Book Marks: Age-Appropriateness, New Leaf Crumples

Young adult titles have become a target for book bans but the genre has another problem, according to Rachel Ulatowski at Book Riot. As more adults read YA, publishers start marketing YA titles to grown-ups, leading to the ageing-up of books in the genre to appeal to the adult market. Books written specifically for young adults may not necessarily appeal to grown-ups, and isn't aged-up YA just, well, adult fiction?

Publishers may have their eye on the bottom line, but the blurring of lines between YA and adult genres would be bad news for the former. "YA literature was created specifically to help young readers to transition from children’s to adult books, and to give them resources that tackle topics that they may be dealing with in real life," Ulatowski wrote. "Making YA literature more appealing to adults undermines the very reason why this group became its own market in the first place."

Speaking of YA and age-appropriate genres...

Writer Kaia Alexander reported to The Daily Beast with incredulity that a teacher in her son's school objected to a book the kid brought to class: a copy of Stephen King's Cujo. The teacher cited a Goodreads write-up of the book that stated it was "intended for adults" and recommended The Hunger Games instead. "How is this more appropriate?" Alexander said. "This is a book about children murdering children.”

Nevertheless, they gave the book a try. The verdict: “He’s looking at me like, ‘This is a very dark book.'" And: "He says he likes Stephen King’s writing style better.” Owch.

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New Leaf Literary Agency has dropped a bunch of authors from representation, some of whome were in the middle of contract negotiations with publishers. "Reports indicate that this was a result of New Leaf letting one of its agents go, and rather than finding new representation for this agent’s clients, the agency dropped all the clients entirely," The Mary Sue reported, adding that this wasn't first time the agency had done this.

I've been seeing authors and others take to Twitter to speak about this in the past few days. What's more, all the dropped authors are not big names. Leaving authors without representation during contract negotiations is bad enough, but new ones need that representation, and this move is irresponsible, to say the least.

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I don't believe in review-bombing, but some books are itching to become targets. Like Josh Hawley's Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs. Hawley, a Republican senator, was notorious for raising his fist in support of the January 6 insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol – and filmed running away from them afterwards.

Considering his conduct of late, many aren't sure if he's the right spokesman for the values the book espouses, nor are they sure of the wisdom behind the book's title. Headline writers critical of Hawley and his book, like this one, seem to be having a ball.

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Malaysians are now reading more, according to initial data from a government survey. The Star reports that we are now reading an average of 20 books a year, compared with 15 in 2014, with fiction being the most popular genre.

If you think that's not much of an improvement, the report adds that "...similar studies on reading habits were carried out in 1996 and 2005; each study showed that Malaysians aged 10 and above only read an average of two books a year."

The survey, however, seems to only focus on borrowings from the National Library of Malaysia, and the 2014 study being referred to may be outdated. Still, good news, right?

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While the debate over the use of AI and large-language models in literature is vigourous in the West, it's all quiet over here in Malaysia. This article on the Penang Art District portal features thoughts from some local authors, publishers, and professionals on AI, and how the authors and publishers are incorporating its output in their works.

Perhaps this piece will encourage take-up of AI among Malaysian creatives and spur debate on its entry into our work and our lives. AI is here to stay and we have to learn how to deal with it.

(Oh, yes, I was among those interviewed for the article.)

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An interview with Mia Tsai, author of Bitter Medicine, a xianxia-inspired fantasy novel about a French elf and a Chinese immortal. The rest of the blog is worth exploring for more reviews and interviews, mainly revolving around titles by authors of Asian descent.

Taking Offence

Actor and author Tom Hanks has weighed in on the recent trend of editing classics and other long-published works for newer, more sensitive audiences.

"Well, I'm of the opinion that we're all grown-ups here," Hanks was quoted as saying. "And we understand the time and the place and when these things were written. And it's not very hard at all to say: that doesn't quite fly right now, does it?

Many, I'm sure. share Hanks' opinion. As adults we should know how to control ourselves whenever we encounter something that offends our sensibilities. Sexist portrayals of women, racist depictions of minorities and such in art and literature should be read within the context of their eras. Content that might be triggering to readers ... that should be discussed separately.

"Let's have faith in our own sensibilities here, instead of having somebody decide what we may or may not be offended by," he added. "Let me decide what I am offended by and not offended by."

Trouble comes when someone decides they are offended by something in a book and are upset when others don't feel the same, so they set out to change that. This is partly behind the movement to ban books – that's what it is – in the US and the horsepower on that bandwagon has been so impressive, others have hitched their carriages to it.

Even with all the details emerging from reports on the issue, the findings of The Washington Post still astounds. The Post analysed a set of challenges to books filed in "the 2021-2022 school year with the 153 school districts that Tasslyn Magnusson, a researcher employed by free expression advocacy group PEN America, tracked as receiving formal requests to remove books last school year." They found that...

Nearly half of filings — 43 percent — targeted titles with LGBTQ characters or themes, while 36 percent targeted titles featuring characters of color or dealing with issues of race and racism. The top reason people challenged books was “sexual” content; 61 percent of challenges referenced this concern.

The paper also revealed that "The majority of the 1,000-plus book challenges analyzed by The Post were filed by just 11 people."

Each of these people brought 10 or more challenges against books in their school district; one man filed 92 challenges. Together, these serial filers constituted 6 percent of all book challengers — but were responsible for 60 percent of all filings.

Ye g*ds. Ninety-two challenges by one person?

The rationale for many of the objections are the usual: they don't want young people reading about sex or LGBTQ lives and issues, these books normalise LGBTQ, and so on. Better to learn about all that from the likes of Fox and Moms for Liberty, right?

Also mind-blowing is the objection filed by a parent over The Hill We Climb, an edition of the poem by American National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman, which was read aloud at the inauguration of President Joe Biden. Why? "Cause confusion and indoctrinate students," the complainant wrote. On two pages of the book: "Is not educational and have indirectly [sic] hate messages."

C'mon now, a poem from a National Youth Poet Laureate is "not educational" and has "hate messages"? Also, the complainant seemed to have mistakenly attributed authorship of the opem to Oprah Winfrey. That the complainant has links to groups like the Proud Boys and Moms for Liberty (HA!) and is a Ron DeSantis supporter is probably no coincidence.

Taking offence has become a pastime of sorts with certain people. Armed with the outsized influence and reach granted by social media, they set chatrooms and threads on fire, infecting the susceptible with their outrage and indignation, dampening voices trying to cool things down. So many fall for this incendiary rhetoric and BS.

It feels like more and more are giving up the ability to question, research and think critically and leaving all that to certain authority figures who would turn out to be less than authoritative than they'd like to think.

Book Marks: War On Books Continues, Aye To Sensitivity Readers

The book-banning brigade marches on. Laws are being passed in the United States that targets publishers deemed to have provided "sexually explicit" material to schools or educational agencies.

Summer Lopez, Chief Program Officer, Free Expression at PEN America, writes about this new tactic to ban books in TIME and that it's not about shielding young people from "obscene" material...

Let's be clear. These bills are not about protecting children. They are about using the power of the state to intimidate private companies and ban ideas and stories that some people find offensive or uncomfortable. By going after private publishing houses, these bills represent an appalling and undemocratic attempt at government overreach, and yet another escalation in the war against the freedom to read.

In Tunisia, authorities seized two books at the Tunis International Book Fair and temporarily shut down a publisher's pavilion. Perhaps what's egregious about this is that it happened after Tunisian president Kais Saied said at the event's opening: "It is important to liberate thinking because we cannot accomplish anything with rigid thoughts.” And it's no surprise that the seized books appear to be critical of the president.

And in Hong Kong, a "war on libraries" is being waged, leading to books being pulled off shelves. The public are encouraged to snitch on anyone whose words "threaten national security" in Hong Kong and this has taken the wind out of the sails of anyone who wishes to publish or write books. "Much as mainland Chinese writers used to get their banned books published in Hong Kong, authors who write about Hong Kong issues are now choosing to publish in Taiwan, where the publishing industry is much freer," states Radio Free Asia.

On World Press Freedom Day, Kuwaiti author Mai Al-Nakib explained why writing means so much to her, in the context of censorship in Kuwait. Her situation sounds familiar, particularly where she says that books written in English but not translated to Arabic would "fly under the radar" of censors, and how draconian laws that restrict freedom of expression intimidate authors and booksellers to self-censor, just to be safe. Echoes of growing sentiments by writers and publishers everywhere.

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An argument for sensitivity readers, and why seeking one during the editing process might be a good idea:

In the UK, if you are a writer from an underrepresented background, it is statistically very likely that your in-house editor won’t be. Given this low ethnic and class diversity (the industry does a bit better on gender, sexual orientation and disability) a sensitivity reader’s feedback can crucially round out that of an in-house editor’s.

Furthermore, the writer adds, is not censorship because a sensitivity reader is there to advise and that the publisher (and maybe the author) has the final say.


Other news:

• The belief that writing children's books is child's play is flawed. The job requires another set of skills and more thought because these materials are moulding malleable young minds. So it's sad to read of children's book authors not liking children's books. Some are discouraged by poor reception to their work, some are pigeonholed as children's authors even though they want to explore other genres. What would it take to forever bury the idea that literature for children is lesser than that of adults?
• As African countries gained independence from colonial rule, African women writers played a key role in the decolonisation of children's literature as they produced works with local themes. "They wrote for children of all ages, creating fiction, folk tales, and works used in school textbooks," writes Anna Adima, Post-Doctoral Research Associate in History at the University of Edinburgh. "With their words, the women imparted lessons they believed were important for the post-independence generation to learn in order to undo colonialism’s 'cultural bomb'."
• Author Lisa Harding revisits her debut novel a few years after publication and sees it in a new light. "To have the opportunity to revisit the same novel through the lens of distance and time was an extraordinary experience, a rare chance for me to address any lingering concerns. I remember at the time of its initial publication, some of my friends saying, but it is unrelentingly bleak, and my response was, well, of course it is. Now, I feel differently."
• Is ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, going into book publishing and distribution? A trademark application filed by a ByteDance subsidiary seems to signal that, and with #BookTok all the rage at the moment, this seems like a logical step. And, as TechCrunch notes, the company isn't new to e-book, citing dealings with e-book reader Yuewen, web novel app Tomato Novel, and a web fiction app called Mytopia.
• Sara Anjum Bari, editor of Daily Star Books, sits down with literary agent Kanishka Gupta for a chat about what agents do and what they look for, the people he's worked with, plagiarism in South Asia, and how his work with books changed him as a writer and a reader.
• "To keep three-dimensional book publishing alive, you do have to push the form a little bit and delight people and make something new," author Dave Eggers tells Fast Company. But will his new book, The Eyes & The Impossible, with its gilded edges, foiled-stamped spine, and bamboo hardcover, get more publishers to do that? The book is a work of art that calls to mind well-crafted tomes such as The Book of Kells, created when books were luxuries. They still are, but Eggers' project could inspire the creation of limited editions for certain bibliophiles.
• Here's a round-up of what was discussed during the annual general meeting of the Association of American Publishers (AAP). The topics included the Internet Archive case, AI in publishing, and the bills restricting access to books by several US states.
• Somebody has been thinking about copyright and fair use in the advent of AI in art and literature, and has penned their musings in Freethink. "The inevitable raft of copyright lawsuits raises one key legal question that threatens to stop these AI models in their tracks: Do the creators of these tools need permission from the copyright holders of the works they use to 'train' their AI models?"
• When talking about AI, people tend to think of online book recommendation features or services. These use a lot of data, much of it user-generated content. Book Riot explores why these services may not do the job right and not to rely on AI (as of now) for what to read next.