![fishingboatproceeds:
effyeahnerdfighters:
A familiar face in today’s paper
The way we were; The American author John Green writes big books for youths. Thus about and for all of us
“It’s not bad to have never heard of John Green, if you are older than 15, anyway. John Green writes books for 15 year olds. At first glance. At second glance John Green is one of the most important American writers of the present day. Because he writes for 15 year olds. Namely books that in turn have no age at all, that somehow hover over the present time, so you could not say in which year they are set, just the moment that begins and never stops: the one when you become self-aware.”
Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, 22.05.2011 [German, excerpt translated]
(submitted by michaelbaer)
I like the part where he calls me one of the most important contemporary American writers. I love this reporter. He is my favorite reporter ever.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_llm5ujVdrF1qa2q59o1_500.jpg)
A familiar face in today’s paper
The way we were; The American author John Green writes big books for youths. Thus about and for all of us
“It’s not bad to have never heard of John Green, if you are older than 15, anyway. John Green writes books for 15 year olds. At first glance. At second glance John Green is one of the most important American writers of the present day. Because he writes for 15 year olds. Namely books that in turn have no age at all, that somehow hover over the present time, so you could not say in which year they are set, just the moment that begins and never stops: the one when you become self-aware.”
Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, 22.05.2011 [German, excerpt translated]
(submitted by michaelbaer)
I like the part where he calls me one of the most important contemporary American writers. I love this reporter. He is my favorite reporter ever.
I recently read an article in the Wall Street Journal about the “depraved” state of YA novels…
This is a population of young people who don’t remember a time when the country was not at war. It makes perfect sense that their literature would allow them a way to exercise their thoughts about the nature of good and evil, and that it might reflect violence and great loss.
Novels are not in the business of modeling appropriate behavior.
I just spent several hours in the library snagging and cooing over relevant materials, and oh lordy, I don’t know if I can wait more than a year to write this thing.
I need to start narrowing my focus. Right now I’m thinking:
- Violence, danger, and death in post 9/11 narratives
- Dystopian worlds and their relationships to current events
- Online communities and/or fandoms
- “Explicit” themes and censorious public reactions
I’m thinking I want to include John Green, Markus Zuzak, Sherman Alexie, M. T. Anderson, probably Suzanne Collins, Laurie Halse Anderson, Phillip Pullman, Lois Lowry, Avi, Walter Dean Myers… so many. And looking through all these bibliographies is reminding me how many of these books I haven’t read yet (Judy Blume and S.E. Hinton most of all).
Gah. Despite all the stuff I need to figure out, I cannot wait to get started.
Stories you read when you’re the right age never quite leave you. You may forget who wrote them or what the story was called. Sometimes you’ll forget precisely what happened, but if a story touches you it will stay with you, haunting the places in your mind that you rarely ever visit.
I believe that as writers and educators, we have a shared responsibility to give teenagers every opportunity to encounter everything that books can do.
This is the business, right? It is not just reading for the sake of reading. Literacy is important. Literacy is vital, but literacy is not the finish line. Literature is not just in the business of See Jane Run. Literature is in the business of helping us to imagine ourselves and others more complexly, of connecting us to the ancient conversation about how to live as a person in a world full of other people.
The Secret Worlds Teens Hide From Adults
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Green writes books for young adults, but his voice is so compulsively readable that it defies categorization. He writes for youth, rather than to them, and the difference is palpable.
Click here to listen to my interview with NPR's Scott Simon about The Fault in Our Stars (NOTE: SOME SPOILERS)
This is beautiful.
