Blog

So there's been lots of talk about the lack of titles for African American teens. BackListed recently discussed what HOTLANTA co-author Denene Millner called a "dearth of books written for African-American teens."

I've always been a little on the optimistic side and like to think that the genre is growing. But it's obvious that a bigger problem is the exposure of titles that seem to slip under the radar.

Example: During a visit at a educational center for young boys, one of the coordinators asked me for book recommendations for the students in the program. Off the top of my head, I shot out 5 titles that I thought everyone knew about. Think COOKED or TYRELL or THE MESSAGE or SENTENCES or THE MARVELOUS WORLD. Just a few, I know. And not at all enough. The point is: the disconnect isn't just with the release of appropriate titles, it also lies in the exposure of those titles which are published.

Needless to say, I was jive interested in a recent article called "The Invisibles" that one of our favorite weeklies, the Baltimore City Paper, published. The piece discusses the lack of engaging titles for young, black urban teens like those living in Bmore.

Michael Corbin, the article's author, makes some provocative points like these:

A final measure of both urban kids' desire for literary connection and the absence of meaningful stories for that connection is the proliferation of urban fiction titles in the hands of Baltimore kids. Like the comic books of a previous era, hidden behind their textbooks, secreted into lockers and notebooks, are dog-eared Triple Crown publications and their progeny. Classics like Shannon Holmes' B-More Careful, Terri Woods' True to the Game, and Sister Soulja's The Coldest Winter Ever pass from teenage urban novel sophisticate into the hands of neophyte readers. By the thousands, these books circulate through schools, and at the Enoch Pratt Free Library they are steadily checked out and often stolen. Most significantly, they are read, eagerly, hungrily.

Urban fiction, hip-hop literature, and ghetto-fabulous novels will never be part of a curriculum, and they have to survive a gauntlet of censors, finger-waggers, moralists, and self-proclaimed literary do-gooders who only see titillating, melodramatic negativity in this body of work. But what the curricular underground of urban fiction represents is hunger. Hunger for visibility, hunger for the power, the self-recognition that only literature can provide. Where is the humanity of the 14-year-old duckin' and dodgin' in the courtyards of Latrobe Homes, in the remnants of Edmondson Village, along the length of North Avenue, and in countless other corners and dispossessed thoroughfares of the imagination in Baltimore?

Of course, and this is the author in me speaking, when one doesn't find the book he wants to read, one must write it. Thanks to Ms. Morrison for that one.

Even so, it's because of this heightened discussion involving YA and black teens, as well as all the teachers, librarians and teachers who have told us that it's difficult to find engaging, appropriate titles for their young people that BackList has developed THE BRIDGE IS OVER. This electronic resource is our way to help adults connect young people with the power of the words, primarily those that are written. It will highlight great books for young people who are often unseen or dismissed. First issue? October 15.