ShareThisBy KAREN MACPHERSON
Thursday, November 09, 2006
If you're worried about whether electronics-obsessed teens read books anymore, throw your cares away. Since 1999, sales of young-adult books have soared by 23 percent, while adult-book sales have dipped by 1 percent.
In addition, while more teen books are being sold, there also are more choices for young-adult-book purchasers. A decade ago, perhaps 1,000 young-adult _ YA _ books were published annually; these days, publishers bring out several thousand titles each year.
Yet there's been one thing missing: an easy-to-read guide for parents, teachers and teens to the ever-growing mountain of YA books. Now Anita Silvey, a nationally noted children's-literature expert, has solved that problem by publishing "500 Great Books For Teens" (Houghton Mifflin, $26).
(One note in the spirit of full disclosure: Silvey included me in the acknowledgments section of her book. I had no connection with the book, but Silvey is a valued source on children's literature.)
In the book, the 500 titles chosen by Silvey are divided into 21 genres, such as adventure and survival books, fantasies, romances and graphic novels. Silvey introduces each section with an essay, and then offers a brief essay about each book, starting with the classics in that genre.
Some of the books were originally published for children; others were published for young adults or even for adults, such as "The Da Vinci Code." Silvey's book also has appendices listing books by geographical location and historical time period, as well as a list of recommended audio books.
"We live in a golden age of young-adult publishing," Silvey said in a recent telephone interview. "But, although we are seated at a banquet of young-adult books, most people starve. They simply don't know how to find great books _ hence I created a guide for the perplexed."
Overall, Silvey said her goal was to highlight books where "literary quality and popularity come together. Those are the books we need to hunt for. Popularity alone is not enough. And, much as I love literary books that nobody reads, that's the problem: no one reads them."
Silvey said she got the idea for "500 Great Books for Teens" several years ago during the book tour for her book, "100 Best Books For Children."
"At event after event, several desperate-looking people would come up to me and ask, 'Can you do a book like this for teens?' When this happens once, it's interesting; but when it happens 50 times, you finally have to think that there really is a need here."
Silvey has served as editor of "The Horn Book," the Bible of children's literature, and she also was publisher of children's books at Houghton Mifflin. So she was familiar with many YA books, including such "grit lit" classics as "The Outsiders" and "Go Ask Alice."
Because she wanted to create a "very contemporary guide," however, Silvey also set out to read many YA books published since 2000. In total, she read or re-read 5,000 books. For simplicity's sake, Silvey decided to focus on what she considers the 500 best books for teens, but included many other books at the end of her book in a section titled "Beyond the 500: Additional Titles of Interest."
Silvey also decided against creating a list of books that teens must read.
"I really believe there is a canon of great literature we can give to children, and that all children will appreciate. By the time you get to the teenage years, however, their reading is so individualized there is no way in good conscience that I could say, 'OK, this is what you should read.' Teens are very much like adults, and very few adults read across all genres."
In recent years, there's been a lot of media attention given to "chick lit" _ YA books like "The Gossip Girls" or "The Nannies" series _ books that push the envelope on sex. "As with any group of books, there are good books, bad books and all the ones in between. Parents can help move teen readers to better selections _ even in chick lit," Silvey says.
While Silvey celebrates the richness of YA literature, she says there still aren't enough books showing teens taking political and social action, such as "The Gospel According To Larry" or "The Kite Runner."
"If Martians read our books, they would believe that American teenagers hang out only in shopping malls and never participate in society," she said. "I was able to select some books that showed political and social activism on the part of teenagers, but I wish more good books existed in this area."
(Karen MacPherson, the children's/teen librarian at the Takoma Park, Md. Library, can be reached at Kam.macpherson(at)gmail.com.)
