The World Will Be Watching: The Panoptic Nature of Reality Television in Young Adult Fiction

2016 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 917-933
Author(s):  
Nicole L. Wilson
2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gail De Vos

Have you been following Amy’s Marathon of books? Inspired by by Terry Fox’s and Rick Hansen’s Canadian journeys, Amy Mathers is honouring her passion for reading and Canadian teen literature while working around her physical limitations through a Marathon of Books. Amy will be reading teen fiction books from every province and territory, exploring Canada and promoting Canadian teen authors and books by finishing a book a day for each day of 2014, writing a review for each book she reads. The goal is to raise money for the Canadian Children’s Book Centre (CCBC) in order to endow a Canadian teen book award to be presented at the yearly Canadian Children’s Literature Awards gala. Amy will collect fundraising pledges (which are eligible for a charitable tax receipt). http://amysmarathonofbooks.ca/The National Reading Campaign (NRC) is thrilled to announce the inaugural week-long event READING TOWN CANADA. For one week, May 3-10th, 2014, the National Reading Campaign will turn Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan into an exemplary model of what a reading Canada would look like. Reading will be woven into every feature of life through a series of exciting events: Imagine having a poem delivered with your pizza, wandering into a fully-stocked ‘reading glen’ in Crescent Park, discovering a book by a local author in your Welcome Wagon package, or finding a tiny lending library at the end of your street. http://www.nationalreadingcampaign.ca/about-reading-town-canada/IBBY Canada (the Canadian national section of the International Board on Books for Young People) named Bonnie Tulloch as the Frances E. Russell Grant recipient. Bonnie is a graduate student in the children’s literature program of the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies at the University of British Columbia. She is doing an analysis of contemporary Canadian children’s and young adult novels that focus on island adventures; the resulting work will be titled “No ‘Man’ is an Island: Examining Island Imagery and its Relation to Female Identity in a Selection of Canadian Children’s and Young Adult Fiction.” http://www.ibby-canada.org/?p=2080CANSCAIP is presenting two upcoming workshops: Imagine a Story, a day of workshops for those interested in writing, illustrating and performing for children, will be held May 31 at Dawson College in Montreal; Packaging Your Imagination, Canada's oldest and largest conference on the craft and business of writing, illustrating and performing for children, will be held October 18 at Humber College Lakeshore Campus in Toronto. Registration for the latter conference will commence in late May. http://www.canscaip.org/Award Season is soon to be blossoming along with spring and summer. Recent announcements for shortlists include the 2014 Atlantic Book Awards and The Canadian Science Writers’ Association (CSWA).The shortlists for the Atlantic Book Awards are:Ann Connor Brimer Award for Children’s LiteratureNix Minus One, by Jill MacLean (Pajama Press)The Power of Harmony, by Jan L. Coates (Red Deer Press)The Stowaways, by Meghan Marentette, Illustrated by Dean Griffiths (Pajama Press)Lillian Shepherd Award for Excellence in IllustrationLasso the Wind: Aurélia’s Verses and Other Poems Illustrated by Susan Tooke and written by George Elliott Clarke (Nimbus Publishing)Pisim Finds her Miskanow Illustrated by Leonard Paul and written by William Dumas (Portage & Main Press)Singily Skipping Along, Illustrated by Deanne Fitzpatrick and written by Sheree Fitch (Nimbus Publishing)In addition two other children’s titles were also shortlisted:Ghost Boy of MacKenzie House by Patti Larsen (Acorn Press) for the Prince Edward Island Book Award (fiction category)Formac Publishing was nominated for the APMA Best Atlantic-Published Book Award (sponsored by Friesens Corporation), for Bluenose Adventure by Jacqueline Halsey with illustrations by Eric Orchard.http://atlanticbookawards.ca/ The shortlist for the Canadian Science Writers’ Association for outstanding youth book:Au labo, les Debrouillards! written by Yannick Bergeron (Bayard jeunesse)Before the World Was Ready written by Claire Eamer and illustrated by Sa Boothroyd (Annick Press)Buzz About Bees written by Kari-Lynn Winters (Fitzhenry & Whiteside)Dirty Science: 25 Experiments with Soil written by Shar Levine and Leslie Johnstone, illustrated by Lorzeno Del Bianco (Scholastic Canada)A History of Just About Everything: 180 Events, People and Inventions That Changed the World written by Elizabeth MacLeod and Frieda Wishinsky, illustrated by Qin Leng (Kids Can Press)Pandemic Survival: It's Why You're Alive written by Ann Love and Jane Drake, illustrated by Bill Slavin (Tundra Books).http://sciencewriters.ca/2014/04/01/cswa-book-awards-shortlist-2/Gail de VosGail de Vos, an adjunct instructor, teaches courses on Canadian children's literature, Young Adult Literature and Comic Books and Graphic Novels at the School of Library and Information Studies for the University of Alberta and is the author of nine books on storytelling and folklore. She is a professional storyteller and has taught the storytelling course at SLIS for over two decades.


2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 278-290
Author(s):  
Emma Wortley

Young adult fiction that overtly engages with globalisation has emerged over the past decade, reflecting a growing cultural attendance to a phenomenon that purportedly shapes our world. Fictional narratives, including young adult novels, provide one sphere of information, ideas and attitudes related to globalisation. This paper examines globalisation as represented by discourses associated with mass media and consumerism in two young adult novels: So Yesterday by Scott Westerfeld (2004) and Deep Fried by Bernard Beckett and Clare Knighton (2006) . With a focus on the depiction of brand names and advertising in So Yesterday and television in Deep Fried, this article presents textual examples that convey ambivalence toward discourses associated with globalisation and argues that in this respect the texts are somewhat open and questioning rather than entirely deterministic or didactic. While, overall, So Yesterday and Deep Fried are not particularly radical, the ambivalent aspects of the texts suggest that young adult fiction has the potential to produce more interrogative narratives in which the globalised world and the young adult's place within it are negotiable rather than inevitable.


Author(s):  
Katarzyna Slany

The paper discusses young adult fiction by Joanna Rudniańska, whose works belong to the stream of non-conformist coming-of-age novels marked by experiences of exclusively teenage girls/women, developing in Poland since the 1990s. Both Rok Smoka and Kotka Brygidy emphasise the personal quality of teenage girls and women, and present their fates with a particular consideration of their fairly individualised processes of maturation and intentional development of their identities. The author of this paper employs feminist methodologies to emphasise the ambivalent, borderline, and negative female experiences in the analysed texts. She offers a detailed interpretation of how the protagonists of the above-mentioned novels experience the world; she applies a metaphorical and fantastic perspective of telling herstories, while searching for matrilineal traces, the phenomenon of sisterhood, drastic rituals inscribed in the feminine domain, and the special kind of coming-of-age which constitutes the starting point for personal and subjective herstories.


2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Superle

In the past two decades, the previously silent voices of diasporic Indian writers for young people have emerged, and a small body of texts has begun to develop in the United States and the United Kingdom. One of the major preoccupations of these texts is cultural identity development, especially in the novels published for a young adult audience, which often feature protagonists in the throes of an identity crisis. For example, the novels The Roller Birds of Rampur (1991) by Indi Rana, Born Confused (2002) by Tanuja Desai Hidier, and The Not-So-Star-Spangled Life of Sunita Sen (2005) by Mitali Perkins all focus on an adolescent girl coping with her bicultural identity with angst and confusion, and delineate the ways her self-concept and relationships are affected. The texts are empowering in their suggestion that young people have the agency to explore and create their own balanced bicultural identities, but like other young adult fiction, they ultimately situate adolescents within insurmountable institutional forces that are much more powerful than any individual.


2019 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Ghazal Kazim Syed ◽  
Amanda Naylor ◽  
Hege Emma Rimmereide ◽  
Zoltan Varga ◽  
Lykke Harmony Alara Guanio-Uluru

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Debbie Feisst

Hatanaka, Kellen. Work: An Occupational ABC. Toronto: Groundwood Books, 2014. Print.At first glance, you may look at this book and think it just like the myriad of other ABC books for young children and preschoolers, but you would be delightfully wrong!  Yes, of course, each letter from A to Z is represented and indeed each letter is accompanied by an image that characterizes the letter.  But that is where the similarities end. Toronto-based designer, illustrator and artist Kellen Hatanaka, who can now also call himself a first time author, has created a beautiful and unexpected piece of art for the youngest readers and it is as much a delight to read as it is to behold.  With creamy paper and softly-coloured images, created digitally after first creating ‘hand-drawn patterns and images’, it is reminiscent of a small person’s version of a coffee table book, if said coffee table were in a nursery.It starts out simple enough, with A for Aviator and a full page spread with a boldly-coloured A as well as mountain tops that echo the A’s shape.  The next page, however, alerts the reader to the fun in store – B is for Butcher, shown chasing after a group of raccoons who have absconded with a string of sausages. Yes, there are occupations like Grocer and Tailor but there are also the Ice Cream Vendor, K-9 Officer and the Wedding Singer! What’s wonderful to note are the many alternative occupations, some that you may have not have heard of, and that there is a nice mix of women, men, and cultures taking part. For the curious reader, there is a section of funny ‘Want Ads’ which provides a short description of the occupation.This would make a wonderful new baby gift and is an excellent addition to a home or public library.Highly recommended: 4 stars out of 4 Reviewer: Debbie FeisstDebbie is a Public Services Librarian at the H.T. Coutts Education Library at the University of Alberta.  When not renovating, she enjoys travel, fitness and young adult fiction.


2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Debbie Feisst

Ohmura, Tomoko. The Long, Long Line. Toronto, ON: OwlKids Books, 2013. Print."Thank you for waiting, and welcome aboard! One at a time, please!" mentions the bird, who is the ride guide on this mysterious ride for which 50 different animals have patiently lined up. As they wait, the bird flies amongst them, offering reassuring words as they guess as to what they may be in line for and play word games to pass the time.  The anticipation builds, and finally they start boarding the ride, which turns out to be a very large whale on which the animals ride while the whale performs somersaults, dives and sprays. Children will be delighted by all 50 animals represented on the large gatefold spread in the center of the book, from the smallest frog to the largest elephant.Children will love the small details such as the tail of the next animal in line ‘peeking’ around the corner of the page and the size of the animals increasing as they get closer to the ride giving perspective of size. A list of all 50 animals is included at the back for easy reference when young readers get stumped by a species. While this is indeed a picture book aimed at young children it is no quick read – children will want to hear every word of the animals’ conversations as they wait and will want to count as they go, and likely once all the animals are aboard the whale they will want to confirm there are indeed 50 animals present, perhaps multiple times.The colourful illustrations by the author are cute and engaging and show a wide range of expressions and interplay between the animals.  The language felt slightly unnatural but this may be a result of this edition being a translation of the original Japanese work Nanno Gyoretsu? A fun book for public and elementary schools as well as a nice addition to science or math based storytime in lower elementary grades.The Long, Long Line was selected as one of the best children’s books of 2013 by Kirkus Reviews.Recommended: 3 out of 4 stars Reviewer: Debbie FeisstDebbie is a Public Services Librarian at the H.T. Coutts Education Library at the University of Alberta.  When not renovating, she enjoys travel, fitness and young adult fiction.


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