2009 YA Honor List—Timely and timeless

Nilsen, Alleen Pace, Blasingame, James Jr., Donelson, Kenneth L., Shaffer, Shelly, Smith, Tim, & Wimmer, Allison. (2011). 2009 YA Honor List—Timely and timeless. English Journal, 100(3), 82-90.

Articles like this one, which reviews what the authors consider the eight best books for young adults from the year 2009, always make me want to do two things: 1) go online and order books, and 2) curl up and read those books for long, uninterrupted hours. This article presents eight young adult books, which all sound intriguing for various reasons. Because of my past experience with books reviewed in National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) journals like this one, I trust the reviewers’ recommendations. The only thing that gave me pause is that here we are, already into 2011, and we only just now are seeing the picks for 2009. I know these books are supposed to be “timeless” (see the article’s title), and I know the lead time on journal publication is long sometimes. Although I’m happy to know about the books reviewed here, I find myself wondering what the best books of 2010 were. Fortunately there are other sources I can go to online for an update.

Three books on the 2009 list are fantasies. I am not a fantasy lover when it comes to my own book choices, though I try to keep an open mind about all genres, and with fantasy being a genre that is currently loved by many young adult readers right now (including my own teenage granddaughter), I cannot ignore it as a literacy educator, even though my own personal reading tastes run more to nonfiction, historical fiction, and realistic fiction. Perhaps my preferences also stem from my perception that a lot of the fantasy that teens like today is not of the best quality, and is media-driven and capitalized on by corporate interests—for example, the mania produced by the Twilight movies. However, if that interest in fantasy can lead a young reader to better quality writing (say, the works of Anne Rice for the Twilight fans) then I see the potential. Here, we have several fantasy books reviewed, and they do seem of the typical “dark” nature that seems to attract young readers nowadays, but they are obviously high quality books, even though they would not be my first pick for an afternoon’s read. Books from the fantasy genre here reviewed include Kristin Cashore’s Fire, Libba Bray’s Going Bovine, and Rick Yancey’s The Monstrumologist. For my own reading, I was intrigued most by the two nonfiction selections, Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith, by Deborah Heiligman, and Claudette Colvin: Twice toward Justice, by Philip Hoose. Both books seem meticulously researched and detailed, and even better, they tell the untold stories of historical personalities and events, which always engages me. In the Heiligman book, it is the story of Charles Darwin’s wife and marriage (and the story of what a woman’s life was like 200 years ago); in the Hoose book it is the backstory behind the Rosa Parks saga and the story of the Montgomery bus boycott. Parks gets all the credit, but there was a young girl (Colvin) who was challenging Jim Crow laws before Parks made her stand. The remaining three selections are more realistic stories and delve into difficult life problems, including a look into the world of an autistic young man (Francisco Stork’s Marcelo in the Real World), an exploration of alienation and prejudice toward gay individuals (Adam Rapp’s Punkzilla), and what sounds like an excruciating but important foray into the lives of two girls with eating disorders (Laurie Anderson’s Wintergirls).