June Pulliam is my primary go to source for scary stories. For over a decade I have been in awe of June's knowledge of the basic horror genre. In fact, this goes beyond YA books and into film and other stories about ghosts, werewolves, and other monsters. Indeed her knowledge is a bit, well-- terrifying.  

June has other posts for Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday. Browse through the contributors' page and pay special attention for her name during the month of October.

​Thanks June.

My picks for this Halloween are two works of YA fiction—Ryan Douglass’s first novel The Taking of Jake Livingston and an Amazon reboot of Lois Duncan’s I Know What You Did Last Summer franchise. Both offer different interpretations of haunting. Douglass’ The Taking of Jake Livingston easily fits into this category. Ever since he can remember, Jake Livingston has been a medium.  However, Jake turns away from his gift because it genuinely frightens him, and he doesn’t Jake doesn’t need anything else to make his peers think that he is strange: Jake is one of the few gay kids of color at the all-boys high school he attends, and he is closeted even to his family.

Because Jake Livingston is neither cis, nor het, nor white, his experience with haunting is comparable to how women are more typically mediums for spirits in ghost fiction. Mediumship is compatible with normative femininity in how channeling spirits is similar to pregnancy—the medium typically allows the spirit to use her body to get the justice he or she was denied in life. Jake’s body is taken over by ghost of Sawyer Doon, a boy his own age who gained notoriety a year earlier when he went on a shooting rampage and killed several of his classmates. Sawyer, as angry in death as he was in life, hijacks Jake’s body to continue his killing spree beyond the grave. Jake can only be a passive observer as Sawyer’s spirit uses his body to murder an uncle who raped him. Jake can only regain control of his body by developing empathy for the deeply unsympathetic Sawyer, which Jake does by embracing his abilities as a medium. When Sawyer possesses Jake’s body, Jake has access to Sawyer’s consciousness and learns that Sawyer too was gay, brutalized by his father and ignored by his mother in life. Once Jake understands the source of Sawyer’s anger, he uses more masculine strategies to exorcise the vengeful spirit—Jake engages in an ethereal battle with Sawyer, ultimately banishing him to the world of the dead. The experience allows Jake to feel like a complete person, someone who is secure enough to come out to his mother and brother (who are both supportive) and start dating his first crush.

​Amazon has expanded and updated Duncan’s cast of characters: they are racially and sexually diverse and come from different classes. Meanwhile, the ubiquity of cell phones and security cameras in our world transforms Duncan’s 1973 tale from one about a stalker who is unrealistically good at surveilling his victims to a more believable story about the perils of living in a world where everyone can be watched through everyday technologies. The left-for-dead stalker of the Amazon series can spoof phone numbers to send threatening texts and hack phones and to leak people’s sex tapes to social media, quickly turning friends against each other when no one can be sure of who anyone really is. The stalker’s ability to use these technologies is akin to haunting in how it reveals secrets that the living would prefer to keep to themselves.  Too, in an age of mechanical reproduction, authenticity is no longer possible. This last idea is emphasized by the relationship between the person left-for-dead and the car’s driver, twin sisters Lennon and Allison respectively. At her father’s suggestion, Allison pretends to be her dead sister Lennon because Lennon was more likeable and above suspicion than her sister. Soon, Allison is no longer sure which sister she really is.
​
Instead of asking us to suspend disbelief, both of these narratives ask us to consider haunting in a new light. Ghosts aren’t so much abject Others as they are manifestations of ourselves.

Until next week.

For many years now, I have been running important ideas past Marshall George. Not only is he a YA literature expert trained by the legendary Ted Hipple, he has also be thoroughly involved English education through NCTE. He was the chair of ELATE quite a few years ago when it was still CEE. 

Over and over again our conversations prove to be rewarding.  In addition, Marshall is a regular contributor to Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday. It is worth your time to browse through the contributors' page to find some of this other posts.

Until next time.

It is time for your "Young Adult Literature to popular culture" connection! Angela Insenga is steeped in all kinds of connections between popular culture--music, television, film, documentary, and so many social media sharing formats. Every time I read something Angela writes I am amazed by her ability to make all of these connections. Her assignments are amazing and I often wonder if I could pull off some of them in my class--but it doesn't stop me from trying every once in awhile. 

Angela has been a frequent and productive contributor to Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday. To find a few more of her posts just browse through the Contributor's Page. Thanks Angela.

​In the era of “Devious Licks,” it may well be anathema to think about bringing anything related to TikTok into the classroom. And, with study of social media informing us of its addictive and purported degenerative powers, using it could raise hackles. However, I’m pairing Goldy Moldavsky’s novel Kill the Boyband with the documentary This is Us, which tells the "rags to riches" Algerian tale of the British-Irish sensation One Direction and is slickly directed by Morgan Spurlock. And then, instead of asking my students to turn in one more end-of-unit essay, I am asking my students to study TikTok creations within the real 1D fandom, gather data on how the one-minute chunks of film are put together and by whom, and come to conclusions about the (mostly) girlfans they encounter.  

In Goldy Moldavsky’s darkly humorous and satirical Kill the Boyband, the members of The Ruperts, each named Rupert, originally auditioned alone on So You Think the British Don’t Have Talent?,  each imagining a solo career in the music business. But all the boys were eliminated from competition. However, the boyband is born when the host looks out into the audience, sees myriad signs featuring the name “Rupert,”  and quips, “Seems like the Ruperts are getting a lot of love tonight!” At this moment, “a million lightbulbs went on over the heads of music execs,” and the boys were rockets into space, destined for stardom and inevitable commodification, their personalities narrowly and heteronormatively defined for millions of those who had only seen their tryout videos. Where there are boy band members, fangirls follow.  

The unnamed narrator of the novel defines and self-identifies as a new breed of fangirl, noting: 

It wasn’t enough anymore to send them fan mail and kiss the posters above our                                      
beds….you weren’t a true fan until you engaged in Twitter death threats and endless                               
stan wars [where fangirls]. . . .[wielded] Sharpies like weapons [and passed] the time by                                
discussing ambush tactics. . . [with another] Ruperts fangirl [whose] friendship [with                                  
other fans also] lived and breathed primarily in Twitter DMs and text messages.
​
In short, we learn from the ensemble of female protagonists, “just how important the internet was in all of [their] lives.” A virtue of the internet is that it can connect groups of likeminded individuals who spur each other onward, enrich each other’s lives, and share common obsessions. This virtue is also social’s vice, with which we contend daily. But why focus only on the decline when there are also positive results?

​The action in Kill the Boyband takes place on a single night at the “swankiest hotel in SoHo,” the Rondack. Superfans Erin, Isabel, Apple, and our unnamed narrator book a room here, right where The Ruperts are staying before performing their sold-out half-hour special, “Coming to America: The Ruperts Learn about Thanksgiving!” Instead of freezing outside at the barricades the city set up—though being a “barricade girl” is quite a feat, I have come to understand—the girls go inside, where the chances of running into a Rupert increase dramatically.  In their quest, they end up accidentally kidnapping Rupert Pierpont, the least-adored “ginger” Rupert whose only redeeming quality is that he can juggle. What follows is part comedy of errors, part searing critique of the music industry, and an examination of a weirdly maligned group: girls who stan bands.

If any of the book’s details sound familiar, you may have lived through the 2010s, when British-Irish boyband One Direction ruled pop music. After Simon Cowell plucked each solo boy from the group that did not make the cut on the British talent show The X Factor, their popularity soared. And even though they came in third place as a band, within five years, by 2020, the band sold an astonishing 70 million records worldwide. In their five-year run, 1D won seven Brit Awards, seven American Music Awards, five Billboard Music Awards, five Billboard Touring Awards, and four MTV Video Music Awards. Most importantly, the band won a record of 28 Teen Choice Awards after being nominated 31 times. By 2015, it was hard to turn a page, stand in a grocery checkout lane, walk through a school supplies section, a mall, peruse toothbrushes or teach an adolescent without seeing one of—if not all—of the boys’ faces.  And when I tell my students that 1D was bigger than The Beatles, they balk.  But they traveled to and performed in more countries and cities, expanding their fanbase and its rate of consumption, and they had the power of social media: YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Vine.  

It is at the juncture of Moldavsky’s critique of the music industry and the fangirl figure, the culture that so harshly dismisses fangirls them as “crazy,” and One Direction’s enduring fanbase that now resides largely online where my students and I are now situated. We moved from the fiction of the novel to the heavily mediated image of One Direction in This is Us to “real” fans on TikTok who, even now, are churning out intricately crafted videos or putting up slapdash ones because they are upset, excited, or angry. 

After studying Moldavsky’s fictional representation of The Ruperts stans—called the “Strepurs”—we move into the thriving niche of TikTok where Directioners dwell, making and remaking artistic chunks of film dedicated to One Direction or to one of the members. I ask my students to think about the critique of the music industry and fans in the novel as they begin to methodically examine TikToks organized under assigned hashtags (e.g., “#Nialler” for Niall Horan, “#Narry” for those who ship Harry and Niall, etc.). Using criteria I’ve suggested; in particular, I focus on the “rhetoric” of TikTok, on trends, and on ways in which recombinant TikToks critique or seek to answer others. Considering the purported fickle nature of teen girls, the 1D portion of TikTok bursts with energy and optimism, depression and exhilaration, and longing and having.  All of this, even though the band went on hiatus over six years ago. 

I chose this learning pathway for my students with hopes that they could further understand how social media in the hands of a dedicated fandom works and how foregrounding specific TikTok trends from girlfan creators leads us to complicate the rather prejudicial trope of the “crazy fangirl,” much like Moldavsky explodes the concept in her novel. TikTok, I hope to show them, is a (de)generative space, wherein a multitude of communities governed by hashtags exist. In these hyperreal groups, adolescents repeatedly demonstrate higher order thinking as they create videos using the platform’s mechanics—filters, voiceovers, snippets from films, and soundtracks. Each TikTok about 1D is added to an ever-widening web of texts that produce syncretic and longitudinal knowledge about the fandom and the object(s) of its affection. While TikTok allows for endless recombinant chunks of film, the trends also bear out that trends arise. For example, enduring beliefs that two members of the band dated, showcase the band’s time in the spotlight, (re)imagine a reunion, and artistically advertise every scintilla of news about the boys’ now flourishing solo careers. But there is more than recapitulation of adoration, the boys’ own contracted social media appearances, or concert footage. 

In their TikToks, girlfans of 1D are often philanthropists, raising money through a 5k or donating to charities favored by the members of the band. They are increasingly comfortable living in ambiguities, adapting happily to others’ chosen pronouns, sexual identities, and gender expressions. They create pointed, critical messages to other public people like Candace Owen, who in 2020 attempted to blast Harry Styles for wearing a dress as the first man to appear on the cover of Vogue, pleading with him and America to “Bring back manly men.” Fans profess Harry Styles' “Treat People with Kindness” mantra and mean it, as comment threads and monies to charities on his birthday evince. They profess that the friendships they’ve made with other fans mean more than anything to them--even more than the band itself. They also, in teary posts, sometimes leave the Neverland they’ve half-lived, half-created.  They go to college, get engaged, have children. And their social accounts, left as a kind of momento mori to their own girlhood, remain. 

In my YA class, then, study and discussion of Moldavsky’s satire in Kill the Boyband has become a conduit for study of real girls in a real fandom. In absence of 1D concerts and in a plague year wherein all members of One Direction canceled solo gigs, TikTok is, more than ever, a bastion for expression in a world that does not sanction the exhibition of female desire or hysteria. A girl falling to her knees when Niall Horan surprises her at a candy shop in Disneyland or a “Louie” claiming that he is “the actual sun” in her life is seen as unbalanced, while boys losing their minds over football, screaming at umpires ‘calls in the sixth inning, or being loud, obnoxious, or angry is seen as typical, even expected. On TikTok, girls who are fans are seen. They are heard. And that, it turns out, is the point. 1D TikTokkers, just like the young women in Moldavsky’s texts are super fans. They scream. They snipe. They love. They obsess. And, in the mix, I am finding, is their creation for our study, for our understanding of how YAL and social media connect, how both can be a place for authentic expression.

Until next time.

Ok, for somebody who has paid attention the the National Book Award, for nearly two decades, this is a tough confession. I was blanked by the list of finalist. I ... have ... not ... read ... a ... single ... one, YET! Yes, that right. I now have a new task. Some years I have read most of the long list. Many years I have the bulk of the finalist. Give all of that, some of my favorite years have been books that didn't move into the finals or that didn't win. For example I loved We are Not Free and Apple: Skin to the Core in 2020.

In 2019 what is not to love about Patron Saints of Nothing or Look Both Ways. 2018 brought us a fabulous winner with The Poet X and the finalist included The Journey of Little Charlie and Hey, Kiddo, not to mention Blood Water Paint, Boots on the Ground, and We'll Fly Away as part of the longlist. The 2017 list is amazing with several books that I still teach and write about-- What Girls are Made Of, American Street, The Hate U Give, Long Way Down, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter and You Bring the Distant Near. I have probably failed to mention somebody's favorite book from the award lists during the last four years. Sorry, that just goes to speak to the quality and the diversity of the choices. I must say that the diversity and representation of authors and communities has certainly increased since we discussed and documented the first 20 years of the award.  

Let's take a look at my new "to be read" list and some of the resources I have gathered. (All of the  titles below are linked to the books page within the National Book Award website. It also has links to more information about the books author.)

Until next time.

One of the great things about working with YA Wednesday is that I get to connect with former students. Alex was a joy to have in class and it is even more exciting to see what she is up to. I love her advice in this post. It is a perfect post for our Monday Motivator. A Monday Motivator provides some information that a teacher can put into action right away or share with their students without a lot of preparation. Thanks Alex for wonderful collection of easy to use resources.

Last week I was asked to read Mango, Abuela, and Me by Meg Mediana to a kindergarten class. The well-meaning event coordinator opened the reading with, “It’s National Hispanic Heritage Month! Who likes tacos? Who likes quesadillas?”. I flinched a little at the vast diversity of Latin American culture with our varied music, rich traditions, current struggles, and complex history to be reduced to two foods.  
 
During this heritage month, I often find myself flinching. Flinching at the way the month is celebrated with little to no nuance on Latin American heritage and the performative allyship that will dwindle come October 16. I find myself flinching because Latinx/Hispanic culture gets conflated with Mexican culture. One small example is finding decorations and even images for flyers that are inclusive of all the Latin American countries that are not Mexican-centric is hard. 

​Yes, I am Mexican, and I love my roots. But if I am frustrated with the microaggressions of being asked “Do you speak Mexican?” or “Where are you really from?”, I can only imagine how much more frustrated my Nicaraguan, Honduran, Paraguayan, Ecuadorian, Puerto Rican, Columbian, Venezuelan, Costa Rican, Peruvian, Brazilian, Chilean, Argentinian, Bolivian, Uruguayan, Panamanian, Salvadorean, Guatemalan, Cuban, Dominican, and all other Latin American siblings are to be called “Mexican” in a derogatory tone. It must be extra frustrating to already be an underrepresented group and then the focus during a heritage month misrepresents your heritage through being eclipsed by a misconception that Mexican culture is the only Latinx culture. 

In terms of representation for Latinx YA novels, I am hopeful that we are turning from a Mexican-centric Latinx representation and focusing on the diversity of Latin America. When I was growing up Brown in Mississippi, Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan was the first and only middle-grade book where I could see myself represented, especially as a Mexican immigrant. Later, a YA book that I appreciated was Gabi, a Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero where the honest tone especially about cultural shaming around weight helped me reflect on my own body image issues. Although I did not read Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz until in my twenties, I was elated to see my queerness represented within my Latinx culture. I could only imagine what it would have meant to have more access to Latinx queer stories when I was a teen. I am elated to see the growth of Latinx LGBTQ+ representation. 

​Latinx YA have expanded outside Mexican characters. For example there are books like A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow by Laura Taylor Namey or Never Look Back by Lilliam Rivera which centers Puerto Rican characters. Poet X and Clap When You Land both by Elizabeth Acevedo, focus on Dominican characters. Lobizona by Romina Garber centers on a undocumented Argentinian immigrant and We Are Not From Here by Jenny Torres Sanchez features Guatemalan teens crossing the border which follow a much-needed new wave of timely undocumented Latinx stories.

While there has been some expansion to representing more Latin American heritages, I still do not think we have expanded enough to encompass representation from the 33+ countries and territories that make up Latin America. We need a continued and more balanced diverse representation within the Latinx YA novels.
 
Nuanced and diverse representation matters. And yes, we should all help celebrate this month, but we should celebrate with critical consideration.
 
First, please celebrate this month with nuance. 
 
This month recognizes all those who have Latin American roots. If you only associate this month with tacos, margaritas, sugar skulls, tokenizing the Brown folk in your school/workplace, and lumping everyone as "Mexican," you are missing out on the diversity of the 33+ countries and territories that make up this population. Honor the diversity and educate yourself more about the individual countries.

DOCUMENTARIES
Latino Americans, PBS
Paper Children (Niño de papel), YouTube
The Graduates/Los Graduados, PBS
Harvest of Empire: The Untold Story of Latinos in America, Onyx Films
Dolores, PBS
Underwater Dreams, 50 Eggs

PODCASTS
Latinos Who Lunch 
Latinx Therapy 
Scattered, NPR 
Latina to Latina 
Latino USA, NPR 
Con Todo
 
BOOKS
Finding Latinx by Paola Ramos. 
Undocumented by Dan-el Padilla Peralta. 
The African American and Latinx History of America by Paul Ortiz.
Salsa, Soul, and Spirit: Leadership for a Multicultural Age by Juana Bordas

Second, please celebrate this month by checking your biases and making an effort to avoid microaggressions. 
 
Because we are so diverse and have a complicated history of colonization, there's no one word that really encompasses us as a group. Some people prefer the term Hispanic, others Latinx, Latino/a and even Latine. Here are some short readings on these terms. https://www.highlightsfoundation.org/19965/hispanic-or-latinx-how-evolving-language-impacts-kids/?fbclid=IwAR1S-Cz4ckQ2EZAHZ8RML_LFkb13Hi6JdjFrVLac_0IWBQdESZbrvBfhadU
 
And 
https://www.chicagoreporter.com/whats-liberating-not-limiting-about-using-the-term-latinx/ Don't assume what people identify as. Always ask what they prefer. 

Third, please celebrate this month with a critical lens and critical solidarity. 
 
Educate yourself on the systemic struggles and see where you may be able to help. Latinas/Hispanic women have the lowest wages. The Latinx population has the least amount of college degrees. Latinx immigrants provide the country with farming, construction, housekeeping, and other essential labor and many of those workers don't have access to healthcare, driving licenses, or stable housing. And don't get me started on language access. Let us also not forget the many brown kids who are still in cages. 
 
So how can you help?
1. Volunteer or donate to your local organizations who serve Latinx populations.
2.Find out if your city has a 287(g) and find ways you could help end them to help reduce racial profiling in your area.
3.Visit Unitedwedream.org for more info on how to help undocumented youth.
4.Support Latinx-owned businesses.
5. Ask your school board members what they are doing to increase language access and help Hispanic/Latinx student feel included.
6. Ask congress to stop using tax money for detention centers 
 
This list is not exhaustive. But it's a start. 
 
And of course, keep reading the diverse Latinx YA stories that can serve as windows or mirrors. Here’s a few YA Latinx Books I can’t wait to read.
 
Dark and Deepest Red by Anna-Marie McLemore 
Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas
Woven in Moonlight by Isabel Ibañez
Each of Us a Desert by Mark Oshiro
Sanctuary by Paola Mendoza and Abby Sher

Until next time.