Books for the Beast
Books for the Beast is a conference at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore on Saturday, October 27. While I look forward to attending, I am disappointed by the required reading. The literature is intended to be the best that YA can offer, but most of the books are terrible or mediocre. I know there are lots of great new young adult books (Twisted, Un Lun Dun, Alabama Moon, Strays, Beige, and An Abundance of Catherines are just a few that I’ve recently read and can remember.) Why haven’t these been chosen? Why are we saddled with garbage like Say it Ain’t So, What Happened to Cass McBride, Jason and Kyra, and Sleeping Freshmen Don’t Lie? Does anyone know how the literature is selected? I suspect it is related to the holdings at the hosting library. It is sad that as young adult literature is receiving positive attention for its relevance and literary merit—comix in particular— a significant conference seems to select such insignificant and poorly constructed novels.
Each participant reads from two of the genres (ten books). The genres include Science Fiction/Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Multicultural, Non-Fiction, Real Life, and Suspense/Horror. My chosen genres are Multicultural and Real Life and I have read a few other choices as well. I have read fourteen of the thirty books and found only a few worthy of positive notice. Cecil Castellucci’s Boy Proof, Sharon Flake’s Who Am I Without Him: Short Stories about Girls and the Boys in Their Lives, Siena Cherson Siegel’s graphic memoir To Dance, and of course Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese are complex, eclectic, and arresting works that transcend demographic marketing.
One of the interesting aspects of the conference is that teens are invited to attend for free and share their perspectives and perceptions on this body of literature written for them. Although YA novels have a clear intended audience, the opinions of young readers tend to be overlooked and discounted in favor of expert judgment. I am looking forward to a small shake-up in the hierarchy.
The conference runs from 9:00-4:00 at the Roland Park Country School, 5204 Roland Avenue, Baltimore, 21210. Speakers include author Gail Giles and Mark Siegel, graphic novel artist and editor. For more information, email beast@prattlibrary.org, call 410-396-5356, or visit the Enoch Pratt Free Library’s webpage
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Mmmm. It is disappointing that they haven’t included anything about the “criteria for selection” on their website. I look forward to hearing how the conference goes.
“Does anyone know how the literature is selected? I suspect it is related to the holdings at the hosting library.”
Considering that this is the ninth such event they are having, I would hazard a guess that they have put more thought into it than what their library owns.
I notice you’ve also labeled the book of the keynote speaker, Gail Giles, as garbage. That’s too bad, as I’ve had the opportunity to see her speak, and she’s a wonderful woman and an entertaining and informative presenter. It seems like you won’t get too much out of a conference you’ve already pooh-poohed. The nice thing about the variety of genres the planners have selected is that if you don’t like a particular genre, you don’t have to read any of the books to go with it. Not everyone has the same opinions about the quality of different books. That’s why such variety is needed. Hopefully you’ll find more than just a few books that you like you for this event, or you could even start planning your own event where you are. Then you could meet authors you admire and expose others to what you think is great literature.
I am not alone. The only reason I know about the conference is because my colleagues have attended. Most of them are as disappointed in the selections as I am. Some of the books were published in 2005 if I remember correctly and one of the titles was on the list last year, according to another librarian.
This just seems strange.
I don’t quite see what being a “wonderful woman and an entertaining and informative presenter”
has to do with writing a good book. I’m not criticizing her wonderfulness or her performance style. Of course this is all subjective. Hell, eleven whole people rated Giles’ book positively on Amazon. What do I know…
I think your “love it or leave it” attitude is disturbing. I actually think I’ll get a lot out of this conference and that it doesn’t have to be a lovefest but rather can be a critical exercise. I have no interest in meeting authors and think exposing people to literature happens in other ways.
I am interested in conferences for discussion and just to see how things work.
I actually don’t have any problems with the genres but rather the books within them, although I am uncomfortable with atomizing literature in a seemingly arbitrary way.
What is “Real Life” or “Multicultural”
It’s an interesting discussion I think, not one that should raise hackles.
Do you think I should place trust in the expert opinions of the people organizing this event and not have my own opinions?
Oh, and if anyone is interested, I’ll briefly post my experience after the conference.
“I think your “love it or leave it” attitude is disturbing. I actually think I’ll get a lot out of this conference and that it doesn’t have to be a lovefest but rather can be a critical exercise.”
I never actually suggested that you not attend, but I did say “Hopefully you’ll find more than just a few books that you like for this event, or you could even start planning your own event where you are.” What I meant by that was that in the future, maybe you’d like to gather a group of people to help plan your own event, and run it the way you’d like to see something run. I meant that in a constructive way. The library world, especially the world of teen services, needs more conferences or gatherings for librarians to really discuss what the trends in literature and adolescent life as a whole are, as well as positive ways to reach out to the teenagers in our lives. It just seemed like a shame to me that you already sounded disappointed, at least by the bulk of the reading choices. I would have a hard time going into something with an open mind if I was already disappointed with some of it.
Perhaps you’ll be able to talk to someone who helped plan the conference while you’re attending, and he or she could shed some light on their selection criteria. I hope that it ultimately turns out to be a very rewarding experience and a real forum where people can have thought-provoking discussions.
On a side note, I do have an issue with the “Multicultural” label, especially in the literal sense. We put genre stickers on our teen books here, and it’s never been clearly defined as to what makes a story truly multicultural, and none of our staff can come to a consensus on it. It’s a very arbitrary thing, and I’m always hoping that we’re not inadvertantly offending people. I’ve been considering scrapping that particular label entirely.
Fair enough.
I’m a fan of the Enoch Pratt Library so it can’t be that bad.
Interesting discussion. I had wondered a little about some of those titles, and I wondered whether the organizers intentionally chose some fairly crappy books in order to stimulate discussion and make some points about hack-work vs. decent writing to the teen participants.
On the other hand, I know the organizers, and they’re pretty old-school. Not so much with the subtle.
We’ll see. I’ll see you there!