Bittercon: No Childhood Left Behind

[attackfish]

As YA publishing expands and the internet connects readers from tremendously different backgrounds, it's no longer possible to talk about a "classic" set of formative first reading. How does our collaborative discourse on texts change when we have little in common among our formative reading experiences? And how do we engage with the often problematic heritage of our childhood favorites when no one we want to discuss them with has read them?

The above is the blurb for this panel at the 2011 Readercon, and after I read it, I was mystified. Harry Potter is the Beatles of my generation. When I was in middle school, you weren't anybody if you hadn't read The Golden Compass. Both school districts I went to middle school in assigned Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. Everybody I knew read To Kill a Mockingbird and Lovely Bones. My best friend and I bonded over having both read Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books. I only stopped being in the target audience for YA books four years ago, and even in the information age, that isn't that long ago.

More and more, YA books are becoming best sellers.  Twilight and The Hunger Games have readers in the millions. Talking about the fracturing of reader interest seems a little counter to the evidence.

At the same time that YA and MG publishing is growing, the internet is expanding exponentially.
The world wide web is vast enough that no matter what almost unknown book you fell in love with as a child, there is always someone online who fell in love with it too and would just love to discuss it with you. The blurb touches on this but only in the sense that it brings in new perspectives, people who might have read an entirely different set of books. To me, it was the place where I finally found people who shared my favorite book series (which just won the 2011 Mythopoeic Award for Children's Literature, go Megan Whalen Turner's Queen's Thief!).

What boggles my mind most about the above blurb is the blithe assumption that there ever has been a classic set of books that all children, or at least all bookish children read. We have always been divided by race, nationality, language, region, gender, genre, and taste. My avid readers of a mother and grandmother never read any of the books from their era that I consider classics (Except To Kill a Mockingbird), because they're just not into fantasy, and my grandmother was so turned off by the only Enid Blyton book she picked up that she decided that all children's books were worthless and I'm still convincing her otherwise.

I think the invocation of the internet as part of this new dilemma is telling. Suddenly voices that never had been heard, with their alternate childhood canons are being heard. They've always been there, it's just the people who did the public talking usually came from the same kind of background and were therefore exposed to the same books until now.

People who read the same books will always find each other, and we have always had to deal with people who have different canons of past reading. The community of readers will survive.

What are your experiences with the internet, individual canons, and the fracturing of reader interest? Fandom certainly complicates the matter at least for me, and a lot of you, but not all of you, dear readers are fannish. Is there a set of children's and teen books you would consider to be essential, and why?

Written for bittercon  the online convention for those of us who can't make it to any other kind, on a topic stolen from a panel at the 2011 Readercon.

Comments

[thanate.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the topic is slightly more relevant in the context of something like Readercon, where you're looking at a pool of a couple hundred people to pull your overlapping tastes from. Everyone there will likely have heard of Harry Potter or the Hunger Games, but finding people who've read your favorite lesser-known works may be getting harder in a realspace based on people who read, rather than in an internet space where your search criteria can include the book you want to discuss. Hence the bit about no one we want to discuss them with, I'm guessing.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

They're the ones who brought up the internet. As I said, I think it has less to do with a modern fracturing of reader interest, and more to do with more usually unheard voices showing up at places like Readercon. The topic struck me as a "Oh noes, what to do! People talking about books aren't homogenous".

[lavanyasix.livejournal.com]

Reading that blurb, I hear the echo of arguments like "Why aren't young people versed in the Western canon anymore?" and "What is the hell is the Western canon?" and "Damn it, why aren't my undergraduates chuckling at my witty Antigone reference? That one killed at the department meeting!" It's as you allude to, attackfish, that there's an assumption that there's *one* canon that *everybody* knows and partakes of.

Which I'd say is loosely true in a very, very broad sense, but nowhere near to what that blurb supposes. A century ago people dropped Biblical references and allusions in plays and political speeches because you could expect you audience to have a grounding in Bible stories. Nowadays we make off-hand references to Star Wars and Harry Potter because everyone's familiar with that instead. In fifty years, who knows what it'll be? But I'd call that more "common (pop) cultural currency" than "canon". The former is transient, the latter would be set in stone. What that blurb is supposing doesn't actually exist.


What are your experiences with the internet, individual canons, and the fracturing of reader interest?

Honestly, I've always found people who insist that I *must* read/see/play something to be incredibly annoying. If I can't be a Sci-Fi fan without first watching Firefly and then lighting a candle to Joss Whedon's genius, then I'm happy not to be a fan if it means I don't need to experience their canon.

On the flip side, I don't like to mock people because the stuff they're involved with doesn't interest me and I'm (willingly) unfamiliar with it. I frequent the SpaceBattles forum, and whenever anyone writes a story there, crossover or not, with My Little Pony: Friend Is Magic there is, without fail, some poster who has to come into the thread and give everyone grief: "What the hell is wrong with you? Don't ruin B5/WH40K/Doctor Who/Whatever by bringing ponies into it. Etc..."

Which is hardly fair. I may not like Firefly, that hallmark of current SciFi fandom canon, but I'll admit that there are probably good fics and fanart for it. I love Batman, but if someone crosses it over with Firefly I'm not going to complain. Such a crossover might even be really good -- heck, by far the best fic I've read in 2011 has been fusion between My Little Pony and effing Fallout (<http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/04/story-fallout-equestria.html"), so crack-ish ideas can work when played straight -- but I just won't read it because it's not my thing/canon.

So to summarize, I occasionally find online fandom's popular canon annoying, mostly due to the proselytizing angle (http://www.amazon.com/Joss-Whedon-my-Master-Now/dp/B000B67Q6E) than anything else, but I wouldn't be a dick to groups who like something I don't.

Is there a set of children's and teen books you would consider to be essential, and why?

Peter Pan has stood the test of time, pop culturally, although that's more from its various adaptations than the original book. Harry Potter probably will endure better as a book series. Other than that, I couldn't pick anything 'essential'. Every generation has the books that are important to it. Who knows if stuff like the Golden Compass will still be widely read in thirty years?

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

And that canon has always been the domain of the extremely (and expensively) educated, and therefore class, race, language, nationality, ability, and to a lesser extent, gender specific, and catered to the interests of its privileged group. The dead white guys argument, in other words.

Also, canons (pop cultural and otherwise) are a way of identifying groups. I always knew how to pick out the Jewish kids in my class because they referenced the same stories (Tanakh, Talmud, and folk) that I did. I knew the fantasy geeks, because when I said "Oh no, Sauron has the ring!" they got it. As it was so it is.

On a side note, my dad gets very few non sci-fi based cultural references, and actually asked my mother and I last month what the heck we were talking about, and what was this "Les Mis" thing we wanted to see, and why do you two keep talking about African and European swallows and killer rabbits?

Oh Joss Whedon... I enjoyed the second and third season of Buffy, but can't stand Angel or Firefly, and decided to avoid Dollhouse. Somehow this means I'm not truly fannish, and if I just "got it" (which is to say Whedon's intent) I would be a fan. On the other hand, I keep trying to get everybody to read the Queen's thief books, so hypocrisy, thy name is Fish.

Oh Peter Pan... I can't stand it, actually, and not just because of the Disney 50s adaption. On the other hand, I adore the movie Hook. Go figure. I already mentioned my essential, To Kill a Mockingbird... It's hard thinking of things I think every child should read. I think it would do a lot of kids good to read The Devil's Arithmetic though.

On another side note, I have a feeling the pony hate has to do with the fact that a) it's for kids (hey adults, that doesn't mean it's low quality!) and b) for girls. *sigh*.

[amyraine.livejournal.com]

This is more about classic Sci Fi reading rather than the OT of formative first reading, but I think it still fits into the overall theme of shared canon.

Do either of you (or anyone else commenting) think that if you are a Sci Fi fan you should at some point have read Asimov, Clark, Wells, or one of the other early voices of the genre? Or Tolkien, Lackey, Moorcock, etc. in the case of Fantasy? Maybe not all of them, but at least one of them?

I agree that the idea that 'there is one canon for everyone' is a fallacy, and that pop culture is transient. But I also think that when you (general you) become a fan of a genre, you do yourself a service by reading the works that defined that genre in the first place. That includes YA too.

That's only if you're a fan though. And not every one should like everything within a genre to be a 'true fan'.

Oh, and if we're informally voting on classic YA, 'The Catcher in the Rye', 'The Giver', anything by Jane Yolen...

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

I kinda got to say that as far as official fantasy canons go, I go with Tolkien, Harry Potter, and A Wizard of Earthsea (though not necessarily the rest of the series), and pretty much nothing else. There are other fantasy books I think are magnificent, and truth be told, I don't adore LOTR, but those three are so influential in the genre that I would advise reading them in self defense. I would also advise reading the Odyssey and the Epic of Gilgamesh

But I also think that when you (general you) become a fan of a genre, you do yourself a service by reading the works that defined that genre in the first place. That includes YA too.

This is a little different. What it sounds like they meant was "But children are reading different things than what I read!" with a hint of if you don't read certain books as a child, then when you read them as an adult it doesn't count.

I would advise adults to be cautious when giving The Catcher in the Rye to kids... I read it the day the addict in the family went into rehab, and it reminded me so much of him that I spent three days crying hysterically. This isn't an argument for censorship, just an argument that a book can be fine for one kid and deeply traumatizing to another, because of what the second kid has gone through.

[amyraine.livejournal.com]

"This isn't an argument for censorship, just an argument that a book can be fine for one kid and deeply traumatizing to another, because of what the second kid has gone through."

I read CotR in high school and I thought it was appropriate for that age group. No younger, though.

This reminds me of the recent article, I believe it was in the Wall Street Journal, that lamented the dark elements in YA. I read a few rebuttals in blogs that said, to paraphrase, that teenage life was not all flowers and puppy-dogs, and YA lit should be a reflection of that. That young adults need to see their real life experiences reflected in the literature aimed to them.

I don't mean to deny or diminish your trauma, but I also think that when a book provokes a strong reaction like that, it's doing something right. It's speaking to difficult truths about human existence--in this example, about how mental illness can destroy lives and families when it goes untreated. (Counting addiction as mental illness, here.) Several in my family, including me, have struggled with mental illness. I want to see protagonists deal with the same things I have, even if it sucks and makes me cry.

It would be nice if books contained some kind of warning like those expected in fanfiction, that way someone who would be triggered could avoid that book.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

I wrote one of those essays, and believe you me when I say I agree. On the other hand, kids also tend to have some kind of idea of what they can handle. I had to read this for class when I was twelve, so I din't get to make the choice. It's one thing to say "keep the dark books, because they can save" and another to tell a kid they have to read a certain dark book. Though I didn't have the words for it at the time, that book was triggering for me. So I don't like hearing that a book like that is essential to read to be well versed in a genre. It's a good, valuable book, but there should be no shame in not being able to read it.

I'm not sure how I should say this, given that I know I didn't express myself as well as I would like in the previous paragraph, but given what I have written on this blog about dark YA, I find parts of your reply incredibly condescending.

Thank you for counting addiction as an illness, by the way. So many people try to deny this, and denying it is the only way our legal system continues to justify putting addicts in prison instead of treatment.

I agree with you about warning labels, though I worry they'll be used more by adults trying to screen what their kids are reading than by kids themselves.

My essay, if you want to read it, is here: http://attackfish.livejournal.com/78197.html

[amyraine.livejournal.com]

"but given what I have written on this blog about dark YA, I find parts of your reply incredibly condescending."

Crap. I'm sorry. I respect your opinion very much. I was trying to express disagreement without being offensive, spent a few minutes reviewing my response, and I still failed. Also, I was thinking 'older than twelve' in my choices although twelve is part of the YA demographic, so that's my bad. I'm sorry you were not giving a choice about reading Catcher when it disturbed you.

This seems to go back to your point about teachers thinking that because they read a certain book, everyone should read it. I agree that academics shouldn't have a stranglehold on what makes a book a 'classic', and also with your overall point that there is no one set of books that everyone must read. I voted for Catcher being 'essential' because I remember being told in class that it was a breakthrough novel for its time, doing things authors hadn't dared to do in a book with a teenage protagonist before then. That goes back to my question about fans of a genre reading early examples of that genre. But another book could fit that bill just as well.

Then I wonder, how can a teacher pick books to have the whole class read without triggering a student or running into other problems? One possible option off the top of my head would be to offer alternative books to meet the requirements and earn the grade, but then that eliminates the ability to discuss the book as a class (though maybe that's not a bad thing, I dunno). I'm not an educator, so I can't speak from experience. I'm not sure what a good solution would be.

[amyraine.livejournal.com]

ugh, typo. That should say "given" in the first paragraph.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

I really should have been clearer in that I would never suggest such books should ever be kept from kids, or offered. It's just forcing them on kids is a whole different ballgame. Of course, the pro censorship lobby talks about how we're forcing dark books on our young people too, and I'm left going "stop stealing my words! That doesn't mean what you think it means."

The problem with a single canon, or saying a book is essential, is that it means people who couldn't read it for whatever reason are held to be somehow deficient. When I wrote this post, I hadn't even thought of that.

After I moved, my new middle school combined the kids from all the classes in the same grade who couldn't or wouldn't read a specific book for assigned reading into one group, which usually had ten or twelve kids, and they got to choose from a short list what they would read together. While the rest of us read Speak, they read Stargirl. None of us were allowed to get out of reading Night though... And that'll traumatize anybody. Of course, that's the point.

[lavanyasix.livejournal.com]

I think if you're a fan of a specific genre, it can't hurt to educate yourself in the foundations of that genre and the ensuing responses to those "founding visions" (for lack of a better phrase). For example, knowing about the racist streak in H.P. Lovecraft's writing helps to give new perspective to modern cosmic horror stories like Elizabeth Bear's Shoggoths In Bloom (http://www.elizabethbear.com/shoggoths.html).

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Given his anti-Semitism, it can also make reading Neil Gaiman's Cthulhu Mythos works unintentionally hilarious.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I will be forever grateful to the internet for giving me other people who read my books. Before then I'd never had people for all of them - the boys who shared Danny Dunn with me in third grade weren't reading Little Women or the All-of-a-Kind family; Mom read Zenna Henderson and Anne McCaffrey but not Asimov or Heinlein; the SF readers I met in high school weren't also reading Agatha Christie or L.M. Montgomery and on the flip side I've never read SF-must-reads like, oh, Robert Jordan or Kim Stanley Robinson.

Online I can find *someone* who loves any one of the kinds of books I love, and a surprising number of people who love a lot of them. And in turn that leads me to more of the books I love that I haven't yet encountered (I have been online since about 1986; the number of books I've read and loved purely because of online recs is hard to number by this point.)

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Ditto, and I've been online far less long (having not been born until 1988...) These days, online book reviews account for more than half of what I decide to read. Most of the fantasy fans at my school were a little too into Forgotten Realms for me to share reading choices.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

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