…or you can c) be the responsible parent/guardian you’re supposed to be to your kids and TALK to them about it.

Seriously? So the only way a kid/teen can learn the dangers of society is by reading about it in fiction or experiencing it for themselves?

Right. So parents can just throw the good ol’ one-on-one convos with their kids out the window. Who needs to communicate with their kids when you have YA fiction?

As if our society needed to get anymore disconnected.

(Oh, and forget warning your kids about the dangers of touching the hot stove–they can only either read about it in their books or get burned and learn from the experience!)

Small-minded, anybody?

This is John Wright. Matthew is making two simple errors in logic here. The first is ad Hominem. The second is straw-man argument.

I used to tend bar. I did not serve hard liquor to children. I did not serve hard liquor to seventeen-and-a-half-year-olds, even those who might have been able to drink responsibly. What I did was this: I served grown-up drinks to grown-ups.

Now, back when I was a bartender, if I had heard one of my fellow bartenders saying “Should hard drinks be sold as soft drinks? The short answer is no!” or if I heard one of my fellow bartenders saying, “I used to get drunk every weekend when I was 14! Never did me a bit of harm!” I would have sharply disagreed.

It would not be an act of heroism, bold defiance of taboo, to label a bottle of Kentucky whiskey “soft drink”. That would be false advertising.

If a teetotaler stated that there was no difference between beer and root beer, we could bring into question his standing to make the statement. Likewise, if a bartender wanted to sell to kids because he craved the extra income, we could question his motives.

But when a bartender says, “Don’t serve beer to kids” it does not remove his “standing” to testify to point out that he serves beer to grown-ups.

So Matthew has it exactly backward.

Someone who has written kid-friendly material, whose nice and fluffy books contain nothing explicit nor shocking, might that someone disqualified from having an opinion about the issue under discussion. He writes root beer. His books could be mis-labeled without harm.

But someone who writes a book he would never put into the hands of a fourteen-year-old, he has a right to speak out, and an obligation.

ORPHANS OF CHAOS was not written for children. My work steps over the line. It is not fit for children to read. I know it. Matthew knows it.

Are my fellow authors who deem themselves heroes of literary liberation unwilling to know the when their work steps over the line? Do they know it?

I am seventeen years old. I write.

My background is likely different from most of yours. You see, my parents are both immigrants. They don’t read novels written in English. What little control they had over my reading material quickly disappeared as I learned the route to the local library (within walking distance). I think I turned out decently.

When I was very small, my father, who is proficient enough in English to read synopses and Newbery lists, bought me books. My mother would bring me to the library and ask the children’s librarian to recommend books; she would also let me wander the shelves, and pick out what I wanted. She decided whether to let me check it out based on the illustration on the cover (it was usually a yes). My father would sometimes read the back cover when he got home. That was all the monitoring I got. That was elementary school.

I read books such as Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street, and Richard Wright’s Black Boy as early as the fifth grade. I found them interesting; they gave me things to think about. I was aware that the things I encountered was somehow “adult.” I did not need to have the concept of sex explained to me – besides, I was not quite sure how to translate it.

Were my parents aware that I was reading about “adult” themes? Certainly. (They gave me an omnibus The Art of War and 36 Stratagems when I was eleven. One of the Stratagems amounted to “have your daughter sleep with the opposing general/king to manipulate him.”) Did they particularly mind? Evidently not. These are the same parents who don’t want me to have a boyfriend until I turn eighteen. These are the parents who raised me to believe in abstinence until marriage. Yet they let me read about sex and drugs and violence, at my own discretion, at age eleven. They knew that raising me well meant raising me to have good judgment (see abstinence, above) rather than sheltering me from reality. Et vous?

Of course, given that English is not their native tongue, they knew that if they tried too hard to stop me, I’m enough of a bibliophile to get around it anyhow. Believe me, all you parents out there, even if your English is flawless, so long as you have bookworm kids, they’ll get around it too.

Pax vobiscum,

Sarah

What I should ask is if they SHOULD be explicit.

Teenagers are, as I’ve seen, the most stupid generation of our society. We want to believe that we’re raising the future leaders of our country, but how are we raising future leaders when we are neglecting the fact that teenagers NO NOTHING.

Do teenagers know about sex?

Do teenagers know about rape?

Do teenagers know about child abuse?

DO they? Do they REALLY know about it?

No, and you know why they don’t know about it? It’s because the adult society has an idiotic view that thinks they have to shield their children from every little thing they think is bad.

How do you know your child isn’t out having sex? How do you know if your child is using protection during that sex or not? Do your children know that you can contract HIV AIDs through sex, much less kissing?

Do they?

I seriously doubt it. Children these days don’t know ANYTHING because they are TOO SHELTERED. Back in the older days, children knew about sex when they were in diapers because they saw animals having sex in their backyard. Their parents didn’t say, ‘Oh, he just likes her,’ or something along that line.

The above is just one fine example.

Should YA books be censored?

No.

Is life censored?

No.

I don’t understand why people think a book should be censored when you let your children listen to rap music, let them hang out with others who are a bad influence and who let them run around with their pants around their ankles.

~ Kody Boye

http://www.freewebs.com/kodyboye

The ‘previous post’ to which I referred but somehow lost read: Orphans of Chaos is not a YA book, nor was it published as YA.

In John’s defense, sort of, he wrote that series before he developed his current view. He was really embarrassed when he found out young teens were reading them. I think that did a lot to reinforced his views on the subject.

As to the rest of your post, I am mainly in agreement, too — especially since you mention “Over 14″. I think that by fifteen kids are pretty well able to fend for themselves. It’s the 11 to 14 year olds that I am worried about. If another age division of the shelves would make it easier for librarians to help parents guide their children of this age, I’m all for it. (Nothing to stop parents from allowing precocious 12 year olds to range through the older shelves if they feel they are ready.)

Initially a note regarding John Wright and his posts here.

I cannot be certain, but perhaps he felt there was not enough in the way of opposing viewpoints in those consulted, or not enough opposition.

However, the pot is leaving a message for the kettle, regarding color. Having read nearly ever novel Mr. Wright has published, I would like to note that he has little standing to criticize the use of sex for titillation.

My girlfriend and I were discussing the role of female characters, especially protagonists, in our preferred genres the other night with especial consideration to appropriate use of sexuality as compared to gratuitous involvement. Mr. Wright’s “Chaos” series was an example I used, where use of gratuitous sexual fantasies on the author’s part actually detracted from the story, plot, and my appreciation of the writer’s work. In the opinion the conversation reached, after careful review of the specific scenes, was this: Someone had schoolgirl sex-fantasies and perhaps there was therapeutic value to writing them out, but it was an unworthy addedum to an otherwise excellent series.

In regard to the care and feeding of the young adult reading habit:

I was, as many who have posted here, a precocious and voracious reader. Not only of science fiction and fantasy, but mystery and horror. Given that my reading was done under the light supervision of liberal parents during the mid to late eighties, I was exposed to a massive variety of subject matter. I remember the Cornelius Chronicles and the sexuality depicted in them very well. But I was more disturbed by Roald Dahl’s “Skin”. My parents went so far as to petition the public library to break their age standard for me to receive an adult library card at nine years old. Largely, no doubt, that I might pay my own fines. A dozen or more books a week were the norm. I read Heinlein’s works as a body, rather than separated by “juvenile” and “adult”. Certain themes certainly were disturbing, or evocative of reactions both hormonal and intellectual. But they also gave me a far more realistic viewpoint when these situations became a part of my own life. This means I am outside of the general ‘spectrum’ of whom you refer to as the target audience of Young Adult works, as being able to formulate my own thoughts after exposure to concepts rather than relying solely upon the input information.

I believe we all do “children” a disservice in the assumption that they are incapable of evolution of thought or the separation of written or broadcast works from reality if they are taught analytical and critical thinking. People mention morality, though it is carefully re-worded in many places in this thread to avoid religious connotations. I could here refer to Ender’s Game – the fact that, children are not children until you are an adult. That we fail as a society to instill in ourselves until far later (if at all) the ability to differentiate between a work of fiction or entertainment and the reality of life, who is to blame?

That all aside, on to my personal take:

The parents are responsible for censorship if they feel their children should not be exposed to certain situations, realistic or not. A child accompanied by a parent or guardian and allowed permission may enter a rated PG-13 or R movie at any age. Said child can partake of liquor under the supervision of said adult. Said child can consent to sex in many states, with or without parental permission, and may enter long term relationships involving sex or even marriage either inside or outside of the parental relationship. Where I was raised, most teenaged males were the ‘owner’ of rifles and trucks. These things all present far greater hazard to the soul and life of both that ‘child’ and others than the idea that sex, drug abuse, sexual assault, or ‘perversion’ occurs. These teenagers were not 17 or 18, these teenagers were 13 or 14.

Children beneath the ‘teenage’ years, 12 and lower, are a different situation. However, face the facts: Harry Potter was a problem not because of ‘adult content’ but because of ‘magic’. Phillip Pullman’s books had little criticism for sex, but drew great ire over their atheistic bent.

Parenting should involve an actual understanding of the emotional and intellectual age of the children. While the complexities of modern life may create serious difficulties, these are not irreducible. I have found it is more often an adult’s discomfort with tackling these issues and concepts that is the barrier than the lack of understanding or ability to comprehend, even if not fully, on the part of the children.

The author’s responsibility is to present a story. “Offstaging” certain things may well be in the best interest of an author wishing to write for the younger end of the Young Adults spectrum, defined personally as below 14 years of age. An author, as well as his or her editors, agents, and publishers, can determine what age group might be interested in a work. Or, an author might agree to write works for a specific age group. T

he addition of a sex scene, relationship, or violent incident should be determined by the story and perhaps the thoughts behind the story. Could you accurately write a faerie story involving a young man in current day Iraq without speaking of violence, death, torture, rape, and other abuse? Would it be fair to do so? Was it right of the Brothers Grimm to remove so much of the darkness from their stories, to make them palatable to the adults? Was the recent movie, Pan’s Labyrinth, solely suitable for audiences over 18?

I think that the ‘right and wrong’ of explicit depiction is a moot point. Ask instead if something truly harmful and degrading is being glorified. Should young adults be shown ‘compensated dating’ as a wonderful alternative path? Should young men be painted glowing pictures of the life of a high-school dropout turned into a meth dealer and pimp, with all the pain and darkness whitewashed away?

I wonder about this. I have read reviews of several YA books that contain scenes I would rather not read, much less have my kids read — heck, I’ve read reviews written in the magazine that recommends books to librarians — none of the reviews I have seen so much as mentioned the aspects of the book I had trouble with.

The advantage of a teen category – which, as I said, is an idea I picked up from librarians, who came up with this idea because they’ve been trying to meet the needs of parents who ask them for help — is that it would give just a little more guidance.

Obviously, a category does not limit anyone from going beyond it. If you think your twelve year old can handle say, keeping this just to SF/Fantasy books: the sodamistic rape scene in JUMPER, or the several rather disturbing aspects of the otherwise excellent book TITHED, there is nothing to keep you, as a parent, from okaying him or her to browse in the YA section.

But if you are pretty sure that your child is not ready for this yet — and some children aren’t — it would be nice to have a category for books that were a bit more mature but not disturbing.

Part of this may be where one is coming from. If you are a modern parent, and your children are a lot like you were at that age, you’re probably pretty comfortable with things as they are now.

I live in a slightly different world. Nearly every child I deal with regularly falls somewhere upon the ‘Spectrum’ of disorders that run from Autism through Aspergers to ADHD. These kids can be bright, even precocious, but they are often emotionally behind their peers — sometimes WAY behind their peers.

Nor is this a small group any more. The number of children in America considered to be actually autistic is about one million. And that is nothing compared to the number of children who fall into the other portions of the “spectrum.” This means that a significant portion of today’s teens and pre-teens are emotionally well behind where teens were a generation ago. That should be enough kids to warrant creating a new category.

My son checks out 12 books at a time as well, and I don’t have to read them to know what they contain. There are a myriad of resources available including librarians, the internet, and a bunch of excellent review resources out there. Amazon is my friend if I need a synopsis of a book.

I would also repeat that the concept of ratings are great, but you have to realize that there is some leeway in them. Sure add a TEEN section, and then realize that teens included 13 to 19. That is 6 years and I would say that a 19 year old has some different tastes and maturity than a 13 year old.

When I was a teen, I checked out ten or twelve books a week. Now, as a parent, I am lucky if I get to read one book a month. One year, when the boys were young, I fit in four novels — out of the entire year I only had time to read four.

So, when is a parent supposed to have time to read every book a child takes out of the library, much less all the manga?

Even when adult friends have read Manga, they often forget the inappropriate parts. (Example: A friend recently recommended SANCTUARY to someone — a manga we love — only to reread it and realize that there are many very graphic pictures of yakuza and sex that we all had totally forgotten.)

I’m not against people writing what they feel they wish to write…I’d just like a different lable for books for the 12-16 range than for the 15 to early twenties range. (I hear that many librarians agree with this. They tell me they have a movement to start a “Teen” catagory below YA.)

From what I’ve read of the books she’s checked out: Phillip Pullman yes, Ursula Leguin yes, Patricia Wrede, maybe, maybe not Holly Black. The problem is that young readers start with the first book in the series (Sorcery and Cecilia) and then move on from there, so while the character is growing up to an age-appropriate sexuality, the 10 or 11 year old is reading that.

Ellen’s idea that the people who are reading teen books are actual teenagers is probably not correct, at least in my experience. By high school, most students who read books they aren’t assigned seem to be reading adult fiction. The 9th graders at the high I teach at were reading “The Kite Runner,” which I also had mixed feelings about, given the extremes of violence/sexual violence in that book. I would rather they were being exposed to relationship-based sexuality, than violence. 11th and 12th graders are pretty much assigned the kinds of books that receive prizes like the national book award, or adult books with young protagonists.

SO, what I would suggest to writers is you should be aware that the young people who are reading “YA” books are more likely to be 12, than 16.