More Is Not Always Better
A YA librarian speaks out on the sorry state of series publishing
By Ed Sullivan -- School Library Journal, 4/1/2000
Like many young adults, I preferred reading nonfiction as a teen and still do as an adult. Some great nonfiction is being published for teens these days, but there is also a lot coming out that should have never made it to press. What I am specifically referring to are the endless series being cranked out in assembly line-like fashion for public and school libraries, many of which are superficially written, poorly designed, cheaply made, and outrageously overpriced.
It is not the concept of series to which I object. I do not share the belief that because a book is part of a series, it cannot be one of quality and substance. The reality, however, is that series, particularly nonfiction titles, are often quite substandard in quality and substance, and that libraries are being charged exorbitant amounts of money for these inferior products.
The first issue I want to address is the habit of publishers to find a subject and milk it for all its worth, producing a lengthy series of books when fewer books, if not a single title, might do the job. For example, "The Get Prepared Library of Violence Prevention for Young Women" series (Rosen) consists of eight books, including Staying Safe at Home, Staying Safe at School, and Staying Safe at Work, each of which is 64 pages long (including bibliography, glossary, index, and a plethora of large photographs) and is priced at $16.95. Worthy as the topic is, I have to question why it is necessary to break the information down in this manner. One would think that the information in Staying Safe on Public Transportation and Staying Safe While Traveling (all 1995) is similar enough to be combined into a single text. All of the information in these eight texts, in fact, could easily be assimilated into a single concise and comprehensive book--but that would mean a much smaller profit margin. "The Teen Pregnancy Prevention Library" series (Rosen) also follows the abundantly illustrated, 64-page format. Couldn't titles like In Control: Learning to Say No to Sexual Pressure and It's Okay to Say No: Choosing Sexual Abstinence (both 1997) be easily combined? Is it necessary to have separate titles on teenage mothers and teenage fathers? At $16.95 each, it is if you are greedy.
Besides stretching subject matter to outrageous limits, many nonfiction publishers are also in the habit of recycling material in their various series. Subjects such as AIDS, alcoholic parents, depression, diet fads, discrimination, drug abuse, family violence, grieving, romantic breakups, peer pressure, sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and stepfamilies have been covered in both the "Coping" series and "The Need to Know Library" series (both Rosen). If Everything You Need to Know About Eating Disorders (1998) can be covered in one 64-page book, what is there to say that warrants the creation of a 12-volume series called "The Teen Health Library of Eating Disorder Prevention" (Rosen) at $19.95 each? Shouldn't Coping with Eating Disorders (1999) be a part of a book that is supposed to tell everything one needs to know about them? With a title like Everything You Need to Know About Growing Up Female (1997), one would think that subjects like getting your period and PMS would be covered. Not so! There is a separate title on each in "The Need to Know Library." Perhaps the best example I can offer is the "Drug Abuse Prevention Library" (Rosen), a whopping 60-volume set, priced at $17.95 each. One wonders what material can be covered in 60 volumes when there is also a single 64-page book titled Everything You Need to Know About Drug Abuse (1998).
I do not want to leave the impression that Rosen is the only offender here. Enslow, for example, has its own 16-title series focusing on abused drugs, "The Drug Library." Granted, many of the subjects are important enough to warrant books of their own that range from 104 to 128 pages. I question, however, the necessity of having separate books on LSD, marijuana, peyote, and hallucinogens. Since LSD and marijuana are among the most widely used hallucinogens, and since peyote is not, would not one volume instead of four be more efficient? At $19.95 each, it would certainly be more cost-effective for libraries with ever-shrinking book budgets. Even if there is enough material for a separate volume, does a book about caffeine really belong in a series on drug abuse?
Another questionable series is "The Holocaust Remembered" (Enslow). In addition to Ann Byers's The Holocaust Overview (1998), there are additional titles dealing with camps, ghettos, heroes, survivors, Hitler and the Nazis. Apparently, Helen Strahinich's The Holocaust: Understanding and Remembering (Enslow, 1996) from the "Issues in Focus" series is not focused enough. But let's do the math: one book for $17.95 versus a nine-title series, at $17.95 each. There's the motivation. Even at nine volumes, you will still find better studies of the Holocaust for young people in singular works like Barbara Bachrach's Tell Them We Remember: The Story of the Holocaust (Little, Brown, 1994) or Barbara Rogasky's Smoke and Ashes: The Story of the Holocaust (Holiday, 1988).
Chelsea House, a publisher specializing in biographies, also recycles and repackages its subjects in a variety of series. For instance, titles on Helen Keller are available in either the "Women of Achievement" or the "Great Achievers: Lives of the Physically Challenged" series. Elvis Presley books appear in either the "Pop Culture Legends" or the dramatically titled "They Died Too Young" series.
The insidious practice of recycling and repackaging the same information under new titles might be forgivable if it resulted in a product of quality and substance. Series nonfiction books consistently feature awful covers; dull, monotonous, if not outright bad, writing; unimaginative layout and design of text and illustrations; and the repetitive use of stock photographs. Information is presented, but it is done in a flat, condescending manner that does nothing to engage the mind or spark the imagination. These books do not reflect a respect for their audience. They succeed only in reducing reading to a boring, laborious chore.
Consider this passage from Barbara Hermie Draimin's Coping When a Parent Has AIDS (Rosen, 1994):
"Sadness is an emotion that we all feel from time to time, often following a loss of some kind. It need not be a big loss; it can come from not getting a teacher you wanted or not making an athletic team. It can be saying goodbye to someone who is going away. Sadness can also follow a big loss such a [sic] death or illness." (p. 110)
Who does this author think she's addressing? She sounds like Mr. Rogers talking to his preschool audience. Another stellar example of painfully dry and didactic prose is found in Barbara Moe's Everything You Need to Know About Sexual Abstinence (Rosen, 1995):
"Your body is equipped with sex organs. Sex organs are the parts of your body that are involved with reproduction, or the ability to have a baby. When you are a teenager, your body produces hormones. Hormones are chemicals that cause your sexual organs to mature. The physical changes that occur when you are a teenager affect how you feel about yourself and others. For many teens, adjusting to the changes is awkward." (p. 8)
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We do need books on the subjects commonly treated in series. That does not mean, however, that we have to settle for inferior quality. |
Granted, the "Need to Know Library" is geared toward reluctant young adult readers, but there is no reason to assume that because teens dislike reading they are stupid, which is what this book's trite prose presumes.
One of the most disturbing aspects of the subcompact treatment of series nonfiction is that it results in a gross trivialization of the subject matter. It is absurd to think that Everything You Need to Know About Racism (Rosen, 1998) can be addressed in a mere 56 pages of text! How insulting an idea that must be to anyone who has been a victim of racism, and how insulting for a publisher to reduce such a significant and complex subject to a standard, cookie-cutter format. Patricia and Frederick McKissack's Taking a Stand Against Racism and Racial Discrimination (Watts, 1990) is a more competently done and sensitive alternative.
I ask myself why librarians continue to buy these materials, especially when quality alternatives are more readily and cheaply available. One reason is that a lot of librarians just do not hold nonfiction in high regard. There is a tendency among librarians to be very "fictioncentric." When they think of literature, they think of fiction. They think of nonfiction as informational: something to be used for homework assignments. In other words, librarians typically do not accord much literary value to nonfiction books, and as a result of that pervasive prejudice, little attention is paid to their quality. In evaluations of nonfiction books, I see reviewers commenting upon the author's thoroughness in addressing the subject, the organization and layout, the ease with which the information is accessed, the existence of a glossary and index, and other observations about the book's overall usefulness. Rarely does a nonfiction review go beyond the superficial, offering commentary upon the aesthetic qualities of a book: the author's ability to craft an engaging narrative, its structure, point of view, pace, tone, voice, and so on.
We do need books on these subjects commonly treated in series. That does not mean, however, that we have to settle for inferior quality. It is our obligation to insist upon the best for our patrons. One simple way we can do that is to stop buying these books. A drop in sales will send a clear message to publishers that you have had enough of the endless milking of subjects, the price gouging, the superficial treatment of important subjects, and the inferior prose that is dumbed down to teen readers. We owe it to young people to do something!
Ed Sullivan is a librarian in Staten Island and teaches a graduate course in young adult literature at St. John's University, Staten Island (NY) Campus.
