Books for Teens with Heavy Themes

[TheEarl]

Melvin Burgess is an excellent author and I think "Doing It" is very realistic but just too much for most library's young adult sections. If you try to put it out, it'll just keep disappearing.

I love Doing It to pieces. I don't see the problem with putting it out there, as that is what kids of that age (in England, anyway), behave like and talk about. I personally find it ridiculous to shelter kids of something they already know.

The Earl

 

[Saucyminx]

I don't know that the trend is heavier issues, but maybe more honest ones. YA fiction is finally finding some quality authors, and getting more notice because of it. Judy Blume has always been a good one (and gotten all her books banned for her trouble including the picture book she did). Robert Cormier had an honest, but often disturbing voice. Anthony is also good, but he usually fell into the Sci Fi/Fantasy section in our library as opposed to our YAs.

I think publishers are finally starting to put out some literature that acutally speaks to teens instead of at them.

In a children's services meeting, i found myself in the uneviable position of defending the large chunk of our paperback budget spent on RL Stine, Christopher Pike, and the like. Great literature? Hell no. Shivery, scary, insanely, popular fun? Yes. I won the argument with "at least they are reading." Reading crap is better than not reading at all. It also opens the gate for suggestions. Oh you liked that? you have to give this a try--and then you steer them toward stuff that won't give their brain cavities.

Another great YA author right now is Laurie Halse Anderson. She wrote "Speak," about a young teen dealing with a rape. I highly recommend her. I wish i had had that book when i was about 13--heavy or not.

 

[Nightbird]

I think society needs to recognize that Teens and Young Adults are facing more Adult situations everyday.

Sexuality is more prevalent in young people than ever before, and no matter how hard people want to think teenagers aren't in those kind of situations the truth is they are. It's better to educate them and prepare them for adult situations than to shield them from it.

 

[sweetnpetite]

I don't think it's so much as educating them about the things that they are doing, as writing books that your audience can identify with. Face it, teens don't want to read about fluffy kittens and my little ponies. They want to read about other teens dealing with the same shit they are dealing with. Not in a preachy 'this has been oked by my parents' kind of way but in a 'wow, you actually get me!' kind of way.

Like I said, not really different from when we were teens.

ONe thing I remember is that all the girls read VC Andrews- and yes, they were aimed at (and about) teens- full of sex, incest, violence, rape, murder and madness. Terrible stories. Just terrible

 

[Saucyminx]

I don't think it's so much as educating them about the things that they are doing, as writing books that your audience can identify with. Face it, teens don't want to read about fluffy kittens and my little ponies. They want to read about other teens dealing with the same shit they are dealing with. Not in a preachy 'this has been oked by my parents' kind of way but in a 'wow, you actually get me!' kind of way.

Like I said, not really different from when we were teens.

ONe thing I remember is that all the girls read VC Andrews- and yes, they were aimed at (and about) teens- full of sex, incest, violence, rape, murder and madness. Terrible stories. Just terrible

I read those. . .