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April 18, 2012 by Karen Jensen, MLS

Why YA? 2012 Printz Award Winner John Corey Whaley tells you why!

April 18, 2012 by Karen Jensen, MLS   4 comments

Today as part of our ongoing Why YA? series the 2012 Printz Award Winner John Corey Whaley talks about a ya title that moved him.  Read on to learn what ya title lingers in the mind and soul of this award winning author.

I’ll make a confession: I read YA books.  You know what else I read?  I read newspaper articles, blogposts, essays, poetry, and . . . . wait for it . . . . adult literary fiction.  It’s possible to read them all and experience them all respectively.  But, to be quite honest, YA books have the most special place in my heart.  They are the titles I remember instantly when asked “What’s your favorite book?” YA books are the ones we keep with us for years and years, lifetimes even.

So I was asked to write about a YA book that means something to me, but there are so many that I’ve had a hard time choosing just one.  I could go with the literary masterpiece To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, which would most assuredly be classified as YA were it to be newly published today.  Or, I could choose a more recent work like Sherman Alexie’s heartfelt, painful, and gorgeous The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian. What about Frank Portman’s hilarious King Dork or Stephen Chbosky’s ode to teenage sexual/emotional confusion and angst, The Perks of Being a Wallflower? I could go on and on about these titles and why they transcend the adult-teenager literary divide. But, some of these I read as a teenager and I thought, to play fair, I’d discuss a YA book that I discovered as an adult.

In the few months prior to the release of my own YA book, I decided to read several titles that I’d had on my radar for years.  The one that has stuck with me most from that period of time (and will always stick with me) was David Leviathan’s Love is the Higher Law. This beautiful sincere novel told from the multiple perspectives of New York City teenagers in the wake of the September 11th attacks meant more to me than most books I’ve ever read in my life.  I think there are several reasons why this is true and why I would never be ashamed to be caught reading this title in a public place (thank you, Mr. Stein).

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One reason is the beauty and courage with which Levithan approaches his characters as they experience, together and respectively, a rapidly changing world in which they suddenly learn they have very little control.  Their conversations, relationships, and emotions (and lack there of, sometimes) spoke to me on a personal level.

You see, I was seventeen on September 11, 2001.  Mind you, I was all the way down in Louisiana, far away from the actual events of the day, but I felt it just as I think most of us did.  I felt a physical change in the world that I had no idea how to respond to mentally or emotionally.  When I read this book, ten years later, I realized how I wasn’t alone with that feeling as a seventeen year old.  I read about Claire, Peter, and Jasper and how they were just as lost as I was, as a lot of us were, I think.

Levithan found a way to capture something that I think, as a writer of any genre, is nearly impossible.  He captured perfectly that universal haunting feeling that one gets when he or she realizes that nothing in the world makes a damn bit of sense anymore.  And he did this in a YA book. Go figure.

Speaking of “universal experiences,” I want to end by saying this: we were all teenagers.  It’s one of the very few things that every single adult on this planet has in common.  We have different faiths, different careers, different types of families, different geographic locations, and even different eating habits.  But one thing we all have is the memory of being a teenager.  We remember how it felt, how awesome it was sometimes and how much it sucked other times.  We remember discovering things for ourselves and making mistakes we knew better than to make in the first place.  We all share so few things, but being a teenager and knowing what it means to be one is a damn important one.  I write YA books because I choose to tell stories about growing up and about being a teenager and about discovering the world and the way its people work.  I do this not because I am too dumb to write adult books (in fact, I’m working on one now), but because teenagers are just us a few years ago.  They’re just waiting to grow up and become more bruised and cynical by the ways of the world.  I write YA because teenagers read with open eyes and, you know what? Maybe more adults should do the same. Now, excuse me while I go proudly wave my YA books in public places.

John Corey Whaley is the 2012 Michael L. Printz and William C. Morris Award winner for his debut novel, Where Things Come Back.  He was also named a 2011 5 Under 35 Author by the National Book Foundation.  Find out more at his webpage and follow him on Twitter (@corey_whaley).  Where Things Comes Back is the moving tale of Cullen Witter and his life in a small town with a missing brother, a missionary who is lost in other ways, and the strange reappearance of the extinct Lazarus Woodpecker.  “Complex but truly extraordinary, tinged with melancholy and regret, comedy and absurdity, this novel finds wonder in the ordinary and emerges as ultimately hopeful. It’s about a lot more than what Cullen calls, “that damn bird.” It’s about the dream of second chances.” – from Goodreads.com  “This extraordinary tale from a rare literary voice finds wonder in the ordinary and illuminates the hope of second chances.” – Amazon.com
You can write your own Why YA? post.  We’d love to hear from you.  Have you read Love is the Higher Language?  Share your thoughts with John Corey Whaley in the comments.

Filed under: David Levithan, John Corey Whaley, September 11, Where Things Come Back, Why YA?

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About Karen Jensen, MLS

Karen Jensen has been a Teen Services Librarian for almost 30 years. She created TLT in 2011 and is the co-editor of The Whole Library Handbook: Teen Services with Heather Booth (ALA Editions, 2014).

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Stephanie W says

    April 18, 2012 at 2:28 pm

    Thank you, Corey, for saying what many of us feel in our hearts but aren't so eloquent in putting on paper…er, the internet.

    ::high fives::

  2. Ginger @ GReads! says

    April 18, 2012 at 6:04 pm

    Very well said my friend. No matter how easy or hard our teenage years were, we all experienced them some how or another. Thank you for that reminder. I have not read Levithan's Love is the Higher Law, but you've definitely made it stand out on my radar.

  3. CandieLou says

    April 19, 2012 at 2:19 am

    I too have read Love Is The Higher Language and while I admit I left it until one of the last books to read on a reading list I had at the time. THAT was before I read a review and paid attention to what the book was actually about! The moment I opened the book it enveloped me, I wasn’t able to put it down until I finished the entire thing! The voices of the characters were so clear and true it was as if you had always known them. I found myself go through a range of emotions during the course of reading. The vividness of the story unfolding painted a picture in my mind of a place I have never been but as an artist I could sit down and refresh my memory with just a few words and draw a picture of the very place!
    I like many was struck by that day with a blow that was invisible but nearly brought me to my knees. It was like I was watching things in slow motion, that were happening in another time and place hoping someone would eventually wake me! The thing I remember about the day most was that I called to tell my Mother and she thought I was telling her a “story”, something so unbelievable that it simply could not be true.
    It was like I heard the whispers of each and every voice that died out that morning as if they were the slight breeze of a candle being extinguished. I remember feeling sorrow, anger, sadness, anxiety and helplessness. Ever since that day I have immersed myself in any and all literature that I have come across concerning what we now have made so common place 9/11. In a lot of ways I detest that simplification! It’s as if we can put a number on an event, how absurd we are to have given something so monumental two numbers. What have we done by this? To some probably noting and it maybe be just my over thinking things but we all have our thoughts and those are mine.
    I cried and wept every time I saw new footage for all those people. More I cried for the lives that were forever changed that day, the children. Whatever age they may be, it doesn’t matter. How can we expect them as children to understand something we as adults can’t fully wrap our minds around? Sad but true, we are the ones entrusted to explain it to them!
    So why is it important to read YA literature like this? If for no other reason but to understand your children a little better! You are a parent; you have been entrusted with a gift that is yours for life, yes. But there comes a time when that gift will be a free thinker and older than the age YOU influence by EVERYTHING you say. All the more reason to use the time you have and hold on tightly with everything there to help you do so. YA literature can be a help and it is often over looked as such. Many people/parents miss the brilliance on the rest of the pages when they find but one with something they question!
    The voice of youth in a very trying time is what Leviathan has captured in Love Is The Higher Language. There is a key word in that title that is all too often missed; LOVE. Is that not the most important thing we are to remember when we think about what is best for the youth of our country, of the world? If but one person chooses to love at least one did. If that person is not you because you can’t see past the pettiness of a books classification, then put it back where you found it! There are many more behind you waiting to pick it up and embrace all it has to offer!

  4. Sra says

    April 20, 2012 at 7:08 am

    Well said.

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