YA Saves

The title of this beauty is a current trending hashtag on twitter, and it has all my favorite authors ablaze.
The problem is this article from The Wall Street Journal, which decries the value of young adult fiction. As an avid reader and writer of YA, I am very frustrated by these declarations. While I can be the first to admit it when I think a YA novel is nothing but dark smut, it makes me so sad that people are so swift to judge books that they've read very little about.

A friend and I discussed this very thing in regards to Sarah Rees Brennan's Demon's Lexicon. To a casual observer, an innocent passerby, it's a book about a demon who possesses people--including a young woman--the seeking of favors from demonic creatures, and a brother who lies and tries to protect the demon. As someone who's actually read Rees Brennan's books, I don't find myself wanting to conjure up evil spirits, or wanting to pathologically lie about everything. I took from those books the importance of honesty, of taking care of your family regardless of their choices, and doing what you know is right even when the world tries to tell you it's wrong.

When I was in high school, my teachers loved having us read books like The Catcher in the Rye, 1984, Brave New World, and Fahrenheit 451. With the exception of Bradbury's, I loathed reading these books as a teenager. I thought they were vulgar and crude, and thought that surely there were other books that could show positive growth without the immorality. As I grew older, and especially as I began writing books myself, I learned that in order to show growth, it must be shown that the character has a reason to grow. If the heroine wasn't struggling with, say, self harm, then overcoming self harm wouldn't be as visible or as notable a theme.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that yes, young adult literature today has many dark, and sometimes disturbing, things. It pushes the envelope and questions the things that adults would never think to question. As someone who just barely made it out of the teen years with her head on tight, I can say this: The years between the ages of 12-18 are, in today's world, dark, and sometimes disturbing. In them, we question ourselves and everyone around us. Nothing is for sure. We are tempted with ways to cope with our struggles, like drugs, alcohol, and sex. Odds are, we will be taken advantage of in some way. At some point, we will wonder why we even fight against these things at all. Many will choose to stop fighting and give in to the world.

This age, 12-18, is the target audience for YA. Why on earth would someone target to that demographic a story about stocks and shares, or playground fights, when those things aren't relevant? To the adults who are worried about YA lit corrupting their children: if your children are reading it because the struggles attract them, then your children are already corrupted. If your children are reading it because they enjoy the last chapter, the triumph over struggles, then your children are doing their best to overcome the things of this world in the only way they know how, and with the means that have been provided to them. If the first, then your children are either very strong willed, or maybe they weren't raised in a way that would have been most beneficial to them. If the second, you raised your kids right.

YA lit is not to be approached as a bright, happy ray of sunshine. That is not what young adults need. YA lit should show trials, struggles, temptations, defeats, and all the nasty things of the world, and most of all, it should show strong characters who learn to overcome those things, either on their own or with help. They should give courage to the teens who struggle, a voice to those who can't find their own. Instead of trying to ban a book, parents, librarians, and teachers, I beg of you to please read the books your children do, and focus on the triumph. Don't tell your children to not get caught up in the struggles, teach them how to apply the winning strategies, and how to use the examples of the heroes to win the battles against demons that I promise you, every teen is, has been, or will be engaged in.

Books are not to be banned. They're meant to show humanity. Those which are most opposed are those which likely need most to be read.