Some Dumbfail For Ya

[bloodyrosemccoy]

I kind of want to have opinions at you about the latest genius to confuse content with message, but as is so often the case, a point-by-point refutation of everything that is wrong with it would take away time I would better spend writing my own YA novel, or reading someone else’s YA novel. Plus, you already probably can guess my opinion. Hint: it is not "Won’t someone ~*~please~*~ think of the poor persecuted book banners?"*

Thing is, I personally dislike reading a lot of the “darker” YA stuff, but y’know what? That is my own damn taste. I’m really glad there’s some dark YA out there for people who like it. Fortunately, YA is a broad group, broader than indicated in that article, so there’s something for everyone.

Anyway, if you want to have a good time with this, cleolinda’s got a good roundup of the responses. Have fun!


*I want to make a crack about how they recommend Fahrenheit 451—only to boys, of course—when she’s making a case for censorship, but only because of the common misconception that it’s a book decrying censorship instead of yet another example of Ray Bradbury’s raging technophobia.

Then again, either way his point is that books are stirring, which this article does seem to be strictly agin.

Comments

[childthursday.livejournal.com]

I really loathe a lot of the "dark" YA stuff now, but when I was a teen? I ate that stuff up with a spoon. If people think that this "dark stuff" is a new trend, they're incredibly out of touch. Seriously Lurlene McDaniel has been writing about death and depression and suicide etc. for decades now, and she's as popular now as she was back in "the day" (the day being some kind of nostalgia-created past that didn't actually exist.)

The only difference is vampires.

Oh, wait. The only difference is sparkly vampires, because the moral panic that these book-banners are trying to stir up is an exact echo of the one stirred up by Bram Stoker's Dracula and, going back far enough, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. So the book banners claiming things were "better in the past" are grasping at straws.

Not to mention that it's quite easy to find light and sparkly YA fiction. Not necessarily on the central display shelves, but tucked into the regular shelves; books that may not have the market appeal but are still Good Stuff. That's what I read. (My fun reading is almost exclusively YA fiction...I have to read too much serious stuff for work!)

And just to wrap up my rant...what the hell is with the gendered sidebar of recommendations? "Books for Young Men, Books for Young Women"? All of the books have the themes identified as problematic by the book banners - are these recommendations from them, or from WSJ? They're all really good books, but I didn't realize that Fahrenheit 415 was intended just for people with penises. Nor did I realize that possession of a vagina was essential to understanding of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Argh!

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure whether to laugh or bang my head against the wall with the gendered sidebar. All the girls' books have female protagonists and the boys' books have male protagonists. Which means that you can apparently only read books with protagonists who match your own gender. Makes me think of this.

What amazes me about her attempt at fearmongering is that I do not see a single thing on that booklist that I would object to just based on her descriptions. Yes, there are horrible things going on in these books, but what does the author say about these horrible things? The books she describes don't appear to be championing abuse and violence and the dark nastiness of humanity; rather, they're acknowledging that that those things happen and they suck.

Of course, I am also a little confused as to what is assumed to be bad--she seems to take it for granted that her readers agree with her that profanity is EVIL and peope who accept it are also evil. So while I certainly HOPE people find brutality objectionable, I'm not sure whether I should be horrified at a book that merely mentions, say, masturbation.

And then, of course, there are the voracious readers, like I was, who never did make distinctions between reading levels after second grade or so. Like you, I don't care to read much dark YA. Or contemporary YA. Or, for that matter, dark or contemporary adult fiction. My taste is speculative fiction, be it juvie, YA, or adult. If she thinks readers will avoid dark issues when we regulate teen books, well, she was never a crazed reader.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_wastrel/]

I see YA as only one facet of the same debate that's been going on for decades now, the "Quick, parents, you have to strap down your children so they won't turn into pirate ninja witches or they'll destroy us all!" mentality, the "Jack Chick vs D&D" template. I'm sick of people having to have that debate, but it sure beats living in a society in which the debate wouldn't be taking place because we'd all be bowing down to the book banners without fighting back. Thank you for having posted this.

I always get the urge to chip in during debates like that, but I hold back from doing so, because I realize that at some point while telling my story I'd get to the part where you're supposed to say "... and I turned out just fine!" Then I think, maybe other people are better suited for this debate than I am. :)

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I always get the urge to chip in during debates like that, but I hold back from doing so, because I realize that at some point while telling my story I'd get to the part where you're supposed to say "... and I turned out just fine!" Then I think, maybe other people are better suited for this debate than I am. :)

AHAHAHAHA YES.

Moral panics are pretty weird overall. They always seem to reveal a lot more about the panickers than anything else.