by Michael Cart
Nevertheless, the Times piece proved only the tip of the iceberg, as a titanic number of similar articles began appearing in such outlets as Time, U.S. News and World Report, Wall Street Journal, and Brill’s Content, all of them tut-tutting the spurt in bleak books. The titles of the articles betray the sensational slant of their content: “Reads Like Teen Spirit,” “Frank Tales Tempt Teens,” “Luring Today’s Teen Back to Books,” and “Sex, Serial Killers, and Suicide.” Use of words like tempt and luring suggested, to overcredulous adults, that publishing had become a dirty old man approaching a group of innocent teens and wheezing, “Hey, kids, wanna see some—heh, heh, heh —books?”
Such oversimplification did both publishers and the new young adult literature a disservice. In retrospect, it seems more than likely that the mainstream media were not responding to any perceived changes in or problems with young adult literature but, instead, simply riding the crest of the wave of interest in young adults themselves and in some of the darker aspects of their real lives, including an inarguable increase in teenage drug use (Bass 1997; Wren 1997) and a wave of gun-related school violence that crested (but did not end) with the Columbine shootings in 1999.
The result, unsurprisingly, was a rise in the adult demonization of youth. “According to a new poll,” the late columnist Molly Ivins (1997, A19) wrote in 1997, “we don’t like our own children. A public policy research group called Public Agenda found that only 37 percent of adults polled believe that today’s youngsters will eventually make this country a better place. It seems we consider our teenagers, whom we have long disliked, to be ‘rude,’ ‘wild,’ and ‘irresponsible.’”
The reporter Lynn Smith (1997, E3), writing in the Los Angeles Times, made a cogent point in this connection: “Some youth advocates said such perceptions may be misinformed, largely because many adults shape their opinions from sensational news coverage and studies that focus on problems, rather than actual contact with young people.”
As for those young people themselves, a New York teen named Julia Rosen (1998, 347) may have spoken for her entire generation when she wrote, in VOYA magazine, “Reading ‘bleak books’ helps us to realize what kinds of problems actual teens have. They broaden our outlook and help us become less apathetic about the world’s problems. Until we live in a world where no problems exist, where adults always behave responsibly, and where there are always happy endings, adults must learn to accept that some of the books we read will describe the harsh realities of life.”
The journalist David Spitz (1999, 49) noted what else such reading could do. “Teen books,” he wrote in Time, “may not be able to compete with the visuals of ‘The Matrix’ but they do provide for a few hours what teens may need most: time to think. And there’s nothing bleak about that.”
A Profusion of Prizes
Even though the cutting edge of the new YA literature was inarguably sharper than before, its art was even more acute. The Facts Speak for Themselves was a finalist for the National Book Award, after all, and Dancing on the Edge was the winner of the award that same year. Also, Tenderness and When She Was Good were both selected as ALA Best Books for Young Adults, as were Blood and Chocolate and Making Up Megaboy.
The editorial latitude being given authors for new candor, vigorous truth telling, ambiguity in their fiction, and sharing the sad truth that not all endings are happy ones may have resulted in occasional eruptions of bleakness, but it was also clearly elevating young adult literature to new heights of artistry.
Hence, as noted earlier, a profusion of new awards began appearing to acknowledge this salutary aesthetic reality. Surely, true believers in the viability of young adult literature felt, the time was right for the creation of another award, one that would serve the same purpose for young adult literature that the Newbery Medal did for children’s literature: to recognize the most distinguished contribution to American literature during the preceding year for its intended readership. A noble purpose but one not easily realized. The creation of awards can be a fraught process, I discovered when I became president of the Young Adult Library Services Association in 1997 and found myself taxed with effecting a decision that an earlier YALSA board had made in 1995: to accept, in concept, the proposal of author Amelia Elizabeth Walden to fund the creation of an annual book award for young adults. Walden, the author of some forty-three YA novels published between 1946 and 1977, had, in 1971, established a testamentary trust in the amount of $25,000 for that purpose. And in 1991 the trust had been increased to $50,000.
Such munificence seemed the answer to a YA believer’s prayer, until its specific petitions were examined to reveal that, in her offer, Walden had stipulated that the award committee be required to choose a book relevant to teens, preferably fiction; give equal consideration to literary merit and popularity; and choose a book that reflects a positive approach to life. Alas, the latter two criteria were inherently contentious. As long as there has been a young adult literature, there has been a raging debate over the relative importance, in evaluating it, of merit and popularity. Worse, at a time when YA was finally able to eschew forced happy endings and acknowledge, with candor, the often bleak realities of contemporary teen life, the requirement that the winning book “reflects a positive approach to life” seemed, at best, limiting and, at worst, self-defeating.
Dirk P. Mattson (1997) reported the ensuing brouhaha, at painful length, in his article “Should We Beware of Donors Bearing Book Prizes? Questioning the Walden Award,” and I needn’t elaborate further on it here, except to say that, in retrospect, the incident brought new urgency to the discussion of what might constitute a meaningful award. Ultimately, after much debate, the YALSA board chose not to take action on the offer, tacitly consigning it to the department of benign neglect. A decade or so later, the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents (ALAN) of the National Council of Teachers of English revived it and in 2008 announced its creation of the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award. To be presented annually to the author of a young adult book selected by an ALAN committee, the $5,000 prize would recognize a book “demonstrating a positive approach to life, widespread teen appeal, and literary merit.”3
Plus c’est change …4
The Printz of Prizes
Many of us were still determined to seize the day, however. With the enthusiastic support of YALSA’s deputy executive director, Linda Waddle, and the YALSA Executive Committee (consisting of Pam Spencer Holley, Deborah D. Taylor, and Joel Shoemaker), I appointed—in the spring of 1998—a nine-member task force (with myself as chair) to investigate “the feasibility of an annual award for the best young adult book based solely on literary merit, to establish criteria for selection with necessary policies and procedures, and to explore the mechanisms for effectuating the award.”5
I felt it was imperative that the other eight members reflect the diversity of audience and opinion that is the world of young adult literature and YALSA. To that end, I appointed two young adult book editors—Marc Aronson (Henry Holt) and David Gale (Simon & Schuster); a professional reviewer and critic, Hazel Rochman, of Booklist magazine; the reading specialist Dr. Gwendolyn Davis; two public librarians, Kirsten Edwards and Ed Sullivan; and two school librarians, Frances Bradburn and Mary Purucker. Geographically, the task force represented the West (California and Washington), the Midwest (Illinois), the South (North Carolina), and the East (New York).
Although the task force members came from different segments of the young adult world, the members quickly arrived at a happy commonality of opinion on many major issues that might have been contentious. For example, they found themselves in unanimous agreement that an award for best young adult book was not only feasible but also long overdue. They also agreed that Booklist should sponsor it, and they concurred on a number of necessary definitions: best meant books of exemplary literary merit but not of immense popularity; young adult meant persons ages twelve through eighteen; and young adult book meant a book published expressly for that readership. Thus, boo
ks published for adults—even though they might find a young adult audience—would not be eligible. The reasoning? This was to be an award for the best young adult book, not the best book for young adults. This distinction set the proposed award apart from YALSA’s Best Books for Young Adults list, which does include titles published for adults and includes popularity as a factor to be considered in selecting books for the list.
The second part of the mission—“to establish criteria with necessary policies and procedures”—was a bit more problematic, though again many points were quickly and unanimously agreed on. Here are the most important: The winning book must have been published in the United States during the year preceding its selection; however, it may have been published in another country first. Eligibility is not confined to novels; anthologies are eligible, as are poetry and other works of nonfiction. Works of joint authorship are eligible, too. In addition to a winning title, as many as four honor books can be named. And if no title is deemed sufficiently worthy in a given year, no award will be given.
Following six months of intensive work, the task force presented its recommendations to the YALSA board at the 1999 Midwinter Conference. They were unanimously adopted and—just like that—the Michael L. Printz Award became a reality.6
From the beginning, the task force members believed that an award recognizing literary merit was essential not only as acknowledgment that some of the most risk-taking, artful, and creatively stimulating work in publishing was happening in the field of young adult literature but also as evidence that teenagers need books that are created for them, books that are relevant to their interests and to their life needs. It was, finally, our belief that the Michael L. Printz Award would stimulate the further publication of such books, books that have the enduring power to change the lives of their readers—and perhaps the world they inhabit—for the better. This, as we will see in the next chapter, proved to be the case, guaranteeing that the Michael L. Printz Award would be one not only for a new millennium but also for all times and for all seasons.
Notes
1. Direct quotations in the following section come from an unpublished manuscript of transcripts of the participants’ speeches.
2. Hersch was one of the more memorable keynote speakers at the YALSA President’s Program at the 1998 ALA Conference in Washington, D.C.
3. ALAN Online, “Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award,” http://www.alan-ya.org /amelia -elizabeth-walden-award/.
4. The first Walden Award was presented at the 2009 ALAN conference to Steve Kluger for his antic novel My Most Excellent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins, and Fenway Park (Dial, 2008).
5. Quoted from the official charge of the 1999 Printz Task Force (internal memo).
6. Of course, it wasn’t that simple. Those who are interested in a more detailed account of the award’s creation are referred to “Creating the Michael L. Printz Award,” Journal of Youth Services in Libraries 12 (Summer 1999): 30–33.Part Two
Part Two
This Is Now
a new literature for a
new millennium?
The Renaissance Continues
History was made on January 17, 2000, when—at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in San Antonio, Texas—the first-ever winner of the Michael L. Printz Award was announced, along with three honor titles. Together the four books exemplified the newly literary, inventive, and diverse nature of young adult literature, which the award had been created to recognize.
Ever since 1989, when Francesca Lia Block, in her first novel Weetzie Bat, introduced magical realism and the verbal strategies of imagist poetry to YA literature, the field had become increasingly open to experiments in style, structure, and narrative form. Walter Dean Myers’s Monster—the winner of the first Printz—is an excellent example. Originally conceived by the author as a screenplay, the resulting novel about Steve Harmon, an African American teenager on trial for his life, is told in two different but interrelated dramatic forms: the first is a screenplay, written by the boy himself, who observes of his surreal experience, “I feel like I have walked into the middle of a movie”; the second is his journal (printed on gray paper and set in a handwriting-style font) in which he is able to record the more visceral reality of his interior life and emotional responses (of the prison he writes, “The best time to cry is at night when the lights are out and someone is being beaten up and screaming for help”).
Reflecting the increasingly visual context of contemporary teens’ Internet- ridden lives, the book also includes a number of black-and-white, often digitally manipulated photographs—the work of Myers’s gifted artist son, Christopher—that further ratchet up the reader’s interest and engagement.
Though notable for its innovations, Monster is also very much of its time, rooted—as it is—in adult America’s abiding fear and distrust of teenagers, especially those of color. The title of the book, in fact, is a reference to the prosecuting attorney’s reference to Steve as being a monster.
Two of the three Printz honor books—Ellen Wittlinger’s Hard Love and Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak—are also notable for their innovative formats and structures. The former, an ill-starred love story, includes pages from teen zines (self-designed, self-written, self-published magazines that captivated teen energies and imaginations in the late nineties), along with such other anomalies as handwritten letters, poems, and pages from journals.
The latter is also notable for its nontraditional structure. Eschewing chapters, Anderson divides her debut novel into four sections that reflect a school year’s traditional grading periods. The story is then presented in a series of short scenes told in the first-person voice of the protagonist (and outcast) Melinda, who brings a sense of imperative action to her almost-cinematic accounts by using the present tense and introducing scenes with headings (“Hard Labor,” “Death by Algebra,” “Lunch Doom”) that recall title cards from silent films.
Though more traditional in its structure, David Almond’s Skellig, the third honor title, is a departure in two other senses. First published in England, it evidences that young adult literature—born though it might have been in the United States—has become a global phenomenon. Second, the novel is a metaphysical exercise in ambiguity, raising—but never resolving—the central question of the identity of the eponymous Skellig while tacitly acknowledging the aesthetic and intellectual influence on its author of the British mystic William Blake. A staple of literary fiction, ambiguity had been largely absent from young adult literature, but it is an essential constituent of both Skellig and Monster (the question of Steve’s guilt is essentially left to the reader to adjudicate), and its use is another herald of the coming of age of young adult literature. In this context, it should be added that Hard Love also represents the maturation of fiction addressing gay and lesbian issues and experiences. Its protagonist, John, falls in love with an out lesbian named Marisol, but the bittersweet reality is that—though the two appealing teens are kindred spirits—Marisol is not emotionally equipped to reciprocate John’s tender feelings and, at the book’s end, the two part.
The decade that has passed since the publication of these four landmark titles has, in retrospect, only reinforced the validity of what I wrote about them in my “Carte Blanche” column of March 15, 2000: “Clearly, each of these books is extraordinary in its own individual way, but each has in common with the others innovation, creative courage, unimpeachable style, and, in sum, literary excellence” (Cart 2000a, 1370).
Those words also serve to describe the Printz winners and honor titles in the years that have followed. Many of them also exemplify innovations and new trends that have characterized the literature’s continued aesthetic evolution and, all in all, confirm one of the most exciting trends of the new decade: the emergence of the literary novel for young adults.
Defining Literary Merit
For the reviewer, critic, and serious reader, one of the most interesting opportunities for discussion of this new literature is that matter of ex
actly what constitutes literary excellence or merit or quality. The Printz Award Task Force acknowledged that challenge when it wrote the policies and procedures to guide the selection process. Accordingly, it’s worth quoting the “Criteria” section here in full:
What is quality? We know what it is not. While we hope the award will have a wide audience among readers 12 to 18, popularity is not the criterion for this award. Nor is message. In accordance with the Library Bill of Rights, controversy is not something to avoid. In fact, we want a book that readers will talk about….
Having established what the award is not, it is far harder to formulate what it is. As every reader knows, a great book can redefine what we mean by quality. Criteria change with time. Therefore, flexibility and an avoidance of the too-rigid are essential components of these criteria. . . . [Thus] the following criteria are only suggested guidelines and should in no way be considered as absolutes. They will always be open to change and adaptation. Depending on the book, one or more of these criteria will apply: Story, Setting, Theme, Voice, Accuracy [remember that nonfiction is eligible], Illustration [as are graphic works], Style, Characters, Design (including format, organization, etc.).
For each book the questions and answers will be different, the weight of the various criteria will be different.1
Given this latitude for uncertainty and interpretation, the Printz committees that have served in the years since 2000 have done a heroic job of finding and honoring titles that will stand yet another taxing test of excellence: time. Having myself chaired the 2006 Printz committee, I can testify that the process of selecting the single best YA book of the year is no easy task. It is a process, for many, many worthy books are nominated both from within the committee and from the field. Discussion and sometimes heated debate follow (book lovers are passionate people!), and it is unlikely that the first choice of every single member of every single committee will be the title to receive the top award (or even to be named an honor title). Nor has every choice been a universally popular one with the reading public. And yet, as the following list of winners evidences, these books are not only timely in speaking with relevance to the lives of their contemporary adolescent readers but also timeless in the universality of their art and in their ability to expand the meaning of the word excellence as applied to young adult literature. Consider the Printz winners: