Why Angels Fly: Humor in YA Fiction
Short summary:
of such humor in young adult fiction is Stephen Manes' The. Obnoxious Jerks. a broader spectrum of young adult perceptions of humor. Genre Favorites for Young Adults, a publication of Booklist, that includes a list of humorous books ...
Long summary:
Why Angels Fly: Humor in YA Fiction Why Angels Fly: Humor in YA Fiction Janet Kleinberg and Lynn Cockett umorous fiction for young adults is important, for there is wisdom in the adage that angels fly because they take themselves lightly. Humor allows one to distance oneself from problems, to objectify rather than personalize them, so that they become temporarily part of the non-self, objects to be toyed with (Goldstein 110). Whether reading a comic novel like J. Clarkes Al Capsella Takes a Vacation or a realistic novel infused with humor such as Ron Koertges The Arizona Kid, teens need the opportunity to laugh. They benefit from the perspective that humor affords. The development of a sense of humor is important to the evolution of a fully realized personality (Jalongo 113). IS HUMOR A GENRE? In order to understand the place occupied by humorous novels for young adults in the canon of literature for youth, it is important to first understand the nature of genre literature. In fact, it is difficult to discern if humor is a species of its own as in genre literature or a thread that can run through any novel. Not everyone agrees. Sally Estes edited Genre Favorites for Young Adults, a publication of Booklist, that includes a list of humorous books. The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) of the American Library Association also defines humor as a genre. However, Betty Rosenberg and Diana Herald, in their book, Genreflecting, do not. They are outstanding champions of genre H fiction who inspire librarians to look closely at what their patrons are reading and to respond accordingly with collections that reflect recreational reading needs. The absence of humor as a category in their book illustrates its elusive nature. Often publishers ad copy or genre designations on book jackets lead readers to believe a book will be funny when it is simply a realistic novel with a few funny lines. Sometimes humor is the paramount element, the defining characteristic; sometimes it is subordinate. Humor is a slippery subject. Put simply, humor is the comic quality in a person, experience, or idea that makes one laugh (Schwartz 281). This begs the question: what is that comic quality and from where does it come? With the young adult members of an interpretive community, we explored this question. What follows is a description of that community and its exploration of humorous fiction. AN INTERPRETIVE COMMUNITY Conventional wisdom once taught that a mythical perfectly informed reader could extract full meaning from a text (Vandergrift, Meaning-Making and the Dragons of Pern 27). However, reader-response criticism has led to an enlightened view of meaning-making and considers the reader to be the most important element in that process. Meaning is made as much from what one brings to a text as from what one takes from it. Thus, different readers decoding the same text may actually be reading very different stories and the same reader may read that text ...
Source: www.scils.rutgers.edu
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Why Angels Fly: Humor in YA Fiction, of such humor in young adult fiction is
Stephen Manes' The. Obnoxious Jerks. a
broader spectrum of young adult
perceptions of humor. Genre Favorites for
Young Adults, a publication of Booklist,
that includes a list of humorous books ...,
more
