2 Comments:

I remember (20 or more years ago, now) how dreary most of the YA-lit was at my local library. Lots of "problem novels," which to a relatively happy and secure young teen just seemed pointless and depressing.

I think I remember reading "Summer of my German Soldier" and some book on Robin Williams (this was before the whole drug mess) but that's the sum total of books I checked out (and enjoyed) from the YA section.

I was also somewhat shocked when I bought a used copy of "The Secret in Miranda's Closet" (a book about a girl with a mother who, because of some misguided ideas about what feminism is, won't allow her to have dolls. Miranda is given one and builds a whole world for her in the back of her closet) and found the word "chickensh*t" (spelled out though) used in it - I KNOW I read the book around age 8, and I KNOW I would have been shocked and horrified to find that word in there.

maybe I got a bowdlerized version, I don't know. I do know I'd've remembered it, seeing as it would have been my first introduction to an Anglo-Saxonism in print.

What am I trying to say? I don't know. Maybe YA lit has always had grittiness in it and it's just become more obvious lately.

By  fillyjonk, at 11:20 AM  

My own "YA" reading consisted of Shakespeare, Alex Haley, Harper Lee and Irwin Shaw... I still swear that the reason Ken & I had a SECOND conversation was because in our FIRST conversation, when he said he liked reading, and I asked what his favorite book was, he didn't claim it was Catcher in the Rye,which is what all guys say when they're trying to impress a girl, because they had to read it in school, which makes it "brainy" and Holden curses, which makes it "bad"... I think it's crap.

But the books in the sections I should have been going to by library/bookstore standards when I was in middle school were those HORRID V.C. Andrews books - she wrote the same book fifteen times, and the plot ALWAYS consists of horrible abuse and hidden incest. Disgusting.

No, no, give me To Kill a Mockingbird, Rich Man; Poor Man, Roots, and Midsummer Nights Dream... I can still re-read all of those for the millionth time today and find something new and inspiring....

By  Amie, at 11:52 AM  

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