Episode 3 of Critical Conversations in Children's Literature with guest Dr. Libby Gruner

Critical Conversations in Children's Literature is a web series developed to bring children's literary writers in conversation with scholars to discuss critical topics brewing within the field. This web series is funded by CAL IRA funds.

The series was developed by Dr. Lashon Daley an assistant professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at San Diego State University. This series is funded by the College of Arts & Letters Instructional Activities Grant and is hosted in collaboration with the National Center for the Study of Children's Literature. Episode 3 features a conversation between Dr. Daley and Dr. Libby Gruner, centered on the topic of collaboration within the academic field of children’s literature. Libby Gruner is the 2021-2022 President of ChLA, which is the Children's Literature Association (ChLA). Libby is a scholar of both YA and Victorian literature. She has taught at the University of Richmond since 1993, where she is a Professor of English and Coordinator of Faculty Development in Teaching.

Without further ado, here's episode 3 of CCICL:

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Review of Pet by Akwaeke Emezi

 

Akwaeke Emezi’s young adult fantasy novel Pet follows Jam, a selectively mute trans girl, as she embarks on a hunt with Pet, a creature that emerges from one of her mother’s paintings after drops of her blood meet its surface. Before Jam’s world is altered forever, she lives in the aftermath of a revolution in Lucille, a utopian city. The revolution worked to rid Lucille of beings called “monsters” by way of “angels.” Or so Jam’s family believes. Communicating telepathically, Pet tells Jam that her best friend, Redemption, is in danger and only she and Pet can seek out the monster that threatens him. Against the wishes of her mother, Bitter, and father, Aloe, the strange pair begin their hunt for the monsters they believe were defeated. Readers are asked the same question put to Jam and Aloe: are we too afraid to see the unseen and to know the unknown?

Forgetting is how the monsters come back. (20) 

At the center of the narrative is Jam, a selectively mute young woman. Her muteness was an inclusion I hadn’t seen before, where a character chose to speak only when she deemed it necessary. Jam spends much of the story using sign language with those around her. However, when Pet appears, their telepathy provides yet another avenue for Jam to communicate her thoughts and feelings. Despite Pet’s ability to read her thoughts, Emezi gives Jam a great deal of narrative agency by asserting that Jam speaks out loud on her own terms. In the moments she is speaking, we, as readers, understand her urgency and desire to impart her own ideas in a world that prioritizes sound.

Of course there were still monsters, Jam thought. Could you really make something stop existing just by shoving it away somewhere else? (50)

Jam’s relationship with her best friend, Redemption, and his family illustrate a wonderful example of community. Redemption’s family’s home dynamics come to represent the power of unity in home-making. When Emezi introduces Redemption’s family, you’re immediately immersed in their complete care. You can almost smell what Redemption’s mother, Malachite, is preparing in the kitchen and hear his baby cousins playing. I also loved reading about the friendship between Redemption and Jam. Their bond is clearly intimate and purely platonic, always assuaging one another’s fears and anxieties. Together, they are a wonderful example of a friendship that thrives without the pressures of heteronormativity, which sets Emezi’s story apart from what we might encounter in this genre.

The world we enter when opening up Pet is easy to describe as “utopic”: Lucille is a town whose monsters were eradicated by angels. However, Emezi is careful to note that this utopia did not come about solely by the miracle of angels. Creating Lucille took work, labor, and trial and error. In this world, identity is fluid, evolving, and boundless. However, Pet is only there for one thing: to eliminate a monster. The knowledge of a monster in Lucille shocks Jam. She knows there aren’t supposed to be any more monsters in Lucille. Her father, Aloe, has reassured her plenty before. This novel deals with difficult topics, such as sexual ab*se, and Emezi doesn’t shy away from them. They grant their characters a great deal of narrative agency. I was inspired by their determination to rid their world of a monster and continue their practice of community care.

A pool of water with the moon reflecting in it… who would want to throw a stone and break the picture? It is fine to be afraid, to have a fine fear, to not want to cross a fine line. (94)

For Jam, the world seems split in two: she lives in a world where verbal communication is prioritized, and another with its own interrelated, nuanced layers of non-verbal understanding. I was drawn to her through these multiple modalities, and moved to follow her lead as an emotionally mature, loving daughter. A third world is opened up when Pet emerges from her mother’s latest painting, however, that challenges both the closeness she feels with her parents and her understanding of the world. Born from a deep maternal legacy that drives much of the narrative we encounter, the connection between Bitter, Jam, and Pet is shared (literally) by blood and through art. Pet’s maternal nature allows Jam to navigate between these two worlds she finds herself in with deaf/mute culture while simultaneously reckoning with the split she’s experiencing in her reality. Pet brings Jam to an understanding that monsters are still lurking, despite all of our efforts to eradicate them, whether it be through pure goodness or rehabilitation. However, despite this painful reality, Pet’s presence and collaboration with the kids reveals how the power rests in the voices of our youth, no matter how they show up in the world.

DN

Review of No Filter and Other Lies by Crystal Maldonado

One of the first reviews that I wrote for this blog was for Crystal Maldonado’s debut novel, Fat Chance, Charlie Vega. One year later, here I am with a review for Maldonado’s sophomore work, No Filter and Other Lies. It feels like I have come full circle as a Grad Assistant.

No Filter and Other Lies follows Kat Sanchez, a half-Puerto Rican high-school senior, as she navigates family relationships, self-love, sexuality, and friendships. Extremely obsessed with her follower count, Kat finds herself increasingly disappointed that the photography she posts to her account doesn’t receive the recognition she believes it deserves. At the beginning of the novel, she wonders why her pictures do not get as much engagement on Instagram as she hopes: “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, but my account is practically dead…Yet, my aesthetic on that account is AMAZING…every single picture is serving a vibe and a color scheme and a mood, and they look good as a whole” (9). Kat is proud of her pictures and understands how talented she is, but the worth of her photographs is tied to how many likes, comments, and followers she gains per post. Validation through social media is one of the themes of the narrative. As the story progresses, readers gain insight into the downfalls of seeking validation via social platforms. 

Kat lives with her grandparents and, while she loves them, she wishes she had a more traditional family. Her parents had her while they were still in high school, since they were so young her grandparents–Ray and Bethie–agreed to take care of Kat themselves. Eventhough she stayed with her grandparents, her brother (Leo), who was born a year later, lives with their parents. Kat is asked to lie about her family situation at a very young age and this eventually leads her to lie constantly.  

One of the aspects of Maldonado’s work I adore is her tendency to explore complicated family dynamics. We got a glimpse of this in her previous book (Fat Chance, Charlie Vega) with Charlie and her mother. Fat Chance, Charlie Vega follows Charlie as she experiences first love and self-acceptance. Charlie and her mother have a difficult relationship because her mom insists on Charlie losing weight and pushes her to diet. This causes a rift between them. In No Filter and Other Lies the exploration of these family dynamics continue, which dramatizes unflinchingly Kat’s relationships with her mother, father, and sibling. Kat’s mother, Sarah, wants to have a picture perfect family, which makes Kat feel ostracized. Their dynamic drives how Kat views herself and how she approaches honesty. Then there’s her father, Anthony or Pop, who is a bit distant but despite this Kat wants a deeper connection with him. She wants to learn more about her Puerto Rican roots since he lived on the island when he was younger. Her brother, Leo, and her do not have a close relationship, but Kat yearns for a deeper sibling bond. All of Kat’s relationships with her family members inform the choices Kat makes throughout the narrative. Family dynamics is one of the biggest topics explored in No Filter and Other Lies. It was great to see a children’s book featuring family structures besides the nuclear family or single-parent homes.

Kat lies about her family situation constantly, she tells people in her school and on social media that she lives with her parents and brother. She was first asked to lie about her family when she was in elementary school by her mother and since then Kat has felt uncomfortable telling others the truth. She calls this lie “the first lie” and it ripples to other parts of her life, this one little lie leading to others of increasing magnitude. How do you stop yourself from lying when you’ve been asked to do so for such a long time? It was great to see the web of lies and how it was not something teen Kat crafted but how it started due to her parents. This modeled behavior becomes the source of her lying. Maldonado weaves all of them fantastically.  

Our main character is delightfully messy. She lies constantly and is selfish, but she is so beautifully characterized that we like her despite these flaws, as it is clear that she’s just a young woman trying to figure out who she is, making plenty of mistakes along the way. I absolutely loved Kat’s character journey! 

Throughout the novel Kat realizes she is bisexual as she develops an unexpected crush. The narrative does not center solely on this aspect of Kat’s life, so it does not turn into a “coming-out” narrative. Maldonado deviates from common YA narratives, which center the pain of being queer and brings the focus to the importance of discovering who you are. Her sexuality does not become a point of tension instead it is an opportunity for Kat to express self-love. It presents the exploration of sexuality as a normal occurrence of adolescence. 

Kat can’t get away from her phone, constantly comparing herself to others as a result of being glued to Instagram. I was pleased that this is such a big part of the novel. I found Kat’s struggles with Instagram extremely relatable and it made me evaluate my relationship with the platform, and it will doubtlessly encourage young readers to do the same. Whenever Kat talks about how she feels about IG I couldn’t help but think of “Jealousy, Jealousy” by Olivia Rodrigo. Especially, the song’s chorus: “Com-comparison is killin' me slowly/ I think I think too much/ 'Bout kids who don't know me.” Kat’s acceptance and confidence does not come from herself but ,as the song mentions, from external sources. 

The book deals heavily with catfishing, a trope that I don’t like; however, the narrative does a good job addressing how it is harmful. The effects of catfishing are not glossed over, it shows how there are consequences to breaking the trust of someone who cares about you. Despite its overuse in YA, Maldonado gives the reader a nuanced representation of the catfishing trope. 

I also enjoyed the character dynamics. No Filter and Other Lies has a great cast of characters. Kat’s friends (Hari, Luis, and Marcus) were just as flawed as she was. Making their group dynamics a pleasure to read. It was nice to see how they all developed as a group too, from the expected youthful antics to the more vulnerable moments they share. She develops other friendships along the way through social media and her work at a local animal shelter. Two of these friendships lead Kat to uncover her family trauma and find new ways to cope with it. Through her work in the animal shelter she strikes a friendship with a three-legged dog, which was absolutely heartwarming to read. 

No Filter and Other Lies is ultimately a story about coping with family trauma, accepting yourself as you are, and learning to share your true self with the ones you love. The novel has bi representation and a super cute 3-legged friend that will steal your heart. Moreover, Crystal Maldonado has become one of my favorite contemporary authors. Her stories are straight-forward, fun, and raw. I am extremely grateful to have stories with amazing Puerto Rican representation, something I desperately wished for when I was a child. 

-NA