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?

Children & Suicide: Causes & Statistics

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:

• 4 out of every 500,000 children below the age of 12 commit suicide per year
• The child suicide rate has doubled since 1979
• Suicide is the 14th leading cause of death for kids under 12, coming in after meningitis and anemia

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.

Factors Contributing to Child Suicide

• Depression
• Impulsiveness
• Mood disorders/ADHD
• Conduct disorder/antisocial behavior
• Environment–e.g. living in an abusive household/getting expelled
• Outside factors–e.g. Death of a loved one

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.

Depression, Violence, & Suicide in Kid Lit

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.

Serious Middle Grade Books

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.)

I’m Just A Writer–What Can I Do About It?

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