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Amanda Harding
Amy Alessio, MLIS
LIS 722
5 August 2019
Laurie Halse Anderson: Providing teens with an honest voice

A decade after the release of her critically acclaimed, and arguably most poignant,

novel (Speak), Laurie Halse Anderson was honored with the Margaret A. Edwards Award

in 2009, an astonishing achievement bestowed upon authors of young adult literature.

Rightfully so, Anderson was recognized for the publications Catalyst (2002), Fever 1793

(2000), and Speak (1999). Each of these titles present different settings, time periods, and

challenging situations that accurately portray struggles and challenges many teenagers

encounter while growing up (Morales and Petersen, par. 2). What makes Anderson an

influential writer is her honesty and inability to hold back harsh truths of young adult life.

As a result, she continues to impact teenage readers with her passionate prose, strong

themes, and relatable characters. David Mowery, the Edwards Committee Chair,

brilliantly states, “Anderson gives voice to teen characters undergoing transformations in

their lives through their honesty and perseverance while finding the courage to be true to

themselves” (Morales and Petersen, par. 4). This sentiment rings true for the protagonists

of these three novels, who experience the harsh realities of growing up, while specific

circumstances help them discover who they want to be at the end of this transition.

In Catalyst, Anderson’s headstrong protagonist is Kate Malone, a girl who defines

herself as living with two personalities. Good Kate is the face she shows the world:

Reverend’s daughter, polite, helpful, and academically adept. “Why can’t all teenagers be
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like her?” (Anderson 1). However, her inner monologue takes on the persona of Bad

Kate, the girl who thinks too highly of herself and is bound to lose her mind. In this

novel, Kate is making the transition from high school to college, and like many high

school seniors, she has her heart set on one school: MIT. Her dedication to MIT, and the

anxiety she experiences when she is rejected, is a relatable and honest transition that

many young people face. The real change in Kate occurs when Kate’s enemy, Teri,

moves into her family’s house with her younger brother, Mikey, after a fire damages their

family barn and home. Through Teri being there to Mikey dying tragically and the reveal

that he is actually Teri’s son, presumably at the hands of her abusive father, Kate begins

to look at the world differently and develop empathy, realizing there is more to life than

grades and academics. She realizes that MIT might not be her true destiny, at least not in

the present. Anderson creates a character who is struggling with her life and her future,

but who never keeps fighting even when times become difficult, a message that is

inspiring for many young people to hear.

Another character who develops and undergoes great change is Matilda in Fever

1793, a historical fiction novel, taking place during the yellow fever epidemic over 200

years ago. Matilda begins the novel being forced to perform her daily responsibilities by

a mother to whom she can be defiant. Her transformation and discovery of her true self is

also experienced at the hands of pain. A servant girl—and Mattie’s friend—dies from the

fever, her mothers falls ill, her grandpa is attacked by thieves and dies, and Mattie herself

catches the dreaded fever. The tragedy that she experiences is what allows her to find her

strength and become more empathetic towards people. An example of her increasing

empathy is when she assumes guardianship of the orphan Nell. At the end of the novel,
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Matilda is more mature, and decides to improve her life and the lives of others by taking

responsibility and running the family coffeehouse with Eliza. While teenagers may not be

able to personally relate to Matilda’s circumstances, they can certainly be impacted by

the hurt she experiences and the strength she finds in order to overcome it.

Arguably Anderson’s most well-known and acclaimed novel, Speak, is a story

that unfortunately discusses a harsh truth relatable to many: sexual abuse. The appeal to

this story is its heartbreaking honesty, focusing on a young girl, Melinda, who struggles

to speak up after being raped at a party before her freshman year of high school. Through

the course of the novel, Melinda comes to the realization that being honest to herself, and

those around her, is the only way she will fully heal. This story “helped pave the path for

a new generation of authors to tackle tough issues in books for teens” (Feldman 52),

which makes it relevant and important even twenty years later. The reason Speak impacts

teens so greatly is because of its relevance to society, a culture that is still so far away

from asking for and receiving consent before continually advancing on somebody.

According to Anderson, “it still has an impact because almost every woman I know and

probably almost every woman, and an awful lot of men, have been victimized by some

sort of sexual violence” (Booklist 93). Although not all young people who read the book

may be personally affected by the story, Melinda’s struggle to find her voice can help

teenagers gain perspective and look at the world differently.

Laurie Halse Anderson’s greatest impact on teens is her ability to speak honestly

and openly about difficult and controversial topics. As a result of her publishing Speak,

she has paved the way for authors to create more strong and candid young adult literature.

Popular YA author John Green says Speak remains “one of the first seriously good books
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published for teenagers to be read widely by them” (Feldman 52). Through her works,

she introduces teenage readers to a world that is not perfect, a world where tragic and

unseemly circumstances occur. Yet, she also introduces a world where young people

have the opportunity to grow, improve, and discover more of themselves as a result of

these situations. Anderson is an inspirational voice, both on paper and in her personal

life. Like Melinda, she was also raped at age thirteen, and five years after publishing

Speak, she began speaking publicly about her truth. She recalls a student at a high school

in Arizona asked her if what happened to Melinda happened to her. Anderson admitted

that it indeed had, which is one of her first instances of talking out loud about her

experience (Feldman 52). In her stories—whether she talks about sexual assault, death,

disease, or other tragedy—her prose never fails to hold back any detail. Due to her

openness, multiple of her books have been challenged or banned at many school and

public libraries. To the challengers, Anderson says, “Censorship has everything to do

with protecting adults who don’t know how to have conversations with kids” (Gadoua,

par. 4). However, Anderson is not afraid to have these conversations, creating a platform

where teenagers are able to relate to and be affected by the stories she tells, some

including details to which she has a personal connection, allowing the reader to develop a

deeper sense of the author and characters.

Catalyst, Fever 1793, and Speak are all books that impact teens with their truthful

accounts of what happens when the world does not always love a person back the way

that is expected. Teenager Chelsea Swiggett from Avon Lake, Ohio wrote an entry on

Teen Ink, detailing her personal experience reading these three stories. When reading

Fever 1793, she admitted that she had never yet encountered a book for her age group
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that discussed “such depressing yet important topics” (Swiggett, par. 2), and she was

further able to challenge herself by reading books at a more advanced reading level.

Reading Catalyst showed her “how imperfect everyone is, even those who act like they

own the world” (Swiggett, par. 5), and Speak provided her with a new perspective,

something she never expected to receive from a book (Swiggett, par. 7). This account

from an actual teenager emphasizes Anderson’s ability to affect the young readers of her

works. Through her books, she has encouraged young adult literature to be a place where

authors can discuss difficult topics that help teach teenagers about the world and the

people that inhabit it. Even multiple decades later, she is a voice for a generation living in

a society where these topics are not always accessible or easy to talk about, but her books

are able to impact readers by encouraging them to speak up and reveal their truths.
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Works Cited

“Laurie Halse Anderson.” Booklist, vol. 114, no. 9/10, Jan. 2018, p. 93. EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=127304955&site=ehost-

live&scope=site.

Anderson, Laurie H. Catalyst. Penguin Group, 2002.

Anderson, Laurie H. Fever 1793. Simon & Schuster, 2000.

Anderson, Laurie H. Speak. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999.

Feldman, Lucy. “A Voice for Others Speaks for Herself.” TIME Magazine, vol. 193, no.

9, Mar. 2019, pp. 51-53. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=a9h&AN=135009160&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Gadoua, Renée K. “Author Laurie Halse Anderson Wants Young People to Connect with

Books.” Syracuse New Times, 26 Jun 2019, www.syracusenewtimes.come/author-

laurie-halse-anderson-speak-young-people/.

Morales, Macey, and Jennifer Petersen. “Laurie Halse Anderson Wins 2009 Edwards

Award for Signficant and Lasting Contribution to Young Adult Readers for

‘Catalyst’; ‘Fever 1793’; and ‘Speak’” News and Press Center, 26 Jan. 2009,

www.ala.org/news/news/pressreleases2009/january/2009/ymaedwards.

Swiggett, Chelsea. “Fever 1793, Catalyst, Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson.” TeenInk,

www.teenink.com/reviews/book_reviews/article/25779/Fever-1793-Catalyst-Speak-

by-Laurie-Halse-Anderson/.
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