We are supposedly in the midst of a great renaissance in juvenile literature. (I tend a little more toward the view that we are in the midst of a great renaissance in the marketing of juvenile literature, but that is beside the point.) Certainly in the past 15 years authors have produced some very exciting and compelling stories that have captured a wider audience than ever before and even managed to introduce some children to the joy of reading who might otherwise have been hoodwinked into believing that reading is drudgery. Is it fair to state that Rowling's Harry Potter series began this trend? Certainly other blockbuster book series have followed in its wake: Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson books, the Twilight "saga," and, yes, now our attention is drawn to Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games.
In the interest of full disclosure, it is true that I do not share much of the enthusiasm for this explosion of interest in juvenile literature. The reason why lies mostly in the fact that more is being made of it than is healthy. (Read down for examples). I find it extremely irksome that Harry Potter is being treated seriously by academics in journals and conferences, that college courses are being offered on it, that I have to endure people gushing about its literary merits. Yes, yes, call me elitist, call me a snob. But before the rising tide of your resentment overwhelms me, let me emphasize that I think that these books have accomplished many good things. I have no problem defending these books and what we've gained because of them. They've gotten many otherwise uninterested kids reading. They're at least partially responsible for breaking down the nerd-barrier between fantasy/sci-fi and other "more serious" genres. And they've revived a field, young adult fiction, that has long suffered from inadequacy. I'm willing to admit the positives - but are you willing to admit the negatives? They exist. I could go on at great length (and often have) detailing them. Let's let some anecdotal evidence suffice for today's rant.
I have indeed read Collins' The Hunger Games trilogy. The first book in the series was pretty good in my estimation, especially for its target audience. Fast-paced, edgy, full of teen-angst (angst that managed not to be repulsive, please take note, J.K. Rowling), it's probably the gold standard for a teen action drama. I completely understand its current popularity. (The next two books, however...the next two books...remember what Thumper's mom always told him?) But one of the things that I find so troubling about its popularity is one of the very things that most people see as an overwhelming positive - wide audience appeal. With all of the exciting choices present into the field of juvenile literature, many, many young adults are not moving past it. I've been in several different schools over the past month, and one thing that has really stood out to me is how many high school students are still reading books that are written for middle schoolers. One can understand The Hunger Games, particularly with the movie about to come out, but should a 12th grade boy really still be reading Percy Jackson? When I was in high school it was very common to see the same type of kid reading J. Pirate-Sounds Tolkien, or Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series, or Terry Brooks' Shannara series. Though not pillars of western literature by any stretch, at least these are books written for adults and will challenge, not merely entertain. Yet, I cannot fault a book for being entertaining, so this issue points past the literature to what I believe is another failure on the part of educators.
I was poking around on the web the other day and happened upon a school in Kentucky. I'm always interested to see what people are teaching, so I visited the English faculty's page and took a look at a particular teacher's class syllabus. Her 10th grade Honors English class was studying...The Hunger Games. (Feel free to insert your own expressions of righteous indignation here: *_____________*.) It appears that rather than study Orwell's Animal Farm, the class was attempting to explore the same themes using the great Suzanne Collins. Clearly, there are all sorts of things wrong with this. I'll mention only a couple. The first, linked back to what I've written about students not moving past juvenile literature, should be obvious. Not only are teachers failing to push their students to challenge themselves, but are actively contributing to the problem by assigning books well below their students' reading level (or at least where that level should be). Again, the reason so many teachers have been so enthusiastic about the glorious renaissance in juvenile lit is a greater student interest in reading. Well, I'm glad so many teachers are pumped about making their jobs easy, cause that's really what it's all about. Complaining that students won't drink, shall we not lead them to water either? I don't really think this teacher is lazy, by the way - what I actually believe is going on here is that this teacher was led to the Kool-Aid and has drunk deeply. It's practically an article of faith these days that you teach the standards, not the content. If the material you use to teach the standards gets the kids psyched for reading - awesome! All the better! Bring on The Hunger Games! As long as you can use it to teach metaphors and similes. Except somewhere along the way we have lost something.
This dove-tails into my second objection, the complete loss of integrity, the hamstringing of our commitment to our own silent curriculum ("our" meaning English teachers). Now I'm not talking about the usual stuff, respecting others, being polite, learning responsibility, etc. I'm talking about the sneaky way we expose students who would never otherwise be exposed to some of the greatest works ever written. And not for the sake of the works being great - they are great because they ask and explore the important questions. I'll force myself not to rhapsodize further about capital-L literature, but perhaps you get my point. Now, I'll try not to blunt everything I've just said by throwing in a bunch of caveats, but I will add one: you do not have to sacrifice entertainment, enjoyability, or engagement in order to maintain this trust. What is taught in the classroom should, to quote Horace, both "instruct and delight." There are some extremely poor choices that have endured as staples in the high school classroom. I will spare you a separate rant on what changes I think should be made in the curriculum, but did want to point out that changes should be made. A dynamic curriculum is important, but we do not have to sacrifice depth for excitement.
So, as should by now be obvious, this wasn't really a rant about juvenile literature nearly so much as it was a jeremiad (get it? har-har) about the state of public education and the 'brilliant" innovations being cooked up to create "engagement."
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