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“For the Girls” in Dedication

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I don’t pay a lot of attention to dedications in books. Most of the time, those are personal to the author, naming people in their lives who are important to them — family members, friends, someone who helped them significantly while writing the book. I find acknowledgement pages far more interesting to read.

But that’s changed a little as I’ve noticed a small trend in YA dedications. It’s a trend I love, and it’s one that I hope I keep stumbling upon. These are dedications to girls. Not just one girl, but to girls more broadly, offering them a piece of advice, a word of kindness, or a piece of hope. A lot of these dedications make perfect sense in context with the book too. If the book’s about strong girls or about a girl who learns what it means to be a girl, that sort of dedication feels like a sweet message from the author to the reader holding the book. 

Here’s a round-up of recent dedications I’ve seen “for the girls.” This is incomplete, as it’s something that I’ve only just started to notice. If you can think of others, let me know in the comments so I can track down those books and include a shot of the dedication. I’d love to have enough to do another big round-up of them, and I know they’re out there. 

I’m including a description of the book and, for some, the publication date, since these aren’t all released yet. Descriptions are from WorldCat.

Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Fifteen-year-old Tiger Lily receives special protections from the spiritual forces of Neverland, but then she meets her tribe’s most dangerous enemy–Peter Pan–and falls in love with him.

Gabi, A Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero
Sixteen-year-old Gabi Hernandez chronicles her senior year in high school as she copes with her friend Cindy’s pregnancy, friend Sebastian’s coming out, her father’s meth habit, her own cravings for food and cute boys, and especially, the poetry that helps forge her identity.
Glory O’Brien’s History of the Future by A. S. King
As her high school graduation draws near, Glory O’Brien begins having powerful and terrifying visions of the future as she struggles with her long-buried grief over her mother’s suicide.

The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma (March 24, 2015)
Orianna and Violet are ballet dancers and best friends, but when the ballerinas who have been harassing Violet are murdered, Orianna is accused of the crime and sent to a juvenile detention center where she meets Amber and they experience supernatural events linking the girls together.

The Devil You Know by Trish Doller (June 2, 2015)
Exhausted and rebellious after three years of working for her father and mothering her brother, eighteen-year-old Arcadia “Cadie” Wells joins two cousins who are camping their way through Florida, soon learning that one is a murderer.

Good Girls, Bad Girls, Real Girls: WLA Presentation

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Yesterday, I presented with author Carrie Mesrobian at the Wisconsin Library Association’s annual conference up in the Dells. We talked about teen girls in YA fiction and in the library to a full room of librarians who were really excited to talk with us about this topic. We started out asking for names of strong female characters in YA and got a nice response — then we flipped the switch and asked what the hell “strong female character” even meant. We had a great conversation about how we define strong female characters in YA and how names of heroines in fantasy or science fiction come to mind quicker than those in realistic YA.

Perhaps the best quote was one Carrie tossed out when we were talking about how today’s teens read and how they think about their reading: where we as adults are trying to program the VCR, today’s teens are already streaming the content they want and like.

Rather than try to box teens in, it’s our job as adults who work with teens or who care about them to continue giving them diversity and to quit thinking about them and their interests in binary ways. They don’t think that way, and we shouldn’t either.

For those who attended and asked about our presentation — or those who are interested in it — here’s a link to the Prezi. The books we talked about are included with covers, and you can zoom in as much as you need to to grab titles/authors. There are links to a couple of surveys of teen girls, as well. I’m happy to answer any questions or for those who attended and can’t remember the name of one of the books we talked about, I’m happy to help out.

Advocating for and writing about girls is a radical act

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I’ve been thinking about this tweet a lot the last couple of weeks.

 

After AO Scott wrote about the death of the patriarchy and the death of adulthood, peppered with some disdain for YA, it’s hard not to see that the act of writing about and caring about girls is anything less than survival writing.

 

It’s a radical act.

 

Scott and fellow “adulthood is dead” author Chris Beha believe that our media and culture aren’t encouraging people to behave in certain, pre-defined ways that signify adulthood. That people — “people” meaning anyone who isn’t a middle age, straight white male — keep seeking out entertainment and experiences that keep them in some state of arrested development. YA books, of course, are a medium undermining the patriarchy and delaying maturity.

 

Last week, news came out that two female librarians were being sued to the tune of over $1 million dollars for character defamation for speaking out about a male colleague who, over the course of many years of his career, caused discomfort among many females in the field. The lawsuit claims the women “have caused him to be regarded with feelings of hatred, contempt, ridicule, fear, dislike, approbrium or disesteem. The defendants’ statements are clearly defamatory and impossible to justify.”

 

Rabey and de jesus, the two female defendants in the case, spoke up where other women in the field have not. This act of speaking up is radical. They spoke up on behalf of other women who couldn’t find their voices to do that. Murphy’s lawsuit, as much as it claims to be about defamation of character, isn’t that.

 

It’s about power and putting fear into not just Rabey and de jesus, but it’s an act of creating enough fear that other women won’t speak out against him or others. It’s about keeping them quiet.

 

At the same time this lawsuit unfolds, YouTube personality Sam Pepper released a video featuring him pinching girls’ butts without their permission. After mass uproar within the community, the video came down, but in its wake, more women spoke up. Laci Green detailed Pepper’s creepy behavior, and as this things go, she received a series of messages from Pepper meant to put her right back in her place.

 

One reason that YA books bear the brunt of cultural criticism and become a popular whipping boy in mainstream media by people who couldn’t be bothered to read beyond the few books on the New York Times List or those books that became box office hits is that it’s a field that’s seen as a women’s field. Like librarianship, writing for teenagers is something that women do, something that the luxury of time and love of fantasy worlds — whether real fantasy or imagined fantasy is up for debate — afford them.

 

YA stories, at least the ones critics are familiar with, don’t leave room for boys and boyhood. They don’t wrestle with the big questions of life. They aren’t handbooks to adulthood or compasses for morality. They’re frivolous works so many adults gobble up by the armload because adults can no longer grapple with the Big Important Questions Of Life as found in tomes of literary excellence.

 

To bear witness to other adults enjoying the act of reading and finding stories that satiate them is to bear witness to the dumbing down of culture.

 

An email came through on a small, private listserv I’m a part of a couple of weeks ago from a librarian tasked with running a book club as an elective in her middle school. The students, 8th graders, are all girls, and the first title they picked was Speak. The librarian was told from above she needed to pick something less controversial, and when her students discussed other options, they picked Before I Fall. She knew that wasn’t going to fly with administration, either, so she came to the listserv asking what could be done.

 

It’s interesting that the books these 8th grade girls want to read in this private (and Catholic) school involve two huge issues: sexual assault and bullying. These are topics these girls are seeking out to talk about and because of administrative push back from the top, they’re not able to do so in a safe space, in the presence of a professional who knows how to handle conversations like this.

 

This is no fault of the librarian. It’s the fault of adults who are failing to have these conversations with teens. When our educational system is founded on teaching the classics and heralding the value of those Tomes of Literary Importance, readers who want more — who deserve more — have to go elsewhere.

 

Meanwhile, some readers are “so sick” of rape books in YA and it’s a topic that’s already been done.

 

What can we make of readers who are desperately seeking out these books in a culture that doesn’t want to talk about them or, worse, is “so sick” of talking about them and seeing them? What can we make of readers — girls — who are constantly reminded that their interests are either controversial or silly?

 

This isn’t the fault of educators; it’s a weakness in the system of belief that the road to successful adulthood is through the voice and experiences of the straight white male. It’s the fault of a society that values and encourages a certain prescribed path and any deviation from it is, in fact, a failure of the individual, rather than a failure of such a singular, privileged perspective.

 

Bucking that norm is an act of survival. Choosing to write and to talk out against those in power is an act of radicalism.

 

The reason we need another rape book, the reason we need to talk about books like Speak or Before I Fall or Pointe any other number of books tackling tough issues through the perspective of teen girls is because that’s where teen girls find their voices. That’s where they’re able to see both the mirrors of who they are, as well as the windows into the worlds of those who look like them and those who don’t look like them.

 

Earlier this month, nude photos of many well-known Hollywood women were stolen and put onto the internet for public consumption. This was no leak; this was theft. The purpose of this theft was to prove power — the power that our world has over women, the reminder that no matter how successful, how admired, how talented you are, there’s always a way the world can bring you down. That if you’re a woman, you’re part of a man’s world, no matter how much of a stake you put into the ground, no matter how much you make your own.

 

And this week, just months after a vile, repugnant rant against successful women in the book world, Ed Champion harassed another female author, threatening to release the name of the person who had nude photos of her. And he did, before his Twitter account was suspended.

 

There’s no dead patriarchy in these acts. If anything were true about either Scott or Beha’s essays to be pulled in here, perhaps it’s about what adulthood looks like. Does adulthood mean reminding women that their bodies are always up for consumption? That they’re afforded no privacy?

 

Is it that when a man has power and is invited to speak on the library conference circuit, he’s free from being called out for behavior that’s left colleagues uncomfortable?

 

Is it that men are allowed to grab girls’ bodies without their permission for laughs and video hits, then follow up just criticism for that behavior with threats?

 

Girls shouldn’t fear for their lives when they’re just living them. Girls who are impassioned about their worlds, who want nothing more than to engage with their world, learn about that world, build empathy for this place and the people around them, who use their knowledge and their passion to give voice to their beliefs shouldn’t worry about their bodies — or their lives — being at stake for doing so.

 

And yet, because we’re asking for and raising our voices without waiting for permission to do so, it happens.

 

The reason there’s fear that “adulthood is dying” isn’t that the patriarchy is dead. Far from. It’s that voices are being discovered through media like YA fiction, sharpened and raised. Girls are finding good things are out there for them, but getting to those good things requires claws. That being unlikable isn’t a character flaw or a death sentence, but instead, a state of being, a way of pushing through, of building confidence.

 

Speaking up, advocating for, listening to, and writing about girls is an act of radicalism. It’s about building an adulthood recognizing that the world is layered and colored with millions of shades of gray and accepting that with better nourishment — including rape stories, bullying stories, sweet or sultry romances, magical tales — the better our world reflects us, rather than us trying to reflect a singular, reductive, and fabricated idea of the world.

 

Let’s encourage those fears expressed by Beha and Scott are things we get to see happen. Writing about girls and believing women is everything that they’re afraid of.

 

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When I speak about girls, I hope it’s clear that I also speak in defense of all along the gender spectrum who are marginalized.

 

Further reading: Anne Ursu talks about the power of empathy, about how Beha and Scott fail to understand that that’s the driving purpose behind literature, including — and especially — YA fiction. Sarah McCarry digs into whose pleasure is really at stake when it comes to the “death of the patriarchy” and YA fiction. Spend some time, too, with Robin Wasserman talking about “Girl Trouble.”

 

 

Guest Post: Fiona Wood on Female Sexuality in YA Fiction

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I’ve been thinking and writing about female sexuality in YA for a couple of years now. It’s a topic that continues to fascinate and frustrate me. I’ve talked at length about what good examples are out there, and I’ve talked at length about what’s missing.

Today, I’m turning the blog over to a guest who has written one of the best examples of female sexuality I’ve seen in YA in a long time, Fiona Wood. Her recently-published US debut Wildlife presents an honest and unashamed exploration of female sexuality, offering a range of experiences, emotions, and words to describe a variety of sexual situations. She’s here to talk about the choices she made, as well as what she thinks some of the more solid YA novels that tackle female sexuality are.

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Teenage years are the years of sexual maturation. The location of early sexual experience in a field that ranges from respect/pleasure/affirmation to abuse/fear/vilification is hugely influential in forming a sense of self, and self-worth.
What role can the representation of sex in YA fiction play here?
Although it’s not the job of fiction to educate, it is nonetheless a job that fiction does well. It’s a private delivery of food for thought, away from the classroom. In the context of a society wallpapered with frequently unchallenged sexism and misogyny, fiction can offer, for example, female characters with self-awareness and agency, characters standing up to sexism, characters recovering from abuse. Fiction gives readers the opportunity to test their ideas and experience against those explored in the narrative. When it comes to sex, and particularly to young women becoming empowered, the more information they have, the better. 
When I’m writing, my job is to be true to character, and story. But I don’t write in a vacuum; I’m responding to a time and a social context; writing is political, and I write as a feminist. I have the readership age group in mind, and ask myself what I wish I’d been able to read at thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.
As a teenager I was always searching the bookshelves for intel about sex, and never finding very much. Somehow, Judy Blume’s Forever and Deenie did not make it to the shelves of my school library, though Go Ask Alice, which includes a really disturbing sexual abuse scenario, was freely available. When I read a book that opts for a dissolve when it comes to sex, rather than providing any detail, I can feel my sexually curious teenage-self asking, but what are they doing? What is actually happening? That’s why I like the idea of realistic representation of sex in YA fiction.
During the course of Wildlife’s narrative, protagonist Sibylla’s sexuality is expressed frequently, and is integral to her character. Theory and practice on sex and romance are on a collision course, accelerated by Sib’s manipulative best friend, Holly. The book’s other narrative voice, Lou, recalls a happy sexual relationship from the perspective of grieving the loss of her partner.
I always enjoy reading a treatment of sex that rings true to character. A few favourites include the humour, vulnerability, and honesty in the sex scenes between Tara and Tom in Melina Marchetta’s The Piper’s Son; Evan’s unflinching ownership of his past sexual opportunism in Sex & Violence by Carrie Mesrobian; the tender, awkward beauty of Riley Rose and Dylan’s sex in Everything Beautiful by Simmone Howell; and Deanna’s sense of injustice at the gender double-standard that attaches to her sexual history, in Sara Zarr’s Story of a Girl.   
In an ideal world, by the time they are thinking of becoming sexually active, girls will be well-educated in all aspects of sex and sexuality, and have the knowledge and confidence to trust their judgement with regard to what they do, when, and with whom. I think young readers benefit from access to a range of narratives that deal frankly with sex before they become sexually active. This seems particularly important at a time when most teenagers have seen multiple iterations of pornographic imagery, offering a limited, unrealistic, and often misogynistic representation of sex.  
I hope readers will lose themselves in the story, and find themselves in the characters of Wildlife. I also hope they’ll wonder: What do I want my first sexual relationship to be like? What sort of conversations about sex will I have with a prospective partner? What might I do differently from this, or that, character? 

Ferguson, Race, Civil Rights, Social Activism, and YA Fiction: A Round-Up of Reading

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Rather than write a “This Week in Reading” post this week, I thought it would be more worthwhile to instead round-up and share some of the great book lists and discussions I’ve seen centering around good reading for those interested in discussing and thinking about the situation in Ferguson. The bulk of these resources are geared toward children’s and young adult lit, though some posts go a bit beyond than, as well as a bit beyond books. Topics include race, civil rights, social activism, and privilege.

There are countless angles working here, but they are all important and worth thinking and talking about.

I can’t add anything new or thoughtful to this discussion, but what I can do is give space to those who are generating much-needed and valuable resources and elements of conversation. If you know of additional book lists or topical guides worth mentioning, please drop them into the comments. I’m happy to continue revisiting this.

  • Lyn Miller-Lachmann talks about two YA titles — one out now and one coming out this fall — and the ways that writers and artists respond to social justice. I’m including this post specifically because I cannot get Kekla Magoon’s forthcoming How it Went Down out of my head these last couple of weeks and hope it shows up on your to-read lists. 

  • At Book Riot, Brenna Clarke Gray suggests 5 good books about race in America. These are all adult titles, but teen readers who are interested should be able to read and think about them. 

Both images are from the Ferguson library. 
The left, from the director, and the right, from their Instagram account.