01-01-2018, 02:15 PM | #1 |
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Youth Fiction Nominations & Vote • January 2018
Happy New Year everyone! Help us select what the MR Literary Club will read in January 2018!
The category for this month is: Youth Fiction Detailed nominating and voting guidelines can be found here. Simply put, nominations are open for three days and each person may nominate up to two literary selections which will go automatically to the vote. Voting then opens for four days and each person votes by post, receives a number of votes equal to the number of nominations minus one and may give each nomination up to two votes. Any questions, feel free to ask. We hope that you will read the selection with the club and join in the discussion. The floor is now open! * Nominations are closed. Voting is now closed. Final results- Last edited by sun surfer; 01-08-2018 at 02:39 PM. |
01-01-2018, 02:42 PM | #2 | ||
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Happy New Year! I have been looking forward to this category since it is unique to anything we've had in the past.
I nominate A Song for Ella Grey by David Almond. From Amazon US: Quote:
From Goodreads: Quote:
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01-03-2018, 10:05 AM | #3 | |
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I agree Bookworm_Girl- I really like the uniqueness of this category. I wasn't really sure exactly what the parameters were (adult books with a focus on youth? children's books? young adult books?) so I just went with 'all of the above' when looking around. I was especially reminded of What Maisie Knew and wondered how well that would've fit.
I nominate A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes. From Goodreads: Quote:
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01-04-2018, 02:25 PM | #4 |
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Nominations are closed and voting is now open!
Voting will close exactly four days from this post. Each person has TWO votes to use. |
01-05-2018, 02:27 PM | #5 |
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As usual, I came in too late for the nominations. Well, that’s my own fault. However as a fan of Youth Fiction—sometimes, but not always described as Young Adult works. I’ll use the term “Young Adult” as I’m more used to it. I’ll address myself to Sun surfer’s legitimate question. It has been defined as literature which is aimed at a younger reader while not necessarily excluding older readers.
It should deal with tensions, experiences and problems which are relevant to a younger person. Twelve has been mentioned as a possible starting point or perhaps first year in secondary school. My experience in teaching such works leads me to prefer the latter. However, I have definitely come across younger children quite capable of reading YA books with enjoyment. And here I would emphasise a very important point. A fine YA book can be read with equal and even greater immersion and depth by an adult. This point was made by C S Lewis regarding children’s literature and applies equally well to the genre under discussion here. Let me give some examples of literary YA works. Alison Uttley’s novel A Traveller In Time is one such. The book creates a powerful ambience of another time. It focuses a historical tragedy through the perspective of a sensitive young girl. The characters are well drawn and sympathetic. I think it has the capacity to give the reader an unforgettable experience. Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce is another. Here there is no tragedy—rather a probing of a relationship over a time sequence with an absolutely beautiful bittersweet quality. Penelope Lively has written in the genre as well. The Ghost of Thomas Kempe won the Carnegie Medal and the even more beautiful A Stitch In Time won the Whitbread. Both of these—and especially the latter—are novels which are most certainly literary. The same could be said of the original ”Earthsea” trilogy by Ursula LeGiun. They are books which are aimed at younger readers—again I have taught them with some success at Junior Secondary School and rate them—particularly the magnificent second book—The Tombs of Atuan with its brilliant symbolism and exploration of the nature of evil, as very very fine indeed. Now, as to What Maisie Knew, it is certainly not a YA novel. It is an adult novel concerning adults and their relationship to a child. It is not presented with any intention of being read by a young person with a view to deepening their experience of life. At senior level I have taught Henry James and my approach has always been as an adult dealing with the adult life-experiences that James so powerfully presents. My experience of reading (and teaching) adult works does not, of course, demean or lessen the specific quality and power of the joy provided by reading the YA works cited. I think I originally suggested this genre and I should have been more specific about what I meant by it. But personally I think that both of you have come up with excellent choices. Last edited by fantasyfan; 01-05-2018 at 02:51 PM. |
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01-05-2018, 02:30 PM | #6 |
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I’ll vote for A High Wind In Jamaica.
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01-05-2018, 03:01 PM | #7 |
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Thank you for the great explanation! I had no idea that Penelope Lively wrote those books! I never associated her with children's literature. Interesting.
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01-05-2018, 05:03 PM | #8 |
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You’ll find either of those books by her well worth reading. 😊 She has done others as well.
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01-07-2018, 01:05 PM | #9 |
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1 vote for A High Wind in Jamaica.
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01-07-2018, 01:49 PM | #10 | |
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I give one vote to A High Wind in Jamaica. All three books sound almost equally interesting to me and I'm going to give my other vote to one of the others; I'm just not sure which yet.
Quote:
Also, based on your post, I think perhaps we should add an extra day to nominations. What do all of you think? We could add a day to nominations and either shorten voting by one day to three days to keep the same timeframe or also keep voting at its usual four days and so have an extra day for our selection process. |
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01-07-2018, 07:35 PM | #11 |
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1 vote for A High Wind in Jamaica.
I don't know which to choose for my other vote! Here are some interesting articles on the history/evolution of young adult fiction. I like the timeline in the Real Simple link. https://www.oxford-royale.co.uk/arti...t-fiction.html https://www.realsimple.com/work-life...-adult-fiction http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/15/living...ion/index.html |
01-08-2018, 10:22 AM | #12 |
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I give my last vote to Postcards from No Man’s Land (tough choice though!).
Thanks for those links, Bookworm_Girl. That timeline is interesting. I wouldn’t have guessed librarians created the term Young Adult. I read a couple of the seminal books mentioned there for the first time in the last few years - The Outsiders and The Chocolate War - as well as A Separate Peace and I Capture the Castle which I think are other fine examples. |
01-08-2018, 11:43 AM | #13 |
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I will give my last vote to Postcards from No Man's Land too.
I'm pretty sure we read A Separate Peace in high school but don't remember anything about it! There was a show on TV last year where Rob Lowe toured the house from The Outsiders movie, which has now been turned into a museum, and met with the author. |
01-08-2018, 02:48 PM | #14 |
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Voting is finished and the winner is A High Wind in Jamaica!
I'll have the discussion thread up soon. Bookworm_Girl, I watched that movie after reading the book. I would've never guessed the house from it would be a museum, and after just now reading the wikipedia page on it, how it came to be a museum is just as interesting. |
01-13-2018, 02:38 PM | #15 |
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I have checked out the book from the library, but I have to finish my current book first! I am reading A Green and Ancient Light by Frederic S. Durbin. It is a fantasy set during WWII England featuring a boy sent to live in the country with his grandmother and appears to fit into the young adult category. I think it would appeal to members of the literary club.
I am also listening to Turtles All the Way Down by John Green for entertainment during the daily commute. I thought it would be nice to pick out an audiobook by a contemporary young adult author to supplement this month's category. It is set in Indianapolis (where John Green lives) and is about a teenage girl trying to live the normal life of a high school student while struggling with anxiety and compulsion disorder. |
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