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Teen lit that talks back to the canon: Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

 

Yes yes, I know. I am the last children's lit professional on the planet to have read this book. You've all read it, and you've all loved it, and I am late to the Eleanor & Park Party.

Oh my god. Think of it -- that would be the funniest party. We'd all have to wear plaid flannel and band t-shirts and stand around looking at the floor until we each stormed out of the room in tears.

It would be like the parties at my college radio station in the 80's, come to think of it! Actually we didn't even have parties at the radio station, they were all canceled on account of everyone panicked at the idea of going to a party. Which of course was expressed as scathing disdain. "Oh yes, let's have a party. That would be OH SO FUN."

Rainbow Rowell flanked by Oliver Jeffers and James "I can't write worth a damn but boy am I a nice guy" Patterson at BEA

That's totally why I managed to not read this book, you know. I was supposed to read it for a committee I was on and I cheated and read all the reviews instead. I was supposed to listen to it on audio for a workshop and I didn't. I heard Rainbow Rowell speak at BEA and she was SO funny and charming that I downloaded it onto my phone immediately and read it at the bar that night and then stopped reading it because I don't know a hot guy walked by or a good song came on (DOUBTFUL) or my food came or something.

Former college radio programmers (we didn't actually call ourselves DJs) are constitutionally unable to do what everyone else is doing. It is stupid and it causes us more harm than good and EVERYONE thinks we're pretentious and they're right, but there you have it. If you've read the book, you understand.

Both Eleanor and Park are going to make bitchin' college radio DJs.

 

The WRUW air studio in 1986. Note albums by the Specials and Scraping Foetus Off the Wheel. Hi, Randy!

Teen lit that talks back to the canon - Half Bad by Sally Green

 

Here is a thing that I am not: I am not a high school English teacher. But if I were...

The kids and I all read Half Bad by Sally Green in the last couple of weeks. It's on the reading list for Books for the Beast, a one-day YA conference put on every other year by the Enoch Pratt Free Library. I'm a facilitator and Milo's a teen attendee and I think registration is still open. You should come!

Anyway, the book is - I mean, not to put too fine a point on it - it's good. Characters are complex, plot takes unexpected turns, and settings are described really nicely. I'm a nut for setting - I believe a writer is fully inhabiting her character when she writes about how the air feels, or the ground underfoot, or describes how the sun slants over mountains or the roofs of a city.

There are some who will say that the premise of Half Bad is a bit too Potteresque - there are witches and there are non-witches, and the non-witches don't know about the witches, and there are Black Witches and White Witches. At one point the main character, Nathan, won't even say the name of his father, 'the most evil Black Witch there has ever been'. Yeah, Sally Green, I'm sorry hon but somebody already owns He Who Must Not Be Named.

BUT. In my experience, derivative doesn't bother kids much. My own kids, when this Potterish political milieu was pointed out to them, were like 'ehh...' Ezra said, "there's so much else in the book that is pretty original, it's no big deal."

So that's not my issue. Oh - I have an issue, did I mention?