Thomas, E. E. (2011). Landscapes of City and Self: Place and identity in Urban Young Adult Literature. The ALAN Review, 13-22.
Thomas wrote about the different ways urban landscapes are displayed in literature. Interestingly, urban young adult literature seems to place their characters mostly in one of two settings. Either a privileged setting or a challenged setting.
A privileged setting takes place with the characters living in an upscale neighborhood and with that also comes money. Many aspects of the story describe the fancy lifestyle, such as upscale shops and extravagant vacations. The challenge setting talks about characters who live in bad neighborhoods. The lifestyle is painted with sirens and gunshots. Quite the juxtaposition. There are also some stories that intersect these two.
Thomas states, "These are relevant connections between literature for young adults and trends in the culture of urban centers," (2011, p. 13). She ends her article talking about the ways she uses the literature to spark a classroom activity called a privilege walk and an assignment of a social analysis. The quote from the article, makes me realize that if one was a youth librarian, books with an urban theme can be book for the young patrons. Reading this kind of literature can make young adults look at their life based on what they saw in the book and start to analyze the world around them.
As a librarian it is important to not only entertain our patrons, but also to help them learn. Reading urban literature, will help the young adults to learn about themselves and the world around them. Materials that carry an urban storyline then, would be an important piece to a librarian's collection.
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Perkins, M. (2009, April). Straight Talk: Challenging the Stereotypes in kids' books. School Library Journal. Retrieved September 26, 2011, from Academic OneFile.
This article started off with the author speaking a bit about her background and her relation to race in books. She fought between American life and her Bengali heritage home life. Books were one way for her to learn more about the "American Life".
Perkins spends the rest of the article addressing different aspects of stereotypes in kids' books. First that non-white characters in books are good, while white characters are bad. Second, she addresses the author defining race, if they do and how they do it. Third, Perkins talks about how the cover art can change the way the reader perceives the characters in the book. Fourth how makes the change in the book. Lastly, beauty is defined, which still seems to be given to the white characters. Overall, although there may be some holes in the literature, Perkins's message is that we need to be discussing the book with the teens.
When it comes to adults, including librarians, mum is the word on race. Perkins states, "The more obvious explanation for the omission is that my teachers and librarians never thought about those kinds of messages, or felt tense and ill-quipped to talk about race. Adult silence about an issue sends a powerful message to young people," (2009, p. 29).
With this statement in mind, it seems that not only should we have books that address different races in our library collections, but we should be also having conversations about it. Or at the very least provide a venue for the young adults to discuss it. Perkins talks about how the youth are much more diverse than when she was in school and for that reason it is easier to talk about race; therefore no need to fear. Using some of the strategies from Thomas's article would help to start conversations on race.
One thing that is interesting is the contrast between this and the Blaise Cronin idea about ignoring race, brought up in Pawley's article which I wrote about last week. Perkins goes completely opposite in saying that keeping silent is the wrong thing to do and that we need to have open discussions about race. Which one do you think is the right way to go?
In a public library setting the answer to the question of openness and silence is rooted in the principles of intellectual freedom and the Library Bill of Rights. I imagine there will be communities where silence rules. As a library administrator I would advocate for informed openness, to promote inclusivity and reduce prejudice.
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