Tween/Teen Create Day At The IPL!

The Tween/Teen Create Day is coming! Young crafters can come to the Independence Public Library from 4:00 PM to 7:00 PM on July 1st, 2015 to work or projects they bring with them or create something using the materials provided. This program is free and open to the public, and there is no need to register. Simply come and create.

Dark YA

Many adults share a concern that the current trend of intense dark YA novels—which sometimes deal with issues like self-harm and addiction and abuse and even death—could irrevocably damage the fragile minds of our youth.

What makes a book “dark” in the first place? Are dark books the ones that allegorically explore serious subject matter, like warfare (The Hunger Games) or the human capacity for destruction (Grasshopper Jungle)? Or are they the ones that reflect our actual world, including the capacity for human cruelty and kindness (The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian) or the messy stuff of human mortality (The Fault In Our Stars)?

Hey, aren’t these the same subjects young people are encouraged to engage in at school, by reading the newspaper, or classical texts like The Iliad (warfare) or Macbeth (the capacity for self-destruction) or To Kill A Mockingbird (kindness and cruelty) or A Farwell to Arms, all Emily Dickinson poetry (that messy morality business)?

Adolescence is a time when teens are statistically more likely to come into harm’s way and thus more likely to witness harm among their peers. Is it any wonder that they want books to help process what they’re experiencing around them, often for the first time?

We just need to remember that books don’t create behaviors. It is possible that they reinforce existing behaviors, but those behaviors are already present, not created by a novel. A novel won’t turn a bookish drama geek or popular star athlete into a promiscuous drug abuser any more than it will turn a promiscuous drug abuser into a bookish drama geek or popular star athlete, unless the seeds of those transformations were already planted.

What books can do, however, is reflect an experience and show a way out of difficult, isolating times. It’s why Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak has become so popular, giving young women a voice to speak about sexual abuse, or Sherman Alexie’s Diary of a Part-Time Indian has been a life raft for young people who can’t see their way out of existences straight-jacketed by addiction and deprivation. 

I suspect that most teens who read and love “dark” YA have little in common with the struggling characters they relate to. Teenagers say they are drawn to dark books because the appeal is seeing an ordinary teen forced into an extraordinary circumstance. 

Reading about everyday fictional teens rising to the occasion allows actual teens to imagine themselves doing the same. This is empowering, and hopeful. These “dark” books may seem to be about death, about illness, about pain, but really they are about life.And kids get that.

YA

The phenomenon of fully grown people reading young adult (YA) books has gotten a lot of attention recently. Why is that? And why is it now not shameful to admit it as an adult?

It is possible that YA novels are supremely popular because they are the best guide we have to the dysfunctional reality of adult life?

Let’s face it, the dominant part of any book’s success is its escapist appeal, and YA excels at providing this.

The fantastical worlds and sheer inventiveness and imagination of YA continue to help distract us from the horrors of the real world, while also enabling us to confront it in a safe medium – something adults clearly feel the need for as well as children.

Equally, YA books are great for evoking nostalgia; they can often remind older readers of their childhoods and teenage years, making them a comforting presence for those who just refuse to grown up and embrace their boring, often excitement-free adult lives. Society nowadays can be overwhelmingly critical of YA (even though they make the books into blockbuster movies…), and yet it is its simplicity that often provides the most pleasure.

The Harry Potter series is one of the most obvious examples of this simplicity and universal applicability of writing that appeals to anyone, at any time. The series discusses important themes such as love, friendship, identity, and discrimination. It also exhibits in-depth character development across the seven books (which appeals particularly to young people because they can “grow” and age at the same time as Harry, Ron, and Hermione) and utilizes a simplistic writing style that can be enjoyed and interpreted by anyone regardless of age, sex, ethnicity, gender identity, or sexual orientation.

Perhaps the real mystery, then, is why YA books have appealed to so many people beyond their target audience. And why do these books remain popular years after they are first published, and what is it about our current society and world that means that their messages and values are still applicable to us?