A few weeks back, Wall Street Journal children’s book reviewer Meghan Cox Gourdon published a controversial article lamenting the “explicit abuse, violence, and depravity” rife in today’s young adult fiction. The topic quickly generated a lot of buzz on Twitter and immediately drew criticism from media outlets, YA authors, and the ALA. Yet with all of the outcry from true-blue adults, I felt that it might be time for a young adult voice to chime in. (Though obviously I’m not the first — I myself only stumbled upon the issue when reading a friend’s blog post, from where she is interning at a conservative news site.)
Articles like Gourdon’s tend to surface a few times a year, all with a certain fundamental problem: most of their writers seem to have totally forgotten what it was like to be a young reader. In fact, I suspect that they forgot what it was like to be a young adult. Their criticisms of modern fiction for being too dark or too sad, and their passionate defense of their children’s “happiness, moral development and tenderness of heart,” originates from idealized visions of youth. True, I’m not really old enough to have earned much nostalgia, but I have found that nostalgia tends to cloud memory more than clarify it. In falling prey to nostalgia, many have glossed over the reality of growing up: the curiosity and confusion, the exploration and missteps. It would be a very strange and sanitized childhood that had absolutely no contact with death, or depression, or pain, or sex. YA literature, as with all literature, provides a means of understanding that.
Adolescence requires darker and more complex literature than what many adults seem to expect. But the darkness in YA lit is not just craven, opportunistic reactiveness. It provides a way out. Though Gourdon is right to say that entertainment shapes taste, she forgets the other half of the equation: when need creates a space that art is called to fill. The “moral development” that she calls for is admirable, but what does morality even mean when there are no stakes? Can there really be redemption without trauma or fallenness? There’s a much stronger, brighter moral vision to be found in Harry Potter than there ever is in Nancy Drew. And Ponyboy’s promise to “stay gold” can only inspire readers after they’ve witnessed how difficult it is for him to do so.
There is no doubt that there is good and bad YA fiction. In response to Gourdon’s article, many have called for a kind of “ratings system” that would alert parents to mature themes or objectionable material. The rationale is that if such a system is in place for video games or films, there should be one for literature. However, I think that this system would be profoundly unhelpful as a filter, and would in fact impede the reading experience. Gourdon bristles at being called a “f—ing gatekeeper,” retorting that she calls it “judgment,” “taste,” or “parenting.” All three of these things are good. Gates, even, are good. But none of these are substitutes for guidance, for actual reading, for actually determining quality. It’s downright silly to boil “appropriateness” down to a calculus of nudity and blood. Ratings systems are inherently ham-handed; they don’t account for good writing or good storytelling, and they have no idea what to do with “thematic material.” They would be very poorly-conceived gates.
And as someone who is on the uncertain cusp of young adulthood and adulthood, I would like to advocate for a certain level of inappropriateness. I was always a fairly avid reader; I’m not sure a single school year went by, from kindergarten through senior year, without my being lectured by a teacher for reading a novel under my desk. Reading at inappropriate times characterized my childhood, and reading at inappropriate ages did too. I found that I reacted in three ways to these “above grade-level” books. First, I would put it down, because my total incomprehension made for a very boring reading experience. Second, I would put it down, due to lesser grade of confusion, colored sometimes by shock. Third, I would keep on reading, and learn something valuable from it. Those jolts of discovery are part of reading. They’re part of growing up.
Moreover, I would argue that young people who pick up books with serious themes are young adults who want to be Serious, and they are generally preferable to people who exclusively read about sunshine, just as they are preferable to people who only listen to the Jonas Brothers and Taylor Swift. (But that’s another beef for another time.) Kids who truly love to read never take kindly to being limited. Their natural inquisitiveness will lead them wherever it will.
That doesn’t mean that kids shouldn’t have any guidance at all. My reading tastes were and continue to be shaped by the recommendations of perceptive, intelligent, well-read adults. So I applaud Gourdon’s decision to provide a list of quality YA fiction. I would, however, argue with some of her selections. I did not care at all for Angelmonster, and thought Ophelia was extremely silly. (Also, why settle for these fanfictions when you can read the actual Frankenstein and Hamlet?)
More importantly, it puzzles and irritates me that Gourdon, or her editors, saw fit to segregate their list by gender. Their intentions are good, and come from a rational place. Objectively, and I’m sure statistically, there are some books that boys are unlikely to read, and some that girls are unlikely to pick up. But if you put aside the Twilights of this world, and examine the truly enduring, powerful, interesting young adult literature, it easily speaks to both genders. With statements like, “Girls will love this one, too” tacked onto the end of their recommendation of True Grit, they imply that girls won’t — or can’t — enjoy classics such as Fahrenheit 451, and that boys can’t learn anything from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. This is a mindset that I find depressingly narrow-minded, and it deeply, though subtly, undermines Gourdon’s argument.
In the end, after all, her problem is with the segregation in her thinking: not just between girls and boys, but also between children and adults. There’s no exact barrier between innocence and maturity — that’s where adolescence comes in, and where literature does as well.
Tags: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Angelmonster, Frankenstein, Hamlet, harry potter, Meghan Cox Gourdon, Ophelia, The Outsiders, True Grit, Wall Street Journal, YA fiction, Young Adult books