YA New York

I am pleased to introduce Susane Colasanti, author of Take Me There and When It Happens. Susane normally blogs over at LiveJournal, and can also generally be found on MySpace. But today, she’s right here with us, writing about S.E. Hinton’s classic, The Outsiders, which was published in 1967 when Hinton was a ripe old nineteen years of age. Without further ado, here is Susane’s guest entry:

*At Teen Author Reading Night this week, an inquiring mind wanted to know: Why do you write for teens instead of adults? This was a really easy question to answer. Because I know what it’s like to be the kid who needs someone to reach out to them. And now I want to give back by being the person who’s reaching out.

Being an author is actually my second career. I was a high school science teacher for almost ten years, most of that time at a school in the South Bronx. My purpose in life has always been to help kids, particularly teens, improve their lives in some way. I want to make their lives better. As a teacher, I only interacted with a hundred or so kids each day. But now I can connect with thousands of readers as an author.

Two life-altering events happened when I was twelve. I suddenly knew I wanted to be a science teacher when I grew up. And I read The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. From the first chapter, that was it. I fell so hard I still haven’t gotten up. The Outsiders changed my life. I cannot describe the full effect The Outsiders had on me (and continues to have on me), but I was completely obsessed. I slept with that book under my pillow every night in a sort of touchstone/osmosis/safety device ritual. I memorized sections of the story that spoke to me the most. I can still recite Robert Frost’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” but I was so bored with all of the other poetry we had to learn for English class (except stuff by E.E. Cummings — that dude rocked). And although I didn’t know it at the time, The Outsiders was the catalyst for my future writing career.

The Outsiders inspired me in a way I wish my books would inspire other kids. I want to write books for people who need to escape into stories, who rely on books to save them. When I was a teen, reading was the one part of my day that I always looked forward to, the only time when I felt completely comfortable and relaxed. It was my way to deal with the pain of growing up and survive the hard times I went through. I felt like my favorite authors were reassuring me that I wasn’t alone, that I could come back to their books anytime and feel better again.

Back in the day (i.e. the 80s), there weren’t that many good young-adult novels out there. The whole genre of teen books was sort of a desolate void. But now there are so many excellent books available for teens. These books encourage people to search for answers in stories that relate to their lives. My life was different from the characters’ lives in The Outsiders, but one thing was fundamentally the same: I was an outsider, too. Every time I read that story, it made me feel alive. And that’s an amazing feeling.*

Buy The Outsiders and/or Susane’s books at Amazon.com.

All content within the asterisks is © Susane Colasanti 2008 and may not be reproduced in any form without her permission.

My dearest readers,

I am delighted to present Jennifer E. Smith, author of The Comeback Season, who wrote a guest entry for us today about one of the books that inspired her when she was growing up. She chose a tearjerker, Where the Red Fern Grows, which is probably the novel that inspired the phrase “a book about a boy and his dog.” But here, I’ll let her tell you all about it:

Where the Red Fern Grows, a review by Jennifer E. Smith

* When my first book, The Comeback Season, went out into the world this spring, the one thing I heard more than anything else was that it made people cry. And inevitably, my first impulse was always to apologize.

Rarely is making someone cry considered a good thing. But even so, I’ve always relished those books and movies that elicit that sort of reaction, the ones that wrench your heart in such a way that it never quite goes back to its original shape.

The first time I read Where the Red Fern Grows was in a sixth grade classroom. We were assigned a certain amount of pages each night, but my teacher decided we’d read the ending together as a class. Sixth grade is not really the ideal time to be seen bawling by your classmates, but I remember being completely gutted by the ending, shocked and sad and just generally crushed. It felt like I’d gone through it all myself, the longing for a couple of red hounds, the bravery and sacrifice in the face of danger, the sharp sting of loss at the end. It stays with me even now; I could cry just thinking about Old Dan and Little Ann. Just as I did back then. (In front of my entire sixth grade class.)

A lot of people can’t bear to read these kinds of stories. Life is too sad as it is, I suppose. But for me, it’s a kind of release, and there’s a certain cathartic joy to it. Those are the sort of books that have stayed with me over the years, that cling to my memory in the face of so many years and so many other stories. To say they are unforgettable isn’t quite enough. Books like Where the Red Fern Grows simply become a part of you.

So now, when people tell me they cried when reading my book, I’m no longer going to apologize. It seems to me the most generous kind of compliment, the idea that my words could affect someone in the same way Wilson Rawls’ words still affect me. From now, I’ll simply thank them instead…and perhaps suggest they don’t read the ending in public!*

All material between the asterisks is © Jennifer E. Smith 2008. This material may not be reproduced in any form without her permission.