Laurie Halse Anderson – laureate 2023 1
Laurie Halse Anderson, author encounter between t
he author and a school librarian who cannot order Speak for the library because it would put her job on the line. Several of Anderson’s young adult books are set in and around high schools—besides Speak, this applies to novels such as Catalyst (2002), Prom (2005), and Twisted (2008)—but this specific setting simultaneously functions as a mirror of the world outside school. Anderson typically allows places or spaces to reflect feelings, utterances, and moods. The sometimes obsessive tendency in Anderson’s adolescent characters often stems from their belief in an idea or from unfailingly following their own path. Anderson’s young adult novels display a striking sensitivity to individual integrity. Obsession can also extend to a compulsion to control the body, as in Wintergirls (2009), a harrowing and detailed documentation of two girls’ life-threatening eating disorders, including calorie counting and selfharming behaviours. Anderson’s prose is rich with imagery and often leans on literature and myth. Wintergirls references the story of Sleeping Beauty Laurie Halse Anderson 12, years old, writing poetry at church camp. 17