A librarian offers a fresh perspective on introducing great literature to teens

Let’s play Word Association. I say, “Classics.” You pull back in your seat, maybe cross your arms or a leg, and respond with, “Old.” “Boring.” Then, “dry,” “musty,” and “irrelevant.” And you’re just warming up! Next come, “school,” and “required,” and “torture.” While you’re firing off associations, you may be remembering your junior and high schools years and the “classics” you were required to interpret in accordance with the educational dogma of the day.

My own junior and high school years included works that I was pressed to read in a far shorter time than I could master, and interpret without the necessary academic skills, developmental inclination, or general human exposure and understanding. Oh, I muddled my way through the process just like everyone else—well, except the 8th grade honor students who were actually excited by the societal iniquities in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I did make some positive connections in my secondary school years with classic literature, but on the whole I was left thinking that not only was I mostly abused by it all, I was also wrongly mentored and totally ripped off in my young reading life and introduction to the “classics.”

Unfortunately, that feeling continued into my college years, until it dawned on me that if it took a literary key and a professor’s daily proclamations by line and chapter to understand Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49, it might not be worth my time. I gave up on the idea that these were, indeed, great works, and that it was my deficiency when I missed something to be found in them. I gave up on reading anything that appeared to require academic intervention for comprehension. I decided that it was okay not to understand, or if I did understand, not to agree with the standard interpretation of any work, classic or otherwise. I determined that what I read would be fun, fascinating, expansive, intriguing, sexy, weird, wild and creepy, and full of love, action, and power. Thus, no “classics.”

I read regency romances, poetry, guides to meditation, cookbooks, everything ever written by Edward Abbey, hard boiled mysteries, woodworking manuals, political thrillers, art history, the instructional stories of the Sufis—anything and everything I could lay my hands on as long as it wasn’t listed as part of the Western Canon or on a curricular list in secondary schools and colleges. And it was pure pleasure, a great decision for me as a reader. Until, ironically, during my years as a bookseller at Cody’s Books in that Berkeley, California bastion of anti-establishment thinking, I realized I just might have thrown the literary baby out with the bathwater.

The passion many of my coworkers felt for works considered to be classics of some kind, and their expansive definitions of what makes a classic, gave me pause and provoked a great deal of self-evaluation as a reader. I’d done myself a bad turn by allowing the less-than-savory characteristics of the educational system to define what I would and would not read, to have granted it the power to remove from my consideration a great deal of top-of-the-line works. It was as great a disservice to me as a reader to avoid classics as it had been to be inappropriately introduced to them in my youth.

A great deal of the literature defined as classic—and not just by collegiate and secondary curriculums—is the richest, most significant, influential, amazing, moving stuff, and I can’t imagine I held ever myself back from it. In addition to the dry, boring, musty, irrelevant titles that inarguably can be found in the Western Canon and on curricular lists, there are as many or more works honored as classics because they are truly outstanding, of great merit and meaning—and here’s a terrific thing—they are not just relevant to adult readers.

There are, though, teen serving librarians and educators who believe otherwise. In addition to a range of articles and editorials in library literature over time, YALSA-BK (an American Library Association-hosted and moderated electronic discussion list about teens and books) has recently had an on-again/off-again discussion about teens and classic literature. The majority of teen serving librarians who participated in this discussion relied on their unhappy recollections of school life and assigned reading—both as students and as teachers—to make definitive proclamations about the inappropriateness of classics for teen readers. Many believe that classics absolutely, positively turn teens off. I believe this viewpoint has its foundation in a classroom that can and should be left behind, and in a limited definition of what is classic literature.

Few people would argue that a less than cutting-edge collection of classics have been, and may continue to be, poorly taught in our secondary schools. There are reasonable arguments out there that classics shouldn’t be taught at the secondary level at all, or that at the very least, the titles should be reexamined for their relevance and interest to teens, and the methods of teaching be reexamined while they’re at it. But this is a far different discussion than whether or not teens and classics can be meaningfully connected. What is certain is this: it is a grave mistake to define classics solely as those works you had to read in junior and high school, or have been required to promote or teach. As a teen serving librarian or educator, you don’t have to limit today’s teens to those works and those experiences. You are in a uniquely wonderful position to bring together teens and the right sorts of classics, based on developmental stages and interests, reading levels, and any other unique characteristic that might come in to play.

How? Begin with a new definition of classics that will lose nothing and gain a great deal. There are far more classic works of literature than are deconstructed in Barron’s, Cliff’s or Monarch Notes. This is not to suggest that despite the dry musties, there aren’t wonderful works to be recommended to teen readers from the Western Canon and curriculum lists, but don’t limit yourself or teens to those choices. Broaden your understanding of classics in subject, format, and reading level, and don’t be afraid to look a little further forward in time. It may feel a little uncomfortable at first, but it will be worth the effort, both for yourself and for the teens you work with.

In addition to mainstream literary classics, how about including classics of genre literature in your definition—you know, those oft short-shrifted genres like adventure, fantasy, mystery, horror, romance, and science fiction? Or classics that represent world ethnic experiences, or the experiences of any other unique group of people based on belief systems, life ways, and personal orientations? Consider in your definition short story classics and classic plays. Classic poetry. Myths, fairy tales and legends. Essays and speeches. There are numerous comic books considered classics in their genre, and even a handful of graphic novels are reaching that status. Consider contemporary classics, including award winners in both adult and teen literature. Works by Nobel Prize-winning authors, Pulitzer Prize winners, National Book Award winners (they’ve got both adult and teen categories), and, of course, winners of the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature can all be reasonably argued to be classics, or at the very least, classics in the making. And how about works written for child and teen audiences? Children’s literature has a long history, and teen literature is developing a strong if not as lengthy history as a body of literature. Include crossover classics and classics of teen literature in your definition.

To help you formulate your own, broader definition of the classics, look at other folks’ definitions. To help you get started, Chapter One of my book, Classics Connections: Turning Teens on to Great Literature (Libraries Unlimited, 2004), provides definitions of and quotes about classic literature from a broad collection of individuals and resources throughout history, as well as from folks in the here and now. After much reading and pondering, I worked out my own definition:

Any work of literature (fiction and nonfiction, prose and verse) from times long past to the recent past that is acknowledged with some consensus, through the test of time, through literary and/or social review, or through the award-winning status of the work or its author, to be of exemplary merit for: its form or style, its original or unique expression of enduring or universal concepts, or its unique reflection of the conditions of its people and times. (Koelling, 9)

Beyond some commonly held beliefs about what makes a classic, there is a strong element of reasoned opinion in any overall definition. Your definition, if defensible, is as good as mine or anyone else’s.

In redefining just what the classics are, and in gaining a renewed understanding of their potential value to teens, you develop the professional muscle to halt the destruction that well meaning but misguided and possibly obsolete educational systems have on junior high and high school students. You can motivate teens to leave negative experiences of the classroom behind, and to discover the powerful potential connections to be found in classic literature.