YA Saves

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For as long as I can remember, I have been an avid reader. Some of my best summer memories are from staying up late under the covers with my flashlight, flying through page after page of a good book. As I grew older, I began devouring young adult novels left and right, expanding my horizons and discovering more about the world around me through the pages of a book than life itself.

And while that may sound introverted, I don't think it's bad at all. I grew up in a perfectly nice suburb, was taught by an excellent and state-recognized school district and generally lived the quintessential life everyone strives towards. Of course there were ups and downs, but my childhood was perfectly normal. Perfect, even. I didn't really get into trouble, nor did I run around with kids like that. (To be honest? They scared me, and my goody-two-shoes personality would have been too much of a liability for them.) The only place I experienced the grittier realities of the world growing up was in the pages of a book, and they exposed me to these parts of the world in a safe, risk-free way. When the book was finished and the protagonist was, generally, rescued and relieved of his or her burdens, I could close the cover and be satisfied. On black and white pages, all was right with the world in the end.

The problem is, though, the world is not black and white. It is a myriad of greys all muddled together, each one a uniquely different hue.

Which is why I find the raging debate about young adult literature sparked by an article in the Wall Street Journal published in early June so frustrating. Journalist Meghan Cox Gurdon argues the darker trend in YA books threatens to rob children of their innocence and paints a portrait of the world that is much darker than it needs to be for this age group:

Reading about homicide doesn't turn a man into a murderer; reading about cheating on exams won't make a kid break the honor code. But the calculus that many parents make is less crude than that: It has to do with a child's happiness, moral development and tenderness of heart. Entertainment does not merely gratify taste, after all, but creates it.

She goes on to say, in so many words, that dark themes are bad and we shouldn't be moving towards using them more and more in YA novels.

The thing I take issue with is not that YA fiction is darker - some of the novels she cites in her initial essay disgust me with their grotesque, horror-movie-like descriptions and are something I would probably never let my child read, so I think she has a point (but then, most art is moving in that direction as we become more desensitized - seen a non-bloody horror movie lately?)

No, my issue is that her argument seems to validate putting no trust in: firstly, parents to raise their child to understand a book is just a book - it's not reality and you shouldn't try to mirror it. You should cite the lesson to be learned and take that away from the book; and secondly, it puts no trust in teens who read this type of literature to be able to understand the difference between reality and fiction.

I think the problem with so much modern media is we don't know how to filter it. People see something bad happening, and immediately they want to blame someone for it happening. (Ex: Casey Anthony being acquitted yesterday and most of the country upset with the jury for making that decision when they did the best they could with the wealth of information - and much of it circumstantial info - given to them.) Our society has taught us to view everything as black and white, wrong or right. It seems we've lost the ability to understand (or maybe we're still working towards this, who knows) that every situation is unique and there isn't always a one-size-fits-all answer for everything. Sometimes you have to take a case-by-case approach because there's too many variables involved. And while a basic, clear-cut understanding of right and wrong is absolutely essential to being a human existing in a society, you cannot live life in black and white. We want the world to be simple and straight-forward. It's, quite simply, not.

Every single one of us has a unique perspective on the world based on all the experiences we have had in our lifetime. Those experiences are what make us who we are and help define how we see right and wrong. At some point, you have to trust that you have brought your child up to have a very clear sense of right and wrong so they can then navigate through the sea of grey that is this world. Allow them to make their own decisions, case by case. If you have taught them well, they will make the decisions you want them to make.

So to argue that because young adult fiction includes themes like rape, incest or self-mutilation, it's ruining children seems to me to be taking the power out of their hands as a reader. It cuts through the very heart of being a reader: to experience a new, unfamiliar world, gather what you can from your visit and put that knowledge towards growing at a person. Trust that your child can visit these ideas, but isn't going to turn around and become a cutter just because they read about it in a book.

If a reader stands to learn something from the murky shades of grey presented in a book, doesn't that make it worth writing, publishing and reading? If you tell a child "Don't read this, it's not black and white," you're not even giving them the chance to broaden their horizons, take a basic concept and practice using it in a real world setting. It'd be like if you went to college, studied for four years and applied for an internship (demonstrated learning) only to be told, "No, you can't do it because you don't have any real experience." How am I supposed to gain experience if no one gives me that chance? It makes no sense to give someone all the basics, but none of the opportunity to demonstrate them.

Look, I know these themes aren't easy ones. But you also can't ignore them because they are part of the human experience for some of us. Sweeping it under the rug and pretending it's not happening doesn't do anyone any favors. Whether you like it or not, rape is present in the world and if an author tells someone's story of how they worked through it...isn't that worth putting out there in the hope it helps someone else rather than censoring it because it might give someone an idea? If you don't want your child reading about it, then monitor what they're reading. Ultimately, it isn't the author's responsibility to police the story they want to tell - it's yours as a parent.

Maybe today's authors are more forthright with their descriptions than books like "The Outsiders" or "Catcher in the Rye" were; but I don't think the themes have changed that drastically. I mean, Johnny kills someone in a fight defending Pony Boy who the Socs tried to drown, for god's sake! How is that any different than Katniss stepping in for her sister and killing others to defend herself and survive the Hunger Games? Still dark and gruesome. Also still a very real theme - survival of the fittest.

If we could all be a little bit more responsible for ourselves and the children we raise rather than expecting the world to do it for us, maybe we could quit pointing fingers when we come across something in the world we don't like and instead of decrying it as wrong, realize it's simply a shade of grey we need to sort through, make our own personal decision about it and move on.

Original article: Darkness too Visible
Follow-up article: My 'Reprehensible' Take on Teen Literature
WHYY interview with Meghan Cox Gurdon and YA author Maureen Johnson