Response to "Gossiping Girls, Insider Boys, A-List Achievement: Examining and Exposing Young Adult Novels Consumed by Conspicuous Consumption" by Wendy Glenn

Glenn, Wendy. 2008. “Gossiping Girls, Insider Boys, A-List Achievement: Examining and Exposing Young Adult Novels Consumed by Conspicuous Consumption.” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy 52(1): 34-42. 

I liked Wendy Glenn’s take on the sort of novels that idealize glamorous, luxurious lifestyles of rich New York teens: that they can be useful tools in teaching literary criticism and critical thinking.  However, I don’t think there’s much librarians can do about it.  If these items were included in book clubs we could of course bring up the subjects discussed in this article.  But when a teen comes to the circulation desk with a Gossip Girl book, I think it would be a bit out of place for the librarian to say “Now, while you read this, think about whether or not you identify with the characters and what point of view the author is bringing to this kind of world.”  Of course these items have to be in a library’s collection, and reading this article has only made me feel even more uneasy about how teens may react to these materials.