Reconstruction Vol. 11, No. 3
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Michael Cart, Young Adult Literature: From Romance to Realism. Chicago: American Library Association, 2010. 242 pages. ISBN 978-0-8389-1045-0 / Amy Cummins
<1> Michael Cart’s engaging analysis of new developments in young adult literature (YAL) merits attention from readers both closely familiar with the field as well as those interested in contemporary American popular culture in general. Young Adult Literature: From Romance to Realism (2010) is scholarly enough to be a research tool for critics and readable enough to be a textbook in graduate and possibly undergraduate courses in literature, education, or library science.
<2> Well known for his Booklist columns, biographies, edited story collections, and author interviews, Cart has written, co-written, or edited twenty books and numerous articles about YAL. He has chaired the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) with the American Library Association (ALA). Cart’s background expertise enhances the quality of this book, while his narrative style makes readers sense they are getting the inside track on the exciting developments in YAL. For example, Cart tells about the origins of the Michel L. Printz Award, which annually recognizes the “best” young adult book, from his standpoint as chair of the task force that created it (69).
<3> This book is a thoroughly expanded revision of Cart’s earlier text From Romance to Realism: Fifty Years of Growth and Change (1996). Similar to the original book is Part One, “That Was Then,” which constitutes the first third of the new book and covers YAL from the 1960s through the 1990s. Cart initially ended with a note of concern about the future of YAL because some critics feared the YA field was “diminishing” or “dying” (53). In fact, the opposite has occurred: YAL became less formulaic, not more; publishers increased their lists rather than contracting them; and schools began “bringing contemporary books into the classroom” (57). Part Two, “This Is Now,” starts in the year 2000 and suggests that much of the current appeal and renaissance of YAL lies in its porous boundaries, unstable definitions, and diverse appeal.
<4> Cart explores “the crossover conundrum” by addressing the “increased blurring of the lines” between YAL and adult fiction (114). Cart argues that by 1999, adult readership of YAL was established through the popularity and crossover appeal of the first books in the Harry Potter and Lemony Snicket series (114). Adult fandom of YAL often involves series books that adults enjoy sharing and discussing with each other and with young readers. While publishers typically make the choice of how to market a book, including its target readership, authors such as Walter Dean Myers, A. M. Homes, Robert Cormier, and Phillip Pullman have published books in separate editions for the two different audiences, YAL and adult (113). The industry even established the Alex Awards in 1998 as an annual list of “the best adult books for young adults,” further implying the blurring of the line between adult and young adult readership (121).
<5> Cart takes a position on the scholarly question of whether YAL began in the nineteenth or the twentieth century. While critics concur there has been literature targeted to children since the middle ages, they disagree about whether or not to begin surveys of the YAL field in the mid-twentieth century, or with the post- United States Civil War books of Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, and Horatio Alger, Jr. or even earlier, in the decades before the Civil War. While Cart acknowledges the significance of nineteenth-century authors, he situates YAL as part of “the emergence of the new youth culture” associated with high schools after the Great Depression (11), arguing for 1942 as the year in which writing directly for teenagers was established with Maureen Daly’s Seventeenth Summer (11). This contemporary emphasis correlates with Cart’s approach to YAL as literature written for teenagers’ entertainment, not their edification.
<6> A major issue in YAL during the second decade of the twenty-first century has been diversity. A confusing aspect of Cart’s ninth chapter is its coverage of so many topics, from racial and ethnic identity to “Another Diversity: Risky Behaviors” (131) about violence and bullying. Cart’s unifying concept is the overly general “new realities of teen life” (123), but the chapter unintentionally puts ethnic diversity on a plane with violence and danger. It would have been more effective and helpful to give racial and ethnic diversity its own, full-developed chapter.
<7> For, as Cart articulates effectively, teen readers need to see themselves reflected “in the pages of good books but also to see others” who are different so they can come to understanding of what they share in common, and fiction provides these “opportunities for cultivating empathy” (129). Readership for ethnically and racially diverse texts continues to increase, yet less than ten percent of the new YA books published annually are “multicultural” in any way, and even fewer are by authors “working from within the culture” (125). The most likely reason is economic: because publishers do not “expand their offerings” when they are unsure of a profit (126). Cart identifies some of the major awards and outstanding authors active today, but more coverage of multicultural literature would have made the book even better to make Young Adult Literature: From Romance to Realism even more helpful to teachers and librarians who need to diversify their holdings—a nearly universal imperative.
<8> Building on his discussion of diversity, Cart devotes a full section of the text to “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Literature,” helping teens looking for reflections of their experiences as well as teachers and librarians improving their collections. Cart’s recommendations of the best titles about GLBT teen life are reinforced by the credential that he co-authored with Christine Jenkins the well-received book The Heart Has Its Reasons, a critical history of young adult literature with GLBT themes (Scarecrow Press, 2006). Cart addresses patterns and significant works about GLBT characters written in the previous four decades. Compared to the 1980s, the 1990s saw a doubling of books Publication of books on GLBT themes doubled during the 1990s, as compared to the previous decade, with the main focus on “coming out” rather than on “the realities of living as an out teen” (157). In the new millennium, books addressing GLBT issues increased in quality and quantity while moving beyond the focus on “coming out”. However, Cart voices concern that too many books still treat queerness as “a problem” rather than a fact of life (160). This chapter warrants attention by any critic writing about queer issues in YAL as well as by readers seeking good book recommendations.
<9> The book ends with an effective and timely chapter, “Of Books and Bytes,” which covers the current “renaissance” of the field (187). Although some critics fear that people are reading less and differently due to “digital distractions,” young people are certainly reading (187). Surveys indicate that teens are reading more online and multimedia and less traditional print literature in the genres of novels, poetry, and drama. Cart views digital media as not just inevitable but also favorable developments because information fluency involves not only print literacy but also visual, media, and technological literacies. Cart gives attention to various angles of the question “Is reading online actually reading?” (192), a debate that merits particular attention from English Language Arts teachers and teacher-educators. While citing with approval the argument of Steven Johnson (who builds on James Paul Gee) in favor of the intellectual complexity of contemporary popular culture, Cart shares his own opinion that “the Internet is no friend to any kind of complex or long-form reading” and thus cannot replace full-length narratives, whether in print or on a digital reader (192). Instead, Cart argues that online activity extends the reading experience rather than replacing it. Experimental forms of publishing used by YAL publishers include 39 Clues, Scholastic’s ongoing series of interrelated mysteries that involves reading books, collecting game cards, trying to win prize money, and participating in “a fully immersive online gaming experience” (195). Authors, teachers, librarians, parents, and publishers have increased their efforts to try to meet teens where they are and tap into their creativity.
<10> A forward-looking book, Young Adult Literature: From Romance to Realism shows how much promise the YAL field holds. This book will reward librarians, teachers, parents, and other readers looking for new titles, authors, and trends. Michael Cart’s book testifies that young adult literature is and will remain a prominent component of contemporary popular culture.
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