Review of Home is Not a Country by Safia Elhillo

Book cover for Safia Elhillo's Home is Not a Country

 

About two weeks ago, I looked at the Young People’s Literature nominees for the 2021 National Book Award. I wanted to see which books I had read and which to add to my ever-growing reading list. Since I had been on the lookout for novels-in-verse, Safia Elhilo’s Home is Not a Country particularly interested me. Then, while browsing the stacks at The National Center for the Study of Children’s Literature, I noticed we had a copy of it. This felt like fate! I knew this had to be my first review for the semester. 

Home is Not a Country takes place in the early 2000s and follows the story of Nima as she navigates loneliness, family dynamics, friendship, and nostalgia for a home she’s never visited. These complex issues are explored in only 224 pages. 

My reading of this book was hybrid, meaning that I read both the book and listened to the audiobook. The author’s narration of the audiobook enhanced my experience of the book. I could feel the emotions Nima goes through and the loneliness she experiences. Nima attributes this loneliness to her mother. This is the introduction the reader gets to Nima and her mother’s relationship. The organization of the poems itself tells you what parent she values more and points to the complicated relationship she has with them. Nima’s relationship with her parents, especially the one with her mother, was my favorite aspect of the novel. Her mother is Nima’s sole caretaker, and a lot of the resentment Nima feels is directed towards her. Their relationship reminded me of how children of single parents tend to glorify the parent that is absent from their lives, and this is definitely present in Home is Not a Country. 

There’s an instance in which Nima contemplates what her mother must have sacrificed to come to America:

I can’t help but imagine

that her life was enormous before we came here

loud & crowded & lively as any party...(36)

Nima talks about how her mother’s life became smaller with her move to America. She recognizes that her mother is as lonely as she is. I loved this because it made me realize something about my own family. As my world expanded due to moving to a different country, my parent’s world shrank. In the name of progress and opportunity, parents sacrifice lives they’ve built-in their home countries and say goodbye to social relationships they may have. They give away their support systems for their children. I think this was so important to include in the book, for Nima to understand how living in a different country has affected her parents as 

well as her.

Image of Home is Not a Country’s backflap which includes a picture of the author, Safia Elhillo by Aris Theotokatos

The novel has a bit of magical realism, which I was not expecting. However, it was a welcomed surprise. This element takes the form of self-doubt and realizing where you belong. One of Nima’s desires is to see her homeland through the eyes of her family, to experience it as they did. When Nima wishes for such, she gets to live it but at a cost. These moments highlight how important it is for us to view the whole picture instead of what we believe to be true. Sometimes truth isn’t present because it can hurt us, but knowing that truth allows us to see the world clearly and appreciate the life we have. This is what Nima experiences in those instances of magical realism. They are absolutely beautiful and poignant. The book uses magical realism for its climax, which wonderfully brings together all the threads of the story. I had read books where magical realism was in the narrative from beginning to end, but not one like this. That’s one of the reasons why this book became such a memorable experience. 

The writing is gorgeous and lyrical. Here’s an example from one of my favorite poems in the book “A Single Possibility”:

she isn’t my sister    we are opposite ends of a single

possibility   an only child    forming in 
our mother’s belly   waiting to be shaped by a name
once & for all...(155)

One thing that stood out to me was the formatting of the poems, the spacing within them allows the reader to breathe and ponder the lines carefully. The blank spaces in this piece drive the meaning of the words and tell the reader which words deserve a closer look. My favorite part of this excerpt is the line “we are opposite ends of a single/possibility.” The line stood out because it shows how Nima thinks only one version of her is possible. Her lack of consideration for change is put beautifully and succinctly. Elhillo writes about complex contemplations of the self in such a distinct manner and I’m excited to read more of her work. In Home is Not a Country, Safia Elhillo presents a magical exploration of family bonds and how understanding ourselves brings upon an understanding of those who love us.

- (NA)

Review on "Concrete Rose" by Angie Thomas

Hardback cover

Angie Thomas’ first novel, The Hate U Give, was nothing short of groundbreaking. After her sophomore novel, On the Come Up, Thomas decided to return to something a little more familiar to readers.

The first thing fans heard about Angie Thomas’ junior novel was that this was a character we already knew in her “Garden Heights” universe, where The Hate U Give and On The Come Up are set.

Fans went into a frenzy.

Through Twitter, followers of the author soon learned the protagonist’s name: Maverick Carter, the father of Starr Carter who was the protagonist of The Hate U Give. Concrete Rose is a prequel set seventeen years before the award-winning The Hate U Give.

Although it’s a prequel, it is not at all necessary to read The Hate U Give before Concrete Rose. It felt so exciting to return to the Carter family, but if Concrete Rose is your first Angie Thomas novel the only thing that you would miss are character cameos like Maverick who was in The Hate U Give as an adult. As a returning reader to Thomas’ novels, it is exciting to see the backstory of Mav, which was briefly alluded to in The Hate U Give. Not much of Mav’s teenage years are discussed in The Hate U Give. From what I recall, what is discussed is that his oldest child, Seven, has a different mother than the rest of his siblings, which is also discussed in Concrete Rose, and The Hate U Give also mentions that Mav was incarcerated sometime between Concrete Rose and The Hate U Give when his children were young.

Going into the novel, I actually couldn’t recall many details of Mav in The Hate U Give besides the two points I detailed, and honestly I didn’t need to recall that is it is part of what the book is about. The Hate U Give in this case serves to give backstory for Mav.

Thomas’ newest novel Concrete Rose follows seventeen-year-old Maverick Carter who is growing up in Garden Heights as the man of the house while his father is incarcerated. Maverick, or Mav, has to juggle school with bringing in money for his family through dealing drugs for the infamous King Lord gang.

However, when he learns he is the father of a baby, his whole life is turned around.

One thing I wanted to note is Mav’s emotions throughout the novel, and how he expresses them. After losing a beloved family member, Dre, to gang violence, Mav is understandably devastated, but struggles to express himself, especially around his family:

“Men ain’t supposed to cry. We supposed to be strong enough to carry our boulders and everybody else’s…Ain’t got no time to grieve” (Thomas, 120-121), and later, he says “I can’t sit around crying about Dre. I gotta be a man” (Thomas, 163).

Manhood, especially Black manhood is a prominent theme in the novel.

Black children or teenagers are often viewed as much older, or at least given the responsibilities of someone much older, and for Mav, he truly has to take the role of an adult and a father, when he should just have to worry about his schooling or prom, but instead he can barely even focus on school.

Although set more than twenty years ago, the struggles of Mav are ones that continue even today.

This seventeen-year-old is dealing with gang violence, having a baby, looking after his grieving family, and trying to financially make ends meet among so many other things, and he feels like he can’t even show his emotions. He has to put on a show of “being a man” but this idea is not often depicted as congruent with crying or showing sadness. By showing this conflict, Thomas subtly points to the unique pressure that Mav is put under as a young Black man.

Cleyvis Natera excellently articulates the pressure of manhood in Mav’s life in a review from Time Magazine:

“Manhood becomes the confining praxis toward resolution: Is he a man? How big of a man? How brave of a man? We come to understand that loss ushers Maverick to redefine himself beyond the confines of gender norms: he must see himself not as doomed to the legacy of his father’s actions, but as a parent and a human being focused on the future.”(Natera, 2021)

With Mav’s father’s incarceration, Mav is working to define his own manhood while also working on surviving. Mav does what he believes is necessary to survive, having to grow up even more than others his age.

What I think is incredibly important is how the pressures Mav is put under leads him to drug dealing. Mav sells drugs with King, an infamous drug dealer in the King Lord gang, to make a little bit more money for his family and his new baby. At no point though is Mav demonized for this decision, which I think is not only a fresh viewpoint on a black teenager dealing drugs, but also a critical viewpoint to look at why the person made the decision to deal drugs, and ultimately how his society let him down, instead of looking at him negatively for it.

Paperback cover

Mav is put under pressure that have existed for other Black men, and Thomas acknowledges the balance she had to achieve while writing between realism and falling into a stereotype that has been associated with Black men in an interview with Time Magazine:  

“How do I fight against that [stereotypes]? And for me, it was again about looking at the person, looking at the why - because that's how you connect people who may not even identify with Maverick. You may not live in a neighborhood where there are gangs, but you can understand wanting to be protected. You may not have a parent who's incarcerated, but you can understand wanting to help your family out financially. These are all human emotions.” (Natera, 2021)

As Thomas states, at the heart of this novel is pure, raw emotion. She fights these potential stereotypes by grounding the characters in dynamic, realistic actions and words that can be related to. Mav has real intense emotions because Mav represents just one real Black man, not a stereotype.

Although Mav believes he can’t cry at first, his boss, Mr. Wyatt, emphasizes the importance of emotions:

“Son, one of the biggest lies ever told is that Black men don’t feel emotions. Guess it’s easier to not see us as human when you think we’re heartless. Fact of the matter is, we feel things. Hurt, pain, sadness, all of it. We got a right to show them feelings as much as anybody else” (Thomas, 164).

Almost halfway through the novel here, Mav cries for the first time, and I felt some sort of weight off my shoulders as he cried. I spent 160 pages watching this character build up a wall to separate a part of himself from the people who love him, and then he becomes brave enough to knock it down and show his grief and anxiety.

Mav is constantly trying to fit into this role of a Black man that society has created, when he finally learns that Black men are the only ones who should be defining the role of a Black man. After pages and pages of feeling out of control, he learns he can define himself and his identity.

Concrete Rose is a beautiful portrait of a Black man growing up in America and learning to define himself, instead of letting the world define him. This is one of those books that I think everyone should read. Although it is marketed as a YA novel, Angie Thomas is also read and loved by adults, and I feel like adolescent and adult readers alike would love and benefit from this book.

Although a young adult novel, I feel that young adults are not the only readers who could benefit from this novel, and this novel could both provide an example of the Black experience to non-Black readers, while also providing a sense of familiarity or understanding for Black readers.

I commend Angie Thomas for consistently coming out with both relevant and yet timeless young adult novels, and I highly recommend you give Concrete Rose a read.

-SS

Works Cited:

Natera, Cleyvis. “Https://Time.com/5928689/Concrete-Rose-Review-Angie-Thomas/.” Time, 12 Jan. 2021, time.com/5928689/concrete-rose-review-angie-thomas/.

Thomas, Angie. Concrete Rose. HarperCollins Publishers, 2021.

Photos from Goodreads.com

Fat Chance, Charlie Vega Review

 I first learned about Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado while browsing a publishing catalog. I had gotten into the habit of looking at these to not miss authors who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color. My habit served me well because here was a book with a Puerto Rican main character hidden in the depths of a catalog. I rarely see my ethnicity represented in YA, and needless to say I counted the days until Fat Chance, Charlie Vega’s release day.   

Fat Chance, Charlie Vega follows the titular character Charlie, an aspiring teenage writer, as she navigates first love, self-acceptance, and friendship. In an interview with The Nerd Daily author Crystal Maldonado states the novel is about “[t]he five Fs…: fat fashion, feelings, friendship, and first love! At its core, I think this book is really about love in general — the kind you have for your friends, the kind that gives you butterflies in your stomach, and the kind you give to yourself” (Koehler, “Q&A: Crystal Maldonado, Author of ‘Fat Chance, Charlie Vega’”). This book celebrates love, and we accompany Charlie as she learns the importance of each iteration of it. 

Exploring different types of love Fat Chance, Charlie Vega delves into complex familial relationships. For instance, Charlie and her mother (Jeanne Vega) often disagree about Charlie’s weight. Mrs. Vega was once fat, but after a family loss she lost all the weight and thus insists Charlie does the same. Charlie, however, wants to accept her body as it is. The mother/daughter relationship in the novel dramatizes how the pressure for body conformity does not only comes from culture at large but also from within our own family. Charlie’s relationship with her mother changes for the better over the course of the novel, stressing how familial tensions like these are not resolved overnight – if ever. Charlie recognizes that she cannot change her mother, and that most of the change must come from within herself. Fatphobia exists everywhere in our society, and Fat Chance, Charlie Vega depicts that it can come from those who we are meant to love deeply, our family. 

Two of the other main types of love explored are friendships and romantic love. Charlie and her best friend Amelia have been inseparable since they were little. However, as they grow older, Charlie starts noticing how everyone prefers Amelia over her, this occurs when it comes to other friendships and romantic relationships. Through their relationship Maldonado illustrates how easy it is to put one’s self down by constantly comparing ourselves to our friends or peers. I thought this topic was handled well and it showed how fine the line is between admiration and comparison. The novel depicted the importance of recognizing how careful we must be when loving our friends because putting them on a pedestal could lead to resentment. Furthermore, the novel also explores first love. Charlie has never been kissed and daydreams about finding someone who will love her as she is. As an aspiring Romance writer, she wants to experience it for herself. Once she does, she finds herself consumed by her romantic relationship. I found the relationship between Charlie and the romantic lead sweet and well developed. We see Charlie realize who she is within the context of the relationship and how her self-love does not need to come from her partner’s validation. 

The most celebrated form of love in Fat Chance, Charlie Vega is self-love. Charlie’s journey is about accepting herself and her body. This develops throughout the novel as she navigates different types of relationships such as the one with her mother, best friend, and boyfriend. Ultimately, she discovers that her love for herself should not be rooted in these, instead it must come from within. I was glad to see how Charlie slowly came to this realization. She is not a character who is completely self-deprecating since she displays confidence when it comes to her writing skills. 

However, she struggles to see the beauty in herself because everything around her tells her she’s anything but beautiful. Charlie feels the need to embody perfection in order to be worthy of love. Her best friend Amelia gives her some advice when it comes to this by saying, “You need to believe in your value for you, even if you’re not some flawless ethereal being…We’re all messy, Charlie” (316). This encapsulates Charlie’s journey to self-love the realization that no one is perfect, and that value comes from the self not external sources. 

When starting Fat Chance, Charlie Vega I had no particular expectation as to how I wanted to see my culture portrayed. I felt excitement over a character who shared my cultural identity. However, the representation of Puerto Rican culture delighted me. There was mention of my favorite foods like tostones (twice fried plantains). Yet, what I really loved was how Maldonado approached the topic of Spanish and Puerto Rican culture. Charlie is half Puerto Rican and half white, but mainly takes after her Puerto Rican side. There is some discussion as to how Charlie feels inadequate when it comes to her father’s side of the family because she doesn’t speak Spanish. I thought that this was a great point by the author and one that is important to make. I have heard my own family members voice their concerns about Puerto Rican children who do not speak Spanish. To me this is not something that separates you from your heritage and I’m glad that Charlie realizes this as well. Maldonado depicts the Puerto Rican experience not as a monolith, but as one that is unique to the person. This is such a powerful message that resonated with me and I believe I won't be alone in this. I appreciated how Charlie’s cultural identity wasn’t just about food or any other practices, instead it was weaved with her journey of self-acceptance and provided a powerful message for the Puerto Rican audience living in the US. 

Another aspect of the novel that I really enjoyed was the inclusion of fashion and development of style. I love reading fashion descriptions in books and seeing how the author depicts outfits. In the novel we see how Charlie tries to pinpoint her style by frequenting #fatfashion on Instagram and how seeing other people like her inspired her to find her own sense of style. I enjoyed how Maldonado included critique of fashion stores, which often do not carry clothing that would be suitable for a teenager. Instead, these retailers sell matronly looking clothing. The reader can get a glimpse of Charlie’s style in the cover and in other instances of the novel. As someone who is straight-sized this was not something I considered, but I’m glad it was part of Charlie’s journey. 

Author, Crystal Maldonado, explores the five F’s (fat fashion, feelings, friendship, and first love) through all the themes I mentioned and does so with a character that we can’t help but root for. Fat Chance, Charlie Vega is a story of different kinds of love and how they all play a part in the formation of the self. Charlie is a magnificent character who drives this story and helps readers realize that we should embrace all aspects of ourselves. It also can help the reader see how fatphobia is embedded in our culture and how some of the things we say can be harmful to those we love. With a diverse cast of characters and an extremely lovable main character, Fat Chance, Charlie Vega will take readers on a journey of love and self-acceptance. 

Sources:

Koehler, Mimi. “Q&A: Crystal Maldonado, Author of ‘Fat Chance, Charlie Vega.’” The Nerd Daily. February 1, 2021. www.thenerddaily.com/crystal-maldonado-author-interview/

Maldonado, Crystal. Fat Chance, Charlie Vega. Holiday House, 2021.

-NA

Book review on “Foul is Fair”

Partial list of content warnings for novel: mentions of rape and sexual assault (not depicted), physical violence/murder, suicide attempt/ideation, abuse, transphobia, substance abuse

Foul is Fair by Hannah Capin is full of power. This “scorching and cathartic retelling of Macbeth for the #MeToo era” is pitched as “a bloody, thrilling revenge fantasy for the girls who have had enough. Golden boys beware: something wicked this way comes.”

The Me Too Movement?

Macbeth?

Revenge?

All in a YA novel?

I’m in.

Foul is Fair follows Elle (Elizabeth Jade Khanjara) and her intoxicating group of friends: Mads, Jenny, and Summer. They remind me of “Queen Bees”, the girls so many wanted to be but never would be.

Nothing happens to those girls? Right?

Well Capin destroys expectations:

A new spin on Macbeth

A young adult novel full of both poetry and violence

A girl allowed to be powerful

By taking that power for herself.

Elle and her friends crash an elusive St. Andrew’s Prep party on her 16^th birthday, and the four expect a night of fun and partying.

Our expectations are yanked to the side when Elle is drugged, raped, and assaulted by four boys (including friends Andrew Mack and Duncan). Elle has left the party, and in her place is Jade with short black hair, painted nails, and a taste for revenge.

After putting the pieces of that night together, she lives her new life as Jade. Jade is not a victim. Jade turns her entire life around, takes her life back, and to my shock, enrolls in St. Andrew’s: the school of her rapists. Jade slips into her new school seamlessly, saying all the right things to get the popular friends, and dating the oh-so popular Andrew. Yes, Andrew Mack. Jade and Andrew, or Lady Macbeth and Macbeth, rule the school now, but this never distracts Jade from her goals.

In an unapologetically bold yet poetic prose, we watch Jade create her own power to dismantle the golden boys one by one.

The writing of this book truly draws you in from the first line: every sentence appears to be perfectly crafted and thought out, so much so some of this book would not leave me three months after I finished the book.

I love how upfront this book is, how Capin doesn’t shy from brutality. Jade doesn’t just dismantle the golden boys:

She kills them.

I’m going to be honest: I don’t know how a group of high school girls get away with multiple murders of teen boys, but Capin’s writing is so captivating that I don’t care. I am so invested in Jade’s story, and Capin has drawn me in to that amazing point where I am able to suspend belief of high school murders. I’ve just accepted Jade is the reincarnation of Lady Macbeth but she has a cellphone and red lipstick and potentially a bit more of a thirst for blood. Jade could murder someone, and I’d just go with it.

Oh right. She did.

Or, she convinces her boyfriend Mack to kill Duncan. Sound familiar?

With Macbeth, we need witches, and that’s where the best friends Mads, Jenny, and Summer come in. Mads, Jade’s best friend, since the days of skinned knees, Summer, the supermodel embodiment of summer, and Jenny, “so sweet she’ll kill you” (5).

Come not within the measure of their wrath.

Together, the four of them cast spells on boys with the bat of their winged eyeliner.

Mads is a really engaging character, and I appreciate the subtle inclusion of the history of their relationship: “When her parents still called her by her deadname and the only time she could wear girl-clothes was when she was with me. Mads, who last night was the only one I could think about once I could finally stand without falling…Mads, who knew what happened without me saying anything, and found a pair of lacrosse sticks in the pool house and together we broke all the windows we could find, and the glass shattered and caught in the nets and our hands bled bright and furious” (6). The friendship of Mads and Jade shines with complete, undeniable love, and Mads is the first to back up Jade. Honestly, we all need a Mads.

The complete sisterhood the girls create is admirable. No matter what, they will always be there for one another. “Mads tips her head toward mine and I do the same. Until we’re foreheads-together, eye to eye, no room for lies. ‘You tell me when you need me.’ I say, ‘I don’t need anyone.’ She laughs, but it’s the most beautiful sound in the world. She says, ‘I know.’” (81)

Foul is Fair challenges the concept on a demure sidelined woman character: Jade is full of ferocity and I love it. She never has to explain her anger to her friends; they accept what has happened to her and in their world, what needs to be done. Although I don’t condone this sort of violence necessarily, it makes for a great book, and an amazing rise of awareness for sexual violence.

I truly loved this book, and I look forward to Capin’s promising future in writing. I highly recommend you check out Foul is Fair and keep an eye out for her future books.

I received a free ARC from Goodreads in exchange for an honest review. Some sites say Foul is Fair was released 2/4/20, and Amazon says it will be available 2/18/20. Keep an eye out!

-SS

Works Cited:  

Capin, Hannah. Foul Is Fair. Wednesday Books, 2020.

A full list of content advisories can be found here: https://www.hannahcapin.com/foulisfair

"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

Following up on Dr. Angel Daniel Matos's Talk

On Wednesday November 7th 2018, Linda Salem organized an introductory lecture for the recently curated Juvenile Collection display on queer young adult (YA) literature. This talk, entitled "LGBTQ+ Representation in Young Adult Literature, Then and Now" was given by Dr. Angel Daniel Matos who presented a historicized understanding of how queer themes and characters appeared within adolescent literature and the recent developments occurring within the field. Dr. Matos focused on highlighting the complex affective implications that are present within the genre of queer YA literature, but how incorporating positive interventions and critiques can generate more productive discourses surrounding these novels.

Dr. Matos began his talk with explaining how optimism and hope operate as critical points of focus within YA literature, but this positive affect was complicated upon the introduction of queer narratives into the genre. Because queerness worked against heteronormative societal structures, discussing queerness with positive affect was deemed as incongruent with the realities possible for audiences. Moreover, queerness within the genre was often posited in opposition to the optimism and positivity that was possible for heterosexual people, thus making it an unreachable possibility for early queer characters. 

When queerness challenged these societal structure, it often led to the death and demise of queer characters in early YA novels. These deaths, as Matos argued, often only worked to challenge and develop the characterization of straight characters in novels, which further confirmed that happiness and future-oriented thinking was not accessible for queer people. This sense of unhappiness, nonetheless, became a political act that more contemporary works challenge and expand upon.

Matos argues that thinking optimistically in a negative world, especially when regarding young audiences, can help foster potentialities of happiness and futurity. He highlighted contemporary queer YA novels that present adolescent characters within positive ideologies that still works towards embracing aspects of futurity for young readers. He advocated for the need to foster connectivity, kinship, and diverse representation within the genre in order to better represent queerness and further develop the field of queer YA literature.

***

Dr. Matos shared several novels that revolutionized the genre starting with John Donovan's 1969 novel I'll Get There, It Better Be Worth The Trip--the first YA novel to appear that grappled with homosexuality for its protagonists. He also discussed Nancy Garden's Annie on My Mind, which is the first novel to have a positive depiction of lesbian characters for young adult audiences. For a contemporary example, Matos shred David Levithan's Boy Meets Boy, a novel that works to present queerness within a utopic setting that normalizes diverse expressions of gender and sexuality.  

If you'd like to know more about Dr. Matos's suggestions or ideas just follow him on Twitter to see his syllabi and other projects (@ProfAngelMatos). Thank you to all that attended and to Dr. Matos for providing so much information. A special thank you to Linda Salem for organizing this event and working closely with the NCSCL.

-A. Elliott

Read With Pride: Queer Young Adult Literature Mini-Talk

If you find yourself around SDSU on Wednesday, November 7th be sure to stop by Love Library's Juvenile Collection on the 4th floor. Our very own Dr. Angel Daniel Matos will be giving a short talk that will highlight the growing LGBTQ+ young adult literature collection at our library. This collection has been organized by Linda Salem by working closely with the NCSCL and The Pride Center of SDSU. In explaining her goal with curating this collection Linda Salem states, "I want to raise students' awareness of The Pride Center on campus and that they have books at the center and that the library's collection also has an up-to-date collection of rainbow literature for readers of all ages." Some of these books will be put on display at the library for everyone to see, but many more are to be found both in and out of the library. This event will work towards expanding the awareness of anyone who is curious about learning more about LGBTQ+ narratives!

Looking at queer young adult literature, specifically, enables many opportunities for learning and understanding. For this reason, it is important to understand where this genre of literature has grown from and the power that it holds today. Dr. Matos explains the value in reading these books by stating, "Queer young adult literature pushes us to envision outcomes and futures that are sometimes different from our current realities. Many of these novels push us to imagine a future that is bearable and livable for all people." Being reminded that these novels depict the difficulties that many LGBTQ+ people face, but also provide a hopeful and more positive outlook can help readers in their own lives. To encounter these narratives, as Dr. Matos explains, then allows for readers to imagine possibilities for everyone to live as a happy collective, regardless of how difficult reality may be.

After asking Dr. Matos what his talk would be about, he responded, " I aim to provide some historical context for the queer young adult genre, in which I provide an overview of how LGBTQ+ young adult literature has developed over the decades, the state of these novels today, and where I think the genre is heading." So, to learn a little more history of how this genre emerged and bloomed into mainstream society today, come by and hear what Dr. Matos has to say. There will be time dedicated for questions after his lecture for anyone who is curious to learn more about the matter.

If you are interested in studying this genre more closely, Dr. Matos will be teaching two courses in Spring 2019 that are centered on queer young adult novels. First, he will be offering English 502: Adolescence in Literature - LGBTQ+ Young Adult Literature and ENGL 727: Theorizing Queer Young Adult Literature. In these classes, Dr. Matos highlights how "queer young adult literature provides readers and critics with opportunities to see how queer content possesses the capacity to deeply affect the structure, form, and narrativization of young adult texts." Because of the complexity that Dr. Matos mentions,  we can understand that young adult literature is not only important for general audiences, but also serves as a great source of analysis within academic contexts. Check out previous classes that Dr. Matos has taught and the work he has written on this subject by clicking here and follow him on Twitter @ProfAngelMatos!


If you are someone who is already familiar with the genre, or even if you have a curiosity to learn more about it, be sure to stop by on the 7th. Do not forget to bring your questions to Dr. Matos or any one of us present at the event. We hope you see you all there!

-A. Elliott

Event details:

Wednesday, November 7th at 2:30 pm

Juvenile Collection (located on Love Library's 4th floor)

Talk by Dr. Angel Daniel Matos

Free and open to the public

Interview: Dr. Derritt Mason, Canadian Scholar in Queer and Media Studies

In February, NCSCL’s Chris Deming and Andrea Kade sat down with University of Calgary’s foremost scholar in media and queer studies, Dr. Derritt Mason. We originally posted his lecture highlights at SDSU on our blog in April. Read on for a detailed insight into Dr. Mason’s work on occluded queerness and how he challenges assumptions about YA and children’s literature.       

Academic Position: Assistant Professor, Department of English, University of Calgary

Places of Education: BA Hons. (Faculty of Information and Media Studies, Western University), MA (Department of English and Cultural Studies, McMaster University), PhD (Department of English and Film Studies, University of Alberta)
Webpages: https://english.ucalgary.ca/profiles/derritt-mason; https://ucalgary.academia.edu/DerrittMason

CHRIS: Your current project looks at queer young adult literature as a repository for anxious adult affect. Can you tell us more about what this project looks like and what you are trying to explore?

DR. MASON: Well, my project looks at a specific period in time that is fundamental to how queer YA [Young Adult literature] has evolved. This project focuses on a period of time around 2010, when suddenly there was increased media interest in queer youth suicide. It’s been a problem for a long time, but all of sudden it seemed like our headlines were filled with stories of queer young people taking their lives. For the first time since Matthew Shepard’s murder in Wyoming, the media was covering in-depth the material violence that young queer people have endured. At the same time, you have Dan Savage and Terry Miller launching their YouTube anti-bullying campaign, “It Gets Better Project.” This new focus on queer YA literature and the anti-bullying project seem to be offered as a potential remedy for the social issues that young queer people are facing.

In the 80s and 90s only a handful of books in the queer YA genre appeared each year, but after 2010—20, 30 or 40, sometimes up to 80 titles were published in a given year. There was also a new emphasis on the types of visibility and representation in queer YA books.

In the early days of queer YA lit, publishers wouldn’t allow these books to have happy endings. They thought it would be harmful to tell young people that you can be out and queer and live a happy life because they believed they were selling a delusion. Now the opposite is true: if you don’t show queer young people that they can be “out and proud” then you are doing them doing a disservice, even potentially harming them with this message. Thus begins a really anxious conversation surrounding the queer YA genre. What it does is foreground a certain type of visibility where the protagonists are concerned—characters have to be out and embody a coherent and cohesive sexual identity. The affect has to be positive. [Dr. Angel Matos] does a lot of work on these lines as well. A lot of queer theory, however, is resistant to coherent identity and embraces negative affect.

ANDREA: Why do you think that is?

DR. MASON: Well, queer theory itself, is resistant to the idea that something is stable or fixed, and this is not how identity gets narrated in a lot of this criticism surrounding queer YA. For example in the “It Gets Better Project," we often see a coming out narrative that suggests that when you discover your true self, your identity becomes stable. Whereas queer theory implies that sexuality is shifting and not something that’s sedimented, but always changing through time.

My project is called Sites of Anxiety in Queer Young Adult Literature and Culture and I’m interested in those places and spaces and sites that seem to produce the most adult anxiety in the discussion of queer young adult literature. I look at these sites and diagnose what I think is making critics anxious and then I use queer theory to push at and challenge them. I believe there’s actually something really interesting that’s happening here and we can’t reduce it to a failure of visibility.

ANDREA: How are you approaching this? Any specific framework you are using?

DR. MASON: In these conversations I’m looking at what kind of language is being used to talk about queer YA. For example, I’m drawing from a chapter on visibility for my lecture [today]. Critics, especially contemporary critics, look at older works like John Donovan’s I’llGet There, It Better Be Worth the Trip and Isabelle Holland’s The Man Without a Face and tend to say that these books are remnants of an older time, where the protagonists are lonely and sad, and if the protagonist has an animal, the animal is inevitably going to die, and conventions like these represent an unevolved form of queer YA.  However, what I am saying is that there is still something interesting happening in these texts—queer relations, forms of desire—that can’t be reduced to one single type of visibility that critics view as being a remedy for queer youth suffering.

CHRIS: Very interesting!

DR. MASON: So I have a chapter on visibility and another chapter on risk—this idea of risk in queer YA.

ANDREA: Any particular type of risk?

DR. MASON: I trace how the idea of queer youth has emerged though pathologizing discourses where young people are talked about as being at risk for various things. Essentially, I kind of trouble that idea. There are some theories that discuss how we risk something in order to gain something productive from whatever we risking.

ANDREA: Risk is very much a large component in adolescence—sexually and physically.

DR. MASON: Yes, but I’m trying to move away from this idea that risk is inherently negative—rather, it can yield productive things.  In one chapter, I draw on the work of DeborahBritzman, a queer educational theorist. She talks about risk as being essential to learning. When you learn something new and exciting, you risk an element of yourself in how you come to understand the world and your relationship to other people and to yourself.

CHRIS: That sounds like a really fascinating project. Are you almost done with it?

DR. MASON: The full manuscript is due in August. It’s a book based on my dissertation project and I’m currently revising it.

CHRIS: So it’s going to get done soon enough anyway.

DR. MASON: That’s the hope!

ANDREA: Do you have any ideas about future projects you want to work on?

DR. MASON: I’m teaching a graduate seminar on digital children’s and young adult literature. I was lucky enough to get a grant so my students could have iPads for the duration of the term. We are looking at picture books and their digital adaptations, digital fairy tales, but also online cultures and communities that young people tend to frequent. So that’s potentially the next project, but it’s still in a very preliminary phase.

ANDREA: Any particular communities?

DR. MASON: We look at fan culture and fandoms, but also new narrative forms in online spaces like “LetsPlay” videos—when someone will record themselves playing a video game and then narrate their experience playing it. It’s a massive online community.

CHRIS: What are the differences between the Canadian and American children’s literature fields? Are there any differences in how you go about studying it?

DR. MASON: I think the way the publishing industry currently works makes it hard to sharply distinguish between Canada and the US when it comes to contemporary children’s and young adult literature, although certainly these two countries have their own distinct literary histories. My own research is mostly contemporary, and primarily in a context that includes Canada and the US. There are, of course, scholars who have a regional focus on Canadian children’s literature, in English and in French. Currently there is also some really important work being done on texts for young people that address Canada’s legacy of colonial violence against our Indigenous peoples.

Most of the texts I analyze in my project are by American authors, but I do have one Canadian text in there, which is Shyam Selvadurai’s excellent YA novel Swimming in the Monsoon Sea. When I teach, I try to support Canadian authors and create a diverse syllabus. But I think in terms of the scholarly communities, just by virtue of the way conferences are set up, like the Children’s Literature Association’s international conference held in the US, the boundaries and borders of our discipline are pretty permeable.

ANDREA: I know you will be discussing ParaNorman at this afternoon’s lecture and I’m writing an essay on this film that focuses on how methods of play function for the child in their path towards adolescence. In particular, I’m looking at repressed play with Agatha and her transformation into the monstrous child. Can you tell me your thoughts on the character of Agatha, in particular?

DR. MASON: That’s really interesting because I’ve never thought about it through the lens of play—it sounds like you are doing something really cool. With this film, I’m specifically talking about these two versions of queerness. You have Mitch who is the gay jock, right, and he comes out through a punchline at the end of the film. But, the entire film is more structured around this occluded type of queerness embodied by Norman and Agatha through their outsider status--Agatha is executed for being a witch and Norman has inherited those same kinds of powers. So my approach to the film is through this occlusion. And this is part of the same 2010-2012 shift in queer YA discourse, where you have  visible forms of queerness that get all of the attention. But you also have all of these other, more subtle, occluded queernesses circulating in the film, and the relationship between Norman and Agatha is a fundamental part of that.

ANDREA: Can you define “occluded queerness” for our audience?

So in the discussion later today, I will talk about Alexander Doty who has written a ton on what it means to read queerly.  He writes about how texts can contain meaning that is not limited to visible representations of say, gay or lesbian identities. But we can still read and interpret these texts queerly, and what that means is we find ways of identifying or counter-identifying with certain characters or relationships between characters. And we do the work of producing queerness in a given text through the way we read and interpret it. Fan fiction is actually a great example of producing queerness in a given text—you write queerness into a text, acting kind of like a detective, hunting for clues in a story that might suggest where two characters could potentially have a queer relationship in the margins of the text. Fan fiction on [J.K. Rowling’s characters] of Harry and Draco is a good example of this type of thing.

ANDREA: Do you think this is because the characters and readers are so young? Since their own sexual identity isn’t fully formed, especially at this particular stage in their life, is this a way of exploring their own sexuality?

DR. MASON: Yes, I think that’s part of it—that the child in the text might not have a sexual identity that is visibly formed, so we as spectators can partake in its formation. But I also think it’s doing something to serve the needs of queer audiences. Especially when looking back a few decades, when there weren’t as many overt queer representations in literature. In order to see yourself in a text, you had to do the work of creating and producing queerness in a text. There is a huge body of work on queerness in Disney films, for example. Disney films are often notoriously sexist, heteronormative, and yet, they contain all of these queer signifiers. For instance, there’s an article on Timon and Pumbaa in The Lion King as kind of a queer male couple. And it’s commonly known that Ursula, the Sea Witch in The LittleMermaid, was modeled after Divine, the famous drag queen.

And so you can think about how those are not necessarily visible, obvious forms of queerness but rather these more subtle occluded forms of queerness that you need either some contextual knowledge for, or you can produce queerness in the film through your own reading or interpretation of the film. And I think ParaNorman is filled with that kind of thing. In the upcoming talk, we’ll see how Norman’s parents discuss his magic powers. His father says, “I don’t want any of that limp wristed, hippie garbage around here. This isn’t the West Coast. People talk.” This is exactly how you would expect a homophobic father to talk about his queer child, and even though Norman isn’t visibly gay (the way Mitch is), we still have all of these queer signifiers that are circulating around him.

ANDREA: Yeah, it’s like saying, “this is how you should be!” in trying to deter him from a particular path.

DR. MASON: Exactly. And Norman says “I didn’t ask to be this way,” and his dad’s reply is “well, neither did we.” In a different context this would be like a coming out story, and that’s why I find the film so interesting! Instead, you have this gay jock character who comes out at the end of the film.

ANDREA: Where you expecting it the first time when you watched the film?

DR. MASON: I did, because I had read about it, so that’s why I watched it.

CHRIS: If you hadn’t of read that article would you have expected it or seen that coming?

DR. MASON: I don’t think so. And the way they designed that character subverts that expectation because he’s this huge beefy dude. And Courtney, Norman’s sister, flirts with him the entire film and he’s completely clueless. Another reason I like this project, is because the National Film Board of Canada, where I used to work, specializes in stop-motion animation and we would teach the kids to build characters’ expressions with clay, completing twenty-four frames per second. But they way they do it now is through 3-D rapid prototyping. In 3-D, they print out all the facial expressions needed for the frame.

ANDREA: Per our NCSCL director’s request, Dr. Joseph Thomas wants to know: What are the three most interesting things about you?

(Laughs all around the table)

DR. MASON: Oh my god! It’s uncomfortable to describe yourself as interesting …

ANDREA and CHRIS predicted this question would be a challenge for our guest. DR. MASON suggested we ask DR. ANGEL MATOS, whose office is located across the hall from the NCSCL office—a most lively section in the SDSU Arts and Letter building—what he thinks is the most interesting thing about him. DR. MATOS remarked on DR. MASON’s keen fashion sense, and then fell flustered because “you can’t just extrapolate three things!”

CHRIS: [saving the day] How about this…what are three interesting things about the interdisciplinary area that you are studying that you really didn’t expect to find?

DR. MASON: That’s actually a really great question! It’s always interesting to find what surprises you about your own work. I guess in terms of this project, all of these things occurring in the queer community after 2010, a time when I was writing my dissertation, radically changed the shape of what I was working on. I guess too—this might be tied into things that are interesting about me—I never thought I would be…well, my own background is very interdisciplinary, I have an undergraduate degree in media studies and I taught English in a high school in France for a little while between my undergrad and my master’s in cultural studies, and then I worked between my Master’s and PhD for 3 years the National Film Board in Canada, one of the few remaining film production agencies funded through taxpayer dollars.

I worked there for three years designing educational workshops on documentary filmmaking and animation for students of all ages and for teachers, as well. So I never thought I would settle on a literature PhD, or become a children’s literature specialist either. It was just something that happened. Originally I was going to do a queer Canadian literature project, but I’ve always been interested in young people’s culture and working with young people. My master’s research was on a queer youth digital video project that the Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film Festival does every year. And so that ended up shaping my dissertation interests, where I look at this fascinating new way that people are now talking about queer young adult literature and putting all this emphasis and importance on it—which I totally agree with—it became something that I ended up wanting to study. And that led me down the path towards children’s lit.

ANDREA: I feel like some people don’t really understand what the study of children’s literature is—the way scholars approach this field or what they are trying to do.

DR. MASON: It’s traditionally an undervalued part of the academy. There’s this great book by Beverly Lyon Clark called Kiddie Lit: The Cultural Construction of Children's Literature in America. She looks at the history of children’s literature and how it has not often been taken seriously by the academy. And you sometimes find this amongst students, too. Some of them assume a children’s lit course will be an easy “A,” and they’ll only be reading Harry Potter or picture books. That’s what I like about teaching it—you get to challenge those students, to change their perspective on the discipline and show them how wonderfully complex literature for young people can be.

We'd like to thank Dr. Mason for taking the time to sit down with us before his talk at SDSU in February. He will also be a presenter at the 2018 Children's Literature Association Conference in San Antonio, Texas this summer. As always we ask our guests for suggested reading lists. Below is Dr. Derritt Mason’s Canadian YA or Children’s literature recommendations.

Vivek Shraya (vivekshraya.com) is an amazing interdisciplinary artist—she’s a filmmaker, musician, poet, and children’s & YA author. One of my all-time favourites is her first book, God Loves Hair (re-released in 2014), which is an illustrated coming-of-age narrative unique for its powerful account of queerness at the intersections of race, gender, and religion. Vivek has also recently authored a picture book, The Boy and the Bindi (2016), which is a really sweet story of a boy who is fascinated by his mom’s bindi, so she gives him one of his own.

One of the best novels I’ve read lately is Kai Cheng Thom’s genre-blending Fierce Femmes andNotorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl’s Confabulous Memoir (2016). It’s part fairy tale, part biomythography, part bildungsroman, and it puts a really compelling twist on the trans memoir. https://ladysintrayda.wordpress.com/

Finally, an author to keep your eyes on is Joshua Whitehead, a Two-Spirit/Indigiqueer-identified writer who is about to release his first novel, Jonny Appleseed (http://www.arsenalpulp.com/bookinfo.php?index=479). This one is going to rock the YA world—I just know it. Joshua is a super talented writer and he also just released a book of poetry, Full-Metal Indigiqueer, to critical acclaim.

You can follow Dr. Mason on Twitter or email him at derritt.mason@ucalgary.ca