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RA For All: Horror: 31 Days of Horror Project

MonsterLibrarian.com was pleased to be included in Becky Siegel Spratford’s project 31 Days of Horror over at her blog RA for All: Horror. Becky is the expert in reader’s advisory in the horror genre, so if you haven’t heard of her and are looking for a great resource go check her blog out!

The post went up a couple of days ago. Click here to go directly to our guest post there. I hope you’ll also take some time to see who else is featured over there this month– so far, it’s been interesting! Or, if you would rather just keep reading, I’ll include what I wrote below, although none of the links that I included there are active. But you really should go check RA for All: Horror out.

 

TRENDS IN THE HORROR GENRE
By Kirsten Kowalewski

Many of the trends in horror fiction right now reflect trends in publishing and reading in general. Anyone who follows books at all, or has been to the bookstore recently, will note an overwhelming number of YA titles devoted to the supernatural, as well as dystopian and post-apocalyptic fiction. So results of a recent study by Bowker Market Research, that show that 55% of YA books (targeted at ages 12-17) are purchased by adults reflect a notable trend not just in general but for the horror genre. The trend towards adults reading YA books is now so strong that popular writers of adult horror, such as Jonathan Maberry are now writing YA titles, and publishers of adult horror are now starting YA imprints–ChiZine Publications recently announced that it will introduce a new imprint, ChiTeen, in 2014.

Something to remember as you consider these numbers is that teens also read a lot of adult fiction. In her book Shelf Discovery, Lizzie Skurnick touches on this, as she recalls reading adult books like Jaws and raiding her parents’ bookshelves , in addition to reading contemporary YA fiction (and as Becky noted in this blog post, as teens are new to the genre, introducing them to these more mature titles is a great way to circulate your backlist). Many, many people start reading Stephen King and other adult horror novels as teens. What young adults read isn’t necessarily fiction targeted at young adults, any more than what adults read is targeted to them.

At MonsterLibrarian.com, we’ve reviewed books with monsters in them that fall all along the spectrum, and the most popular searches for book lists are for YA vampire books and paranormal romances. These are so popular that we started a blog, Reading Bites, just for this audience. However, there seems to be agreement between horror readers and librarians that the vampire novel, for the most part, has lost its bite; as one middle school librarian noted to me recently, middle school girls aren’t scared by a vampire who will take them to the prom. As vampires bleed into the genres of romance and mystery, hardcore horror readers, who prefer their monsters to be monstrous, have started to turn away from this subgenre. Make sure you know what a reader wants when he or she asks for a vampire book.

The trend in YA fiction towards dystopian and post-apocalyptic fiction, influenced by The Hunger Games, also seems to frequently take on a romantic angle, and often portrays the main characters as catalysts for societal change. Post-apocalyptic fiction seems to be mainly reflected in adult horror in the subgenre of zombie fiction, where the focus is usually on the survivors of a post-apocalyptic event doing their best to survive a zombie invasion. Lovers of this subgenre are sometimes content to read the same kind of story over and over—they like the fast-paced action and gore and aren’t necessarily interested in character development—but in recent years there have been some fresh takes on a genre that, while popular, was starting to get a bit stale (you can see what I mean by checking out our list of zombie titles). Mad science is also taking off in interesting directions, with plague viruses, technology gone mad, genetic manipulation, and man-made monsters showing up with frequency in both YA and adult fiction. One of the scariest books I’ve read in the past twelve months was Kenneth Oppell’s This Dark Endeavor (reviewed here), a prequel to Mary Shelley’s classic horror story Frankenstein. Both Oppell’s short novel and Shelley’s original appeared together in the same ebook. Now that’s a hook! The Frankenstein story takes a totally different turn in Neal Shusterman’s UnWholly, due out later this month. And these days many zombie books start with some kind of virus or plague, with the search for a cure a significant storyline.

Another trend in publishing and reading that is affecting horror fiction is the popularity of ebooks and self-publishing. At the time that we started MonsterLibrarian.com, horror fiction had more or less lost its home in mainstream publishing and migrated to small presses that often specialized in printing collector’s editions—beautiful, but expensive, and not easily available to the average consumer. Some of them, like Cemetery Dance and Bad Moon Books have done very well, but many times books from small presses are only available by direct order, which makes them hard to find.

As ebooks and self-publishing have exploded, horror fiction of all kinds has become much more readily available. Short pieces that weren’t exactly what a publisher was looking for, or were by unknown authors, could be (and are) presented in ebook format, and find an audience. This is great for horror readers who are loyal to a subgenre that isn’t being promoted in mainstream publishing , like werewolf fiction. There is a strong minority of readers who love werewolf horror (enough that we hosted a Werewolf Month for several years), but there are few current werewolf horror books (here’s our list of werewolf titles). A search for “werewolf horror” on Amazon.com brings up over 1,000 titles, mostly self-published ebooks. It’s hard to know what the quality of a self-published book will be before you read it, but many ebooks are very low-priced. Some authors are now publishing serials, with an attempt to hook an audience with episodes of a continuing story. Authors whose rights have reverted to them can introduce their books to a new audience. Small presses sell books in ebook format as well as collector’s editions, making those available to a wider audience. And current mainstream authors (like Stephen King) are finding a demand for shorter pieces . The ways that ebooks are changing publishing in general and horror in particular are many, and it’s very exciting. Unfortunately for libraries and their readers, most of these won’t be easily available through a service like Overdrive. The conundrum of how libraries can help horror readers connect more easily with ebooks doesn’t seem like one that can be solved easily.

A final trend that I see affecting the way people experience horror fiction is the way it is sweeping the media. Television shows like The Walking Dead (originally based on a series of graphic novels) have made zombies more mainstream. Movies such as Joss Whedon’s Cabin in the Woods draw in reluctant viewers (see what blogger Barbara Vey wrote here). Apps allow you to take the experience along with you. The brand-new book Horrible Hauntings by Shirin Yim Bridges uses augmented reality technology to extend the reading experience; ghosts leap out at the reader when you point your cell phone camera at the pictures! Horror is such a visual genre that the way other media are giving readers to experience it is nothing short of amazing.

Getting the horror reader in the door can be a challenge. But the real challenge is this: with so much horror outside mainstream publishing, once you get the reader in the door, how are you going to manage to give them what they’re looking for?

Posted on October 7, 2012 by , Reply

Searching for Frankenstein: Finding Scary Stories At The Library

It’s that time of year. It seems like school has just started, and fall, at least here in the Midwest where we FINALLY got some rain, doesn’t seem like it can possibly be coming our way. The Monster Kid’s plotting for his Halloween birthday party has gotten to the invitation stage, and we’re just two weeks from all those “31 Days of Halloween” promotions. The schools in my district are ignoring the fact that Halloween is just around the corner, but they may be the only ones in our community actually succeeding at it.

And with the spooky season looming just ahead, librarians, parents, kids, and even teachers (at least teachers in other school districts) are seeking out scary books for kids (or not so scary books, as the case may be) for storytelling programs (sometimes even storytelling festivals), lesson plans, party ideas, monster stories, chills and thrills, and just plain old fun. Most people don’t have the collection a library has of picture books, chapter books, poetry, cookbooks, monster guides, Halloween tales, scary stories for around the campfire (or a flashlight, if you’re inside) fall crafts, and lesson ideas. So, off to the library we go!

A lot of kids only have access to their school library for information on various topics. So I visited a school library to find out a little about how kids search for (and hopefully find) scary books there. Let me first explain that most school libraries are part of a “specials” rotation (assuming there are “specials” teachers in the school) So kids from each classroom cycle through for half an hour (or maybe an hour) usually once a week. On the other days, the kids will have art, music, and gym. Sometimes this is that class’ only access to the library for that week (depending on the school culture). Often that time has to include a short lesson or story and the kids’ search for books followed by checkout. It’s a lot to handle in half an hour to an hour once a week, especially if you are a solo librarian (hopefully there are volunteers backing you up) with thirty kids to help and check out. Assisting each child individually and keeping order is nearly impossible. So you want to make the kids as independent as they can be in trying to find the books they want (with the side benefit that they will develop the skill to  find them on their own).

An awesome catalog system can be a huge help with this. Gone are the days where you had to teach kids how to find subject, title, and author cards using the arcane subject organization system developed by the Library of Congress. The online catalog is a miracle. I have personally automated a school library and the difference is incredible. It’s not that the LC system isn’t still used, but we now have this amazing tool called the keyword search, which allows people to search using whatever word they think of. The great thing is that something will probably come up that will be related to your topic. The problem is that lots of things will come up that aren’t related to your topic but that have the word or phrase you used in them, someplace in the catalog field.

So let’s say the very busy (and awesome) school librarian is having many demands made on her at once and a kid asks “Where are the scary books”?  And the librarian says “Go type in the word ‘scary’ into the search box for the catalog’. 25 books come up, including a book of poetry about scary animals and  a science book on scary insects. Only five results show on the first screen before you have to click on “next” to see the next five results.

Let me ask you something. When you do a Google search, how many times do you go past the first page or results? Most people don’t. And it’s more than likely that  most kids won’t go past that first screen either. Getting the librarian’s attention a second time may be difficult(thirty kids all clamoring for attention…), so that child might leave without a scary book.

I decided to check my public library’s catalog. When I did a keyword search using “scary” I got 510 results. That’s way too many to be helpful! Then I saw that the list was for ALL the books (and media) in the entire library that came up under the keyword scary. I had to click on a subject heading, Children’s Literature, to refine my search. That was slightly better but still too many to be helpful. My first page gave me 20 results, including one book by Norman Bridwell (author of the Clifford books),  Strawberry Shortcake’s Spooky Night, a Geronimo Stilton book, and a YA title. Okay, “scary” is a pretty nonspecific term. It’s probably likely that the keyword search results would be all over the place. But it is kind of discouraging. I tried some other keywords. “Halloween” brought up completely different results, with the exception of the Bridwell book, and I think all of them would be more satisfying to a kid that what I found when I looked up “scary”. And this is interesting– there were 765 books in the overall collection that came up, and 367 of those were in the children’s collection (chances are a fair amount of them were by R.L. Stine, and many of the books found under “children’s literature” also seemed to be YA titles, but still–  there were not only more relevant results, but from a larger pool of books!

Now, my own kid loves monsters. So I did a search for “monster”.  Wow! 1139 books, 373 of which were in the children’s collection. Many of these were R.L. Stine and YA books, but once again, the first page of results was almost completely different. Still, that is a heck of a lot of books, and as I said, most people won’t go past the first page of results. So I got more specific and did a search for “Halloween monster”.  What a difference. This brought up only 31 books in the entire catalog, 14 of which were children’s titles. That’s a REALLY narrow pool of results. Because I did the earlier searches on “Halloween” and “monster”  I know there are lots of books on each topic– and I’m curious as to why there’s not more overlap. The children’s department in my library has tried to make it easy to find Halloween books (which will also have monsters) by grouping books related to individual holidays together, but obviously there has to be overlap as well as stuff they’ve missed. But that’s a start. What if I want to find a book on a specific monster, though? The Monster Kid is all into those Universal movie monsters, so I decided to search for “Frankenstein”. Would you believe there are 144 titles devoted to Frankenstein in some way, and just 20 in the children’s section?  Four of those were YA titles, and four were graphic novels. But interestingly, the Frankenstein book my son has checked out and sitting in his bedroom upstairs, titled Frankenstein, a Crestwood House book by Ian Thorne, did not show up at all.

So, “look it up in the catalog” is an okay place to start, and it can simplify things if you are searching a small collection or have time and patience to scroll through results and try different keywords (or maybe not, if the first three results that pop up in the school catalog in a search for “monster” are about monster trucks). But simple keyword searches can be tricky– either overwhelming you with information, providing you with a list of titles that doesn’t suit your needs, or even leaving out something you KNOW ought to be there, because you’ve seen it there before. You might find the books in places you won’t expect sometimes (who knew a five year old would have such a desperate need for Halloween cookbooks?) but you might never find them at all, without help.

If your keyword search doesn’t seem to be taking you where you need to go, and you can’t figure out how to successfully narrow your results, don’t be afraid. Ask the librarian. That’s why she, or he, is there… to help find those places where the book you need, or one like it, may be.

Have a bewitching time searching, and finding, what you are looking for, for this coming holiday season!

Posted on September 12, 2012 by , Reply

Why Read The Classics?

Well, for one thing, they’re available. The Brevard County Library System in Florida pulled the erotic bestseller Fifty Shades of Grey from its shelves this week after determining that it didn’t meet the library system’s selection criteria. Library services director Cathy Schweinsberg said,

“Nobody asked us to take it off the shelves. But we bought some copies before we realized what it was. We looked at it, because it’s been called ‘mommy porn’ and ‘soft porn.’ We don’t collect porn.”

What I find most interesting about this is that the intrepid reporter covering the story (click here to see it) did a little browsing in the library catalog, and found a variety of well-known erotic titles, including The Complete Kama Sutra, Fanny Hill, Lolita, Tropic of Cancer, Lady Chatterly’s Lover, and Fear of Flying (if she ever leaves journalism, she could have a bright future as a readers advisory librarian). When the library director was asked why these titles, with content of a similar nature, were on the shelves, she said:

“I think because those other books were written years ago and became classics because of the quality of the writing… This is not a classic.”

(I wonder if they own Twilight?)

So if I want to check out erotica from the Brevard County Libraries, it has to be well-aged, and well-written. (I guess it’s a good thing that I don’t live in Brevard County). But this whole incident raises an interesting point. There are many who look down on the horror genre- on post 1974 horror in particular (to use Becky Siegel Spratford’s demarcation) and who wouldn’t dream of having those nasty covers, those possibly badly written books, anywhere nearby, because they’re not old enough and haven’t been canonized yet. And a lot of books ARE badly written and never will become classics. But people want them. They want that feeling. It’s not fair to dismiss the desires of your readers and users, whether those desires involve erotic Twilight fanfiction or ravening zombies.

If you happen to have a library that doesn’t have the horror fiction you are looking for, it doesn’t mean you’re out of luck. They are in disguise, lurking in the depths of the library- Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Ray Bradbury, Shirley Jackson… Jekyll and Hyde, Dorian Gray, Dracula, Victor Frankenstein. If you can’t find the latest, try out the early greats. And then harass your librarian to get you the new stuff while you read… the classics.

Posted on May 5, 2012 by , Reply
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