be lost on these readers, just as they might be new for their future students. I created a power point presentation that visual introduced some of the references in The Outsiders. How many of them do you recognize from first hand experience?

It was a great second day of class. I hope you find this information useful. What would be really great fun would be for you to browse the wonderful notes my students produced.

If her insight and kindness weren’t enough, her writing is superb! Few writers have a body of work as large as Woodson's. It spans from children’s books to young adult literature. I am sure that scholars in both fields want to claim her. I know, as a scholar of YA literature, I want to grab her books that might attrack readers in the fourth grade and pull them into my arena. I am sure scholars of children’s literature want to pull some of her older works in their direction.
 
I championed Brown Girl Dreaming from the beginning. Not that it needed my help, mind you, but I loved it. As a memoir, many of its references and allusions resonated with my own experience. At the same time, many of her experiences as an African American woman in the south and in Brooklyn are never going to be mine. Nevertheless, the memoir speaks of family, of growing up, of writing and reading. I came of age in the racially turbulent years of the late 60s and the early 70s. I attended a racially integrated high school and served in an integrated student council. Those moments and interactions shaped how I have tried to treat my students, my colleagues, and my family. Perhaps, I have come close to the spirit of fairness that soars on the wings of hope in the writings of Jacqueline Woodson.

I write about my reaction to Brown Girl Dreaming in an issue of FOSR. I was asked to write the piece because the editors knew of my fondness for the book. Well, if you knew me, you knew I wouldn’t stop talking about it. I read the book again and wrote a second response. It was a labor of love. I hope you like it and I hope it resonates with.

To prepare for class the student read the book and read Kristin K. A. McIlhaga's First Opinion followed by my Second Reaction. I also began class with another wordless point that displayed images that are referenced in Brown Girl Dreaming. Again, while the book is a contemporary publication, the memior focuses on a period of time that predates most of my students. You might find some of the images I selected interesting. I would be interested in what other images you might like to add to this collection.

The book is lyrical and full of moments that simultaneously breaks your heart and force you to pause and admire its beauty. Not only did it deserve the National Book Award for Young People's Literature. It just might be the best book of that year.

After the class began, I asked them to consider how Woodson uses sensory imagery to capture memory through her often simple, but beautiful poetry. The students were asked to think of sensory images that might be used to capture their own memories. I hope that they are reminded of the beauty and power of their own experiences. I hope generations of readers are able to get lost in the beauty of Woodson words. 

Until next week.

This post strives to capture a small portion of what happen in these two class periods. I know that I am having a good time reading and talking about these books. I hope that my students are having even a portion of the fun that I am having. If they are, then I am helping to build another group of teachers that will be sharing YA literature with there students. What are you doing in your courses? Above everything else, I hope you are having a great time. If you are doing something you love, let me hear about it. It just might be your turn to write a post.