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Why a Grandmother Reads Young Adult Fiction

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First, to clarify; I’m not that old.

Instead of a rocking chair, shawl and knitting, think professional, competent and cool—and ignore my family laughing in the background. A few years ago, the birth of my first grandchild brought home that I was approaching my mature years, but I didn’t see any reason why that should change my reading habits.

Since my age first hit double figures I’ve been reading books aimed at a wide variety of audiences, whether children, teenagers, adults, female and/or male. There were a few ‘adult’ novels I probably read a bit too early, but that’s what happens when books like that are left around the house and a voracious reader doesn’t have access to enough appropriate literature.

Since I was a kid, I never stopped reading books aimed at kids or teenagers.

I read all sorts of other things as well, but I don’t see any reason to give myself an arbitrary limit on reading material based on what publishers decide is their target readership. When I write I don’t stop writing a story because the protagonist is a particular age. I should probably re-evaluate if it’s a crap story, and that’s the same issue when I’m reading, but protagonist age, viewpoint or intended target audience don’t have anything to do with whether it’s a good story, reading or writing.

9781406311525Sometimes I read a YA book simply because it’s great entertainment, like much-lauded and much-maligned The Hunger Games. Other times they’re brilliant in every sense of the word, like Patrick Ness’s A Monster Calls. There are so many excellent YA books, including a huge and growing list of Australian titles, that there’s no way I can keep up with all I’d like to read. If I’d had these sorts of books around when I was a teenager I would have read a lot less inappropriate stuff.

Books with rich subtext and emotional truth abound on YA shelves.

15757486Melina Marchetta’s novels Looking for Alibrandi, Saving Francesca and On the Jellicoe Road are three excellent examples, as are Patrick Ness’s Chaos Walking trilogy. The stark realism of A.J. Betts’ Zack and Mia, or the ambiguity of Garth Nix’s Clariel give a lot of food for thought and discussion.

ClarielAmie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff’s Illuminae, written as found documents in a format which encourages reluctant readers, is a space science fiction epic which encompasses the ethical dilemmas of corporate greed, epidemics, quarrantine, and the lengths we will go to survive. Tristan Banks’ novel aimed at the younger end of YA, Two Wolves follows a boy on the run with his family and how he comes to terms with his origins.

23395680Guilt and grief are themes in Trinity Doyle’s Pieces of Sky, and it would be difficult to surpass the honesty and depth of David Burton’s memoir How to be Happy. Fleur Ferris’s Risk has authenticity 19392551and psychological sophistication far in excess of most adult novels of crime and loss I’ve ever read. There are so many more I could fill up pages, and already have.

The oldest of these books was published when I was more than a decade past the target audience, and several have been published in the past year or two, now that—let’s just say—I’m a long way past the 23603939target audience. Does that mean I should forgo the pleasure of such excellent reads?

25674284Besides, how else is a bookaholic, pop-culture loving grandmother going to keep in touch with what it’s like to be a teenager today? I have no illusions of fitting in to the teenage scene, or that the reading sub-culture represents all teenagers. On the other hand, no sub-culture represents all of them and diversity is improving.

Diversity in Australian YA books is emerging

It’s al24973955so the most accessible to me, except for Youtube and blogs, which I use but find a huge time sinkhole. The experience of reading, of seeing through a modern protagonists eyes, or even knowing what teenagers around you are talking about, helps keep perspective when the inevitable ‘this-generation-doesn’t-do-X-like-we-did’ discussions arise.

But I’ve also found that sometimes I can bring another perspective to YA books. Teenagers, naturally, read YA from the perspective of the teenage protagonists. Those of us who are older—much, much older—read with the protagonist’s perspective, but also with more life experience. One blogger I read recently talked about how her parental impulses when reading some YA books now are making her feel old, and at the time of writing she was the grand age of twenty-one (here). It’s true, though, that sometimes there are things in YA novels that are easier to see from an older, more experienced perspective.

While some teenagers may see things I don’t because they’re immersed in teen culture, sometimes I see things they miss.

I’ve come across quite a few articles disparaging adults who read YA novels. It’s strange. The arguments just seem silly. It’s like telling me I should watch Downton Abbey and trying to shame me for watching Tomorrow, When the War Began. They’re both excellent programs, so why shouldn’t I watch and enjoy both?

Sure, I read other types of books and enjoy them. As time goes on though, I’m finding that I’m getting impatient with some adult books. Not all, just some.

You see, YA novel authors have to be good these days—very good. Why?

  • Competition to be published is, as in all publishing, fierce.
  • There’s generally a limit of around 70-80,000 words, on the higher side for science-fiction or fantasy to account for the needs of world-building.
  • Stories tend to be complex (contrary to the belief of some) so there’s a lot to pack in. YA authors have to write tight.
  • Teenagers have highly tuned crap detectors. If a novel starts getting airy fairy with language that doesn’t convey a clear meaning, teenagers will call it. That doesn’t mean there isn’t beautiful writing—there is—but it also has to be rich in meaning. There’s no reading a line or paragraph three or four times to work out what it’s saying.

So, when I start a huge Booker-nominated door-stopper, and in sixty pages there’s been some lovely airy descriptions and a lot of musing, but I still haven’t reached the premise of the book… I might just use it as a door-stopper.

Once upon a time I would have ploughed on. Someone who’s supposed to know about literature thought this was a great book, so I should finish it and find out why.
 Not anymore. I look ahead and realise that I have a finite number of books I can read in my life.

A boring Booker-nominated door-stopper will take up the time which could be devoted to two or three other books I could enjoy and learn from. One of them might be a different Booker-nominated novel that I love. Another will probably be a Young Adult novel.

Links
#LoveOzYa  for teachers, writers and readers of Australian youth-lit.
Inside a Dog  State Library of Victoria’s Young Adult Page (Home of the Inky Awards)

Confessions of a Writers Festival Volunteer Co-ordinator

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The intriguing title. The shiny cover. The new book smell as you pick it up and read the blurb on the back.

You flick to the first few pages, run an eye over the first paragraph. Two paragraphs. You snap it shut, running your hands over the smooth surface. It promises so much. You look around, the new book clutched to your breast. So many to choose from; is this the one? Surely I can get two…

Hi, my name is Sheree, and I’m a biblioholic.

You’d think, knowing I have this problem, I should avoid bookshops and all places where writers congregate. Instead I was welcomed on to the board of the Newcastle Writers Festival a few years ago, and am privileged to organise the volunteers who do the bulk of our public interface during the festival weekend.

I lovNWF Logo rectange it. It combines organisational skills and personal interactions which revolve around books and writers. Apart from the buzz of the festival weekend – which is brilliant – I’ve met great people and made good friends. Our volunteers are an awesome bunch, whether students, editors, medical specialists, stay-at-home mums or business executives.

Being the volunteer coordinator naturally limits the number of sessions I can attend at the Newcastle festival. I’ve been to scattered sessions at other festivals, but this year I had the opportunity to attend Sydney Writers Festival for four days, Thursday 19th to Sunday 22nd May. It was the first time I’d had an opportunity to immerse myself in a writers festival with no responsibilities.

27429416It was amazing. More than ten sessions ran concurrently, five sessions a day, at the Walsh Bay area alone, with more in the evening and elsewhere in the city and  suburbs. The sessions I attended ranged from astrophysics and forensic photography of early 20th century Sydney to racial discrimination and fantasy in young adult novels.

One of the great things about writers festivals is discovering new authors.

 Kirsten Tranter discussed her novel, Hold, in which a woman finds a secret room in her new house which seems to have an unsettling will of its own. As I’m a lover of books that are strange and ‘unreal’, a copy of Hold happened to come home with me.

28452843I’ve been intending to get hold of an Emily Maguire novel for a while, so took the opportunity to get a signed copy of her latest, An Isolated Incident. I thought I’d read the opening chapters while sitting at the wharf at Circular Quay, just a few metres from where the ferry was to leave for the trip back to my niece’s house where I was staying. Unfortunately I was engrossed and didn’t notice when the ferry arrived, or when it departed. At least I had a good book to read while I waited an hour for the next one.

I discovered others, but there’s too much from those four days for one post. However, I have to confess to something.

I watched the volunteers. Does that sound creepy?

I also chatted to as many as I could without impinging on their jobs. Maybe there were pointers I could pick up. How were they rostered? What sort of training did they get? What motivates Sydney volunteers?

The results? SWF volunteers – at least, those in the non-representative, convenience sample I chatted with – are motivated by the same things as NWF volunteers. They love books. Some write, and love being around writers, most read voraciously, and all believe in the promotion of books and literacy, and the debate of issues which good writing stimulates.

Bridge1The vast majority of volunteers I had contact with at SWF were helpful and pleasant. At NWF we discuss how happy volunteers make a happy festival, and I enjoyed seeing that play out at SWF. Cheerful volunteers can make waiting in a line amiable rather than onerous. When someone smiles and asks if you wouldn’t mind finishing your coffee before you go inside it makes you feel so much nicer than if she’d snapped that drinks aren’t allowed.
I finished my coffee with a warm, contented glow, which wasn’t just the caffeine.

Okay, maybe it was partly caffeine, but it felt good to be treated the way we asked our Newcastle volunteers to treat festival attendees. It makes no rational sense, but I felt proud of the Sydney volunteers. I had no actual Love and literatureconnection to them, but I knew how hard they worked. Most of them would have been on their feet much of the day, and it’s surprising how much energy volunteer duties take. Near the end of the day they were still polite and smiling, and doing a great job.

I picked up a few ideas and, though SWF is huge compared with NWF, by the end of Sunday I was left with the same feeling I have at the end of Newcastle’s festival.

Booky people are awesome to hang out with.

I mean booky, too, rather than bookish, with its connotations of prudishness and myopia. Some booky people can be overly fond of debate, and some can be pains; you know the ones, who get up to ask a writer a ‘question’ and spend five minutes making-a-comment/giving-an-introduction/blowing-their-own-horn, etc, etc. But on the whole people who read, especially those who read widely, are great company.

I never fail to learn from booky people, even the occasional pain in the butt. Four days among volunteers, writers and festival attendees in Sydney was brilliant.

I’ve come home with ideas, and maybe a few too many of those shiny, smooth, new smelling books. Hey, they have author signatures, okay? And they’re beautiful…

Hi, my name is Sheree, and I’m a biblioholic.

Links
Newcastle Writers Festival
Sydney Writers Festival
Kirsten Tranter’s webpage
Emily Maguire’s webpage

Your Anti-library: Why your unread books are important.

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We all have them.

Booktalk2

Image by gerhard-tinned via https://openclipart.org/

If you’re even a casual reader you know what it’s like to have books on the shelf you’ve been meaning to read for ages. They stare at you every time you walk past, accusing you, whispering insults about laziness just below the level of human hearing.

You want to read them. You just haven’t managed to get to them yet. But, with all those unread books on the shelf, why do you keep adding to them?

I came across a post today that resonated with me so strongly it felt like I was coming home. The website Brain Pickings (which comes up with a variety of fascinating information) quotes scholar Nassim Nicholas Taleb, saying,

Read books are far less valuable than unread ones.

Why? The books we haven’t read are those that hold knowledge and understanding that is not yet ours.

Have you ever stepped over the threshold of an unfamiliar library and felt the wonder of so many books to be explored? Or wandered into a second-hand bookstore or big book sale, and felt the anticipation of discoveries awaiting you?

books6bWhile favourite books hold a special place, there’s something exciting about the promise of a book you’ve never read before and the secrets it holds within, whether it’s fiction or non-fiction. It’s about the unique way your mind expands in fiction, becomes someone else, seeing the world though different eyes and understanding life in a new way. It’s also about the way in non-fiction you’re led through another person’s life or experiences, or their knowledge, interests or theories, in ways that only text can fully demonstrate.

Of course, the more you read, the more you know, but that only makes you realise how much you don’t know. So no matter how much you read, you feel the need for books even more, and so the shelves of unread books grows larger. Taleb calls this collection of unread books an anti-library.

Rather than a library of books you’ve read which can become an ego-booster to show off to others, a anti-library of books you haven’t read is a reminder of what you don’t know, which might help keep such vanity in check.

Brain Pickings quotes first from Lincoln Steffens, an American journalist in the early 20th century, who said,

It is our knowledge — the things we are sure of — that makes the world go wrong and keeps us from seeing and learning.

This is swiftly tied to a quote from Plato;

Most people are not just comfortable in their ignorance,
but hostile to anyone who points it out.

It goes on to explain how Taleb’s ‘Black Swan’ theory centers on “our misunderstanding of the likelihood of surprises” because we underestimate the importance of what we don’t know. Most of us tend to take what we do know “a little too seriously”.

books5bAn anti-library of books of many kinds may aid us in fighting the tendency to become comfortable in our own ignorance. Not in order for the books to remain unread, of course, but to keep replacing the ones we read with new ones, reminding ourselves that there is always so much more in this world to understand, so much more to learn, than one person alone can ever know.

These days there’s a tendency to think that a few hours of research on the internet on any topic tells us all we need to know. Books disavow us of that notion. There are books written by those who are misguided, of course, but well researched, knowledgeable authors can teach us so much, through both fiction and non-fiction of all types.

So next time you pass by your anti-library shelves of unread books, keep in mind that perhaps those whispers just below the level of human hearing aren’t admonitions about your failure to read them yet. Perhaps they’re practicing, whispering the knowledge and experiences they intend to share with you.

Long live the anti-library.

Links:

Brain Pickings: Umberto Eco’s Antilibrary
Nassim Nicholas Taleb: Facebook page, webpage
Lincoln-Steffens: in Britannica

Kitchen Encyclopedia: #Cherished

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Cookb2bI have many warm memories of my mum, but the most persistent ones from childhood revolve around the kitchen. We could always ‘have a go’ at baking a cake or making toffee, as long as we cleaned up our mess afterwards, though I can’t say I was always conscientious about the clean-up part. If we didn’t know how to make something, we were steered to the stained orange-red Kitchen Encyclopedia on the kitchen shelf.

Its origins are lost in family history. There’s a vague memory of my mother telling me a lady gave it to her when the family lived in Orange (rural NSW), before I was born, but that could be my own confabulation. There’s an inscription inside the cover to someone that might be a mis-spelling of my mother’s name, from someone I can’t read, but the year is clear; 1959. The book has no date of publication, though it’s published by a London publisher and printed in Czechoslovakia. Interesting, then, the spelling of Encyclopedia.

Cookbk4bBut why is it important to me? It means Home. It means Saturdays making cakes, checking anxiously to see if they were done, being careful not to burn myself as I took it from the oven. It means turning cakes out on the cooling rack, making cups of tea, and slicing up the cakes while they were still warm. It means sitting in the tiny dining room, looking out into the back yard and savouring warm cake, our dog begging for crumbs and Mum saying how good it was.

It also means constancy. The Kitchen Encyclopedia was a fixture in my house, surviving changes in furniture, wall colour, floor coverings, and china. Before Google, before personal computers (oh yes, I go that far back), it provided the answers to any questions I had in the kitchen. How do you make toffee? How many teaspoons to a tablespoon? How long does a lamb roast of a particular size take to cook? Cookbk7bWhen we won a seafood platter in a raffle, it even came through with how to cook a lobster thermidor.

And then there were the times I’d sit with it in my lap and browse. The first half is a dictionary of cooking terms and methods. I could learn what a woodcock was, or how one could ‘coddle’, or that if I was ever offered a ‘menus droits’ I would prefer to decline (pig’s ears cooked and served as an entrée). The second half consists ofCookbk9b recipes, but they’re packed in tightly, three or more to a page, with everything from boiled eggs to chocolate soufflé and jellied eels. When I was a young teenager many of the recipes were hilarious. Many more are now old-fashioned, even exotic.

What makes my copy special, though, are not the recipes but the tangible link with my mother, who we lost nine years ago. Early in my marriage we were visiting and somehow she ended up handing me the Kitchen Encyclopedia.

Cookbk8bjpgI don’t use it anymore,” she said. “You always liked it.”

It helped me through many tight spots. I rarely use it for recipes anymore, but it will always be cherished.

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