The Book Thief Panel Reflection

After going to the Panel about The Book Thief and young adult literature I’ve learned a lot about different genres of books and the target audiences they appeal to. The publisher of The Book Thief had a lot of interesting things to say about how the genre of young adult literature is growing. I had always thought of what is now called young adult literature as teen books, but I think this new classification is much clearer. Now there is a difference between a book for a preteen or early teen, and kids in their late teens. I also this this creates a distinction between middle school and high school and the topics of the books in which they should be reading. I think she was very knowledgeable about her field and definitely had a lot of insight about publishing children’s books whether it was a picture book or a young adult book. I was a little confused by the speaker who talked about the presence of the Holocaust in literature. This was in reference to the topic of The Book Thief, and since I have never read the book, I think it confused me and I zoned out a little bit at this point. I also think that his topic was so broad and there is so much to discuss within the holocaust and it’s place in literature that hearing a summarized ten minute speech about it just wasn’t enough for this panel. I thought it was an interesting panel to listen to, but it didn’t necessarily flow together with each speaker.