*Insert Literary Blog Name Here*
I write books.
Yesterday, I posted about reading kids’ books on the Kindle. Books for all ages are available, though, as you can see, picture books lose some of their warmth on the matte gray screen.
Would you read picture books on the Kindle? Would you let your kids read on the Kindle?
In the era of the iPad, Amazon’s Kindle appears clunky and drab. The thumb tap keyboard is passe, the gray screen drab, and the lack of touchscreen so 2006. Yet, in some ways, the Kindle one-ups the iPad–lacking interactivity, the Kindle forces users to focus only on the text, provides a quick and easy way (via the OED and Wikipedia) to check a word meaning or make sense of a reference, offers a text to speech function, and has a battery life of around a week with wi-fi turned off. But while the Kindle will remain useful to adults–particularly adults uncomfortable with technology and touch screens–it’s likely the iPad will go where no e-reader has gone before and completely corner the kids’ market.
I know, I know, the Kindle isn’t the only e-reader out there. But B&N’s nook, Sony’s e-reader, and Spring Design’s Alex offer roughly the same set of features as the Kindle, give or take minor changes (the nook’s virtual keyboard, for instance). None of them offer the interactivity of an iPad, and none feature a color screen for text or illustration. And so far, Amazon offers the most access to kids’ e-books, with a quick search returning in excess of 27, 000 results.
Should the iPad be allowed to corner the kids’ market? There are pros and cons, and in most cases, I’m all for e-books within reason. But in the case of kid lit–picture books, early readers, even middle grade novels, the iPad may be overkill.
Kid lit isn’t immune to the tech boom–Leap Frog, Fisher Price, and others have been marketing read-to-me versions of books for years. Almost all the toddlers I know have their own educational, brightly-styled laptops. Why? Because in kid-land, bright is a good thing–unless we’re talking e-readers.
The iPad, despite its app-books and pretty pictures, is a computer. It’s main function is consumerist, not educational–which is okay if you’re over, say, the age of 13/14/15/25 (and, as MacWorld points out, will not replace a Kindle in terms of comfort, anyway). Of course, this hasn’t stopped publishers from releasing kid-targeted book-apps and marketing to the under 5 set. The Kindle, in contrast, is all about the book–it’s a reading device with a little extra functionality, to make reading easier. But Kindle kids’ books have, for the most part, slipped through the cracks–despite the Kindle probably being the better device for reading to your kids.
So far, Amazon’s offerings include pretty much every kind of kids’ book available. Classics such as Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Stevenson’s Treasure Island show up on the first page, alongside Twilight (Stephanie Meyer) and Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series. Well-known picture books, such as The Potty Book (Alyssa Satin Capucilli and Dorothy Stott), Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes (Annie Kubler), and even H.A. Rey’s Curious George series are also available, despite the e-reader’s matte gray screen.
Wondering just what illustrations look like on the Kindle? Check back tomorrow to see the cover from Billy Goats Gruff.
Can you read to a child on the Kindle? Yes–if you’re reading a primarily text book. Picture books show illustrations on one page, then text separately, if the publisher even includes pictures in the e-version. If I had a gazillion dollars, I’d buy an iPad. And a monkey, because I’ve always wanted a monkey. And a fur coat, but not a real fur coat, that’s cruel. But if I had to choose between the iPad and the Kindle as a reading device for my child–and solely a reading device–I’d pick the Kindle (or the nook, B&N, if you’d like to give me one). Why? The Kindle may be far from perfect, but it’s the more bookish reader. The lack of bells and whistles makes it easier for small, easily distracted minions to focus, the page buttons are easy to use, and it’s lightweight, much like an oversize board book.
Yet where the iPad is distracting in its detail, the Kindle is almost completely lacking in sensory details–the feel of pages against fingertips, the clean, ink scent of a book–reading on a Kindle is an almost sterile experience. For teens and adults, this can be a good thing, as it helps take a reader deeper inside a book. But for a child still learning about books and reading, and developing their senses, such a lack is a terrible thing.
Reading with your little one is a large part of fostering a love of reading. Curling up together in a comfy chair, reading before bedtime, peeking beneath flaps and scratching and sniffing small plastic dots together are all part of the bonding experience. If we strip away the social aspect–the bonding aspect–of reading together, it’s possible kids simply won’t learn to love books, and that video games and television will become the order of the day.
Will my kidlet ever have an e-reader? Probably–as he grows older and the technology becomes cheaper, an e-reader like Amazon’s DX could be useful for textbooks (and prevent the textbook stoop I suffered from as school-loving nerdlet) and school reading assignments. Right now, though, neither a Kindle nor an iPad are on the books–because Mir’s too busy reading real ones.
It’s been an exhausting week–an exhausting month, really! Baby’s teeth are driving us both around the bend and down the freeway. I’m hoping to get back to my regular posting schedule next week, when Baby’s grandparents are around to help. And now for our regularly scheduled booklist…
The World Cup is fast approaching–and if you love the game like me, I’ll bet you can barely wait. Here are a few selections, from picture books through memoir through graphic novels, to tide your whole family over. Some are fun, and more about relationships, others are more about the love of the game.
Want the whole list? Download a PDF here; get the titles-only version here.
1. KEEPER, Mal Peet
Published originally in the United Kingdom, this unusual novel won the 2004 Branford Boase Award and was short-listed for the Nestle Children’s Book Prize. Framed as an interview between a South American sports reporter and the world’s best soccer goalkeeper, the now 30-year-old “El Gato” relates how he developed his skills, achieved great fame, and won the coveted World Cup. His story is one of poverty and isolation in a small logging community, of strong family ties in a beloved jungle being inexorably denuded, and of intense focus on the game of soccer. If a coming-of-age tale meeting an environmental message framed by sports narrative weren’t enough, a mystical element is added, as El Gato describes his rigorous soccer training by a ghost in a magical clearing hewn from dense foliage. El Gato’s remembrances do not consistently take the reader with him, and disparate elements don’t always gel. Rich depictions of family and forest are marred by stilted, implausible dialog and choppy transitions between present and past. With its lengthy descriptions of the game, this may appeal most to soccer fans. Holly Koelling for Booklist
2. TANGERINE, Edward Bloor
Tangerine is a town in Florida with problematic new housing developments, frequent lightning strikes, sinkholes, and muck fires. Seventh grader, Paul Fisher, his older brother and parents are leaving Texas for Tangerine, Florida where Paul’s dad will take a job as a civil engineer. Paul, who is legally blind, enrolls at the middle school in town after his trailer classrooms at the first school are swallowed by a sinkhole. Paul, a soccer goalie, is in competition for his parents’ attention with his older brother who is a football star. Football practice is not canceled even after one of the players is killed by lightning. Paul makes friends at the new school and learns some valuable lessons by working in the tangerine groves with his peers from the town school. Paul’s brother’s involvement in the death of his friends’ uncle brings back memories of how he lost his vision. Tangerine is the first novel of Edward Bloor who taught middle and high school in Florida. It is written from Paul’s point of view and rings true of the middle school experience. The unexpected plot twists keep the interest of the reader..–The Alan Review
3. FEVER PITCH, Nick Hornby
In America, it is soccer. But in Great Britain, it is the real football. No pads, no prayers, no prisoners. And that’s before the players even take the field. Nick Hornby has been a football fan since the moment he was conceived. Call it predestiny. Or call it preschool. Fever Pitch is his tribute to a lifelong obsession. Part autobiography, part comedy, part incisive analysis of insanity, Hornby’s award-winning memoir captures the fever pitch of fandom – its agony and ecstasy, its community, its defining role in thousands of young mens’ coming-of-age stories. Fever Pitch is one for the home team. But above all, it is one for everyone who knows what it really means to have a losing season.–Jacket copy
4. SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS, Ann Brashares
In this feel-good novel with substance, four teenage girls, friends since they were all born just weeks apart, are about to embark on their first summer as separate young women. Carmen, half-Hispanic, has a knack for math; Lena, the beauty of the group and self-conscious about her appearance, demonstrates artistic talent; Bridget is the tall soccer star; and Tibby, the rebel, sports a nose ring. Visiting grandparents for the first time in Greece, attending soccer camp in Mexico, spending the summer with dad in South Carolina, or working at home, how will these girls survive their time alone? Leave it to a pair of secondhand jeans, which, despite their various body shapes, fits all four perfectly. These magical jeans, dubbed the Traveling Pants, span the world, one week at a time, lending their mystical powers wherever they go. The pants become a metaphor for the young women finding their own strength in the face of new love, unexpected friendships and death, a father’s remarriage, and a reckless relationship-and without their best friends. Debut novelist Brashares renders each girl individual and lovable in her own right, emphasizing growing up without growing apart. Move over, Ya Ya Sisters.–Kirkus
5. SERGIO SAVES THE GAME, Edel Rodriguez
Sergio has big dreams of being a star soccer player. In reality, though, the young penguin often stumbles and falls running after the ball and does not attain the success he yearns to have. Then his mother suggests that he try playing goalie. The game against the big, bruisin’ Seagulls becomes his test of talent. Beginning soccer players will relate to Sergio’s frustrations and admire his resolve. Rodriguez uses an attractive, yet simple palette of aqua, golden yellow, rust red, and penguin black, and the colors stand out sharply against the white background. Action is created with varying perspectives on the ball flying at the lone goalie. –Blair Christolon, Prince William Public Library System, Manassas, VA for School Library Journal
6. SOCCER CHICK RULES, Dawn Fitzgerald
Tess Munro is the soccer chick in question, a hard-playing forward who puts the team first. But soon there may be no team; if the school levy fails, sports programs, along with plenty else, including some of the teachers, will be gone. So Tess becomes involved with something besides sports: getting the levy passed. But can she score? FitzGerald takes a serious subject–school finance problems–mixes it with plenty of action-filled sports, and frosts the whole thing with best friends and rivals. The result is just what kids, especially girl jocks, want: a fast-moving, true-to-life, amusing take on school life. The dialogue is especially spot-on, even without the use of swearwords (FitzGerald comes close, but manages to find clever ways to avoid the actual words). Plenty of girls play sports, yet few writers tackle fiction for them. Happily, FitzGerald serves it up with ease.–Ilene Cooper for Booklist
7. DEFENDING IRENE, Kristin Wolden Nitz
Irene Benenati, 13, is living in Italy with her family for one year. Because there are no girls’ soccer teams in Merano, she must play on the boys’ team. Daily, the teen faces the reality that she is an outsider in her father’s homeland and an outsider on a team with a few boys who want her to quit. Nonetheless, this likable protagonist befriends the girls in her class and finally wins the respect of her teammates, even her arch detractor. What keeps this tale from being just another soccer story with play-by-play action is the unique setting; the inventiveness of the chapter headings, which consist of Italian words, pronunciations, and definitions; and Irene’s determination.–Blair Christolon, Prince William Public Library System, Manassas, VA for School Library Journal
8. PRETTY TOUGH, Liz Tigelaar
Sisters Krista and Charlie Brown could not be more different. Krista, the eldest, is blond, smart, pretty, and popular, and, of course, is dating a popular boy. Charlie, who endures bullying and teasing at school (not helped by her last name), prefers solitude and surfing the Malibu waves. When they are recruited for their high school soccer team, the teens have to face their differences and learn to work together. This is a well-paced book with solid character development and witty, authentic dialogue. The relationship between the siblings is both strong and complicated. With its classic themes of sisterhood and romance, the book is an updated version of Francine Pascal’s “Sweet Valley High” series (Random), with a sports twist.—Sharon Morrison, Southeastern Oklahoma State University, Durant, OK for School Library Journal
9. SHAOLIN SOCCER, Andy Seto et. al
Young kung fu adept “Sing” is an honor bound disciple of the legendary Shaolin Temple. His sole goal in life is to find a way to package the philosophy and physical teachings of his beloved Shaolin kung fu so that contemporary masses can learn, benefit and apply these doctrines to their daily life. When he hooks up with a former soccer champion, he quickly realizes that the world’s most popular sport may just be the vehicle to spread Shaolin kung fu all over the globe. But first he must assemble a team worthy of the Shaolin name. But his secular, out of shape former kung fu brothers are far from impressed with his idea. Kung fu action and sidesplitting comedy are heading your way!–Promotional material
My review of Shades of Grey, by Jasper Fforde has been published over the the Santa Fe Writers Project.
There’s something compelling about a Jasper Fforde novel, something that sucks you into the story, tossing you alg until the end when it finally grinds you up and spits you out before you even know what’s happened. Fforde is a true satirist, not just pulling apart the way we tell stories, but pulling apart accepted critical conventions and putting them back together again, reinterpreting criticism and analysis from the inside out.
I know, I know, it’s been more than a week since I posted! But things on the Peta front are much better thanks to my interweb hiatus–I’ve finished draft 3.5 of the novel, had a marvelous birthday and wedding anniversary, and caught up on some much needed sleep. But YA news waits for no one, and it seems a lot has happened in the past week or so–including an interesting piece in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal. According to WSJ’s Amy Chozick, television parents are making a comeback–
For decades, TV has depicted teens as angst-ridden and rebellious, and parents as out-of-touch and unhip… [but the] less-defiant generation is influencing plots, changing what types of shows get made and prompting networks like MTV that have long specialized in youthful rebellion to rethink their approach. The new, more-sanguine shows still broach racy topics like sex, drug use and teen pregnancy, but they appease parents by always presenting consequences. Parents typically have prominent roles and just as many tawdry story lines as the teens—and look almost like older siblings.
Though the article focuses largely on a new ABC Family show, Pretty Little Liars, Chozick makes a good case for the rise of the television parent. Over the past few years, Gilmore Girls style fare–shows families can discuss and use to find common ground–have been more popular than the glitzy Gossip Girl dramas most adults associate with teens. Although television and literature coexist rather than correlate, TV’s spotlight on the parent-child relationship presents a stark contrast with the absenteeism of parents in YA literature. Over the past few years, argues Julie Just, children’s book editor at The New York Times, many popular titles–including Twilight (Stephanie Meyer)–feature absent parents, forgotten parents, irrelevant parents, and even pathetic parents. (The Guardian’s Book Blog has a nice response to Just’s article here.) Will YA lit make a return to more present parents? Or is the absentee parent becoming the norm?
Most fantasy books–Neil Gaiman’s Coraline and The Graveyard Book, Eva Ibboston’s The Island of the Aunts and The Star of Kazan, and Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, to name a few–sideline the parents. This isn’t just because parents aren’t interesting, but because most fantasy novels (including the above) follow the hero’s journey pattern, as described by Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces:
A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.
While not all YA is fantasy, a lot of YA is about the hero’s journey. Unlike television, which presents a very external view of the world, most novels (yes, even third person novels) depend on the reader getting inside the protagonist’s head and following their character development–their personal hero’s journey–into uncharted emotional/internal territory.
Getting deep inside a character’s head requires a certain narrowing of focus; instead of gathering several impressions of an event or person, as we might with a television show, novels keep us to a limited set of view points, because more than said few (more than four, in my case *cough cough*, Anita Shreve) become unwieldy and confusing. Skipping very detailed parent description also helps keeps readers within the right frame of mind (yes, some parental development can be a very useful thing, but more on that later).
Parents can also be symbolic–cutting away parental ties, either by choice (deliberately setting foot on the hero’s path) or by force (being orphaned/kidnapped/etc.) can provide a lot of detail about a character with just a few broad strokes. In the latest Dianna Wynne Jones’ novel, Enchanted Glass, Aidan is an orphan whose parents weren’t exactly card-carrying members of The Helicopter Parents‘ Club. As a result, his family is less about biology, and more about choice, as he gathers the people he cares about (and who care about him) together, a common theme in Wynne Jones‘ novels. But Aidan can’t find his true family until he has, to some extent (the book has that first-in-a-trilogy feel), completed his journey and come to certain realizations about himself.
(Remember when I said more about developing parents as a characters later? This is later.)
Books are about children, not parents. And yet, according to Chozick’s article, the teen shows just about teens or glitz and glamor are those with falling ratings. Why? I suspect it’s because giving depth to a parent is like giving depth to a villain–it adds depth to a book, and is often the difference between a good story and a great one.
Unsurprisingly, young adult books are about young adults, not their parents. And yet the popular teen dramas Chozick references, with their carefully fleshed out parents, present a side of the story much young adult literature does not, giving viewers a context for why parents act (or react) as they do, and why/how teen characters are perceiving the world. Would such a tactic work in a YA novel? I’m not sure, but I suspect it would, if handled well, because giving depth to a parent is like giving depth to a villain–it adds depth to a book, and is often the difference between a good story and a great one.
Of course, not all stories can feature parents, because parents aren’t a part of the equation. Would Harry Potter work if he were a regular wizard kid, like Ron, with parents who knew most, if not all, of his doings? Moreover, if Harry were your standard-issue wizard progeny, he wouldn’t bring his neglected, unloved kid angst to the story–which, although not absolutely necessary to a good YA fantasy, is part of the reason YA readers relate to him. (What teen hasn’t felt unloved at some point?) In contemporary YA, though, absent parents can be quite problematic, because their whereabouts need to be accounted for. The constant stream of fantasy that keeps our suspension of disbelief alive doesn’t hold for contemporary lit–once realism creeps in, questions start to arise. From Just’s article–
Sometimes the parents are very, very busy, and sometimes they’ve simply checked out…In Laurie Halse Anderson’s best-selling “Wintergirls,” about a dangerously anorexic high school senior, the mom is a sought-after surgeon too pressed to notice that her malnourished daughter is a bit shorter than she was four years earlier.
Like the mother in Wintergirls, many parents in YA literature are missing because they’re out (or in, as in Gaiman’s Coraline) at work. But even in a novel like Wintergirls, reality threatens to intrude at any moment, because it’s only Lia’s biological mother who is accounted for. The people she lives with–her father and step-mother–are very present in her life (though, granted, not as present as they were when she first checked out of hospital), weighing her, taking her to psychiatrist appointments, asking her to pick up her younger sister. The true absence of Lia’s parents is in her pushing them away–her step-mother asks her questions Lia doesn’t answer, or simply doesn’t hear, because she’s lost in the fog her problems, and her lack of adequate nutrition, bring. But although Halse Anderson’s characterization addresses this, it’s sometimes hard to believe that even this rocky suburban family doesn’t notice Lia’s decline.
At the end of Wintergirls, readers learn more about Lia’s family, and her parents’ choices etc. are put in context–for me, those chapters are the most powerful in the book.
Just points out that absentee parents are fast-becoming a stereotype, and one that does not reflect reality. She writes–
Ineffectual, freaked out, self-centered, losing it — and all that smoking! — this was the dawn of the struggling parent (the completely pathetic parent would come later). One might vaguely remember real mothers like the beautifully observed Ma in “A Place Apart” (1980), by Paula Fox, seen through “a smoke screen,” cigarette ashes patterning her sweater, or her neighbor, “a restless ghost” who takes special pills twice a day. But in less fine novels the stereotype started getting out of hand. One study from the 1970s compared mothers in young adult fiction with the ones in real life, based on statistics from the Census Bureau and the Department of Labor, and concluded that less than 3 percent of the depictions were “realistic”: in the novels, mothers were disproportionately seen as being paralyzed at home, while in real life they were beginning to go out and get jobs.
Problem novels, arguably the birth place of the absentee parent trope, are popular for a reason. Like fantasy, they’re a window into another life for many readers, though a more realistic, easy-to-visualize one. (While I agree that problem novels can also help readers struggling through difficult issues and times, I’m not convinced these readers represent the majority of the purchasing demographic.) Absentee parents, truth or not, are part of the teen experience–even teens from great families sometimes feel isolated. As author Sarah Ockler (Twenty Boy Summer, Fixing Delilah Hannaford points out–
The best YA lit — arguably, any literature — is not that which paints the most accurate reflection of reality, but that which resonates most authentically with the intended reader. It’s the whole “perception is reality” thing. Regardless of the reality, lots of teens perceive their parents as inept, mopey, or even downright bad — I know I did. In my thirteen- to nineteen-year-old mind, Mom and Dad were clueless, ineffective, and, you know, stupid.
If someone wrote contemporary YA with great parents, what sort of story would they write? A more grown up version of Paul Haven’s The Seven Keys of Balahad, seems a likely candidate. Instead of absentee parents, the book has very present parents and absentee kids, who sneak out and lie (for a good cause). At several points, the main character, 11-year old Oliver, worries about his parents worrying about him, about disobeying his father (when visiting Balahad’s thieves market), and about lying to cover his tracks. The isolation American-born Oliver feels is isolation from his peers, and from finding a way to fit into Balahad, as his parents have.
The Seven Keys of Balahad, while a great novel, falls into the opposite trap–adults are needed to come to the rescue. While not all present parent books end with grown up help (Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time series, for instance), many do. It’s the damsel in distress complex updated–teen gets into trouble, cries out for help, gets rescued by a hovering parent. But damsels in distress are boring the second, third, and fourth time around. Knowing there’s a safe haven is great, but contemporary damsels don’t don’t want the prince to ride in and fix things. No, they want the damsel to save herself, to cut off her own hair, tie it to the bed post, climb on down and go on adventures (Shannon Hale’s Rapunzel’s Revenge) where she kicks ass and takes names.
Image Credit: Garrison Photography, via sxc.hu
Fairy tales are a familiar part of most childhoods. All over the world, parents tell their children about Cinderella or Cendrillon or Yeh-Hsien or even the Egyptian Cinderella, Rhodopis. At least, they used to. According to a January 2009 article in The Telegraph, parents are skipping the once popular tales in favor of simpler, safer stories such as Eric Carle’s 1969 classic The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
Why?
Because fairy tales are scary, not PC, and outdated.
It’s not surprising that some parents find fairy tales frightening. Children are abandoned in forests (Hansel and Gretel), sent away to be killed (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs), kidnapped and/or sold (Rapunzel), even married early to creepy old widowers (Bluebeard). Hans Christian Andersen’s little match girl dies on the street, forgotten and unloved, clinging to a memory of her dead grandmother and her dream of a real home.
Fairy tales were not always the province of children, though children weren’t shielded from them, either. As Maria Tatar, John L. Loeb Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures, and Chair of Folklore & Mythology at Harvard University 2005 wrote in an article for Slate–
“[Fairy tales] started out as adult entertainment—violent, bawdy, melodramatic improvisations that emerged in the evening hours, when ordinary chores engaged the labor of hands, leaving minds free to wander and wonder. Fairy tales, John Updike has proposed, were the television and pornography of an earlier age—part of a fund of popular culture (including jokes, gossip, news, advice, and folklore) that were told to the rhythms of spinning, weaving, repairing tools, and mending clothes. The hearth, where all generations were present, including children, became the site at which miniature myths were stitched together, tales that took up in symbolic terms anxieties about death, loss, and the perils of daily life but also staged the triumph of the underdog.”
There are no original fairy tales–not really. There are earliest recorded versions, and literary versions, and retellings, but fairy tales are fluid. Details, like names and places and even supporting characters change, though central themes usually stay the same from telling to telling, because said themes are part of what makes up any given fairy tale.
Although we can’t trace the origin of a specific fairy tale, we can use fairy tales to illustrate the common origins of humanity. Why? Because many popular fairy tales exist, in some form, all over the world. The commonalities in many tales are so widespread that folklorists use a kind of catalogue, the Aarne-Thompson classification system, for keeping track of tales by their common elements. (Cinderella stories are AT-510 (with sub-types A and B) while Beauty and the Beast stories are AT-425.)
Folklorists aren’t the only ones who love fairy tales. Retellings, such as Shannon Hale’s The Goose Girl and Donna Jo Napoli’s Bound are still popular with the teen set; The Three Billy Goats Gruff and Caps for Sale, two softer tales, do brisk trade as picture books. Neil Gaiman’s Stardust and Coraline, original fairy tales with strong ties to fairy tale themes and tropes, are bestsellers amongst YA and adult readers alike.
The vast reach of fairy tales isn’t limited the written word, either. Many popular films and television shows owe large chunks of their plot to fairy tales. Pretty Woman is a clear modern Cinderella; almost every bad-guy-changed-for-love-of-the-girl flick out there has roots in Beauty and the Beast.
1. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
2. Hansel and Gretel
3. Cinderella
4. Little Red Riding Hood
5. The Gingerbread Man
6. Jack and the Beanstalk
7. Sleeping Beauty
8. Beauty and the Beast
9. Goldilocks and the Three Bears
10. The Emperor’s New Clothes
Fairy tales are dark. In the Grimm’s version of Cinderella, the ugly stepsisters cut off parts of their feet in an eddort to fit the slipper and fool the prince. In Bluebeard, a girl finds a room full of the hacked up remains of her husbands previous wives, her sisters included. In some older versions of Sleeping Beauty, it’s not the prince’s kiss that awakes the fair maiden but rather his, er, lust.
Are all fairy tales appropriate for all children and teens? No. But nothing is appropriate for everyone–not even chocolate. Even if authors and publishing houses did give way to the pressure from some parents to sanitize reissues and retellings, it’s likely the older, darker versions of the stories would stick around. As Jack Zipes, a professor of German studies and folklorist, puts it, “There’s a very important reason why these tales stick. “It’s because they raise questions that we have not resolved.”
As most authors and dedicated readers know, all good stories raise questions–and fairy tales are up there with the best. Fairy tales present stories and situations riddled with questions for the discerning reader. Just a few–
Some argue, though, that fairy tales serve an even deeper purpose, giving readers–particularly children and teens–a framework within which to understand their problems, and themselves. Fairy tales are dark, Tatar admits, but “beneath the horror was always the promise of revenge and restitution, the exquisite reassurance of a happily-ever-after.”
Zipes agrees, going so far as to read some of his own translations at elementary schools around Minneapolis. He “says he has seen young kids latch onto the classic, dark versions of the tales. Some of the most disadvantaged students, he told the Boston Globe’s Joanna Weiss, “really relate to us, because we’re telling tales that they experience in their homes.””
Does this mean you should rush home and read an illustrated copy of Bluebeard to your two year old? Of course not. And it’s every parent’s choice, picking books for their child. But while some fairy tales may not be appropriate at all ages, that doesn’t mean we should pick up sanitized copies to fill the gaps. Skipping over the darkness in fairy tales does readers–all readers, not just children–a disservice. We can’t skip over the darkness in real life, but we can give children and teens a way to put it in perspective, and learn about themselves in the process. As Weiss so eloquently writes,
“Fairy tale” may be our shorthand for castles and happy endings, but these classic stories have villains, too – nefarious witches, bloodthirsty wolves, stepmothers up to no good. And scholars have come to see the stories’ dark elements as the source of their power, not to mention their persistence over the centuries. Rich in allegory, endlessly adaptable, fairy tales emerged as a framework for talking about social issues. When we remove the difficult parts – and effectively do away with the stories themselves – we’re losing a surprisingly useful common language.
What’s a mystery? Are they only stories with murders or crimes of some sort? Perhaps. But mystery can be so much more than that! This list brings together ten unusual mysteries, where characters learn about themselves and their worlds, stories that’ll rip you out of your comfortable, expected reading zone, get inside in your head, and rearrange things until you’re thoroughly confused–but dying for more.
Want the whole list? Get the PDF here; get a titles only download here.
*book may be hard to find
** mature content, but accessible to younger readers
1. THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME, Mark Haddon
Christopher Boone has had some bad knocks: his mother has died (well, she went to the hospital and never came back), and soon after he found a neighbor’s dog on the front lawn, slain by a garden fork stuck through it. A teacher said that he should write something that he “would like to read himself”-and so he embarks on this book, a murder mystery that will reveal who killed Mrs. Shears’s dog. First off, though, is a night in jail for hitting the policeman who questions him about the dog (the cop made the mistake of grabbing the boy by the arm when he can’t stand to be touched-any more than he can stand the colors yellow or brown, or not knowing what’s going to happen next). Christopher’s father bails him out but forbids his doing any more “detecting” about the dog-murder. When Christopher disobeys (and writes about it in his book), a fight ensues and his father confiscates the book. In time, detective-Christopher finds it, along with certain other clues that reveal a very great deal indeed about his mother’s “death,” his father’s own part in it-and the murder of the dog. Calming himself by doing roots, cubes, prime numbers, and math problems in his head, Christopher runs away, braves a train-ride to London, and finds-his mother..–Kirkus Reviews
2. THE WITCH OF BLACKBIRD POND, Elizabeth George Speare *
Forced to leave her sunny Caribbean home for the bleak Connecticut Colony, Kit Tyler is filled with trepidation. As they sail up the river to Kit’s new home, the teasing and moodiness of a young sailor named Nat doesn’t help. Still, her unsinkable spirit soon bobs back up. What this spirited teenager doesn’t count on, however, is how her aunt and uncle’s stern Puritan community will view her. In the colonies of 1687, a girl who swims, wears silk and satin gowns, and talks back to her elders is not only headstrong, she is in grave danger of being regarded as a witch. When Kit befriends an old Quaker woman known as the Witch of Blackbird Pond, it is more than the ascetics can take: soon Kit is defending her life. Who can she count on as she confronts these angry and suspicious townspeople?–Emilie Coulter for Amazon
3. THE MYSTERIOUS BENEDICT SOCIETY, (series), Trenton Lee Stewart
After Reynie Muldoon responds to an advertisement recruiting “gifted children looking for special opportunities,” he finds himself in a world of mystery and adventure. The 11-year-old orphan is one of four children to complete a series of challenging and creative tasks, and he, Kate, Constance, and Sticky become the Mysterious Benedict Society. After being trained by Mr. Benedict and his assistants, the four travel to an isolated school where children are being trained by a criminal mastermind to participate in his schemes to take over the world. The young investigators need to use their special talents and abilities in order to discover Mr. Curtain’s secrets, and their only chance to defeat him is through working together. Readers will challenge their own abilities as they work with the Society members to solve clues and put together the pieces of Mr. Curtain’s plan. In spite of a variety of coincidences, Stewart’s unusual characters, threatening villains, and dramatic plot twists will grab and hold readers’ attention. Fans of Roald Dahl or Blue Balliett will find a familiar blend of kid power, clues, and adventure in Society, though its length may daunt reluctant or less-secure readers. Underlying themes about the power of media messages and the value of education add to this book’s appeal, and a happy ending with hints of more adventures to come make this first-time author one to remember.—Beth L. Meister, Pleasant View Elementary School, Franklin, WI for School Library Journal
4. THIS IS WHAT I DID, Ann Dee Ellis **
Eighth-grader Logan is struggling to deal with a violent situation he witnessed a year ago between his best friend, Zyler, and Zyler’s abusive father but insists to everyone around him that he is fine. Just fine. Reluctant readers will be drawn into this story, which also includes bullying classmates and a dismal winter camping trip. Frequent line breaks, screenplay-style dialogue, and e-mails and notes illustrated with black icons break up the scenes. Logan gets to play one of the Lost Boys in the school play, and finds that the theater crowd offers a respite from bullies. A friendship with a girl named Laurel (a palindrome collector who is is thinking of changing her name to Laral), and a relationship with a counselor help Logan to begin the healing process and convince him to reconnect with Zyler. This psychological drama effectively explores our failure to protect youth from abuse inflicted by peers or adults.–Cindy Dobrez, for Booklist
5. MONSTER, Walter Dean Myers **
In a riveting novel from Myers (At Her Majesty’s Request, 1999, etc.), a teenager who dreams of being a filmmaker writes the story of his trial for felony murder in the form of a movie script, with journal entries after each day’s action. Steve is accused of being an accomplice in the robbery and murder of a drug store owner. As he goes through his trial, returning each night to a prison where most nights he can hear other inmates being beaten and raped, he reviews the events leading to this point in his life. Although Steve is eventually acquitted, Myers leaves it up to readers to decide for themselves on his protagonist’s guilt or innocence. The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes written entirely in dialogue alternate with thoughtful, introspective journal entries that offer a sense of Steve’s terror and confusion, and that deftly demonstrate Myers’s point: the road from innocence to trouble is comprised of small, almost invisible steps, each involving an experience in which a “positive moral decision” was not made.–Kirkus Reviews
6. ABARAT, (series), Clive Barker
Like The Thief of Always, Barker’s first book for children, this tale finds a bored protagonist venturing into a fantastical world. The novel begins with a rather cryptic scene of three women on a “perilous voyage… [emerging] from the shelter of the islands.” The action then shifts to Candy Quackenbush of Chickentown, Minn., who hates her life as the daughter of an alcoholic father and a depressed mother. One day, humiliated by her teacher, Candy skips out of school and heads for the prairie, where she stumbles on a derelict lighthouse and a creature with eight heads, John Mischief. The opening scene and the thrust of the novel gradually connect, as Candy begins an adventure to a mysterious archipelago called Abarat. Skilled at fantasy, Barker throws plenty of thrills and chills at readers. Candy becomes a pawn between Mischief and the man (Christopher Carrion, “Lord of Midnight”) from whom Mischief has stolen something of great value. However, by the middle of the novel, readers may feel that Barker pulls out too many stops; he floods the pages with scores of intriguing characters and a surfeit of subplots (some of which dead-end, perhaps to be picked up in one of the three planned sequels). The author’s imagination runs wild as he conjures some striking imagery (“Dark threads of energy moved through her veins and leaped from her fingertips” says one of the three women in the opening scene) and cooks up a surreal stew of character portraits (rendered in bold colors and brushwork, they resemble some of Van Gogh’s later work). But much of the novel feels like a wind-up for the books to follow and, after this rather unwieldy 400-page ride, readers my be disappointed by so many unresolved strands of the plot.
7. THE THIEF, (series), Megan Whalen Turner
Things are not what they seem in this story of wit, adventure, and philosophy. Gen, an accomplished thief incarcerated for stealing the king’s seal, is dragged from his cell by the king’s magus, who is on a quest. The prize is Hamiathes’s Gift, said to be a creation of the gods that confers the right of rule on the wearer. During the quest, the magus and Gen take turns telling the youngest member of their party myths about the Eddisian god of thieves. Turner does a phenomenal job of creating real people to range through her well-plotted, evenly paced story. No one is entirely evil or completely perfect. Gen is totally human in his lack of discipline, seeming lack of heroism, and need for sleep and food. The magus makes the transition from smug, superior scholar to decent guy in a believable fashion. Turner also does a neat job of puncturing lots of little prejudices. There are many deft lessons in this story. As absorbing as it is, the best part lies in the surprise ending. Though it is foreshadowed throughout, it is not obvious?its impact is more like morning sunlight than a lightning bolt. This book is sure to be a hot item with adventure and fantasy lovers, and YAs who like snide, quick-tempered, softhearted heroes will love Gen.?Patricia A. Dollisch, DeKalb County Public Library, Decatur, GA for School Library Journal
Today marks the very first Support Teen Literature Day, a part of YALSA/ALA’s National Library Week. So how can you support teen literature? By reading teen books, of course! Over the next few days I’ll be posting some great YA titles with appeal for teens and adults alike. To kick off, here are 10 excellent reads with strong female protagonists–some fun, some thought-provoking–released over the 2009-2010 season. Thanks to the Harvard Coop & NESCBWI list for the picks!
Want the whole list? Get a PDF here; get just the titles here.
Update: Links go to Amazon or B&N, but aren’t affiliate links.
1. CATCHING FIRE, Suzanne Collins
Every year in Panem, the dystopic nation that exists where the U.S. used to be, the Capitol holds a televised tournament in which two teen “tributes” from each of the surrounding districts fight a gruesome battle to the death. In The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, the tributes from impoverished District Twelve, thwarted the Gamemakers, forcing them to let both teens survive. In this rabidly anticipated sequel, Katniss, again the narrator, returns home to find herself more the center of attention than ever. The sinister President Snow surprises her with a visit, and Katniss’s fear when Snow meets with her alone is both palpable and justified. Catching Fire is divided into three parts: Katniss and Peeta’s mandatory Victory Tour through the districts, preparations for the 75th Annual Hunger Games, and a truncated version of the Games themselves. Slower paced than its predecessor, this sequel explores the nation of Panem: its power structure, rumors of a secret district, and a spreading rebellion, ignited by Katniss and Peeta’s subversive victory. Katniss also deepens as a character. Though initially bewildered by the attention paid to her, she comes almost to embrace her status as the rebels’ symbolic leader. Though more of the story takes place outside the arena than within, this sequel has enough action to please Hunger Games fans and leaves enough questions tantalizingly unanswered for readers to be desperate for the next installment.–School Library Journal
2. FIRE, Kristin Cashore
This fantasy, shot through with romance and suspense, is set in the same world as Graceling (Dial, 2008), but on the far side of the mountain barrier in the kingdom of the Dells. Here there are monsters, enhanced and exceptionally beautiful versions of various animal species. Fire is a human monster, so beautiful that she has to hide her hair for fear of attack by both raptor monsters and human men. She is able to enter other people’s minds and exert power over them. It is a tumultuous time in the kingdom, as various lords are preparing to overthrow the king, and Fire is drawn into the fray. With a larger cast and a more complex canvas than Graceling, the story begins slowly and takes its time establishing itself. Fire’s path is not immediately clear, and although full of action, her quest is largely internal. While the plotting is well done, there are a few quibbles about Cashore’s world-building and about the role of a major character from Graceling, Leck. But, this is Fire’s story, and readers will fall in love with her as she struggles with her pivotal role in the war effort as well as her complex relationships with her oldest friend and lover, Archer; with Prince Brigan, whose mind is closed to her and who becomes central to her life; and with her monster father’s fearsome legacy. More adult in tone than Graceling, this marvelous prequel will appeal to older teens, who will not only devour it, but will also love talking about it.—Sue Giffard, Ethical Culture Fieldston School, New York City, for School Library Journal
3. ASH, Malinda Lo
Described as “Cinderella…with a twist,” Ash is in many ways the familiar fairy tale about a girl’s move from comfort to despair to true love (with a little help from fairies and magic). Standard Cinderella images set up the story: after losing her mother and later her father, Ash is treated as a servant in the home of an unkind stepmother and two unfriendly stepsisters. She has ties to the fairy world, attends the royal ball in an enchanted dress, catches the eye of the prince, and finds love by the end of the story. However, while structural similarities exist, ideologically Lo’s beautiful and dark tale takes the story to a new place. It is not about Ash being found and saved by a charming prince; instead, it is about her courtship with Kaisa, the King’s huntress, a relationship that burgeons over time and is based on more than just initial attraction. Despite Ash’s grief, oppressive guardianship, and dangerous flirtation with the fairy Sidhean, who promises to steal her away from her sadness, the protagonist finds her own salvation and chooses to live and love in the real world and on her own terms. Ash will appeal to readers looking for GLBTQ titles, but fans of romance, fantasy, and strong female protagonists will also embrace this fine debut novel.–Jennifer Miskec, Longwood University, Farmville, VA
4. LIAR, Justine Larbalestier
Biracial Micah Wilkins, 17, is the quintessential unreliable narrator. On the first page, she readily admits she’s a liar though now she wants to tell her story straight. She attends a progressive private high school in New York City. She’s a bit peculiar, with extra-human speed and sense of smell, and has few friends. After another student, a popular senior named Zach, is found brutally murdered, it comes to light that he and Micah had a relationship outside of school. Now she is considered a suspect. Her suspenseful, supernatural tale is engrossing and readers will be tempted to fly through it, though the wise will be wary of her spin and read carefully for subtle slipups and foreshadowing. The chilling story that she spins will have readers’ hearts racing as in three sections she goes from “Telling the Truth,” to “Telling the True Truth,” to “Telling the Actual Real Truth,” uncovering previous lies and revealing bizarre occurrences in the process. Micah’s narrative is convincing, and in the end readers will delve into the psyche of a troubled teen and decide for themselves the truths and lies. This one is sure to generate discussion.—Patricia N. McClune, Conestoga Valley High School, Lancaster, PA for School Library Journal
5. THE EVOLUTION OF CALPURNIA TATE, Jacqueline Kelly
A charming and inventive story of a child struggling to find her identity at the turn of the 20th century. As the only girl in an uppercrust Texas family of seven children, Calpurnia, 11, is expected to enter young womanhood with all its trappings of tight corsets, cookery, and handiwork. Unlike other girls her age, Callie is most content when observing and collecting scientific specimens with her grandfather. Bemoaning her lack of formal knowledge, he surreptitiously gives her a copy of The Origin of Species and Callie begins her exploration of the scientific method and evolution, eventually happening upon the possible discovery of a new plant species. Callie’s mother, believing that a diet of Darwin, Dickens, and her grandfather’s influence will make Callie dissatisfied with life, sets her on a path of cooking lessons, handiwork improvement, and an eventual debut into society. Callie’s confusion and despair over her changing life will resonate with girls who feel different or are outsiders in their own society. Callie is a charming, inquisitive protagonist; a joyous, bright, and thoughtful creation. The conclusion encompasses bewilderment, excitement, and humor as the dawn of a new century approaches. Several scenes, including a younger brother’s despair over his turkeys intended for the Thanksgiving table and Callie’s heartache over receiving The Science of Housewifery as a Christmas gift, mix gentle humor and pathos to great effect. The book ends with uncertainty over Callie’s future, but there’s no uncertainty over the achievement of Kelly’s debut novel.—Jennifer Schultz, Fauquier County Public Library, Warrenton, VA for School Library Journal
6. GOTH GIRL RISING, Barry Lyga
In this sequel to The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl (2006), Lyga dives with typical boldness into the complexity of teen emotions and, for the first time, the female perspective, starting with the first lines: “Before she went and died, my mom told me to stop bitching about my cramps all the time.” This time, it’s Goth Girl, or Kyra, who narrates. Back home after a depressive breakdown and months spent in a psych ward, she pours out her anger: at Fanboy, who has serialized the comic she’d helped develop during their attraction-charged friendship; at her father, whose smoking she links to her mother’s fatal cancer; and at a general culture that encourages women, including her teachers, to exploit their sexuality, even as she struggles to understand her own attractions to both boys and girls. Instant messages, grief-soaked poems, and letters to her hero, Neil Gaiman, add more angles to Kyra’s raw, furious, heartbroken narrative. More than the meandering story line, it is Kyra’s wholly believable questions and her forceful voice that will stay with readers. –Gillian Engberg for Booklist
7. BLOODHOUND: THE LEGEND OF BEKA COOPER, (series), Tamora Pierce
Fans of Pierce’s medieval fantasy police-procedural series will love this book as much as Terrier (Random, 2006). Beka, 17, is serving her first year as a Dog (police officer) in the Provost’s Guard. She and her mentor and old partner, Goodwin, are sent from Corus to Port Caynn to try to discover the source of the counterfeit silver coins that are flooding the region, causing soaring grain prices and riots in Corus. Beka is accompanied by Achoo, the scent hound she rescued from its abusive handler. While in Port Caynn, she and Goodwin tangle with Pearl, Queen of the Thieves, and her crew. Beka falls for Dale, a handsome and charming gambler and bank courier who may be in league with Pearl. The action drags a bit in the middle to focus on the romance but makes up for it in the end. Pierce vividly imagines this world in which police procedures are different, yet similar to those of today. Ponce, Beka’s wise cat, who is also a God, is mostly absent but Beka’s other unusual magical sources of information-pigeons inhabited by talking ghosts of the dead and spirits in spinning dust funnels—continue to add to the series’ appeal. Beka is as headstrong and feisty as ever and frequently makes errors in judgment but is willing to learn from her mistakes. She truly earns the nickname Bloodhound as she faithfully narrates her story through journal entries.—Sharon Rawlins, New Jersey State Library, Trenton for School Library Journal
8.THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH, Carrie Ryan
Mary’s village has been trapped for generations by a very near, very visible menace: the Unconsecrated-insatiable, flesh-eating zombies that constantly tear at the village’s fences. Yet the Sisterhood-a conventlike order of religious women charged to protect the village’s survival-is as much responsible for the submission of Mary’s village as the Unconsecrated. When the fences are breached and the village overrun, Mary and several others escape through gated paths and arrive deep into the Forest of Hands and Teeth, forced to search beyond it for their future. Mary’s observant, careful narration pulls readers into a bleak but gripping story of survival and the endless capacity of humanity to persevere. That Mary maintains emotional distance serves to render her yearnings and romantic feelings even more poignant and powerful. Fresh and riveting. –PW
9. FOREST BORN, Shannon Hale
In her fourth fantasy about the land of Bayern, Hale has created a strong stand-alone companion to The Goose Girl (2003), Enna Burning (2004), and River Secrets (2006, all Bloomsbury). Forest Born centers on Razo’s sister, Rin, and her special abilities. The struggle that she goes through as she begins to recognize her talent of persuasion and her elemental connection to the forest brings the typical fantasy themes of good vs. evil to a place that makes them very personal. Rin discovered as a child that her words could be powerful. But that power left her feeling confused and wrong. Since that time, the wrongness has curled up like a snake inside her, making her doubt whether she can ever find peace. Rin encounters Isi, Enna, and Dasha from the previous Bayern stories and through them she finds hope; perhaps what makes her different could be a blessing, if she is able to find balance in her gifts. Lurking throughout the story is the tumultuous backdrop of diplomatic negotiations and threats of war. Everything finally comes to a head when Isi’s nemesis from Goose Girl returns and kidnaps her son. All four women need to work together to defeat Selia, who has been completely corrupted and consumed by her people-speaking power of persuasion. Fans of the earlier titles as well as admirers of the genre will find Rin’s journey a compelling read.—Genevieve Gallagher, Buford Middle School, Charlottesville, VA for School Library Journal
10. DRAGONFLY, Julia Golding
Establishing one’s sense of self, working and sacrificing for a greater purpose, and accepting and understanding people’s differences are all strong themes in this British import. The arranged marriage between the reserved and disciplined Princess Taoshira, 16, and the rogue Prince Ramil, 18, is not an appealing prospect to either teen. But their lands need to form a strong bond of diplomatic connections in order to fend off attacks from the bloodthirsty warlord Fergox Spearthrower, and they have been called upon to do what is right for their people. Their relationship gets off to a disastrous start and goes downhill from there. Taoshira is put off by his brash and loud behavior that fails to recognize or respect her values and traditions while Ramil finds her cold, unworthy of her title, and completely unappealing. When the two are kidnapped, a riveting adventure ensues and opposites attract. Although the arc of the love story is fairly standard, the subplots make it an engaging read for a variety of readers. Romance, trickery, graphic and bloody fight scenes, adventure, religious persecution, and politics are all a part of this compelling tale.—Genevieve Gallagher, Buford Middle School, Charlottesville, VA for School Library Journal
In some ways, being a kid is like living in a hamster ball: you’re seen but not heard see more than everyone else realizes; and when things get prickly, it’s pretty easy to roll the ball into a more convenient locale ‘til everything’s sorted. Recent years have shown a surge in edgy, almost razor sharp issue-tackling YA, with books running the gamut from teen-mother-abandons-new-baby (Amy Efaw’s After) to drug use and suicide (John Green’s Looking For Alaska). But kid lit–what many readers define as middle grade novels and below–remains, in large part, blunted by our desire to protect children.
Protecting children isn’t bad–keeping our kids safe is a Very, Very Good Thing, and I am constantly at war with my conflicting desires to let Baby learn about the world/wrap him up in the thickest swathes of cotton wool I can find. In the past, I’ve written about limits in YA literature, and I’m certainly not a fan of gratuitous violence in any medium. And yet, as Christopher Beam’s article about child suicide on Slate reminded me, my attitude toward violence does not negate the act itself–violence, and suicide, exist. But do they exist in kid literature?
According to the Slate piece (which pulls most of its numbers from the CDC), approximately four out of every 500,000 children under the age of twelve commits suicide. A few more figures:
As Beam points out, working out what’s a suicide and what’s not for this age group is difficult:
Child suicides aren’t like teen or adult suicides, which usually start with an idea, proceed with a plan, and end with action. Suicide among children is more likely to be spontaneous and less connected to psychiatric disorder or aggression. This is often reflected in the method: Instead of hanging or cutting or using a gun, “suicidal” kids tend to kill themselves by doing things their parents have warned them against, such as running into traffic or jumping out of a window.
As a result, it’s often hard to tell the difference between a suicide and an accident. (Official definition of suicide: “Fatal self-inflicted destructive act with explicit or inferred intent to die.”) For example, a medical examiner might be presented with the case of an autistic child who jumped off his bunk bed in a hospital, hit his head on the floor, and died. Or a little girl might jump out the window in the course of a fight with her older brother.
There are a variety of factors that contribute to child suicide, and while some of them may be familiar as teen and adult risk factors, impulsivity is a key issue.
The factors that cause children to commit suicide differ slightly from their older counterparts. Depression can play a role, but among the youngest suicides, a predisposition to impulsiveness is just as important. Children who kill themselves often have a mood disorder, ADHD, or a “conduct disorder,” which basically means antisocial behavior. Living an in abusive household can lay the groundwork for suicidal behavior, and an incident like getting kicked out of school or a dying relative can trigger it.
If you search for kids’ books about suicide, most of the titles you’ll find are about coping after a loss. Some YA books that deal with depression and suicide, like Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Ned Vizzini’s It’s Kind of a Funny Story, Julie Anne Peters’ By The Time You Read This, I’ll Be Dead, and Michael Thomas Ford’s Suicide Notes may appeal to younger readers. So far, though, I’ve yet to find a book with a middle grade protagonist dealing with depression and thoughts of suicide (if you can think of any, let me know–I’m working on getting a list together).
“Gratuitous violence” is a term familiar to parents everywhere. In our efforts to protect children, we slap ratings on videogames and movies, and there’s been talk of instituting a rating system for books. A few times a year, the issue comes up on a popular TV show, or is the subject of a big time newspaper article. Although violence isn’t the issue here, our attitude toward gratuitous violence and kid media is symptomatic of our attitudes toward other difficult topics and children–keep the bad stuff locked up tight, or hide it under the bed with the monsters.
Does this mean we should start inundating our kids with books about violent homes and six year old who hang themselves with belts? No. But books with middle grade protagonists addressing depression and the other contributing factors listed above could be worth adding to the family library.
Edgy YA may seem like an escape, or as Gail Giles put it in a 2003 presentation at an Assembly on Literature for Adolescents (ALAN), edgy YA is a way for–
the reader to live their darkness in fiction, to get the rage out, and to suffer the consequences on the page. The reader can work through natural teen confusion, despair, rage, and pain, but allow the character to walk in the dark woods, let the character commit the violence, and let the reader suffer the character’s consequences vicariously.
But for some readers, edgy material goes even deeper than that–it’s a way of recognizing problems, parsing feelings, and realizing that they are not alone. Edgy books give readers a structure within which they can start to deal, or show them how to set up their own scaffolding. These books, however, are largely reserved for older readers, sticking the middle grade set with books that fit the PG rating.
Should there books about suicide, depression, and violence specifically for middle grade readers? Yes. If there are kids out there experiencing these things, then yes, we should write books for them. No, such books won’t be for every reader, and I’m not even sure if they should be shelved in the regular middle grade section of the bookstore, but they should exist. They need to exist. Fortunately, some already do–but they’re not enough.
There are serious MG titles out there. The Buffalo Tree by Adam Rapp, is about a 13 year old in a juvenile detention center; Deborah Ellis’ non-fiction book, Three Wishes, is a collection of interviews with children 8 – 18 in Israel and Palestine; Sherman Alexie’s Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian navigates issues of belonging, self-worth, circumstances, and race; the list goes on and on. (I’m compiling a list right now; if you can think of any titles that should be on it, I’d love to hear from you.)
Not every children’s book needs to have a message–tucked away or up front. Reading books that make us think is rewarding in many ways, but reading books for the sheer pleasure of the story (and yes, I do think there are some books that do both–To Kill A Mockingbird comes to mind) is rewarding, too. And while rushing to the computer to bang out a few chapters about depression and suicide and rework the themes in your work in progress is a noble idea, it’ll probably just wreak havoc with your story. So what can you do?
Get serious. Take kids–not just teens–seriously. If you’re writing a serious story, write a serious story. Don’t gloss over the big issues, couch them in overly sophisticated language, or worse, use a little writerly hand-waving as an excuse to leave them out altogether.
Listen. Don’t assume you know what your kids/friends’ kids/readers are saying or thinking. Take the time to listen to their words, and how they express themselves.
Be honest. There’s a reason the old adage, “honesty is the best policy” has become, well, an adage. Kids, like teens, have a built in crap-o-meter. If you load them up with the brown stuff, they’ll know, and you’ll lose not just credibility, but the chance to tell a worthwhile story to someone who needs it.
Do you know of any middle-grade novels related to depression and suicide? Can you think of any titles for my upcoming serious middle grade list?
Image Credit: Sitting, by Trublueboy
Is there such a thing as too much pop culture? Can characters drink too much Coke, play too much Xbox, and eat too many power bars? (*cough* Tom Clancy, *cough*) Or does the instant reader familiarity and cheat relatability make this level detail of worthwhile?
