A librarian examines a disturbing trend

I have begun to fret over a question that most people probably don’t spend too much time on: Just what is a children’s book, exactly? This question–possibly not one of the burning questions of our age–is one that evaluators of children’s materials need to worry about.

Few would dispute that most picture books are children’s books, though some reach up to older audiences. Even easier to pin down are early readers. There is a blurring of the lines, however, between children’s and young adult books, particularly works of fiction. This challenges those of us who spend much of our professional lives evaluating these titles. As a reviewer of children’s and young adult books, and as a member of the Notable Children’s Books Committee, I find myself in the thick of this challenge.

That there is a difference between children’s and young adult books is undeniable. To define it is a little trickier. It is, perhaps, a little easier to tease out the differences between children and young adults, although this, too, poses its own difficulty. Simply declaring an age of transition is clean and definite, and this methodology is the way much evaluation of books for young people proceeds; accordingly, the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) lays claim to children up to age 14, and the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) declares kids from 12 to 18 as its bailiwick.

Observant readers will notice the overlap. Clarity is never easy. Eliza Dresang wrote, in a February 2006 posting to CCBC-NET:

In the late 1980s I was on a joint ALSC/YALSA Age Definition Task Force. Our purpose was to define 'child’ and 'young adult’–so the division overlap could be settled. After months of debate, we on the task force concluded that an exact dividing line was an impossibility. That is because childhood to young adulthood is a transition, a gradual process that has no precise demarcation line (such as the physical onset of puberty). And we further realized that a young person in that cross-over zone–ages 12 to 14–may be a child one moment, hour, or day and a young adult the next moment, hour, and day in psychological needs, in perspective, and in interests. And finally we realized in terms of resources that reader response differs from reader to reader so that the very same book may be read differently by a 'child’ who is 12 from the reading by a 'young adult’ who is 12.

My own observations bear out this penetrating conclusion. The 12-year-old who checks out an Eminem CD and a Babysitters Club book in the same transaction perfectly exemplifies the individual in Dresang’s “cross-over zone.”

For the purpose of this essay, I pose the following distinctions. A child’s primary concerns typically revolve around family, friends, and school. Developmentally, children still think of themselves as the center of the universe, and disruptions in that universe are measured by their direct impact on that center. It is not that children’s interests are narrow; it is simply that their basic frame of reference is themselves. A young adult’s concerns begin to broaden beyond comfortable borders as they add romantic and sexual relationships to those of family, friends, and school. A heightened social awareness allows young adults to see themselves as one among many, and not necessarily the center. As Dresang indicates, this is a process, not a line to cross.

Without any real number-crunching or substantive analysis of the total output of the children’s book industry over the past several years, here are my observations based on my own reading and anecdotes shared by colleagues.

1. The number of really good novels for the 8-12 age range is shrinking.
2. Those being produced are getting thicker (the Rowling effect), pleasing children who are already able and avid readers but effectively disenfranchising children who are still honing their skills.
3. There is a real dearth of truly excellent transitional chapter books to offer children moving up from early readers to longer fiction. It is tempting to wag our fingers at the publishing world and say it’s all their fault. However, we who evaluate children’s books, and specifically those of us who are fortunate enough to be part of an evaluation committee, need to examine our own practices as well.

There is an inherent disconnect between those who create, distribute, and promote children’s literature and their audience. The latter is, by definition, children; the former, almost exclusively adults. Since adults have layers of reading experience behind them, there is a danger of placing more value on those books that reward us as readers, not necessarily those that will delight the children we are meant to serve.

The manual for the Notable Children’s Books Committee defines Notable as: Worthy of note or notice, important, distinguished, outstanding. As applied to children’s books, notable should be thought to include books of especially commendable quality, books that exhibit venturesome creativity, and books of fiction, information, poetry and pictures for all age levels (through age 14) that reflect and encourage children’s interests in exemplary ways.

The manual further states that “[t]o be eligible for consideration a book must…[b]e a book for which children are a potential audience. See criteria for age range” (both quotes, p. 6). That emphasized “children” bespeaks a certain uneasiness in the writers of the manual, as if they have already wrangled the question of audience into the ground and want to leave no room for misapplication on the part of future committees. The referral to the criteria in the very next sentence, however, undercuts that emphasis and throws the question of how to distinguish a children’s book from a young adult book back into the collective lap of each new committee.

Anyone who sits in on Notables sessions for any length of time will notice that the word “audience” is invoked more than any other word in the discussions of fiction titles, and to a lesser extent, nonfiction. The ability to produce an enthusiastic 13- or 14-year-old reader can often tip the balance in members’ minds as to a title’s suitability as a Notable book. As the manual specifically enumerates both “subject matter of interest and value to children” and “the likelihood of acceptance by children” as criteria, real-world kid input can legitimately aid members in their thinking. But one enthusiastic 13-year-old voice should not trump other considerations.

To do so is to risk missing the fine distinction between 13-year-old children and 13-year-old young adults—who may, as Dresang notes—be one and the same kid. One title that was recognized as Notable in 2006 particularly exemplifies this difficulty: Gabrielle Zevin’s Elsewhere (Farrar). It’s a wry look at an afterlife in which the newly dead age backwards from the point of their death to the moment when they are reborn into the land of the living. Fifteen-year-old Liz has just died in an automobile accident, and she resists death, mourning the breasts she’ll never develop, the romantic and sexual relationships she’ll never have. Elsewhere, one of the finer books of the year (in my opinion), presents readers with something truly new in its vision of the afterlife, and speaks to a 12- to 14-year-old audience. Yet, I question whether it is in fact a children’s book. The 12- to 14-year-old who responds to Elsewhere does not respond as a child, but as a young adult—and simply toeing the age line can lead us astray.

What are we doing to the literature we love when we recognize and promote works that skew to the upper edge of our appointed age range? We are rewarding the risky, the edgy, the sophisticated, and the just plain long. Are we doing what we need to do to encourage the creation of more Charlotte’s Webs? More Henry Hugginses?

I do not ask that we eschew the risky and sophisticated works. I believe strongly in the window and the mirror, and that exposing readers to the unhappiness and sometimes brutality that other children must endure is essential. Introducing narrative sophistication is important to prepare them for the wealth of material they’ll encounter later on. But I feel that this can be done in a way that still engages the child reader as a child.

Several titles from the 2006 Notables list do just this. Linda Himelblau’s The Trouble Begins (Delacorte) asks readers to put themselves into the head of a newly arrived Vietnamese immigrant child and view what they see as familiar through his very foreign eyes. Jennifer L. and Matthew Holm’s Babymouse: Queen of the World! (Random) is a screamingly funny and very clever graphic novel that rings the changes of narrative conventions as Babymouse struggles to reconcile her desire for popularity with her real friendship. Donna Jo Napoli’s The King of Mulberry Street (Random) is a rock-solid historical novel that introduces readers to a nine-year-old Neapolitan Jew alone in New York City in the 1890s. Jessica Kerrin’s Martin Bridge, Ready for Takeoff (Kids Can) is a pitch-perfect chapter book that confronts its hero with three very real-world ethical dilemmas every elementary student will recognize.

But these titles are four of the ten pieces of fiction assigned to the “Middle Readers” section of the 2006 Notables list; there are 23 novels in the “Older Readers” section. This distribution, I fear, marks a tendency to skew older that will only continue as long as the recognition goes predominantly to titles for older readers.

Clearly, the middle-grade novel is not yet dead, but it is in trouble. It is imperative that we continue to defend and promote it, even if it means ceding some of the more sophisticated pieces for older readers to our young adult colleagues. It is simply unacceptable for us to neglect the literature that nurtured us—lest it not thrive to nurture future children.