The dichotomy my colleagues and the professor have discussed (popularity versus literary quality) should be and can be breached by certain books that can indeed be successful with both objectives being popular and high literary quality. There are of course, a fair number of great popular books that also have some lasting and impressive literary qualities (classics and “instant” classics). On the other end there are some Printz award winning and honor books that become popular after they win the award, or at least these books experience significant gains in readership, sales and distribution in libraries and bookstores after the award, I think that books like Looking for Alaska became somewhat more popular or at least gained lasting notoriety and “hooked” more readers after it won the 2006 Printz award. Like many book awards, the Printz award for best young adult book of the year is intended to reward “excellence” and “literary merit”, and not to acknowledge the size of the book’s intended audience. How excellence is defined by the committee is a different matter and how the new committees each year come to agreement about a final winner and the honor books is still quite mysterious but the objective isn’t to appeal to the masses but to appeal to “literary merit”. Jonathan Hunt’s article we read for this week documents the growing diversity in genres (and subgenres!) of YA books, and the difficulty of deciding which is the “best” out of all the Printz candidates in a particular year especially with all the inner-personal and interpersonal dynamics he discusses.
The point has already been made that the award or honors can encourage non-avid and even avid readers to explore books they would otherwise avoid. Which begs the question that Hunt writes about in his article we read this week of who is the reader of this award winner or honor book and how can we use these award winning and honor books to promote reading and books in the general in the Young Adult population or at the very least how can they advocate for their intended audiences most effectively?
The answer, how to reach the most people, to me is a new model of young adult award promotion. Awards reward and promote literary merit, and sometimes as a side effect this opens new eyes to reading, but there are only so many awards and so many more intended audiences. I suggest we promote and market all YA awards equally (as they should be equals) and not assert one as more important then the others and look for creative ways to promote books for all intended audiences. The use of an award is to promote and market a book and an author, other benefits are side effects or bonus gains. Book awards are sorely needed by readers, libraries and bookstores to promote authors, books, related books, and reach new readers who would other wise be uninterested. Anything that “hooks” someone into reading I am personally a fan of. So maybe we need more awards, maybe one for every major intended audience, so that we respect all readers equally, otherwise, honestly we are failing as people of the books if we play our own personal favorites, and therefore ignore and even worse dismiss potential reader communities.
All formats, genres, sub-genres, intended audiences deserve to be recognized every year, or else libraries, bookstores, and reading in general will suffer continual and additional unnecessary losses.
My perspective comes in part from my work at Linden Tree Bookstore. I have learned in the few months that I have been working there that the bookstore that people repeatedly come back to must carry more than just popular books. As a result the young adult books we carry include new books, classics, tons of different genres, many books that will never make bestseller list but will engage different segments of the teen population, just think if there were even more awards and more credit given to where credit is deserved. Why should we discount certain reader audiences for the sake of others? Are librarians and people of the books so elitist to think some intended audiences are more worthy of merit then others? Not if we want the maximum number of readers and avid readers, we need more awards, more honors, and more readers anyway we can get and keep them.
** But there are many other awards given! See the full list: of book awards
includes Reader’s Choice and Teens’ Top Ten
Best of the Best – recognizing diversity,
“Teens Top Ten” – voted on by teens each summer
