Apparently the article did paint far too bleak a picture,
Rebekah Send a noteboard - 06/06/2011 12:39:46 PM
and focused on a very narrow sub-set of YA literature. However, I've not read enough to know for myself what it's really like.
I think I'll have to now that my little sister is 13 and reading these books.
There is definitely hopeful stuff out there. She told me that she read a book recently about an Afghani refugee and his mother who were about to be deported from the UK until his friends organised a protest and the Home Office decided he could stay. Although the book dealt with a difficult subject - asylum seekers and the horrors of war - there was a positive ending. I'm really pleased she's starting to read things like that because it's not something she'd be exposed to at all in New Zealand.
That said, when I was looking for another book for her birthday (I have To Kill A Mockingbird for her already), I rejected everything I looked at in the YA section of the bookshop. If it wasn't dark, depressing, horrible stuff I don't want her to read yet, it was vapid "girly" crap about boyfriends and wearing makeup.
Suspect I'll have to read more to find the good stuff. I'm ok with that.
I think I'll have to now that my little sister is 13 and reading these books.
There is definitely hopeful stuff out there. She told me that she read a book recently about an Afghani refugee and his mother who were about to be deported from the UK until his friends organised a protest and the Home Office decided he could stay. Although the book dealt with a difficult subject - asylum seekers and the horrors of war - there was a positive ending. I'm really pleased she's starting to read things like that because it's not something she'd be exposed to at all in New Zealand.
That said, when I was looking for another book for her birthday (I have To Kill A Mockingbird for her already), I rejected everything I looked at in the YA section of the bookshop. If it wasn't dark, depressing, horrible stuff I don't want her to read yet, it was vapid "girly" crap about boyfriends and wearing makeup.
Suspect I'll have to read more to find the good stuff. I'm ok with that.
*MySmiley*
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read. - Groucho Marx
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read. - Groucho Marx
This WSJ article has kicked up a huge fuss on the internet - YA is "too dark".
- 05/06/2011 03:46:50 PM
2051 Views
There's only one thing about this literature that disturbs me
- 05/06/2011 05:39:35 PM
1004 Views
This is a thought out, finely articulated response.
- 05/06/2011 06:47:13 PM
1042 Views
If it were just vampires that would be just fine
- 05/06/2011 08:03:02 PM
823 Views
People have been complaining about this since the novel was invented
- 05/06/2011 11:02:58 PM
895 Views
Apparently the article did paint far too bleak a picture,
- 06/06/2011 12:39:46 PM
983 Views
Why waste time with "YA literature" at all?
- 06/06/2011 02:14:03 PM
760 Views
Re: Why waste time with "YA literature" at all?
- 06/06/2011 02:28:42 PM
718 Views
I think that's a post factum justification, not a reason.
- 06/06/2011 05:08:09 PM
908 Views
Maybe. It's hard to separate, I think.
- 07/06/2011 01:06:29 PM
948 Views
One certainly has to choose the real literature to present, certainly.
- 07/06/2011 02:27:00 PM
968 Views
Very good post.
- 06/06/2011 08:52:22 PM
780 Views
You seem to be the only one who thinks so. 
*NM*
- 07/06/2011 01:17:18 AM
278 Views
*NM*
- 07/06/2011 01:17:18 AM
278 Views
I don't think it's a bad post... I just think that the "despair" is a teen fad, and not as bad as
- 07/06/2011 03:19:03 AM
1040 Views
Suicide rates have gone up significantly
- 07/06/2011 02:42:55 PM
716 Views
Heh.
- 08/06/2011 07:24:44 PM
1021 Views
you are having trouble finding cultural ideas that turned bad?
- 08/06/2011 11:56:23 PM
938 Views
The classic problem of the overprotective parent- underestimating your kids
- 09/06/2011 05:33:54 AM
877 Views
the classic problem of people who have no idea what they are talking about
- 09/06/2011 04:16:25 PM
826 Views
Are you really equating reading about trauma with trauma? They are not the same. *NM*
- 09/06/2011 07:10:34 PM
291 Views
I'm sure the percentage of good books must be higher than they make it sound,
- 05/06/2011 05:53:21 PM
1073 Views
I'd say books offer a fundamentally different experience than movies
- 05/06/2011 06:53:55 PM
998 Views
I'm not sure that makes a difference here.
- 06/06/2011 04:47:05 AM
1000 Views
Because thinking makes you LESS susceptible to these things you're afraid of
- 06/06/2011 05:27:26 PM
1029 Views
I don't completely agree with that.
- 06/06/2011 07:26:21 PM
983 Views
I feel like I just can't relate to parents determined to shelter their kids from everything
- 06/06/2011 10:21:44 PM
975 Views
To think the content described is acceptable, when they ban "Huck Finn" for using 'nigger'. 
*NM*
- 05/06/2011 09:45:15 PM
309 Views
*NM*
- 05/06/2011 09:45:15 PM
309 Views
CNN: "On a website, a person named 'Macharius' used the 'N-word'".
- 06/06/2011 01:58:35 AM
762 Views
Parents have the right and resonsibility to know what their children are reading
- 06/06/2011 03:41:22 AM
791 Views
Re: Parents have the right and resonsibility to know what their children are reading
- 06/06/2011 12:40:24 PM
926 Views
I'd argue if you're old enough to be interested in the subject matter, you're old enough to read it
- 06/06/2011 05:32:33 PM
1055 Views
Depends on the subject matter.
- 07/06/2011 01:07:57 PM
804 Views
Basically? Yes.
- 07/06/2011 06:42:04 PM
1049 Views
why do think there is value in letting them read whatever they want?
- 07/06/2011 06:52:20 PM
717 Views
Don't be an idiot.
- 09/06/2011 05:25:26 AM
901 Views
Well, I wrote a long piece related to this
- 06/06/2011 05:21:06 AM
989 Views
Great post. She really tries to muddy the waters relating to censorship and parenting.
- 06/06/2011 08:05:21 AM
871 Views
She kind of conflates some issues that are quite different, if you ask me.
- 06/06/2011 08:47:33 PM
924 Views
Wait wait wait wait wait... NYT reviewed Game of Thrones? I must read this
- 07/06/2011 03:20:08 AM
801 Views
Having now read one of the books mentioned, Cheryl Rainfield's Scars...
- 08/06/2011 02:18:23 AM
1025 Views