I wanted to like this book. I really did. It was the first title on the reading list of a YA literature class I was SURE I would enjoy. I was doing my reading early for a change–so I wasn’t turning pages with one frantic eye on the clock. As soon as I saw the quaint cover that screamed out “This was written a thousand years ago!” (1942)–I thought fondly about one of my own childhood favorites–Anne of Green Gables, and applauded our professor for starting us off with a book that would give us an historical perspective on this genre called Young Adult.
Finally! After taking 9 Library Science courses in technology, reference, management, cataloging, web design, and how to develop programs for teens at a public library–I could set peer reviewed journals aside and just read a couple really good books. Murmuring my first sigh of delight in two years as a graduate student, I settled into bed with what the New York Times described as an “utterly enchanting” story of “youth in love” that “rings true, sweet, fresh, and sound.” 17 year old Angie Morrow, from Fond du Lac Wisconsin, was about to fall in love for the first time.
O.mi.god.
I got to page 22 and wondered if this was a book that would ever end–or start, for that matter. Even though by that time Angie had already met Jack, fallen in love with him, gone on a first date, introduced all the main characters in the story, busted out of the out crowd and into the in crowd, and set the stage for hours of waiting by the phone, wondering when/if Jack would call her.
Although it pre-dates this genre classification, Seventeenth Summer is widely regarded as the first book YA book ever to hit the press: that is, a work written for, published for, or marketed to young adults, ages 12-18. All criticisms aside (and those are best summed up by our classmate’s observation: reading this book is “like watching paint dry”), Daly, a college student when she penned this novel, does a good job describing the emotional ups and downs—and the cultural expectations of the time—that make “first love” so exciting, intense, and memorable. Small town America comes alive too. You can practically feel the heat of that summer; see the wet black earth of the Morrow’s vegetable garden. But most important from our perspective of examining YA literature, you know without a doubt, from the opening sentence, why this book is considered a defining moment in YA literature. Whatever its flaws, it is all about an experience particular to teenagers the world over.
But this is 2007! And our job as YA librarians or Library school teachers is to look beyond genre classification and offer a book and resource collection that gets today’s media-saturated, digital native teens hooked on reading. The course reading list makes it clear: we need to sample and select cutting edge material like graphic novels as well as classics like Seventeenth Summer. We need books about experiences relevant to today’s teens; we need “adult” as well as YA fiction and non fiction. We need fantasies like Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere to shelve along side JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series.
How to look outside the YA classification for books that will comprise a great YA collection? That’s where the Health Institute’s 40 developmental Assets for positive Youth development http://www.search-institute.org/assets/ come in handy. This list sketches out what kids need to grow into healthy successful adults—everything from self confidence to being able to understand, respect, and demonstrate boundaries and authority.
Seventeenth Summer may be a slow read, but it offers a good introduction to how YA books can support and explore those developmental assets, and how YA librarians can use the assets as one of a variety of resource collection tools.
Angie’s summer of love is one in which she explores issues of self restraint, resisting peer pressure, resolving conflict, making decisions about her future that are informed by a sense of her own purpose and desire. And when it comes to “boundaries and expectations”—Seventeenth Summer is a primer on family, neighborhood, and social values of the time, and how family and social expectations can help teens navigate the tumult (and sexual dangers) of love and lust.
This same thorny passage is the (at times too self conscious) theme of other more current and to me more lively YA reads like Good Girls and Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. Seventeenth Summer provides a good benchmark for examining YA literature in terms of where it started, and where its going, and the universality of the teen experience whether its 1942 or 2007.
I didn’t exactly ENJOY this book—and it can’t compare Ann of Green Gables!—but I would definitely include it in my YA collection, and even recommend it to advanced readers not just as a curiosity, but as a book with intrinsic artistic and historical merit.
