Once Upon a Pen

NOTE: This was originally posted to my old blog, The Nosy Parent Blog, in May 2014. It has been revised to be shorter and clearer.

When I began my YA book review website, What’s In It? (soon to be a PDF version here at Once Upon a Pen), it was partly to provide a service to parents and partly as a way for me to rebel against the constantly loosening standards of fiction marketed to teens.  I was a parent of a pre-teen at the time and already aware of what was happening the literary market she was about to enter, because of my work as a bookseller.  Not wanting to overreact, however, I decided that I needed to strike a balance in how I exposed her to teen literature.  Classics, I reflected, were once untried newbies at one time, which meant that some of the hip, new books of my daughter’s generation would someday be labeled classics themselves.  Why ignore the best of today’s teen literature, then?  

 As my daughter entered her teen years, I ran into a new problem that I think it’s time to think through.  What should we cautious parents do about “bibliotherapy” novels–stories that address disturbing, yet all too real, issues that affect today’s teens either directly or indirectly?  These include issues like rape, eating disorders, racism, sexual and gender identity crises, alcoholism, parental neglect, and many more.  What do we do when our teens want to read a YA novel that may help them process an experience or a struggle that is too heavy for them to bear alone but too embarrassing or painful to talk about with an adult?

Providing the teen with a non-fiction self-help book that dovetails with one’s family values is one possible alternative, but there is at least one major problem with this idea.  Fiction can often speak to us more powerfully than self-help advice books can.  In fact, I contend that the power of story over lecture is the biggest reason your local bookstore carries so much more YA fiction than YA non-fiction. Walking beside a character in a story can be cathartic and therapeutic, because it doesn’t teach.  It illuminates and reveals truth and sparks understanding and insights in ways that self-help books simply can’t.

I am thinking in particular of Laurie Halse Anderson’s acclaimed novel, Speak. This novel draws the reader into the tortured, damaged mind of Melinda, who has descended into voluntary muteness as a way to cope with the traumatic experience of being raped by a male schoolmate.  The novel is beautifully written, but it is dark and painful, not meant to provide mere entertainment.  Speak is meant (I think) to enlighten those who have not suffered sexual violence and to throw a lifejacket to those who have.  It has been passed around from teen to teen and used in therapy situations many times–a clear testament to the power of story to heal.

So again, what is a concerned parent to do about books like this, if we notice our teen sneaking them or even outright asking to read them?  Do we keep our battle lines tightly drawn against vulgar language, violence, or whatever types of content we want our teens to avoid reading?  Or are the potential therapeutic and enlightenment benefits worth pushing our rules aside temporarily?  Each parent must answer that question for himself, but for me some balance makes the most sense.  I have to remember that part of letting my teen grow up means loosening the reins little by little.  I also have to consider my teen’s general maturity and sensitivity, and then I have to weigh that against the book’s content.  

 
To some, making such concessions might be a sign of moral weakness or indecisiveness.  For some parents any therapeutic value is not worth the immoral content their teen will have to read in order to experience the benefits.  They might figure that the book might be considered a helpful tool, but since many have coped with disturbing issues without the help of fiction for a long time, their teen can, too.

Others may be more like me.  As someone whose life has been powerfully affected by books, who has had my life course actually changed dramatically by books, there is a point at which I figure I need to trust that I raised my teens well.  I need to consider the probability that any specific content of concern, such as swearing or violence, is not going to affect them as negatively as the overall story may affect them positively.  And then I must let go and remind myself that God is still walking with them, even when I am not.