Wednesday, July 6, 2011
YA Discussion on NPR
Megan Cox Gurdon, author of the controversial Wall Street Journal article on YA fiction, and YA author Maureen Johnson, discuss the genre on NPR's All Things Considered. Catch it later if you miss it, or if you see this now, listen live: http://www.whyy.org/91FM/live.html Article: WHYY radio
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This whole debate is very interesting to me. It's made me think a lot about the subject. The innocence of my kids is precious to me - and it's easy to want them to experience a protected childhood, especially since mine was fairly well insulated. But censorship isn't good, either. And I did read a lot of darker stuff while I was in high school - Stephen King, V.C. Andrews, etc. I think it's the "young adult" marketing tag that makes me uncertain. (I wish it wasn't marketed that way: some books actually become harder for me to appreciate, because I start out with that "young adult" label in my mind. And, overly large fonts and overuse of whitespace sometimes contributes to the mental block I have about it.) :)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I really enjoy your thoughts on the matter and some of those articles and links are really thought-provoking.
I'm sure you have your own perspective since you're a parent. I think the best thing is to know what's out there and what you're kids are reading. I think between you and I we know enough people our age who were quite sheltered growing up, and that eventually the other shoe falls; sometimes in moderation, and sometimes in batsh#T ways :) I'm sure there's a balance in there somewhere.
ReplyDeleteAt least be comforted that I've done a pretty rudimentary search of what's out there, and there are LOTS of books appropriate for middle grade and younger teens that have nothing to do with "dark" stuff. And to be fair, just because a book doesn't have dark themes, it can have other issues, like say a doormat of a protagonist who lets her undead boyfriend completely take over her life...
A lot of us it seems read Stephen King a bit early, but I think it's because we didn't have a lot of choices. There's so much more out there now.