Comments on: >Again? http://www.hbook.com/2011/06/blogs/read-roger/again/ Publications about books for children and young adults Tue, 14 May 2013 17:58:36 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 By: sally apokedak http://www.hbook.com/2011/06/blogs/read-roger/again/#comment-11130 sally apokedak Wed, 08 Jun 2011 21:45:11 +0000 http://nyad1/wp-thb/?p=3701#comment-11130 >I was with you up until point 3.<br /><br />Good post, though. The best I've seen on the topic. Point 3 notwithstanding. :) >I was with you up until point 3.

Good post, though. The best I've seen on the topic. Point 3 notwithstanding. :)

]]> By: janeyolen http://www.hbook.com/2011/06/blogs/read-roger/again/#comment-11129 janeyolen Wed, 08 Jun 2011 19:30:02 +0000 http://nyad1/wp-thb/?p=3701#comment-11129 >I should have guessed Leda, since you're my sister and we're almost twins.<br /><br />Jane >I should have guessed Leda, since you're my sister and we're almost twins.

Jane

]]> By: cathiesue http://www.hbook.com/2011/06/blogs/read-roger/again/#comment-11120 cathiesue Tue, 07 Jun 2011 19:08:29 +0000 http://nyad1/wp-thb/?p=3701#comment-11120 >I polled several teens regarding thei article. They just don't care. They read what they want. >I polled several teens regarding thei article. They just don't care. They read what they want.

]]> By: Anonymous http://www.hbook.com/2011/06/blogs/read-roger/again/#comment-11116 Anonymous Tue, 07 Jun 2011 14:39:03 +0000 http://nyad1/wp-thb/?p=3701#comment-11116 >Jane-- I am the anonymous who unwittingly stole your post and also forgot to sign my name. Ditto on Thurber, especially THE 13 CLOCKS.<br /><br />leda >Jane– I am the anonymous who unwittingly stole your post and also forgot to sign my name. Ditto on Thurber, especially THE 13 CLOCKS.

leda

]]> By: Anonymous http://www.hbook.com/2011/06/blogs/read-roger/again/#comment-11115 Anonymous Tue, 07 Jun 2011 14:24:32 +0000 http://nyad1/wp-thb/?p=3701#comment-11115 >I read this depraved book where the parents abandoned their children to die, then a cannibalistic predator lures them into captivity, and when one of the siblings was going to be killed the other sibling [who was enslaved] murdered the captor and they escaped. Oh wait, that wasn't contemporary YA, that was Hansel and Gretel.<br /><br />When I read this book to a child recently and got to the ending, she looked up at me, beaming, and commanded: "AGAIN" >I read this depraved book where the parents abandoned their children to die, then a cannibalistic predator lures them into captivity, and when one of the siblings was going to be killed the other sibling [who was enslaved] murdered the captor and they escaped. Oh wait, that wasn't contemporary YA, that was Hansel and Gretel.

When I read this book to a child recently and got to the ending, she looked up at me, beaming, and commanded: "AGAIN"

]]> By: Melinda http://www.hbook.com/2011/06/blogs/read-roger/again/#comment-11114 Melinda Tue, 07 Jun 2011 13:40:57 +0000 http://nyad1/wp-thb/?p=3701#comment-11114 >I have an idea that the WSJ was just trolling us again. But it's always so fun when authors put the smackdown on 'em. Then I start thinking that maybe the world's going to be okay after all. >I have an idea that the WSJ was just trolling us again. But it's always so fun when authors put the smackdown on 'em. Then I start thinking that maybe the world's going to be okay after all.

]]> By: janeyolen http://www.hbook.com/2011/06/blogs/read-roger/again/#comment-11113 janeyolen Tue, 07 Jun 2011 06:43:07 +0000 http://nyad1/wp-thb/?p=3701#comment-11113 >Hey, anonymous, you stole my post! I was going to say there were NO YA books when I was growing up, outside of a few Sweet Sixteen books. And I read a lot of Dostoyefsky, War and Peace, all of Joseph Conrad, as well as Sorrows of Young Werther, Edgar Allen Poe, and as an antidote to all this lots of James Thurber.<br /><br />Jane >Hey, anonymous, you stole my post! I was going to say there were NO YA books when I was growing up, outside of a few Sweet Sixteen books. And I read a lot of Dostoyefsky, War and Peace, all of Joseph Conrad, as well as Sorrows of Young Werther, Edgar Allen Poe, and as an antidote to all this lots of James Thurber.

Jane

]]> By: Anonymous http://www.hbook.com/2011/06/blogs/read-roger/again/#comment-11112 Anonymous Tue, 07 Jun 2011 01:49:01 +0000 http://nyad1/wp-thb/?p=3701#comment-11112 >There were very few YA books when I grew up. Instead I read Crime and Punishment, The Mill On the Floss, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Lord of the Flies. A whole bunch of light, wholesome reads. >There were very few YA books when I grew up. Instead I read Crime and Punishment, The Mill On the Floss, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Lord of the Flies. A whole bunch of light, wholesome reads.

]]> By: Ginger http://www.hbook.com/2011/06/blogs/read-roger/again/#comment-11111 Ginger Tue, 07 Jun 2011 01:44:51 +0000 http://nyad1/wp-thb/?p=3701#comment-11111 >Hi, Roger: I appreciate you describing the WSJ's previous "YA is too dark" article in 1997, particularly the mention of Chris Lynch (who I love). And I too wondered where were the mentions of both Ellen Hopkins and Sarah Dessen. <br />Didn't we discover years later that Go Ask Alice was fake? I mentioned this once at a writers conference and some young writer in the front row looked so crushed. Man, Go Ask Alice was incredibly juicy. We passed it around in middle school. <br />We also read lots of FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC and that is some dark crap. >Hi, Roger: I appreciate you describing the WSJ's previous "YA is too dark" article in 1997, particularly the mention of Chris Lynch (who I love). And I too wondered where were the mentions of both Ellen Hopkins and Sarah Dessen.
Didn't we discover years later that Go Ask Alice was fake? I mentioned this once at a writers conference and some young writer in the front row looked so crushed. Man, Go Ask Alice was incredibly juicy. We passed it around in middle school.
We also read lots of FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC and that is some dark crap.

]]> By: Elizabeth Law http://www.hbook.com/2011/06/blogs/read-roger/again/#comment-11110 Elizabeth Law Mon, 06 Jun 2011 21:56:19 +0000 http://nyad1/wp-thb/?p=3701#comment-11110 >My favorite part of your post is when you say "It was Sheila Egoff who pointed out that the audience for Go Ask Alice was not drug-crazed runaways but nice little middle-class junior high girls with a taste for melodrama." <br /><br />I did an interview two weeks ago with Egmont's author Allen Zadoff on Cynthia Leitich-Smith's blog. I mentioned Go Ask Alice by name--both how very much I was attracted to the darkness of it, and how a neighbor (in reality, my Girl Scout leader) called my mother up to complain that I was reading it. In 1973.<br /><br />The interview also ran a photo of my looking exactly like what Sheila Egoff describes--a middle-class junior high school girl who loved melodrama. But I was also pissed off--in that photo and in my life. I felt a helluva lot of pressure from my own well-intentioned parents to achieve and fit into their standards, and Go Ask Alice and Dinky Hocker and a great, nearly forgotten book of Rosemary Wells', None of the Above, showed me kids who were bucking the getting good grades and achieving trend. I didn't *really* want to be any of them, but I was happy to admire them from the safety of my comfortable, well-heated suburban home. >My favorite part of your post is when you say "It was Sheila Egoff who pointed out that the audience for Go Ask Alice was not drug-crazed runaways but nice little middle-class junior high girls with a taste for melodrama."

I did an interview two weeks ago with Egmont's author Allen Zadoff on Cynthia Leitich-Smith's blog. I mentioned Go Ask Alice by name–both how very much I was attracted to the darkness of it, and how a neighbor (in reality, my Girl Scout leader) called my mother up to complain that I was reading it. In 1973.

The interview also ran a photo of my looking exactly like what Sheila Egoff describes–a middle-class junior high school girl who loved melodrama. But I was also pissed off–in that photo and in my life. I felt a helluva lot of pressure from my own well-intentioned parents to achieve and fit into their standards, and Go Ask Alice and Dinky Hocker and a great, nearly forgotten book of Rosemary Wells', None of the Above, showed me kids who were bucking the getting good grades and achieving trend. I didn't *really* want to be any of them, but I was happy to admire them from the safety of my comfortable, well-heated suburban home.

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