How Everyone Should Know about What My Mother Doesnt Know

Sonya Sones' novel, What My Mother Doesn't Know, is a true window into a teenage girl's inner thoughts, heart, and persona. This novel should be called A Guide to Every Young Girl's World (for everyone that is not a young girl). Sonya Sones writes so honest and truthful, and I honestly feel that a 40 year-old man could read this novel and gain real insight into a young girl's mind. Her style is innovative, her prose is tender and easy. Each little poem says so much, it's as if we readers are reading straight from the characters journal. The main character in this book, and all of her books, is in a struggle to find themselves. Her main theme and message is be true to yourself. Be who you are. I think that is the greatest message any young adult novel can bring to it's readers. And with the realness of the text, it tells young readers, its okay to be yourself, even with all these awkward moments and and embarrassing situations. Students would really be able to relate this text. No matter what issues the young female protagonists are facing, they learn to follow their heart and be themselves. I feel that this would be a great novel for young women, and even young men, to read because the moral is wonderful and the unique prose style writing is a great way to open children's minds to different types of literature. This could be taught in a poetry class or a literature class, that is what is so cool about Sones.

I had the chance to visit Sonya Sones website, and I think this is one of the neatest author websites there is. It is very kid friendly, yet has content that still fascinates me as an adult. She not only offers personal information about herself, there is information on her books, as well as great advice for young writers and readers of YA lit. I've added the link, so feel free to visit it and look around, she truly is a fascinating lady.

http://www.sonyasones.com

Literary Merit

Literary merit is practically impossible to define but it is the measure of quality of a written work, usually of fiction. In my opinion, it is mere opinion. (weird) But honestly, there are no real "judges" or all knowing people that can read a book and decided if its worthy or not. There are book awards-and many of them-and their committees of course, that reward novels with excellent literary merit. Looking for Alaska is one such book that has excellent literary merit, both in my opinion, and the opinion of experts in the field, the American Library Association. This is because the novel earned the Printz Award which is decided on by the ALA and given to a novel that exemplifies literary excellence. The novel, which is beautifully written, deserves all the praise in the world. The themes, language, voice, and characters are all exemplary of the novels sheer literary excellence. To me, merit is deserved for the mere division of the book into two sections, before and after. The Before which takes us on a journey into the characters, and the After, which unravels the story of an adolescents death, and the struggle, grief, confusion, and forgiveness that young people go through when losing a friend. I love the mystery that evolved in the After, and the different perspectives and possibilities that Greene chose to include.

Fat Kid Rules the World...Rules the World!

I chose to read Fat Kid Rules the World as my first novel in my adolescents in American literature course. Of course, it's not my first YA novel, being that I indeed used to be a young adult myself and read many books at that time, but it's my first YA novel read as a tool for my studies. This book was a great one to start with! This novel is obviously geared towards young adults...young characters, relatable issues, easy read. (and no, I am not saying those are the characteristics of a YA novel) I thoroughly enjoyed this novel for two main reasons. The first being that I found it fascinating to know the inner thoughts of obese teenager. The second being that it was a first person narrative in the form of a stream of conscious. This reminded me of my all time favorite novel Catcher In the Rye. The author actually acknowledges J.D. Salinger as a source of inspiration in the acknowledgments, which is very telling. The book really captures how any young adult thinks, and I love the truthfulness in this writing. The effortless way the author draws the reader in, and without developing the plot or characters too much. I didn't need the thickening plot or highly dynamic characters, because the humour and intriguing stream of conscious was enough for me.

I Love the Cheese.

We were asked to choose a “classic” YA novel to read, and I chose I Am the Cheese by Robert Cormier and fell in love with it. Cormier is proclaimed one of the best classic writers of YA literature. Not only is he praised for his novels, but also for the fact that he broke the mold of what YA literature was at the time. I Am the Cheese without a doubt influenced YA literature, and in a big way, like his first novel—The Chocolate War— this novel took the YA genre on a whirlwind. His dark and suspenseful plots dove deep into the human conditions faced by adolescents. In her article, “Trends in Young Adult Literature,” Patty Campbell (whose opinions I am quickly learning to value) writes, “Cormier had disturbed the universe of young adult literature with his dark vision and complex ambiguities and the stunned critical reception of the book led to the realization that fiction for teens could be great literature.” He opened a doorway into unmarched territory where authors now had free roam to write about whatever they felt, and do so with a hope that their young readers might actually get meaning from it. I believe that this book directly impacted the direction this genre went in. Cormier brought realism in the field, real life issues and characters into YA lit and from there on out, YA novels have contained relatable and controversial issues. Realism rocks!

What is YA Anyway?

Don't we all wish there was an easy answer for this? It would clear up a lot of confusion...and time spent debating what categorizes a novel as"young adult literature". But at the same time, somewhere in the confusion of defining YA lit, is the very reason it's such an amazing genre. We can't define it, can't check off a list of characteristics to label it, we can only continue to expand our minds to the possibilities of what can be considered eligible in this broad genre. Some people argue that a book is classified YA solely if the publisher says it is. This is true to some extent. Some authors write a book thinking it's for adults, then a young adult publisher picks it up. Marketing has a lot to do with it, understandably, but the question still remains at the heart of the matter, what makes a novel YA? What makes a marketing department advertise to kids, what makes a publisher of young adult literature choose a book to publish? The question can never be answered truly, and an agreement will never be made between what types of novels, themes and issues children should be reading.

In the article entitled, "The YA Novel is Dead, and Other Fairly Stupid Tales" Marc Aronson's ideas on what categorizes a novel as YA is perhaps the mindset I agree with most in this literature maze. He believes that something can be classified as YA literature if it is relatable. He goes on to say that it can include any and all topics, again, as long as it is relatable. Now, this is much much too broad I realize, but I think he has a point. If a young adult can relate to a novels themes, characters, language, etc., I feel it should be classified as YA. I understand that different kids can relate to different things across the globe, however it is the first real understanding I grasped from this debate.

I'm sure as my study into this matter deepens, I will come across more ideas on how to make sense of this. If I have realized one thing in my study of young adult literature, it is that there is no real correct answer to this question. Instead of searching for a concrete answer, I am looking to form my own opinion on what YA lit is. A very informed, learned and confident opinion.