Thursday, July 25, 2013

Week Seven

 Week 7: Assignment 1Take a look at the “What to Read Next” flowchart from the Lawrence Public Library (also available in PDF format.)

Cool.  OK:  honesty check.  These flowcharts are conceptually cool but not so much in reality.  A lot of work to lead a potential reader to one book based on one book that he liked.

 Week 7: Assignment 2
Read any two of the following short articles. Post comments on your blog, and make comments on two colleagues’ blogs.
I could barely read through these articles without a touch of misplaced anger.  As a librarian, I read and love across genres and age levels.  But Young Adult literature is developmentally aimed at teens and most adults that I know would balk at suggestions that they routine read these titles.  Are there crossover readers?  Certainly and I'm occasionally one of them but these articles seem to celebrate the trend to a level that would suggest making them a mainstay of adult reading.  There is no way that this won't sound judgemental but Adults dumbing routinely down to teen fiction should be as alarming to a literary profession as teens routinely dumbing down to graphic novels.  There are places for all of these niches but adults reading too heavily in teen works are the equivalent of having a diet of only chocolate cake.  It is good periodically but is not good for sustenance at an extended clip.

Week 7: Assignment 3
Choose any two of the following blogs/websites. Follow them for a week. Post comments to your blog regarding who is writing it, who is the intended audience, is it successful, etc.
  • Stacked
    • I can't say that I can distinguish an audience BEYOND teens unless the writing style that I'm admiring is different because it is also aimed at teen librarians. In tone, I like that they compare the works to other noted titles, don't mind making critical (aka: negative) remarks, and their voices are in the first person (which I wish that our blog would incorporate.)
  • School Library Journal: Someday My Printz Will Come (Seasonal)
    This blog is VERY both seasonal and librarian focused.  I reviewed the older posts (since it is currently "dark") but the emphasis  at this time of the award season was WAY more on the process of finding/accessing titles than what they may have loved about an individual book.  This voice is way more casual than I like and the comments can be very glib and without much in depth analysis.  It is strongly librarian slanted with jargon and considerations that the average patron (Oops!  Sorry (not really): "customer.")) won't care about.  Good for librarians doing selection on extensive advisory.
 Week 7: Assignment 4Choose any two of the following teen imprints and spend some time on their websites. Blog about any trends you find in either current or forthcoming teen fiction.
  • Teens at Random
    •  This doesn't feel like a recent trend but OMG can we NOT have any more dragons or supernatural for a while.  Seems like a good 75% is sci fi, fantasy,, whatever.  I guess Game of Thrones may be still making an impact.

  • Tor Teen (Macmillan)
    Sorry:  looks like I forgot to mention "armageddon" as a theme.  Ugh!  Gotta talk to a sociologist and understand. 
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1 comment:

  1. JDAJuly 25, 2013 at 2:00 PM

    Hi, this is Jim commenting on your post as part of my Week 7 assignment. I hadn't thought about the difficulty of recommending YA materials to older adults. The articles that I read talked about buying patterns where those adults were making the choice themselves. I think we may circulate a lot of YA material to older readers but crafty shelving and merchandising might help that along more than an in-person recommendation.

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