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Guest Post: Geoff Herbach On Writing Sports in Contemporary YA Fiction

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Why I Write About Sports by Geoff Herbach



When I was fifteen, I ate two peanut butter sandwiches every night before bed.  Yes, I was often hungry.  I was fifteen and dudes of that age are often very, very hungry.  But that’s not why I’d eat those sandwiches.  They actually made me want to throw up, because I’d already had a giant dinner and then I’d lie down with that peanut butter brick in my gut and I’d think “gain weight, gain weight, gain weight” and then I slept fitfully and had nightmares about terrible car accidents and girlfriends leaving me and school hall thuggery.  I was 5’9” and I desperately wanted to weigh 170 pounds by sophomore year.  

In the mornings, I’d take all that peanut butter protein and I’d lift weights like a wild monkey, screaming and throwing things around.  I couldn’t gain weight.

Around that time, my mom, an English teacher, handed me Vision Quest by Terry Davis.  It’s about a wrestler, Louden Swain, who is dropping weight so that he can wrestle the other best wrestler in Washington State.  Louden (yes, there’s a reason my Stupid Fast character is named Felton – dorky version of Louden) works out like a wild monkey.  He puts his health in danger to achieve his goal.  I loved this book so much, I would have glued it to my body (I did carry it everywhere).  

Here’s the thing, though: I entered that book through sports, but I didn’t want to live in it just because there’s a dude in there working out like a wild monkey.  Louden had a complicated home life (I had a complicated home life).  Louden had to go to work after school (I had already delivered newspapers at 5 a.m. for three years), Louden had to make decisions about the importance of his own desires when his desires might harm the community (was I debating individualism with him?).  A really beautiful girl moved into his house (was he adult enough to attract her?).  A host of side characters told him what they knew about life (I listened, too).  The wrestling aspect of the book acted as a candy coating.  The revelation of friendship and true character and real love was the medicine I needed as that dorky fifteen-year-old.  

I was at a Wisconsin High School a few weeks back.  I talked books in front of a group of maybe 100 kids.  It was a Friday afternoon, last hour.  Probably thirty percent of the attendees wore some form of football jersey or t-shirt (the school had a game later that evening).  While a couple of the jersey wearers were obviously larger and tougher-looking than the general audience, most looked like regular kids who might just as easily have been mathletes or band geeks or whatever, except they wore a jersey.  This picture confirmed something I already knew: at most schools there isn’t a stereotypical jock monolith filled with steroidal bruisers hell-bent on crushing the spirits of nerds.  Most athletes are just your average kid.

Whatever average means.  The starting quarterback at the school I visited was also the lead in the musical.

Clearly sports are important in our culture.  Sure, probably too important.  Because they are important, they provide a common language, a doorway.  Wallflowers have their books.  Music freaks have their books.  Lovers of the supernatural have more books than they can possibly read.  Often, these books aren’t about music or geekery or ghosts in the end, but they’re about love and tragedy and friendship and hard decisions.  When I read John Coy, Chris Crutcher, Bill Konigsberg or Matt de la Pena, I enjoy the sports, but mostly, I identify with great characters who are dealing with the complexity of real life.

Thirty percent of the kids in that auditorium wore football stuff.

When I was fifteen, I carried around Vision Quest, not because it taught me about what it takes to be a better jock.  The book taught me about a wider world and a way of being and a way of negotiating complexity.  It both reminded me of me and stretched my understanding and empathy.

I do love athletics.  But, I don’t write about football for the sake of football.  The football player on the cover of Stupid Fast is a point of entry.  And, I’d love to see a copy of Vision Quest in every locker in the locker room.



***

Geoff Herbach is the author of a trio of award-winning YA books about Felton Reinstein, dork turned jock: Stupid Fast, Nothing Special, and I’m With Stupid, which hits shelves in the spring. You can find more info at geoffherbach.com or follow him on Twitter @geoffherbach. Meanwhile he teaches creative writing at Minnesota State, Mankato. 

Contemporary YA Fiction Featuring Diverse Characters Book List

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Looking for a good contemporary read featuring diverse characters and story lines which feature diversity? Here’s a selection worth checking out. I’ve included books where the author or main character are people of color to the best of my ability. I have limited my selection to not include titles specifically addressing LGBTQ or physical disabilities for sheer space reasons. 

All of these titles are published between 2010 and today, and all descriptions come from WorldCat. As always, if you can think of other contemporary titles featuring diversity in some capacity, leave a comment! 

What Can’t Wait by Ashley Hope Perez: Marooned in a broken-down Houston neighborhood–and in a Mexican immigrant family where making ends meet matters much more than making it to college–smart, talented Marissa seeks comfort elsewhere when her home life becomes unbearable.

A Certain October by Angela Johnson: Scotty compares herself to tofu: no flavor unless you add something. And it’s true that Scotty’s friends, Misha and Faclone, and her brother, Keone, make life delicious. But when a terrible accident occurs, Scotty feels responsible for the loss of someone she hardly knew, and the world goes wrong. She cannot tell what is a dream and what is real. Her friends are having a hard time getting through to her and herfamily is preoccupied with their own trauma. But the prospect of a boy, a dance, and the possibility that everything can fall back into place soon help Scotty realize that she is capable of adding her own flavor to life.

Beneath a Meth Moon by Jacqueline Woodson: A young girl uses crystal meth to escape the pain of losing her mother and grandmother in Hurricane Katrina, and then struggles to get over her addiction. 

Boy21 by Matthew Quick: Finley, an unnaturally quiet boy who is the only white player on his high school’s varsity basketball team, lives in a dismal Pennsylvania town that is ruled by the Irish mob, and when his coach asks him to mentor a troubled African American student who has transferred there from an elite private school in California, he finds that they have a lot in common in spite of their apparent differences.

Bronxwood by Coe Booth: Tyrell’s life is spinning out of control after his father is released from prison, his little brother is placed in foster care, and the drug dealers he’s living with are pressuring him to start dealing.

When the Stars Go Blue by Caridad Ferrer: Soledad Reyes decides to dance Carmen as part of a drum and bugle corps competition, not knowing if it will help or harm her chance of becoming a professional ballet dancer but eager to pursue new options, including a romance with the boy who invited her to audition.

The Good Braider by Terry Farish: Follows Viola as she survives brutality in war-torn Sudan, makes a perilous journey, lives as a refugee in Egypt, and finally reaches Portland, Maine, where her quest for freedom and security is hampered by memories of past horrors and the traditions her mother and other Sudanese adults hold dear. Includes historical facts and a map of Sudan.

Stay With Me by Paul Griffin: Fifteen-year-olds Mack, a high school drop-out but a genius with dogs, and Céce, who hopes to use her intelligence to avoid a life like her mother’s, meet and fall in love at the restaurant where they both work, but when Mack lands in prison he pushes Céce away and only a one-eared pit-bull can keep them together.

The Trouble with Half a Moon by Danette Vigilante: Overwhelmed by grief and guilt over her brother’s death and its impact on her mother, and at odds with her best friend, thirteen-year-old Dellie reaches out to a neglected boy in her building in the projects and learns from a new neighbor to have faith in herself and others.

Black Boy, White School by Brian F Walker: When fourteen-year-old Anthony “Ant” Jones from the ghetto of East Cleveland, Ohio, gets a scholarship to a prep school in Maine, he finds that he must change his image and adapt to a world that never fully accepts him, but when he goes home he discovers that he no longer truly belongs there either.

Illegal by Bettina Restrepo: Nora, a fifteen-year-old Mexican girl, faces the challenges of being an illegal immigrant in Texas when she and her mother cross the border in search of Nora’s father.

Under the Mesquite by Guadelupe Garcia McCall: Throughout her high school years, as her mother battles cancer, Lupita takes on more responsibility for her house and seven younger siblings, while finding refuge in acting and writing poetry.

If I Tell by Janet Gurtler: Raised by her grandparents, seventeen-year-old Jasmine, the result of a biracial one night stand, has never met her father but has a good relationship with her mother until she sees her mother’s boyfriend kissing Jaz’s best friend.

Bitter Melon by Cara Chow: With the encouragement of one of her teachers, a Chinese American high school senior asserts herself against her demanding, old-school mother and carves out an identity for herself in late 1980s San Francisco. **Despite the 1980s time period, this is close enough to contemporary in terms of story that I’m including it.

Teenie by Christopher Grant: High school freshman Martine, longing to escape Brooklyn and her strict parents, is trying to get into a study-abroad program but when her long-time crush begins to pay attention to her and her best friend starts an on-line relationship, Teenie’s mind is on anything but her grades.

I Will Save You by Matt De La Pena: Seventeen-year-old Kidd Ellison runs away to work for the summer at a beach campsite in California where his hard work and good looks lead to friendship and love but painful past memories surface in menacing ways.

Jazz in Love by Neesha Meminger: When her mother launches the Guided Dating Plan to find Jazz the perfect, suitable, pre-screened Indian mate, Jazz realizes she must act fast to find a way to follow her own heart and stay in the good graces of her parents.

The Latte Rebellion by Sarah Jamila Stevenson: When high school senior Asha Jamison is called a “towel head” at a pool party, she and her best friend Carey start a club to raise awareness of mixed-race students that soon sweeps the country, but the hubbub puts her Ivy League dreams, friendship, and beliefs to the test.

Bestest. Ramadan. Ever. by Medeia Sharif: Not allowed to eat from sunrise to sunset during Ramadan and forbidden to date, fifteen-year-old Almira finds that temptation comes in many forms during the Muslim holy month, as she longs to feel like a typical American girl.

Ghetto Cowboy by G. Neri: Twelve-year-old Cole’s behavior causes his mother to drive him from Detroit to Philadelphia to live with a father he has never known, but who soon has Cole involved with a group of African-American “cowboys” who rescue horses and use them to steer youths away from drugs and gangs.

Guest Post: Ashley Hope Perez on Why Diversity Matters in Contemporary YA Fiction

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Diversity in Contemporary YA Fiction by Ashley Hope Perez
I came to care about diversity in YA first as a reader. As a high-school English teacher, I shared a quest with my students in Houston, a quest to find those books that would speak to them and their varied experiences.


We had plenty of successes, but there were a number of students for whom it seemed that the gateway book—that critical read that would persuade them of all that words can do—was missing. “I want a book that shows how my life really is,” I heard over and over. “Not just somebody brown, but somebody real,” one student insisted. And, “please, I can’t stand it when they make it seem like if you just get accepted to college you’ve got it made.” That last bit came from one of my top-performing seniors, an impressive scholar by all accounts but also a young woman who had few illusions about the conflicting demands she would be facing in the coming years.


It wasn’t long before my students—aware of my aspirations to “one day” write a novel—began to recommend (okay, insist, pester, badger) that I write the book that they were looking for. It turned out to be the greatest of many gifts they gave me, and my students were both my inspiration and the first readers for What Can’t Wait.

Often I hear from readers of What Can’t Wait and The Knife and the Butterfly with questions along the lines of, “How did you know it was like this for me?” Readers of What Can’t Wait sometimes assume that I’m telling my own story (I’m not, except in that something of every author lodges in her books), but since The Knife and the Butterfly deals with gang culture and is narrated from a Salvadoran-American teenage male’s perspective, the question is all the more frequent in that context. How does a nerdy, twenty-something mother make the leap into that world?

In truth, the answer is the same for both cases: I listened.

For What Can’t Wait, I listened to my students as they talked through the latest crisis, listened to their gossip in the hallways during passing period, cherished the stories and notes they shared to help me develop the story. For The Knife and the Butterfly, I heard the voice of a lost boy while reading in the papers about a gang fight and its aftermath, and I knew I had to learn how to become the writer who could tell his story. In the process of growing into that role, I listened to hours of interviews with MS-13 members, especially focusing on the aspects of the experiences described that challenged my preconceptions. I did other research, too, but it mattered especially to voice that experience as it was lived by real youths.

The best diverse reads grow out of a sense of urgency and a sense of particularity. For me, urgency often comes from a feeling that my audience—often “at-risk” or otherwise marginalized teens—needs the story I’m telling. Making particularity a priority argues against giving a character a particular background, social status, or sexual orientation because one feels—in some abstract way—that one “should” do it. Rather, we do best when those characteristics are part of a compelling character whose experience of the world is based in who they are—or who they are becoming—but is not defined by or limited by any one characteristic.

The enemy of particularity is, in my opinion, tokenism, where a character’s background is either basically arbitrary or is the only reason they are included. I read a YA novel recently that had two characters of color (out of four focal characters), and both plugged neatly into a stereotype: the cool Indian-American with emotional commitments to extended family on the one hand and the financially strapped Latino working as a busboy on the other. The problem wasn’t so much that these details were part of the character profile; it was that they were defining features. Most of the characters’ actions—and much of their story—found motivation in these relatively superficial factors.

That’s not to say that we should immediately veto all novels that seem to draw on stereotypes. A crucial strategy in some narratives is to engage a stereotype up to a point so as to gradually dismantle it through the course of the narrative. This is what I try to do, for example, with the trope of the Hispanic family as a barrier to individual success in What Can’t Wait. While the protagonist struggles with her family’s ever-increasing expectations, in the end several members of her family rally around her to help her overcome her own personal crisis. Similarly, while I have a Latino dropout and gang member narrate The Knife and the Butterfly, his misogynist views and macho bravado gradually peel away as he comes closer and closer to total desperation.

When I have the chance to talk with librarians or teachers about book selection, I often beg them first to make sure their collection goes well beyond the default “diversity” titles. By the time my (mostly Latino) students reached my senior English class, most of them had read The House on Mango Street—in part or in whole—a half dozen times. While the absence of a broad selection of diverse YA titles can reinforce students’ feelings of exclusion and general disengagement from the world of books, offering students (whatever their background) a sense of the range of YA can generate a sense of excitement.

Here are the questions that I ask myself when evaluating a YA novel that includes a non-mainstream character. Is the book of comparable literary quality to other books in its genre/category? Will the style/voice/pacing/themes of the novel appeal to some portion of my target group? What role does the character’s background play in the story? If the plot involves issues of identity, does it complicate those issues somehow? Does the character act and make choices, however narrow the margin of possibility may be for him or her? Does the story incorporate recognizable stereotypes? If so, are these complicated or challenged somehow? What new readers might I reach with this book? For whom would this be a “gateway drug” read?

There’s no formula for what makes a good diverse read, but in setting priorities, it’s helpful to think through these questions. They can help us to step out of our own preferences and dig into the needs and appetites of the readers we want to serve.
***
Ashley Hope Pérez is the author of two YA novels, The Knife and the Butterfly and What Can’t Wait. What Can’t Wait was inspired by her high-school students in Houston and was named to the YALSA 2012 Best Fiction for Young Adults list. Her latest novel, The Knife and the Butterfly, explores the lives of two teens connected by their struggles—and by an act of violence. Kirkus Reviews called it “an unflinching portrait with an ending that begs for another reading.” You can find Ashley online at www.ashleyperez.com, on Twitter (@ashleyhopeperez), and on Facebook and Goodreads.

Guest Post: Lisa Schroeder on Alternate Formats in Contemporary YA Fiction

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Alternative Formats in Contemporary YA by Lisa Schroeder




Some things in life are exact. Baking great grandpa’s favorite cookies from a recipe that’s been passed down through generations. Planting bulbs in the fall so you’ll have flowers that bloom in the spring. Balancing a checkbook. Writing, however, is not one of these tasks where there is a step-by-step process that gets you guaranteed results. Creativity does not like guidelines. It does not want to have a “right” way and a “wrong” way. Instead, it wants a thousand possibilities, at least.


That’s the beauty of writing, really. It is an art, like painting or making music or sculpting clay. Would anyone ever say to an art student – you must draw with a black pencil? Or to a musician – you must play with a piano?

And although writers aren’t told there is only one way to write a novel, I think it can be a difficult decision to do something outside of the norm.
Sometimes, however, an author feels strongly that a story would be better served by something other than one point of view, or a straight timeline, or traditional chapters, and so, she chooses to take the path less traveled.

I think we see alternative formats in contemporary YA especially because in today’s world, many teens don’t want a “right” way and a “wrong” way to live. Whether it’s their interests, their sexuality, or even their world views, things often aren’t black and white. There are choices. Sometimes, lots of choices, and so, it makes sense to me that contemporary young adult novels would push the boundaries, not only in exploring tough topics, but also in exploring different formats for the storytelling itself.

As the author of four verse novels for teens, I get asked over and over again, why? Why write in verse? I have given different answers over the years. Sometimes I say it’s because it creates an atmosphere I can’t get with prose. Sometimes I say it’s because it gets at the heart of the emotional story. And sometimes I say, because that’s the way the story wanted to be told.

The truth is, I don’t even think about why I’m doing it, really. All I’m doing is trying to tell the story that is in my heart the best way I can. If a story wants to be told in a sparse, poetic way, then I’m going to honor the story and tell it the way it wants to be told. Some people are turned off by this format, some think it’s a stupid gimmick, some think it’s not poetry at all, some HATE VERSE NOVELS WITH ALL THE CAPITAL LETTERS IN THE WORLD. I know these things all too well. But I also know that every week I get letters and e-mails from teens who say, “I usually hate to read, but I love your books…”

I think it’s important for people, and adults especially, to not be too quick to judge the alternative formats we see in YA novels. These alternative formats speak to the way teens live and communicate. As YA author Stasia Kehoe said in this great blog post (http://swardkehoe.blogspot.com/search/label/verse novels), “I live in a world of Twitter (haiku?), of texts from my teens, of vlogs and cartoons, of compact little Facebook status reports. I live in a world of cool fonts and snarky signage. I live in a world of rap music and catchy advertising slogans.”

Shouldn’t contemporary YA authors be allowed to play with their stories the way teens love to play with words and images on tumblr? Because when an alternative format works, it can really make an impact.

One of the books my now 15 YO reluctant reader son read and enjoyed last year was CRACKED by K.M. Walton. CRACKED is a book with two points of view, Victor and Bull. Whenever an author decides to do more than one point of view, she’s taking a risk, because the reader is going to want a good reason for doing so. In this case, it works well, because Victor is the victim and Bull is the bully. It’s fascinating to see things from Bull’s viewpoint, to see how he came to be the way he is.

I recently read Matt de la Pena’s novel I WILL SAVE YOU, and Matt chose to tell the story by alternating between the past and present day, something I do as well in my upcoming novel FALLING FOR YOU. There’s a lot of tension in a book written this way, but that’s why it’s so great. At least I think so. Others may become frustrated and want to throw the book across the room. Only certain stories are going to work this way, and the reader has to put a lot of trust in the author, because answers to questions don’t come for a long time about what exactly is going on. The whole time the reader is thinking, the payoff better be worth it. I thought the ending to I WILL SAVE YOU was brilliant, and I didn’t see it coming.

Every time an author writes a novel in an alternative format, he/she is taking a risk. There is more to pick apart. There is more to criticize. “It would have been better in regular prose” some people say about my verse novels. Maybe. Maybe not. I’ll never know, because I chose my path and I followed it and it got me to the end of something I was proud of and something I was happy to share with others.

It’s not always easy being the author who does something different. But writing a novel is never easy. We do it the way we choose to because our creativity whispers to us, I like this. Keep going. If there is one voice the author must listen to above all else, it is that one.

As readers, I say let’s be glad there are choices. Let’s be thankful we have authors willing to take risks. And most of all, let’s celebrate and respect differences.
***
Lisa Schroeder is the author of five YA novels, all with Simon Pulse, including THE DAY BEFORE, a contemporary novel which was a 2012 Oregon Book Award finalist and a 2012 ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers. Realistic teen fiction is on her list of favorite things, right up there with cupcakes and the TV show Friday Night Lights. Look for her new contemporary YA, FALLING FOR YOU, coming 1/1/13. You can find her on the web atwww.lisaschroederbooks.com and on twitter at @lisa_schroeder.

YALSA’s YA Lit Symposium Presentation

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Want a recap of the presentation I gave alongside Angie Manfredi, Andrea Sowers, Katie Salo, and Abby Johnson (who couldn’t attend but contributed significantly) or you missed our session and want to see what we talked about? Here you can check out our Prezi, and you can download the 15-page handout.

Our presentation covered what’s going on in contemporary YA fiction today, emphasizing titles that are very current. Nothing we talked about was published before 2010, and our handout includes a significant section of titles that are forthcoming.

The Prezi itself is nothing fancy, though we’ve categorized our talk by topics (diversity, desire, darkness, and death — covering diversity, romance, tough topics, and mystery) and each highlighted roughly 10 titles that fit our category.

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Contemporary YA on Prezi

I’ve made my portion of the presentation a viewable document here, so you can see what books  I talked about and you can see how I framed the importance of “dark” topics.

Want to know what we’re recommending you check out beyond these titles? This handout should give plenty of insight into the breadth of contemporary YA fiction.

Ya Lit Symposium Hand Out

Feel free to download, copy, and use any information from our presentation. Just give credit where credit is due. A huge thank you to everyone who attended, and don’t forget to check out our Flowchart to Contemporary YA Fiction.