Happy & Sad about the NPR Top 100 YA List
This was a pleasant middle-of-summer surprise! NPR asked listeners to vote for their favorite YA novels of all times, and both SPEAK and WINTERGIRLS made the cut. (SPEAK was #26 and WINTERGIRLS was #99. Given that they only chose the top 100, that one was a little close!)
As lovely an honor as this is, it also made me sad. And angry and frustrated. This just might be the whitest YA list ever. And that is saying something, given that children’s literature is far from diverse. A Minnesota teacher blogged about the issues this raises for all readers. Please take the time to read her post – it is important.
If you are going to browse the NPR list, please also browse through the lists that are linked to over at Reading In Color. Pull all of these lists together and then you’ll have a robust resource for YA readers.
This list was announced almost a week ago and it has taken me this long to process what the honor means to me and what the unbalanced representation means to me, too. You could argue that since the nominations came from NPR’s audience, and that same audience voted for the finalists, that the exclusion of authors of color reflects those voters, and is not any oversight on the part of NPR. The fact that in the commentary, the NPR writers admit they had no idea who John Green was (he has FIVE books on the list and has become a YA force of nature) is another clue that the people involved have a lot to learn about the current state of YA literature.
But then I came across this short announcement, dated 8/2/12: “National Public Radio, criticized in recent years for a lack of diversity of its staff and coverage, is using a $1.5 million grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to put together a six-person team to report stories on race, ethnicity and culture.”
Ya think?
I want to give NPR a thank-you, and also some kudos for at least acknowledging that YA literature is a genre worth paying attention to. But I’d like to challenge them to recognize the bias that they are operating with…. and to fix it. We cannot be a great nation unless and until all of our people are always seated at the table.
Contact the NPR Ombudsman and share your opinion.
Share your opinion with me, too. What do you think about this?
newest »
Being somewhat of a mutt, half Irish-American, almost half Mexican-American, with some Italian and Welsh thrown in on my mother's side, I do have issues with this. As a high schooler, I have had some confusion with how to describe myself on applications for school programs and the like, especially where the choices do not include Latino/Hispanic as an ethnicity, but address it in another question, or, worse, when the choice for caucasian is described as "not of hispanic or latino descent." In 8th grade, our teacher really wanted us to delve into identity, by reading us The House on Mango Street, and The Misfits and assigning The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Speaker for the Dead, and Warriors Don't Cry as part of our required reading. These books made me think more about who I was, and how I would portray myself during high school, and my life ahead. What I really learned was that though I may change my ideas based on my experiences, my heritage, as crazy and complicated as it is, is constant. My mother's mother was born in the U.S. but lived in Mexico for some years as a child. My father's parents tried coming to the U.S. three times before becoming successful enough to stay. I think the problem I have with this list is not the fact that the author's are white, but that their characters, many of who are supposed to be American, do not represent the melting pot we have today. Today's young adult fiction does not represent the Unites States of today or tomorrow, and does not delve into themes of identity that today's young adults are facing. Thank you Laurie Halse Anderson for addressing this lack of diversity in young adult lit!
"Today's young adult fiction does not represent the Unites States of today or tomorrow, and does not delve into themes of identity that today's young adults are facing."Maura, I really disagree with this statement. Firstly, it is contradicted by your list of required reading from your 8th grade class - aren't those books part of today's young adult lit?
Also, many (if not all) of the books on this list deal with identity. For example, all of John Green's novels deal with issues of identity. Just because they are about white suburban kids interacting mainly with other white suburban kids doesn't mean they don't analyze the struggle to decide who one will be. And there is a population of people for whom Green's books really resonate, even beyond those white suburban kids (like the rural kids I teach who love Green).
That struggle for identity is clear in many of the books on the list and reflects not racial diversity, but a diversity of experience that teens go through as they struggle with their identities. There are books about autism, rape, suicide, being gay as a teen, drug use, or just being different in various ways (as in the fantasy novels where children deal with being magical or vampires, etc.). There is terminal illness, bullying, growing up both with and without parents, grieving a loved one, etc. Many of these issues were non-existent in the YA lit available when I was a teen (even though they certainly existed in my teen life 20+ years ago), and their appearance on a "best of" list speaks to a literature that is ever-growing and changing to meet the needs of its readers.
Let's face it, no single list can be the end-all, be-all of anything (movies, food, books, you name it). Every list will have its weaknesses, as this one does. But don't condemn an entire literature based on this one list.
Ms. Anderson - thank you so much for pointing out the weakness in this list, and how this reader-directed list suggests a weakness in NPR's reporting and appeal to an audience that is racially and ethnically diverse. As a listener, I have always appreciated their balanced coverage of issues and events in many locations (national & international), but on reflection, I don't think I've paid much attention to whether they reflect diversity. Diversity is perhaps a little harder to "see" on the radio, but you've awakened a question in me that I will contemplate now!
Hello Brenda,I understand that themes of identity and finding one's self are addressed in John Green's books, and other authors on the list, I've read many of these books, and enjoyed a lot of them. I'm not saying that white suburban kids don't have identity issues or that those issues are not addressed in YA lit, I'm just saying that there is a lack of novels that address identity issues centered on culture and heritage.
Obviously identity is a strong theme in YA lit, but today's novels in the category are saturated with issues such as being gay or autistic or using drugs with white characters. My point is that these are issues that all kids face, regardless racial background.
With my comment, I was just saying that the majority of young adult literature today does not portray the multicultural society in which we live today, especially those books on the list. It should not be that hard to find racial diversity in YA lit as it is so common in our country, which we owe much of our progress to immigrants that have come and brought us the melting pot we have today.
Maybe I need clarification of "today" - again, why don't Sherman Alexie's books fit, for example? Is "today" only this year?I agree with "majority" in your reply but your first post was more absolute than that ("does not"). It basically implied "none" which definitely isn't true.
I agree that we need more YA lit about people of color, but I have to admit, as a middle-aged woman, I'm also just glad that some of the tough issues are being addressed at all, even if it is harder to find novels about people of color dealing with drugs, being gay, or autism. Well, maybe not drugs - that's a stereotype that is perhaps too well covered.
As a Gay Straight Advisor at the school where I teach, I've been reading lately about the lack of services for LGBTQ youth of color, so it's not just the literary world that needs to do better! :)
My school is also only 7% non-white, so unfortunately, for my kids, it's not really a multicultural society. Perhaps the lack of people of color in YA lit reflects the larger problem of a segregated society.
We do owe lots of progress to immigrants, but let's not overlook the "original" people of color in our country - Native Americans could also be better represented in YA lit. :)
Anyway, this conversation reminds me to keep looking for more diversity in YA lit so my students can learn more about all kinds of people. I'm glad to have these kinds of conversations so I can keep striving to improve opportunities for my students. Thanks!
