PSU Magazine Winter 2001

fine, but it's pretty hard to beat a good story," he says. The importance of quality children's literature in school is such that an increasing number of colleges are offering chil– dren's lit classes as part of their required curriculum for ele– mentary education degrees. Portland State is the only university in Oregon to offer a graduate certificate program in children's and young adult literature, according to its coor– dinator, Paul Gregorio. The program was created five years ago out of the interest expressed by students who took classes in children's literature at the University. O ther trends in literature and society helped fuel that interest, he says: a steady flowering of the genre over two or three decades; the emergence of respected adult writers such as John Updike, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker trying their hands at writing fo r younger aud iences; multiculturism; and a realiza– tion among writers and editors of the need fo r higher quality ch ildren's books and ones that tackle hard issues. U ntil the 1960s, the chil– dren's literature landscape was considerably drier than it is today. With the obv ious excep– tion of class ic works such as C.S. Lewis's Narnia series, The Wind in the Willows, and Trea– sure Island, Gregorio says most books for children and young adults avoided real-life issues in favor of cheap excitement (the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mysteries, fo r example) or sentimentality. They didn't engage readers much, and most were written to the lowest common denominator. Even at the beginner level, Dick and Jane readers taught basic language, but were artifi– cially contrived and didn't engage the reader. "With a good story, you care about what happens. But who really cares about Dick and Jane?" he says. Dr. Seuss (Theodor S. Geisel) turned the basal reader idea on its head in the late 1950s and early '60s with books such as Hop on Pop and Green Eggs and Ham. Entertaining, bizarre, funny, and end– lessly creative, the Seuss books gave 10 PSU MAGAZINE WINTER 2001 young Baby Boomers something totally new - the first in a long string of innovations that would mold the generation for the next four decades. eanwhile, readers of middle school age were getting their first taste of the real world with works such as The Out– siders by S.E. Hinton, about peer pressure, and If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin, about teenage pregnancy. This is the period Gregorio calls the golden age of young adult lit– erature. One reason is that it produced books that didn't talk down to kids. It dealt with issues they were aware of in their lives, but up to that point were avo ided in books. For another, it marked a turning point in the way litera– ture was taught. Before, educators assumed high school stu– den ts should make the leap directly to adult literature, Gregorio says. With the shift during the '60s, the young adult genre gained respect and became viewed as a bridge to the classics. Over the years, young adult literature has grown to explore myriad grown- up problems and has expanded to include other cultures. F or younger kids, the shift happened 10 years later. Dear Mr. Henshaw , a 1974 New– berry Award winner by Beverly C leary, dea lt with divorcing parents. A decade later, Make Lemonade by forme r PSU stu– dent Virginia Euwer Wolff dealt with single parenthood. Her most recent book, Bat 6, is about Japanese-Americans returning to Hood River after be ing in internment camps during World War II. Losing Uncle Tim by Mary Kate Jor– dan is about a favorite relative dying of AIDS. "l can't think of any theme that couldn't be in a children's book," says Howard, whose 15 books have touched on incest, childbirth, and abortion. Whatever the issue, Howard says children's literature should be empowering "Children are the most powerless people in our society. They have to find a sense of power and self sufficiency in