Young Adult Materials

Week 13

Wrap-Up and Course Evaluations

Materials Discussion #6: Dystopias
     Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (free download available @ author's website; also e-audio @     LPL)
    The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness (e-book and e-audio from LPL)
    Unwind by Neal Shusterman (e-audio)
    Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer (e-audio)
    How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff (e-audio)
    The Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

Seminar #17: Graphic Novels and Manga (Corrina)

Shari Sabeti (2011): The irony of ‘cool club’: the place of comic book reading in schools, Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 2:2, 137-149

 

Seminar #18: D-I-Y, Crafts for YAs (Rebecca)

Smith, R. (2010) "Antislick to Postslick: DIY Books and Youth Culture Then and Now." Journal of American Culture, 33(3),  207-215 (search for Journal of American Culture and then the article)

 

 

Week 08

Materials Discussion #4: Sex in YA Lit
    Forever by Blume
    Doing it by Burgess
    Anatomy of a Boyfriend by Snadowsky
    101 Ways to Dance by Stinson  

Seminar #10: Reading Interests of Young Men
    Recommended reading (full citations coming soon):

    Sandro Lingo

Coe, Ellen M. 1895, pp. 118-119. "What Can Be Done to Help a Boy to Like Good Books After He has Fallen into the Dime Novel Habit." http://www.archive.org/stream/libraryjournal14assogoog/libraryjournal14assogoog_djvu.txt

Seminar #11: GLBTQ Teen Lit
Here are the readings for the seminar on LGBT Teen Literature, please read the introduction chapter provided and scan the second chapter in order to get a grasp of what some of the storylines were like in LGBT fiction in the past. Thanks. Gita.

A copy of The Heart Has Its Reasons is in the GRC (stacks no loan). There is also a scanned copy of the excerpts available on webct.

Cart, Michael and Christine A. Jenkins. "Introduction." The Heart Has Its Reasons. Lanham: The Scarecrow Press Inc, 2006. xv-xxii. Print.

 

Cart, Michael and Christine A. Jenkins. "The 1970s: What Donovan Wrought." The Heart Has Its Reasons. Lanham: The Scarecrow Press Inc, 2006. 17-39. Print.

 

Week 12

Conspicuous Consumption and Teen Markets
Seminar #15: Movie and TV Tie-Ins - Ira
    Recommended Reading Gill, P. (2002). The Monstrous Years: Teens, Slasher Films, and the Family. Journal of Film and Video, 54 (4),   16-30.


YA Option due if your seminar is before October 19

Reading
Glenn, Wendy. 2008. “Gossiping Girls, Insider Boys, A-List Achievement: Examining and Exposing Young Adult Novels Consumed by Conspicuous Consumption.” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy 52(1): 34-42. Available online via Western Libraries.

Week 7

Reading Across Media
Seminar #9: E-books and E-Reading and YAs
    Recommended Reading:

Booktalks/trailers and reports due.

Reading
Mackey, Margaret. 2007. Salience and Fluency: The beginnings of stories.” In Literacies across media: Playing the text, 2^nd ed. NY: Routledge: 81-94.  Available through Western Libraries as a Taylor & Francis e-book. [2002 edition is also fine for this reading, available at the GRC: IMS circ 2HR  P96.M4M32 2002]

 

Week 10

Seminar #12: Urban and Street Lit for YAs

Morris, V. J., Hughes-Hassell, S., Agosto, D. E. & Cottman, D. T. (2006).  Street Lit: Flying Off Teen Fiction Bookshelves in Philadelphia Public Libraries.  Young Adult Library Service 5(1), 16-23.

Censorship Challenge: Weetzie Bat (please read a copy for today's class and be prepared to fight for and against the title)

Review #2 due

Reading
Jenkins, Christine. “Censorship: Book Challenges, Challenging Books, and Young Readers,” in Handbook of Research on Children's and Young Adult Literature, eds. Shelby A. Wolf, Karen Coats, Patricia Enciso and Christine A. Jenkins, New York: Routledge, 2011: 443-453.  IMS stack NO LOAN  PS121.H22 2011

Week 5

Seminar #5: Awards and Competitions for YA Materials

Recommended Reading:

Baltic, Sarah. (2010). "Awards." Voice of Youth Advocates, 33 (1) (Apr 2010), p. 6-9 [access via Library Literature Database through Western Libraries]

Seminar #6: Canadian YA Lit

Materials Discussion #2: Recent Award Winners
    Half Brother by Oppel
    Wondrous Strange by Livingstone
    Monkeyface Chronicles by Scarsbrook
    Ship Breaker by Bacigalupi
    Freak Observer by Woolston
    Mockingbird by Erskine

 

Week 2

Teens, Reading and Libraries
Reviews and Reviewing
Library and Bookstore Visits: Visit a library or a bookstore before this week’s class. Make note of your observations for your blog postings and be prepared to discuss further in class.

Readings:

Rothbauer, Paulette. 2006. "Young Adults and Reading." 101-131. Reading Matters: What the Research Reveals about Reading, Libraries, and Community. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited. (please read it for my take on this, but no need to formally respond to it in your reading responses  -- that would just be weird).

Snowball, Claire. 2008. “Teenagers Talking about Reading and Libraries.” Australian Academic and Research Libraries 39(2): 106-18. Available via Western Libraries from EBSCOhost Academic Search Complete.

CM Reviewing Guidelines
http://www.umanitoba.ca/cm/reviewers/guidelines.html
http://www.umanitoba.ca/cm/reviewers/considerations.html

VOYA Reviewing Guidelines

Also, read some reviews of YA novels in CM and VOYA and as you read, compare differences in treatment of young adult materials. Be prepared to discuss further in class. In particular, take note of the reviewing strategies that worked or didn't work for you. Did you find out enough about the book to be able to make a purchasing decision or a to be able to make a recommendation to a reader? If you read reviews of a book that you've read -- did the review confirm your own interpretation or responses? Read some reviews of books that you've already read -- how accurate is the review? How helpful?

The Children's Literature Database is a good source for full text reviews, along with Global Books in Print, and Library Lit.

 

Week 1: Introduction

Introductions
What is YA Literature?

Background Reading (if you have time to read through some of this before class, if not, try to do it after the class for background info and knowledge):

Nilsen, Alleen Pace and Kenneth L. Donelson. “Chapter 1: Young Adults and Their Reading,” in Literature for Today’s Young Adults, 8th ed., eds., Alleen Pace Nilsen and Kenneth L. Donelson, Boston: Pearson, 2009: 1-38. IMS stack NO LOAN  Z1037.A1D578 2009

Cart, Michael. “Chapter 17: Young Adult Literature Comes of Age,” 201-210, in Children’s Literature Remembered: Issues, Trends, and Favorite Books, ed. Linda M. Pavonetti, Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2004.  IMS stack NO LOAN  PN1009.A1C513868 2004

Lesesne, Teri S. “Chapter 18: Evolution to Revolution: Young Adult Literature Charts Its Own Course,” in Children’s Literature Remembered: Issues, Trends, and Favorite Books, ed. Linda M. Pavonetti, Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2004: 211-24.  IMS stack NO LOAN  PN1009.A1C513868 2004

Young Adult Library Association. “Current Trends in Teen Publishing and Best Books for Young Adults,” in Best Books for Young Adults, 3rd. ed., ed. Holly Koeling, Chicago: ALA, 2007: 26-76. IMS stack NO LOAN  Z1037.C34 2007  

Reading List: Novels

We will be reading selections from short story anthologies, magazines, poetry and more during the term, but these are the novels that will be assigned throughout the term. All of the titles listed here are widely available from public libraries and bookstores. I have not placed an order for class texts at the UWO Bookstore, so if you intend to purchase your selections from this bookstore you will need to order them. You will only need to read ONE of the selections for each category for class, although you are encouraged to read as many as possible (you will be looking at many more novels and other kinds of literature for your assignments and seminars). Some titles are available as e-books or e-audio from London Public Library. I highly recommend that you get a library card. 

Note: You are welcome to "read ahead" but if you do, be sure to make good notes on plot, setting, characters, appeal, potential challenges etc.  Also, be prepared to revisit the title when we get to it in class. If you've already read titles on the list, please re-read for class, or better yet, choose a title you haven't read. Any questions, feel free to email me.

YA firsts
Hold Fast by Kevin Major
Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (e-book available from LPL)
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton (e-audio available from LPL)

Recent Award Winners
Half Brother by Kenneth Oppel
Wondrous Strange by Lesley Livingstone (e-audio available from LPL)
Monkeyface Chronicles by Richard Scarsbrook 
Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi (e-audio available from LPL)
Freak Observer by Blythe Woolston
Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine (e-book available from LPL)

ORCA Soundings
Any title on the ORCA Soundings imprint. Please bring a copy of whatever you read with you to class. There are 51 titles available from LPL (do a basic keyword search for "Orca Soundings" to browse titles).

Doing It: Sex in YA Lit
Forever by Judy Blume
Doing It by Melvin Burgess (e-audio available from LPL)
101 Ways to Dance by Kathy Stinson
Anatomy of a Boyfriend by Daria Snadowsky

Censorship Challenge Read: Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Bat (e-book available from LPL)

From Zero to Hero
It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini (read the book or watch the movie)
I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak (available as e-audio)
Paper Towns by John Green (available as e-audio)
Getting the Girl by Susan Juby
Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Dystopian YA Lit
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (free download available @ author's website; also e-audio @ LPL)
The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness (e-book and e-audio from LPL)
Unwind by Neal Shusterman (e-audio)
Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer (e-audio)
How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff (e-audio)
The Uglies by Scott Westerfeld