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I plan to be a diva someday . . . - Helping readers away from YA Books

Aug. 11th, 2008 04:32 pm Helping readers away from YA Books

A lot of people are talking about this article in PW, wherein a librarian reflects on her dilemma when 11 and 12-year-olds request teen books such as Twilight and Uglies.  I am of two minds about it.

While I think there are YA novels that aren't appropriate for 11- and 12-year-olds (Melvin Burgess comes to mind), I'm not completely sure Twilight and Uglies are them.  The author managed to choose two books which were, to my memory, completely clean (One written by a Mormon, for crying out loud!) and only minimally violent -- two books which, in short, were less mature than the last three Harry Potters (which half the kids in my daughter's third grade class read last year).  

I also think there are 11-year-olds and there are 11-year-olds.  While I was sort of appalled when a fourth grader of my acquaintance said she was reading my book, Beastly (and tried to discourage her from it, and sort of winced when she said she'd finished it), I've been kind of shocked at what some 11-year-olds of my acquaintance seem to know.  

Last week, I was discussing PG-13 movies with my mom.  Specifically, I was discussing whether my 13-year-old daughter should be allowed to see The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2.  I said, "Well, she's thirteen, so she can see it if she wants" (I'm not sure she does).  "Some kids in her class were seeing PG-13 movies in fourth grade."  I then pointed out that I was the only kid in my high school performing arts program who hadn't been allowed to see the R-rated movie, Fame, and that I was still traumatized by that.   She said, "Well, you didn't get pregnant in high school," and I said, "You think I would have if I'd been allowed to see R-rated movies?" (Unlikely.  I didn't date in high school).

So I'm sure there are some parents who, like my mom, believe that there is a direct link between reading about or seeing inappropriate behavior and engaging in said behavior.  I happen to know that this is not true because I read and saw a lot of inappropriate stuff about which my mom had no idea, and I was still an incredible goody-goody.  The worst thing I did was reading the books behind her back.  So I think there are probably kids out there who are reading the books instead of engaging in the activity -- which is a good thing.

I wonder why it is always books that are the bad guys in these articles.  I believe that the vast majority of the primetime network television lineup is inappropriate for my 9-year-old and a good portion of it is inappropriate for my 13-year-old.  Criminal Minds?  No.  Not unless I want my kid watching a show that regularly features kids being forced to kill their parents or each other (I recently watched a rerun of Charlie's Angels, a typical detective show from my childhood, and it was soooo tame -- there was no blood).  Two and a Half Men?  Nuh-uh.  How I Met Your Mother?  Out of the question.  Every one of these shows is less appropriate for kids than Twilight or even Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.  And a large number of these shows are on at 8:00 p.m. (7:00 Central and Mountain).   And yet, I never see a single article about the sorry lack of family television programming (By "family" programming, I mean something that the average adult could watch more than once without going into a diabetic coma -- i.e., not iCarly).    I was devastated by Bernie Mac's death because his show was one of about three comedies we could all watch most weeks.

I am flattered that there are so many people out there who believe that books have this incredible power.  Books are powerful.  However, I believe that some of their power comes from giving the reader time to stop and think . . . and in some cases, opt out of the book.   Most kids I know are smart enough to stop reading if a book is beyond them.   This is not always an option with television or movies. 

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Comments:

From:[info]penmage
Date:August 11th, 2008 09:24 pm (UTC)
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In reaction to a side point—the first three book in the Twilight saga are sex-free. But the fourth book contains loads and loads of sex—admittedly after marriage, but sex all the same—not to mention graphic depictions of supernatural pregnancy.

What I was sort of bemused at, while reading Breaking Dawn, was all the parents and teachers and librarians who were so pleased because the Twilight saga had all the teenage romance without any sex at all. Now that Breaking Dawn is capping the saga off with mountainloads of sex every time you turn the page, I wonder if that is going to affect how parents (and other adults putting the books in the hands of kids) see the first three books.


Edited at 2008-08-11 09:26 pm (UTC)
From:[info]alixwrites
Date:August 11th, 2008 11:47 pm (UTC)
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Interesting. I admit not getting that far into the series. Well, I did take Twilight to mean Twilight, and I'm guessing that the 11-year-olds are going to take a while to get to Book 4.
From:[info]penmage
Date:August 11th, 2008 11:56 pm (UTC)
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I wouldn't be so sure. I was a voraciously reading 11-year-old, and so were my sisters. And more than one 12-year-old girl in my community are huge Twilight fans, and I know for a fact that some of them pre-ordered Breaking Dawn (though I haven't heard what they--or their parents thought about it yet.)

Seriously. Do you really think that an 11-year-old who plows through a 700 page book without any trouble and loves it is going to hesitate before plowing through the next three in the series? It might take her a few months, IF her library system is slow and IF she doesn't cart them to school with her and only reads in her spare time at home, but I'd put money down that any 11-year-old who read and loved the first book in the Twilight saga--namely, Twilight--will, left unchecked, have plowed her way all the way through to Breaking Dawn before she turns 12.

Edited at 2008-08-11 11:57 pm (UTC)
From:[info]alixwrites
Date:August 12th, 2008 12:21 am (UTC)
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Not having read the book in question, I really can't comment intelligently on the content. However, if it is married sex that's not described in detail, I think my response is still that it doesn't sound like the worst thing in the world if a kid who is mature enough to read 3 700-page books reads it. My daughter had to turn in a report on gonnorhea (sp?) in 5th grade and was getting detailed sex-ed in 6th, so I'm sort of assuming they know it exists at that point (or they should). Married sex is sort of the goal, isn't it?
From:[info]penmage
Date:August 12th, 2008 12:28 am (UTC)
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The sex is never described in vivid detail, no. But every time anything happens, Bella falls over with lust for Edward and starts wrapping herself around him.

Married sex may be the goal (whether premarital sex is moral or not is not a conversation I'm willing to have right now) but I still wouldn't want a kid of mine reading about that much sexing in one book, married or not married.

I mean, honestly. You can't imagine how much sex there is in one teen vampire novel unless you've read it. Every time she turns around, Bella starts panting after him. And there is an over-100-pages-long, excruciatingly painful and awful pregnancy scene. It got to the point where I was mentally comparing it to an Anita Blake book, the ones in which the heroine has a magical malady where she needs to have sex every couple of hours.

And remember--just because you don't describe the mechanics of the act in detail doesn't make it less scintillating, especially to a child.

I am really the last person in the world to censor a child's reading. But I wouldn't want an 11-year-old reading this particular book just yet.

I do think there's another important issue at play, and that is, when you know that there is something you don't want your child reading in a book down the line of a series, should you keep her from reading the earlier, unobjectionable books? It's almost definitely a case-by-case personal decision, but it's still something interesting to think about.
From:[info]alixwrites
Date:August 12th, 2008 12:46 am (UTC)
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"I do think there's another important issue at play, and that is, when you know that there is something you don't want your child reading in a book down the line of a series, should you keep her from reading the earlier, unobjectionable books? It's almost definitely a case-by-case personal decision, but it's still something interesting to think about."

This is an interesting thought. I had the same thought about the 4th SISTERHOOD/PANTS book, upon which the current movie is based. It's not that I think Book 4 is inappropriate for its ostensible audience -- middle and high-schoolers. The PANTS books have always been thought-provoking, rather than sensational, and I think a kid who stuck with them through the whole series can probably read Book 4. But the first movie was tame enough for very young kids (They glossed over Bridget's mother's suicide, and even Bailey's death went over my younger daughter's head at the time). The second movie is PG-13 and clearly not on that level. I bet there are going to be parents who'll take their kids to SISTERHOOD 2 unaware that it's not for the same audience as SISTERHOOD 1.

Of course, this is not the only series where that happens. HARRY POTTER, as I mentioned, is the obvious example. I did encourage my younger daughter to take a break before reading the last two books because she was upset by Sirius's death in Book 5, and she agreed with me. Also, Naylor's ALICE series. Even my BREATHING UNDERWATER and DIVA which are companions, aren't really for the same kid. And yes, I do know of girls who've read DIVA and not BU. So I guess that's sort of the answer: A lot of time, the kids do know when something's not right for them. In a way, it's a maturing process to make those decisions too.
From:(Anonymous)
Date:August 12th, 2008 12:01 am (UTC)

Yes, but...

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Breaking Dawn does have sex. But it never once actually depicts it. You know that it happens, but you don't get any description of it. I think that makes somewhat of a difference. It isn't an adult sex book or anything.
From:[info]heatherbird
Date:August 12th, 2008 02:19 am (UTC)
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Watching Fame totally leads to underage pregnancy.

You make so many good points here. Bravo!
From:[info]iliketea
Date:August 12th, 2008 09:15 am (UTC)
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Well put, all of this. :)
From:[info]sleekwriter
Date:August 12th, 2008 10:16 am (UTC)
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I was reading Harold Robbins and Jackie Collins by the time I was in middle school. I not only didn't have sex in high school, I didn't date in high school. Of course, by the time I got to UF I wanted to know what all the fuss was about regarding sex, but my youthful reading material did not impact my real life.

My middle school students would pass around novels by Zane. I'd much rather they read Twilight or Sisterhood or even Breaking Dawn than graphically pornographic adult novels.
From:[info]alixwrites
Date:August 12th, 2008 12:07 pm (UTC)
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Well, that's just it. The YA stuff, which is comparatively tame, gets all the press. I, too, was reading The Godfather (which had way more sex than the movie version -- but my mom didn't know because she hadn't read it) in 7th grade, and in 8th, I read the basically pornographic Wifey at a home where I babysat. And yeah, reading was all I did.
From:[info]kimpauley
Date:August 29th, 2008 03:28 pm (UTC)

Maybe it's a trend

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I think the trend is towards younger kids reading "older" books. I've been doing the book reviewing thing for 10 years now and it used to be that the 11 year olds that emailed were writing about books targeted towards their age group -- now, it's a free-for-all. I've had a 10 year old write me about my book, and it's targeted towards 12/13 and up. Not that there's anything real risque in my book either, but I wouldn't have actually recommended it for a 10 year old. The Meg Cabot books are kind of a case in point, especially since she's so popular. They start with the Princess Diaries and go right on to Queen of Babble even though the latter is definitely an adult book.
From:[info]alixwrites
Date:August 29th, 2008 03:38 pm (UTC)

Re: Maybe it's a trend

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I usually hear from older kids about my realistic books, because they are in a lot of remedial reading classes, but I hear from younger kids about Beastly. Beastly *is* younger, but I wasn't thinking 9. My next book would be okay for anyone, I guess. But will that make younger kids read my other books?

My daughter (13) really liked your book. I think she wrote to you.