ALAN Online News June 2016
A.S. King Is 2016 ALAN Workshop
Keynote Speaker
A message from ALAN President Jennifer Buehler:
 
I am thrilled to announce A. S. King as the keynote speaker for the 2016 ALAN Workshop. King’s work epitomizes this year’s workshop theme of innovation, vision, and risk taking.
 
No matter which A.S. King title you pick up, you can count on it to be smart, funny, and deep, full of original metaphors and brutal emotional honesty. Across her novels, you’ll find references to pirates, reality television, the Vietnam War, science and genetics, feminist politics, and art.
 
You’ll also find magical realism. King’s teenage characters receive visits from Socrates and encouragement from talking ants. They build invisible helicopters, meet alternate versions of themselves, and see the future. Every one of her books is unique, but what they all have in common is tremendous respect for the intelligence of teenagers. Nothing could be more fitting for the workshop.

Watch the ALAN website and Facebook page for more upcoming announcements about this year's ALAN Workshop. 
2016 ALAN Award and Ted Hipple Service Award Winners Announced
From the Award Committees:

Congratulations to the 2016 recipients of the ALAN Award and the Ted Hipple Service Award: Gary Salvner and Marge Ford. 

As Executive Director of ALAN for eleven years and Executive Secretary for ten years, Gary Salvner is a recognizable smiling face at the ALAN workshop, greeting everyone, new and old members alike. Gary served on the faculty of Youngstown State University in Ohio for 35 years before retiring in 2012. With Virginia Monseau, he co-edited  Reading Their World: The Young Adult Novel in the Classroom, making  the argument that YA is a valuable component in literature classes. Particularly notable is his dedication to and promotion of young adult literature through his many years of teaching and also his involvement with the Youngstown State University’s annual English Festival since its 1978 inception. The Festival is distinguished by its promotion and cultivation of young adult literature to its 3,000 student participants in significant part by introducing them to leading YA authors. Gary is an inspiration to them and to all who value the power of young adult literature.

The ALAN Award is chosen by a 5-person committee appointed by the ALAN President and   honors those who have made outstanding contributions to the field of adolescent literature. The recipient may be a publisher, author, librarian, scholar, editor, or servant to the ALAN.

The Ted Hipple Award, chosen by the Executive Committee (President-elect, President, Past President, Executive Director), goes to Marge Ford, who has served devotedly as our ALAN treasurer for many years. Marge has given countless hours of time unraveling every tech and financial issue, no matter how tangled, to keep ALAN on a straight path of service to its members. She has solved every problem with grit and determination, relentlessly seeking the very best solution no matter how much time it required. ALAN owes her a great debt of gratitude and it is fitting that her name be connected forever with Ted Hipple, whose service this award commemorates.

The ALAN Award and Ted Hipple Service Awards will be presented at the ALAN Breakfast on Saturday morning, November 19, 2016 from 7:00 AM – 9:15 AM. S.E. Hinton, author of The Outsiders and other novels, is the featured speaker. Registration is open now. Please see the ALAN website for instructions on registration. 

ALAN Award Committee: Marshall George, Michael Cart, Betty Bayer, Kellee Moye, Dani King

Hipple Award Committee: Laura Renzi, Jennifer Buelhler, Daria Plumb, James Blasingame
Books by S.E. Hinton, 2016 ALAN Breakfast Speaker
From the Ted Hipple Collection, University of South Florida, Photo by Joan Kaywell
Remembering Author Lois Duncan
Anne McLeod is editor of ALAN Online News. 

YA literature pioneer Lois Duncan died June 15 at her home in Florida. Her suspense novels, including the bestsellers  I Know What You Did Last Summer  and  Killing Mr. Griffin , gave generations of teen readers their first taste of tightly plotted mysteries written specially for them.

I was one of them. I met Lois  Duncan in the pages of Scholastic's book order form around 1969 when I was in the 6th grade. They Never Came Home had come out in 1968, and it sounded like it would be right up my alley. Two friends disappear from a weekend camping trip, leaving their families frantic with worry and ultimately with grief as months pass with no news of their whereabouts. After the sister of one of the missing boys receives a disturbing phone call from a stranger, she sets out to discover what happened to her brother, even if it means her own life is placed in jeopardy. 


ALAN Grant Applications are due in September. In addition to the Gallo Grants for first-time workshop registrants and ALAN Foundation grants for research, this year we have two new grants: The Smith/Carlsen for full-time graduate students and the Cart/Campbell Grant for a librarian. See the ALAN website for more information. 
YA Novels about Mental Illness

Diane Scrofano is a former high school English teacher and librarian who now works at a California community college. She recently did a sabbatical on the topic of mental illness in books for young adults. 

Did you know that May was Mental Health Awareness Month? According to the National Institute of Mental Health, up to one in every five of our students may be struggling with mental illness (for this and more startling statistics, see this handy infographic from the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Mental Health Facts: Children and Teens). But there are plenty of great books out there to give the next generation the insight they need to break down stigma. Here is a brief guide to my favorite YA novels of mental illness and what makes each story special:

On Bipolar Disorder
In All the Bright Places, by Jennifer Niven (2015), Finch and Violet take turns telling us the story of how their relationship develops alongside Finch’s illness. Two other novels do a great job with narration alternating between male and female characters, one of whom is ill: Crazy, by Amy Reed (2013) and When We Collided, by Emery Lord (2016). While the temptation in bipolar stories is to sensationalize manic behavior, Niven gives Finch a wonderful insight and capacity to describe the other side of bipolar: “the Asleep,” as Finch calls it. Wild Awake (2015) focuses on manic episodes but author Hilary T. Smith, who has bipolar disorder herself, really helps the reader understand how a person could slip into that type of thinking. The classic Stop Pretending, by Sonia Sones (1999), provides us with the point of view of the sister of a teen with mental illness in the form of a verse novel with a resource guide at the end.

Speak Loudly: Challenges to Looking for Alaska

Speak Loudly is a column sponsored by ALAN's Anti-Censorship Committee, chaired by Barbara A. Ward. 

The end of the academic year for public and private schools as well as brief breaks from college teaching provides bibliophiles with a chance to catch up on recent happenings in the world of book challenges. In addition to the trouble This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki (2014) has faced in several Florida school districts, John Green’s book Looking for Alaska (2005) has been named the most challenged book of 2015 by the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. The book was challenged for what some considered to be “offensive language” and “sexually explicit descriptions.”

On this occasion, it might be a good idea to revisit Green’s powerful online defense of his book in “I Am Not a Pornographer.” He posted this back in 2008 after attempts by parents and administrators on the Depew School Board in Depew, New York, wanted to remove the book from the hands of students. They
eventually decided to continue to make the book available. While the book seemed safe in New York, at least back then, Looking for Alaska (the 2006 Printz Award winner) seems to always be looking for acceptance across the nation.
YA Links in the News
The NYT Bestseller List for Young Adult Hardcover is all female authors - another glass ceiling shatters!

Summer is here and that means new young adult novels to read. Here are 17 YA books coming out just in time for summer reading. 

“Let the games begin!” Suzanne Collins, along with other notable YA authors, speaks about the power of young adult literature at the 2016 Author’s Guild Dinner.

With high profile rape cases and discussions of what constitutes consent continuing, NPR examines how YA literature can help teens better understand the issues and responsibly navigate their own sexual experiences.  

Thanks to Cynthia Dawn Martelli for contributing links. 

ALAN's Real Quick Picks
Relationships - tender, troubled, romantic, complicated - are the focus for this issue's Real Quick Picks. There's something for everyone here, from young middle grade readers who will appreciate G. Neri's Tru and Nelle, a fictionalized account of the childhood friendship of writers Truman Capote and Harper Lee to mature teens struggling with the kinds of real life issues depicted in the short story collection I See Reality edited by Grace Kendall

Thanks to Joan Kaywell, Helene Halstead, and Barbara Ward for their contributions  to ALAN's Real Quick Picks for June. If you would like to recommend a book published in 2015-2016, please email a short (3 sentences is perfect) review to Anne McLeod, editor of ALAN Online News. 
Calls for Manuscripts
The  ALAN Review
Story and the Development of Moral Character and Integrity
Volume 44: Issue 2 (Winter 2017)

As lovers of literature, we want to believe that, through books, adolescent readers may gather insights and knowledge that support their efforts to make sense of themselves and others. That while accessing worlds they might never know, they broaden their perspectives and experience vicariously decision-making processes that parallel those encountered in their lived realities. And yet, if fiction has the power to achieve this good, might it also have the capacity to engender the bad? We invite contributors to consider the complex moral interactions that might occur when adolescent readers enter a text, particularly one intended for them as young adults. Can young adult literature (YAL) foster opportunities for readers to assess what might be might and what might be wrong—and who decides? Can YAL provide avenues for exploring dark, forbidden paths? Can YAL reinforce or challenge belief systems contradictory to those grounded in democratic values of equity and social justice? Can YAL foster more empathetic and nurturing dispositions and behaviors among young people?  Or are we overestimating the power of story? As always, we also welcome submissions focused on any aspect of young adult literature not directly connected to this theme. All submissions may be sent to the editors of TAR prior to July 1, 2016.  Please see the ALAN website 

The ALAN Review
The World of Young Adult Literature
Volume 44: Issue 3 (Summer 2017)

The world of young adult literature extends beyond the United States. And yet, readers in our nation are not often invited to consider stories published in or written about other lands, cultures, and communities. While the US is rich in diversity, and the field is increasingly recognizing the need to share stories for and about all readers, we are a single nation on a globe inhabited by many. We wonder what might be gained from increased exposure to a wider array of young adult literature that lies beyond our national borders. We wonder, too, what challenges exist in finding, publishing, and teaching such titles and how we might address these with care and humanity. We invite contributors to consider the stories of adolescence that are written around the globe and to tackle questions related to international literature, broadly and narrowly defined. What common experiences, realities, and ways of knowing, doing, and being exist across cultures? What differences might reveal our biases—and enhance our understandings? Are cultural differences ever too big to bridge? Whose stories get published—and whose remain untold to a larger community? What role do translators play in telling stories to new audiences? Can literature unite people across distant places? As always, we also welcome submissions focused on any aspect of young adult literature not directly connected to this theme. All submissions may be sent to the editors of TAR prior to November 1, 2016. Please see the ALAN website  for submission guidelines.

English Journal 
Multicultural and Multivoiced Stories for Adolescents
 

Novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie warns of “The Danger of a Single Story” (TEDGlobal, July 2009). She writes: "The problem with the single story is that it creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story. . . . The consequence of the single story is this: it robs people of dignity. It makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult. It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar." By weaving multicultural and multivoiced young adult literature (YAL) into the curriculum, teachers can avoid the danger of the single story. Culturally diverse young adult literature invites readers to explore new vistas. These stories engage readers in considering new perspectives to create understandings and build cross-cultural connections. Social media movements such as #weneeddiversebooks recognize and support the roles authors and their stories can play in representing the many voices of our adolescents.

In this issue, we explore how multicultural and multivoiced young adult literature can broaden adolescents’ perspectives and engage classroom communities in meaningful discourse. While the term multicultural texts can refer to readers’ race, ethnicity, gender expression, spiritual belief, sexual orientation, and languages/dialects, and multivoiced texts offer multiple narrative voices and perspectives, we leave both terms open for readers to interpret. In all, such texts both broaden and deepen adolescents’ understandings of themselves and the world. We invite you to share your research-based practices and classroom experiences with teaching multicultural or multivoiced young adult literature. How do we teach and interpret these texts? How do you use YAL to build cross-cultural connections in your classrooms? In what ways do students gain global perspectives through reading culturally diverse YAL? What stories have you used that connect students with the personal and the global? What are the criteria for evaluating a multicultural or multivoiced young adult book? Submission Deadline: January 15, 2017. Publication Date: September 2017. Please direct questions about this issue to Kelly Byrne Bull.

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Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of NCTE (ALAN) | cannemcleod@outlook.com | www.alan-ya.org