“…ignorance and innocence are not identical…keeping teens from the books that will help them with difficult things under the belief that this makes the difficult things never happen does more damage than good. I’m also of the belief that once it’s decided that certain things should not be spoken aloud — incest, abuse, suicide — and not included in books, it makes it that much harder for those teens who do experience those things in life, either directly or indirectly, and people end up thinking that those people who experience those things should likewise be hidden. Not talked about except in a whisper.”
What are we talking about here? Wellll, the Wall Street Journal has discovered the Breaking News that there are Dark Topics covered in books for children and young adults. And such eeeevil is being force-fed to some imaginary children somewhere, and coarse writers, booksellers, reviewers and publishers – who are okay with bad words, vampires/self-mutilation, and probably child murder – are to blame.
Well, gee.
It seems like every six minutes someone who doesn’t actually read enough sets out to speak to a topic. I know, I know — it happens in schools all the time when students write papers. But, see, they’re not getting paid, they’re merely getting graded, and we’re not a captive audience to their nonsense (and their teachers hopefully can cure them of their bad habits). When someone is getting paid to espouse an opinion in a publication, I do wish they would check facts and try to present a balanced article. Our national conversation is so taken up with inflaming rhetoric that people have ceased to think, and merely hurl invective for entertainment. It’s ugly and unnecessary, so I shall set aside my tendency towards sarcasm and ask you to go and look at Liz’s piece in the School Library Journal about this, read, think and respond. The above quote is going to be on my email for awhile, because I agree strongly: pretending that reality doesn’t exist has never yet changed it.
Here’s to writing about reality, and helping literature continue to be both window and mirror – showing us what other people have survived, or maybe telling us that we, too can survive ourselves.
We just had our annual teen book festival here in town (www.teenbookfestival.org) a few weeks ago, and you had to see the thousands of teens there, huge numbers of kids who were reading all different kinds of books with dark themes. Being someone who reads dark books, I wound up having conversations with many teens who read the kinds of things I do–I have those conversations here in the library, too. What I see are kids who are inquisitive, smart, excited about reading and learning. One of my favorite regulars in the library is a 13-year-old who wears only black, sports a spiked collar, and loves zombie movies. He reads a ton of horror and post-apocalyptic stuff, and he’s just the nicest kid–funny, smart, worlds of kind to his much-younger sister. I’ve known so many people, too, who, as Liz notes, found paths to better lives through books like these. The kids with the books are not the ones I worry about.
It’s been cool to see all the great responses this article has provoked! It seems the article writer herself can’t deal with the reality of many aspects of teen life today and doesn’t want to have to. Sometimes I just want to turn on Jane Austen adaptations and episode of Leave It to Beaver too but we can’t permanently live in denial of harsh realities. Nothing gets any better that way.
My first thought was why didn’t the mother ask for help. I am sure a bookseller could’ve found her a sex free, drug free, PG 13 read.
Comparing Myracle’s Shine to Blume’s MG novels is beyond ridiculous. There was a serious undercurrent of dislike for these titles that she didn’t even try to hide. So much for being impartial and balanced. Someone got paid to write that and I’m the one looking for a job.
Great post, Tanita, and thanks for the link. I love this: “Here’s to writing about reality, and helping literature continue to be both window and mirror – showing us what other people have survived, or maybe telling us that we, too can survive ourselves.”