Winners from the Class of 2028
Sweep and Ideas of the Monstrous in Middle Grade Literature" (Eliott Pelletier)
Monsters come in many forms, but monstrosity is a completely human notion. According to Eliott Pelletier, this is a central theme in Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster, a middle grade novel (written for children ages 8-12) by Jonathan Auxier that follows orphaned chimney-sweep Nan and her friendship with Charlie the soot golem as they evade a truly monstrous human villain. Through a close reading of the novel Eliott Pelletier not only gives his reader a taste of the wonder that a good book can elicit, but also develops a thoughtful argument about the role of middle grade literature in modeling an evolving sense of self for young readers. Using Weinstock’s framework of monster theory, Pelletier suggests that Sweep guides readers through a process of self-examination in which the definition of monstrosity helps to uncover personal values and identity.
"Beyond Good and Evil: Examining Moral collapse and Ethical Dilemmas in Beloved" (Lily Fromm)
Toni Morrison’s Beloved is a novel that asks readers to engage with the visceral reality of enslavement and its legacy of devastation. In Lily Fromm’s hands Beloved becomes a vehicle not only for uniting personal trauma with generational suffering, but also for questioning what morality can exist within that framework. Memory is tied, Fromm argues, to a distorted form of morality in the novel, a distortion that hinges on the paradox of an immoral act potentially releasing its perpetrator from slavery’s violent cycle of generational trauma. Fromm treats the novel as an interrogation of moral judgement, posing this timely question: “what does justice mean in a world built on injustice, and how can ethical behavior endure when humanity is denied?”