Similarly to the way I spent all of my allowance money of the late 1990’s on “Official” books about Leonardo DiCaprio’s life (Lovin’ Leo, anybody?), I think about kids of this decade as being hypnotized with love for books about vampires who make out, werewolves who make out with vampires, and Justin Bieber biographies (this Amazon bestseller, which is subtitled “First Step 2 Forever”, is a hearty 240 pages and claims to be”100% official”). I’ve just assumed that the Twilight kids were the ones responsible for the YA industry’s big sales boom of the past few years. But when you take a look at the New York Times Bestsellers list for children’s books, it is a refreshing surprise: there is not one Twilight book in sight, and only one book’s tagline makes mention of a werewolf. In fact, the top three bestselling children’s book paperbacks of the moment deal with rather serious and consequential themes– censorship, the absence of love (ok, it’s close), and being different (and accepted for it), respectively. Meanwhile, the NYT Bestseller’s list for adults is rounded off by James Patterson and two Stieg Larsson books– granted, adults don’t have schools buying mass quantities of books to teach in English classes but still, whatever this contrast says is interesting to think about.
I’ve taken an interest in Young Adult fiction ever since I realized how many books I read as a child have stuck with me in ways that a lot of literature I’ve read in the past five or so years has not. And when I say “stuck with me” I don’t mean just books I remember– I mean these books have impacted, subconsciously or not, the things I write about now. When I googled the entire list of Newbery Award winners (1922-present), I realized that I distinctly remember reading and enjoying most of the books that won or were honored by the award’s academy between the years 1993-2000. Even now, looking back to Lois Lowry’s Number the Stars or Jerry Spinelli’s Maniac McGee, I am not simply fond of the nostalgia these titles generate, but of the stories these books told.
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