New Graduate Assistant

Hello!

My name is Ashley Nguyen, and I am a first-year M.A. student studying English with a specialization in Children’s Literature! I’m pictured below with my new favorite novel, I Love You So Mochi by Sarah Kuhn. Stay tuned for a review soon!

As a brand-new grad student, this first blog post would be the perfect place to test out my elevator pitch... but nailing down what my research interests are has been the biggest challenge of my educational experience thus far. If I am to emerge from these two years of post-baccalaureate education with some degree of expertise in a field, which should it be?

I’ve never had the opportunity to take a course in Asian American literature, but as a Vietnamese American and an avid reader, a literary study of Asian American culture definitely intrigues me. I’m particularly interested in the voices of American-born teenagers with Asian heritage and would like to study further the identity explorations that occur when leaving a native land to "return to” or visit a motherland. I’m grateful to have many knowledgeable professors who can guide my studies and I look forward to the research to come!

As a Roman Catholic, I seek ways to orient my research towards understanding how literature encounters, grapples with, and utilizes depictions of good and evil. As I discovered in my undergraduate honors seminar, there is room in the field of Children’s and Young Adult Literature for exploring – and attempting to challenge – binary notions of morality. Under the guidance of a wonderfully encouraging professor and honest feedback from my four peers, I produced “Devious Dichotomies: Explaining the Fascination with Disney Villains.” This thesis drew from Serena Valentino and Liz Braswell, two Disney-published authors, to contrast their recent interpretations of villains in the Disney movies Beauty and the Beast (1991) and Sleeping Beauty (1959). I found that Valentino’s attempt to spotlight the villain’s backstory only indicted other characters as new villains, while Braswell’s novels rewrite the heroines into young women with traits admirable in modern times such as leadership, bravery, and agency. In both authors’ writings, the protagonist’s sense of justice prevails and the evil character is still vanquished. I conclude that the good versus evil binary is indisputably what makes Disney thrive, and to challenge it would destroy Disney’s magical ability to make viewers believe in their own happily ever after.

I’m truly grateful for the opportunity to explore my interests through my studies here at SDSU and even more so to be a Graduate Assistant at the NCSCL. I would love to engage in conversation about any of the topics I mentioned or anything else to do with this wonderful field. I look forward to sharing with you about the National Center for the Study of Children’s Literature at San Diego State University!

-AN

SDSU’s Experimental Theatre Production of Hookman: a Review

Photo by Ken Jacques

On March 24, 2019, I wasn’t sure what to expect from SDSU’s experimental theatre production of Hookman, written by Lauren Yee and directed by Jennifer Eve Thorn. I mean how scary could a hamburger on a hook really be? Was the play scary? You betcha! Some of us in the audience had heard that Hookman could pop out of anywhere, so for a little more than an hour, we shared Lexi’s anxiety, but the comedy helps to lighten the mood as beginning with the first scene.


Lexi (Kennedy Garcia) returns home on a break from college and wants to hang out with her childhood best friend, Jess (Dominique Payne). The two of them are involved in a tragic car accident where Jess is killed. Lexi’s subconscious guilt over Jess’s death manifests into an urban legend from her childhood, Hookman, and haunts her for the rest of the play. Dr. Phillip Serrato, English professor of gothic literature at SDSU, joined the cast for a post-performance Q&A. Serrato explains to the audience, “Hookman is a physical manifestation of all the trauma in [Lexi].” The gothic in this work serves as a modality for discussing serious issues to include college life, date rape and #BelieveWomen, and survivor’s guilt.

The comedy blended with horror and serious topics produces an uncomfortable laughter that forces its audience to consider new perspectives. This seemed to be the case with Thorn’s vision for Yee’s Hookman. One audience member said during the Q&A that followed the production, “The comedy helped me get through it.” Serrato explains that the comedy provides “relief from the real trauma.” In this case, Lexi’s real trauma is her date rape experience and being behind the wheel when her best friend Jess died in the car accident. As for Lexi holding Hookman’s hand in the final scene, one could argue that Lexi has symbolically indicated that she has come to an understanding with her dark passenger and is coping with her grief.


Hookman is spooky on a whole different level!

(KT)

"The Poet X" Is the Next Book You Need to Read

“You need to read The Poet X.”

This is what I texted all my friends as soon as I read the last line of this book; I wanted to tell every person I spoke to that this book would not get out of my head.

Born and raised in New York city and the daughter of Dominican immigrants, Acevedo was a National Poetry Slam Champion and coached for the D.C. Youth Slam Team. The Poet X is her debut novel and quickly became a New York Times Bestseller. It also has won multiple awards including the 2019 Michael L. Printz Award and the 2018 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. With The Poet X being her debut novel, we are so impressed with her work and cannot wait to see what Acevedo comes out with next. 

The Poet X is a breathtaking novel in verse narrated by the protagonist, Xiomara Batista, who is a passionate and headstrong young Afro-Latina woman growing up in Harlem. Xiomara slowly falls in love with poetry, especially spoken word poetry. Xiomara pours her emotions and reflections of her day to day life into her poetry journal, commenting on topics ranging from pressures from her mother’s religion to gender to sexuality.

Acevedo told Publisher’s Weekly that she “pulls from her experience working with teens and her own high school journals”, which clearly is seen in her poetry, which truly channeling the emotions we can relate to from our teen years. She points to her being first-generation influencing her writing: “There are a lot of the cultural things that inspired aspects of Xiomara, like the ways in which who you are outside of your house is a little bit different than who you must be inside because of the cultural norms that exist. That push and pull that Xiomara carries of being first-generation is something I share.” (Publisher’s Weekly, 2018) Because of her own personal connection, her words evoke so much more meaning and carry weight of being something she has lived through.

Xiomara’s words haunted me at every moment I set down this book. A particularly impactful poem is In Front of My Locker (218). In the poem a boy at school grabs Xiomara inappropriately, and instead of waiting for her friend and crush Aman to say something, she has the realization of not needing to wait for anyone. In the poem In Front of My Locker we see Xiomara standing up for herself:

“For the first time since I can remember I wait.

I can’t fight today. Everything inside me feels beaten…

He’s not going to curse or throw a fit.

He’s not going to do a damn thing.

Because no one will take care of me but me.” (Acevedo, 219)

Xiomara is a girl to look up to, with her strength and dedication driving her actions, even when  everything inside her “feels beaten.” Her emotions are so raw and realistic, and from the first page I found myself cheering for Xiomara and her passion for life.

Acevedo excellently captures the struggles of being a minority teen in her novel, and I can see people everywhere being able to see some of themselves in Xiomara’s story.

“There is power in the word” Xiomara says, and yes, there is power in practically every word of Acevedo’s book. (Acevedo, 353)   

(SS)

Sources:

Acevedo, Elizabeth. The Poet X. HarperTeen, 2018.

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-authors/article/76224-q-a-with-elizabeth-acevedo.html

Down the Rabbit Hole with the Lewis Carroll Society of North America Spring Meeting

On Friday, March 8 and Saturday, March 9 San Diego State University had the privilege of hosting the Lewis Carroll Society of North America’s Spring Meeting, and we loved falling down the rabbit hole together. Fans and scholars of Lewis Carroll and literature alike came together for exciting talks including Kathleen Krull’s discussion of the writing and publishing of her children’s picture book “One Fun Day with Lewis Carroll”. Some familiar faces to the SDSU campus popped up in Dr. Joseph Thomas’ talk on Shel Silverstein’s “Alice” poem and Dr. Philip Serrato’s talk “It’s Not Easy Being a Girl in Heteropatriarchy.”

Kathleen Krull detailed her process of researching, writing, and publishing her picture book, “One Fun Day with Lewis Carroll: A Celebration of Wordplay and a Girl Named Alice”. After falling in love with Alice in Wonderland as a child, she wrote an entire children’s book about Lewis Carroll’s Life utilizing Carroll’s nonsense words, evoking nostalgia for the whimsical language characterizing Alice in Wonderland. 

Dr. Thomas discussed Shel Silverstein’s “Alice” poem. The symbols of childhood and play within the poem depends greatly on the knowledge of Carroll’s original Alice in Wonderland. The final lines of the poem truly stood out: “And so she changed, while other folks/Never tried nothin’ at all” (Silverstein, 1974). Another poem he discussed was Silverstein’s “The Missing Piece”, a poem about an almost complete circle rejecting his perfectly fit piece. Dr. Thomas argues that this questions the idea of perfection and “wholeness” by reversing the standards of a “happy” or “fulfilled” life (pardon the pun), much like how Alice is learning to accept more of the incongruous aspects of life.

Dr. Serrato’s “It’s Not Easy Being a Girl in a Heteropatriarchy” upended traditional readings with a gothic reading of Alice’s in Wonderland. Under the guise of a simple children’s fantasy tale, Dr. Serrato brought to light recycled gothic features such as the beloved White Rabbit being a symbol of repressed trauma, and Alice inhabiting the specter of seeing motherhood as fearsome and unnerving. You can say I am never looking at my favorite childhood book the same again.

The meeting concluded with a visit to the once-lost Alice in Wonderland mural hidden on our very own SDSU campus. This beautiful mural was found under layers of paint and restored by Dr. Seth Mallios and his dedicated team, and we are so lucky to have a historic piece that artfully represents the impact that Carroll has had on past SDSU students.

We had so much fun and we hope we get the opportunity to host the Lewis Carroll Society of North America Again!

(SS)

For a video of Dr. Joseph T. Thomas's talk visit https://youtu.be/iARmr-wmwNo.

Works Cited:

Silverstein, Shel. Where the Sidewalk Ends. Harper Collins Publishers, 1974.

Introductions to 2018-2019 Academic Year

Greetings to all readers and interested folks!

Thank you for waiting patiently, but it is time for the new NCSCL academic year to kick off! Already this year, we have had a lecture from our very own Joseph T. Thomas Jr. entitled “A Long Talk on Shel Silverstein’s Short Plays.” If you were unable to make it to this event, or if you would like to see it again, we have uploaded a recording onto YouTube. Simply click here.

This academic year brings lots of potential, therefore our goal is to discuss news and upcoming materials that might be of interest to those of us in the fields of children’s and young adult literature. We also hope to give you a glimpse into the endeavors and projects taking place at SDSU. To receive regular updates, be sure to follow all our social media platforms! Please like a post, leave us a comment, or ask us questions about anything. We would love to hear from everyone!

Twitter: NCSChildLit
Instagram: ncschildlit
Facebook: @NCSCL (National Center for the Study of Children’s Literature, at SDSU)
YouTube: National Center for the Study of ChLit

We are so excited for what this academic year will bring, and we hope you are ready to join us on this year’s journey. Be on the lookout for more blogs and posts on all our platforms for what is to come!

-A. Elliott

Welcoming the New Graduate Assistants

Alexander Elliott

Hi everyone!! My name is Alexander and I am currently in my second year of my MA degree in English and Comparative Literature at SDSU. Although I am technically specializing in American Literature, I have been able to really focus on my preferred area of literature: young adult literature. I am mostly interested in young adult literature that discusses various identities and provides a diverse, intersectional discussion of adolescence—while complicating the genre itself. The areas of interest that have come up for me are LGBTQ+ narratives, queer studies (time/space, geographies, and ecology), and cultural/ethnic representations of Latinx individuals in YA literature.

I read many books as a young child, but my interest in the field stems from having picked up a book in the first grade that dealt with loss, grief, and relationships. It is no surprise that I continued on the reading trajectory that I did. Thankfully, SDSU has provided me with the guidance to incorporate this personal interest into my academic studies. My current research has been focused on adolescent cultures of various kinds. I will be presenting at the Literature/Film Association Conference later this year in New Orleans on Were the World Mine, then at the International Girl Studies Association Conference next year on Anna Marie-McLemore’s When the Moon Was Ours. These two opportunities are perfect examples of my interest in film/media and literature that deals with intersectional topics.

I am so thankful to join the team here at the NCSCL! I hope to learn more about YA literature, but finally delve into children’s literature more closely; so, if there are any recommendations as to where I should start, please let me know!

Kiedra Taylor

Greetings fellow humanists! My name is Kiedra Taylor, and I’m a second-year English graduate student specializing in Children’s Literature. While I’m interested in the critical histories and conditions of young adolescent (YA) and children’s literature, I’m also interested in the possibilities of the genres. YA and Children’s literature have the potential to assist its readers with identity formation; it also has the potential to foster empathy and compassion for others through story lines that encourage critical thinking and self-reflection. So far, my focus is discovering how the genres offer readers the opportunity to practice independent critical thinking.

I recall reading Toni Morrison’s coming-of-age novel, The Bluest Eye, at a young age and feeling confused afterwards. Even as an adult, I don’t fully understand the nature of the impact that the novel had on me, but I do recall times in my life where I recollected a particular character or moment in the novel and those thoughts somehow informed how I felt about whatever was happening at the time. I wish my younger self had thought to ask someone for more novels like this one, novels where I had a choice which of characters whom I could identify with, novels where someone whom I could identify with was not in the margins. Now that I’m a mother of four children and grandmother of one, I’m particularly interested in how YA and children’s texts can help readers, especially children to make sense of this complicated world of ours.

I hope that my graduate research and internship with the National Center for the Study of Children’s Literature will allow me to enter into and contribute to a fairly new yet learned conversation about young adolescent and children’s literature. I am humbled by the fact that I am brand new to this field of study, so I have every intention of listening to and considering the suggestions, guidance, and expertise of all of you in the field.  In that same vein, I hope to be heard since I have years of experiences and observations that will allow me develop a voice of my own.