NEWS: The Harsh Change of Teen Lit, Or "I Want to Fuck the Boxcar Children"

CULTURE: The Harsh Change of Teen Lit, Or "I Want to Fuck the Boxcar Children"

Teenage literature used to use the idiom “coming of age” as its mantra. Now, it’s a world more suited to a gritty Welsh novel, as author Francesca Lia Block receives the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement from the Young Adult Library Services Association of the American Library Association for her work. Her characters are less like The Boxcar Children and more like the kids from Traffic.

It’s interesting to note, as adult fiction sales have plateaued, young adult fiction is increasing in no small part to authors like Block. It’s refreshing to consider that young adults are reading about people and situations that many of them come into contact with daily. In addition, the definition of “young adult fiction” has been expanded from 18 years old to 25.

What does “coming of age” in literature mean in this day and age?

Well, maybe all the early drug and sex exposure will keep turning on kids to the American Dream of Hunter S. Thompson set forth by him so long ago (R.I.P.). You'll have to excuse me, about I was gone when he died, and I didn't get to say my words here...

i love francesca lia block. one of my all time fav authors.

God forbid "young adult" books should have something to do with reality somehow.

[Edited on Feb 23, 2005 8:21AM]

Whod've thought that a group trying to ban books would come out of the American south... I might have to stay in today for the shock.

Hehe, I've loved those books since seventh or eighth grade. :B (I think, maybe I was younger though.) Also, for the record, I've never done drugs or participated in group sex.

[Edited for typos and grammar because I stayed up too late and it's too early, weee!]

[Edited on Feb 23, 2005 10:32AM]

I like the idea that YA has been expanded to include 18-25. I'm not sure if this means YA is getting more sophisticated, or if our 18-25 year olds are getting less so. I mean, at 18 I was reading faulkner and campbell. Maybe I was expecting too much of myself....

Don't think I'm harshing on Block. YA has been utter shit for so many years, I'm glad that there's some substance being introduced.

I love those books! My lit teacher in high school gave them to me to read. I say who cares what the kids are reading as long as they are reading something!

'The only people who read "Young adult" fiction are precocious nine year olds or nostalgic 22 year olds.' - I can't find the link where someone said that, I'll kep lookingfor it.

Why is homosexuality almost always portayed as some part freakish alternative lifestyle? It'd be nice to have alternative characters that were functional.

I haven't read the books, but if that above description sounds like reality to you, you have my sympathies.

I don't know if you've ever read Francesca Lia Block's books, but I've read most of them myself, and there's hardly any drug use, and I've never read anything about pimps or rough sex, and when there is drug use or other harsh stuff, it's always portrayed as bad. In fact, I'd say her books are a lot more optimistic and sunny than real life. They are very much like fairy tales. Maybe everyone should actually try reading the books instead of just going along with a very out of context news blurb.

[Edited on Feb 23, 2005 11:33AM]

Parents Against Bad Books in Schools - man, i bet they're a wild bunch!

is it me, or is repressing literature a little sinister, not to mention reminiscent of a certain mean-spirited regime of the mid-1900s?

[edited to say:] P.S. i wonder if there's a Parents Against Jazz/I]...

[Edited on Feb 23, 2005 9:32AM]

Ah, pimping your first ho....oh, to be young and coming of age again.

Yeah, it's a good thing I was sitting down when I read that!

And I say reading shitty books is as bad as watching too much television.

Eh, this is nothing new. Robert Cormier was writing about jacking off in toilet stalls and sibling incest before Block was ever published.

i think i might still have some boxcar children books... *nostalgic*

wait, what were we talking about?

Seems to me like the only books that deserve being labelled with an age group are the sorts of things you can only read when you're young and undiscerning. Like Goosebumps, for example.

Otherwise...yeah, some of the stuff that gets stuck in "juvenile" or "young adult" are more youth-accessible than, say, Frank Herbert (I could never get into the Dune books as a kid, but when I got older..)......but I think authors like Philip Pullman and Dianna Wynne Jones get too easily overlooked by adult readers who'd be just as likely to appreciate them under the theory that books in the kids section must be "kiddy".

Golly, you're awful hostile for some reason. Why do stories need a message? Can't some be just for fun? That's not to say that Block's books don't contain important messages for the kids who read them, they obviously do. One of them is that it's okay if you don't fit in with the jerks at your high school for whatever reason, whether because you're the artistic type rather than an athlete, or because you're gay. "You're okay as you are" is the most important thing you can say to a lot of teenagers.

[Edited on Feb 23, 2005 by Merry]

Torture? She writes about torture in a teen novel? That's awesome.

i love those books