Dark Thoughts about Young Adult Reviewers

I thought about doing an introductory post, but decided that intros are for suckers. Also they are probably too cool for me.

What better way to kick off this post than to respond to this article by Meghan Cox Gurdon. I do suggest that you read this in full, if only to realize just how ridiculous some people can get when they become "adults". To sum up, Gurdon posits the idea that the YA genre, a genre geared specifically for teens, is becoming darker. When I say dark, I mean that the themes and language used are adult and upsetting. So dark in fact, that parents should be steering clear of that section, and writers need to get off that depressing and violent crack they are on.

I will allow that she has some valid points. It is true that some YA books are incredibly dark. It is also true that "tweens" sometimes read YA because they are too advanced for the younger books, and sometimes come across things that are too complex for them. It is even true that parents need to become more involved with the content that their children are reading. You have no idea how frustrating it is when a parent buys Twilight for their 10 year old, and doesn't seem to mind all the anti-feminist content, not to mention the violence and the sex. I agree that there are some books that are not suitable for young children, and parents should be aware of this.

However, to suggest that the entire genre has been rendered useless is ludicrous. In her opening Gurdon tells of the woes of parents just trying to find books for their kids, beginning with this one,


She had popped into the bookstore to pick up a welcome-home gift for her 13-year-old, who had been away. Hundreds of lurid and dramatic covers stood on the racks before her, and there was, she felt, "nothing, not a thing, that I could imagine giving my daughter. It was all vampires and suicide and self-mutilation, this dark, dark stuff." She left the store empty-handed.

Um, what? If a parent is flabbergasted at the selection in YA, she should have asked one of the helpful booksellers who would have been happy to point out any number of titles that end happily, are done tastefully, or even ones without violence at all. No one expects a non-bookseller to have a handle on all the different YA titles out there. That's like someone staring at a display of shoes, and when they fail to see one in their size on display they leave, without asking one the people whose JOB it is to find them shoes. Would you blame the shoemaker? The person selling them in the store? Or would you blame the customer who apparently didn't care enough to ask. Must not have wanted that book that badly.

Leaving the fact that not all young adult books are dark aside, there is the issue with the actual dark books. As a bookseller, I am very aware of how dark the books can get. Most of the ones I've read are not violent for violence's sake, nor are they dark just for shits and giggles.

The books, and the authors who write them, are trying to grapple with the issues that face teens every day. This is the time that they are learning that no, Santa isn't real and yes, it is indeed possible that life sucks. Life sucks an unbelievable amount at this age, especially because it had never previously occurred to them that it could suck this much. All of the cute Disney tales they were fed as small children are revealed to be a hoax, nothing more than a lovely fantasy. Things don't just magically work out, and for many teens this realization is earth-shattering. The world doesn't give two shits that "they are really just children", and pretending that things are otherwise is unhelpful. Bad things happen to teens. It isn't fun and nobody likes it, but that's the reality. It's not even a matter of teens already being exposed to it in other entertainment mediums, it's that they see it every. day. On the news, at school, sometimes tragically within their own homes.

So, if you were a YA reader, do YOU want to read about happy fluffy bunnies, rainbows and how nothing bad happens to anyone ever? Probably not. Later you'll come to realize that life doesn't always suck and happy endings are possible if not magical. Right now though, you would gravitate towards those books which deal honestly with you and your life. Books like The Outsiders, which Gurdon references as the first YA book. This is significant because it is one of those books that is dark, deals with violent issues, and is one of the books most taught in schools. Are we saying now that half of America's teachers don't know what's good for kids to be reading? It is also one of the few books that is almost universally enjoyed. Ask a teen, any teen, why they liked Outsiders. They will tell you that it was honest and real, and that they could relate to the characters.

Most teens just want it told to them straight, so they know what to expect and can prepare themselves. When we give them otherwise we become Wendla's mother from Spring Awakening who fails to tell her daughter where babies come from for fear she'll go out and try it. But it is her ignorance of the subject that inevitably causes her to end up with, you guessed it, teen pregnancy! The lie damages more than the truth, and we would be lying to our children if we tell them that the world is never a dark place.

All of that being said, there are indeed some books out there that are gratuitous in their violence and sex. Still others fail to handle it tastefully, or the message of how to deal with it gets lost in the narrative. Being fair here, Gurdon has a point. Parents need to be aware of what their children are reading. Not so that they can forbid them from reading anything with violence in it, but so they can talk to them about it. Parents can and should be reading their teen's books with them so that they can be prepared for questions and discussions, so that they can, you know, do some parenting.

Or, if having read the book himself, Dad decides that the book has no redeeming qualities, then he should indeed prevent his son from reading it and explain why. I find teens react much better when they are told, "I read the book and I didn't like it. I don't think you would like it either, it's kind of gross for no reason, and the writing is awful. If you want to read something about this topic, try this other one which is much better." You know, talking to teens like they have something between their ears and can think and reason. The easiest way to ensure that the kid will find a way to read it on his own is to tell him, "No. I said no, I mean no, and that's a NO."

In the end, I don't blame the authors, as there are bad books in any genre. I don't blame the booksellers for keeping bad books in stock because, well, we still sell Wuthering Heights. I blame parents who are too lazy to read or too frightened of the dark places their children are in to help them deal with the process known as growing up.




Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed. - G. K. Chesterton