Now I have no cause to say it, because I just don't know what those mysterious modern teenagers like. Not only has it been too long since I was one of this tribe, too much has changed anyway for my memories, dim ones at that, to have any effect on connecting with this current generation of teenagers.
Looking at what appears to be popular on Myspace, Youtube or social networking sites doesn't help. I check out something that's very viral on these sites, and most of the time, I just don't get why they think it's so funny. And I wish I did, because sharing a sense of humor is the best way I know to connect with anyone quickly.
My ambition for this class is find out what's actually of interest to this age group. Not what the mass media thinks they like. I don't trust what I see in movies or television shows to show me who these people are.
But if I know anything, the mock-ups of teens the entertainment industry consistently throws our way gets the biggest guffaws from the real thing. I know I cracked up watching Beverly Hills 90210 --but did this generation laugh at The OC, or just dig it? I get a sense this generation is more earnest and literal. They certainly live in darker times. I wonder what this cultural climate does to one's sense of irony?
Obviously I believe good literature, both classics that might (initially) make them groan, and popular books that accurately depict their worlds with all its concerns, will be my best chance to make that connection. But, sadly, I find myself in a feedback loop. Identifying those titles brings me back to my original quandry-what will the young people like?
But hey, I guess it' s my lucky day-- I have convieniently enrolled in Young Adult Literature this semester-a whole semester to figure out what's boring, lame, and useless, and what's not.
I certainly hope The Catcher in the Rye still has some currency. I would love to help readers see the humor in this book. I read it when I was sixteen (and like others, reread it many times), but it wasn't until later, upon a random reread in my '30s that I realized how funny, funny, funny ol' JD can be.
My blog title refers to Holden's revelation to his sister Phoebe about his 'crazy" fantasy job:
After his precocious sister corrects him on the actual words to the Burns poem --"It's If a body meet a body coming through the rye!" Holden explains:
"Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around -- nobody big, I mean. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff -- I mean if they're running and they don't look where they are going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all."
Well, that's how I see my job as a school librarian. Kids are running around all over the place, metaphorically, and if I give them the right book, they won't go off the cliff.
Standing on the edge,
Eileen Parks
Well, that's how I see my job as a school librarian. Kids are running around all over the place, metaphorically, and if I give them the right book, they won't go off the cliff.
Standing on the edge,
Eileen Parks
2 comments:
I wonder what you think of Ask a Ninja and Hope is Emo. I find both of these very funny and they have a fairly young YouTube following.
In terms of knowing what teens really like the only real way to do that is to talk to them. And, to talk to them with an open ear for what they really think and not what we want them to say and think.
This class should help get you there.
I live with a teen that devoured "Catcher in the Rye". In fact,he couldn't put it down. He also asked why the book was banned. I find that telling a teen a book is banned often entices them to read it.
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