Posted on

Happy & Sad about the NPR Top 100 YA List

 

 

This was a pleasant middle-of-summer surprise! NPR asked listeners to vote for their favorite YA novels of all times, and both SPEAK and WINTERGIRLS made the cut. (SPEAK was #26 and WINTERGIRLS was #99. Given that they only chose the top 100, that one was a little close!)

As lovely an honor as this is, it also made me sad. And angry and frustrated. This just might be the whitest YA list ever. And that is saying something, given that children’s literature is far from diverse. A Minnesota teacher blogged about the issues this raises for all readers. Please take the time to read her post – it is important.

If you are going to browse the NPR list, please also browse through the lists that are linked to over at Reading In Color. Pull all of these lists together and then you’ll have a robust resource for YA readers.

This list was announced almost a week ago and it has taken me this long to process what the honor means to me and what the unbalanced representation means to me, too. You could argue that since the nominations came from NPR’s audience, and that same audience voted for the finalists, that the exclusion of authors of color reflects those voters, and is not any oversight on the part of NPR. The fact that in the commentary, the NPR writers admit they had no idea who John Green was (he has FIVE books on the list and has become a YA force of nature) is another clue that the people involved have a lot to learn about the current state of YA literature.

But then I came across this short announcement, dated 8/2/12: “National Public Radio, criticized in recent years for a lack of diversity of its staff and coverage, is using a $1.5 million grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to put together a six-person team to report stories on race, ethnicity and culture.”

Ya think?

I want to give NPR a thank-you, and also some kudos for at least acknowledging that YA literature is a genre worth paying attention to. But I’d like to challenge them to recognize the bias that they are operating with…. and to fix it. We cannot be a great nation unless and until all of our people are always seated at the table.

Contact the NPR Ombudsman and share your opinion.

Share your opinion with me, too. What do you think about this?

27 comments
Posted on

Tragic revenge of forgiveness – WFMAD Day 12

 

Question 2: Do you do any editing as you go or do you puke it all out (so to speak!) then do all your revision once the draft is done?

Answer 2: Yes. And no. It depends.

Questions like this are tricky and I hesitate to answer them. I suspect that underneath this question is anxiety about the questioner’s writing process. He could be stuck in the middle of a project. Or he has completed a book, but is unhappy with the quality of it. Or he thinks he has a great idea, but is feeling unsure how to build on it.

I know the feeling!

It doesn’t matter how many books I’ve written, I have never written the book I am working on right now. In my experience, each book wants/needs to be written in its own way, much as every child needs to be parented in the way that best suits her, not necessarily what worked for her siblings.

 I also understand the desire to ask other writers about their process. I am a voracious reader of auther biographies and particularly like seeing other people’s marked-up manuscripts, like the opening of Charles Dickens Great Expectations, below.

(Read more about a facsimile version of Great Expectations)

All that being said, my books generally start with an idea and the voice of a character in my head. I scribble a lot; dialog, scenes, backstory, and often several different directions a story could go. When I get frustrated, I go back and try to figure out which scenes have energy and which ones are useless. I cut out the crap, often restructure what’s left, and fill in where there are plot or character holes. During the cutting and filling I will frequently polish those key scenes until they are pretty much ready to be printed, while others scenes are still incredibly rough (often just a line or two.) Why? Once I understand the emotional state, desires, needs, and weaknesses of my characters in those scenes, I have a clearer sense of how to pace the rest of that story.

But your mileage may vary.

 

Today’s Quote 

“Well, there are only three possible endings—aren’t there?—to any story: revenge, tragedy or forgiveness. That’s it. All stories end like that.”

Jeanette Winterson

 

Today’s Prompt: Choose one of the following character scenarios.

    1. Girl meets Girl

    2. Girl meets Boy

    3. Boy meets Boy

    4. Boy meets Girl

Now choose a setting: basketball court, bus stop, library, summer camp, elevator.

Then choose a problem: blind date, someone cheated, death of beloved pet, joined the military, lost movie tickets, earthquake, stubbed toe.

Finally, take one of the three endings proposed by Jeanette Winterson in the quote above: revenge, tragedy or forgiveness.

With those building blocks, start writing and see how far you can go.

 

Scribble… scribble… scribble…

6 comments