On ‘Tweens Reading Young Adult Fiction

School librarians are an incredible resource for our young readers. In fact, I first fell in love with reading and becoming a writer in my own school library at Sicomac Elementary in Wyckoff, NJ!  But school librarians are facing new challenges. A month or two ago, I was asked by the school librarians in my county to attend their in-service meeting. They wanted me to attend because What I Meant… seemed like a great fit for their 6th and some of their 5th grade readers. The novel was challenging and dealt with issues related to self-esteem and independence, plus it was clean. (I’ve just learned that What I Meant… was selected for the Young Adult Fiction Top Forty List 2008 by the Pennsylvania School Library Association. Yeah!!!!)
But school librarians have often run into the problem of how to restrict younger readers in their elementary schools’ libraries from YA titles that might not be appropriate for, say, a 4th grader. Plus, they must deal with the added problems of sometimes shocking content in YAs, and of disgruntled parents.

Attending that informative and fascinating talk with these librarians, I learned of a disturbing trend: more and more often, school librarians are accountable for what exactly is on their shelves. What may be considered great literature to one person, may seem offensive and immoral to another. Librarians are now expected to be knowledgeable and responsible for all the content in any books they order…yet with today’s books, where even the word “scrotum” pops up in a picture book inciting parental panic, this is becoming harder and harder for the librarians to do. How are they to know from the short blurbs in review publications whether a particular parent might find something offensive in a book? How are they supposed to read every single novel coming into the library beforehand?

This is a serious issue, folks. And some librarians have actually lost their jobs over it!  Sadly, elementary school librarians feel the pressure to not take risks in their book ordering, and therefore feel they are not meeting the needs of those eager 6th grade readers who would fall in love with a YA book such as What I Meant…  By middle school, the collection issue seems to ease, but who are we kidding? ‘Tweens LOVE to read YA novels. Kids read up from their age category all the time.

Publishers are well aware of this, yet there are few novels for this age group in the YA category that even I, a fairly liberal parent, would consider “appropriate” for a 10 year old or 11 year old child.  Shouldn’t there be more clean YA novels for the ‘tweens to read? And how about a way to measure the content of these books to help out the harried librarians and parents in selection? I’d love to hear the thoughts of parents, librarians and authors on this issue.

In 2007, I wrote an article about this very issue from the parent’s (and author’s) point of view, and it appeared in several parenting publications. Thought I’d print it here… so read on:

You’re Reading WHAT?
by Marie Lamba (copyright 2007 M. Lamba)

Your child is growing up and loving reading more than ever. Before you know it, she’ll be branching out from easy readers and middle reader novels about time travel and horses, to those young adult novels in that cool grown-up section of the library or bookstore. She’ll be 11 years old and eager to picture herself as someone who is older and more sophisticated. This is all good. But, what, exactly will she be reading?

As an author, I am against censorship of any book. Let me say that upfront. And I personally believe that by age 13, your child should be picking out his or her own books without restrictions. But when 10, 11 or 12 years olds are reading books labeled for ages 12 and up that turn out to be rife with sex, drugs and alcohol, I as a parent can’t help but cringe.

When I was a ‘tween “back in the day” (as my own kids put it), the most shocking book out there was, Are you There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume. We secretly passed it to each other and read it under our blankets with a flashlight. Here was a book about how our bodies were changing. We couldn’t believe it!

But today, everything’s changed. Kids are devouring paperbacks with lurid sex scenes, and the glorified use of drugs and alcohol. It’s fantasy time, and it has nothing to do with time-travel. I know that teens will toy with this sort of delicious rebellion and I’d certainly rather have them reading about it than have them doing any of this themselves. To me, the issue here is how seamier books are marketed toward younger readers. Let’s face it: sex sells. So what happens to an “unsexy” book?

My own first young adult novel, What I Meant… has just come out through Random House Books for Young Readers. It features a 15-year-old girl, a mysterious cute guy, an Indian dad, an American mom, an evil aunt and lots of drama and laughs. The book is getting great reviews, yet from the start it has been in trouble because chain bookstores largely passed on stocking the novel. This means that most folks browsing through the chain stores will never see it. Could these bookstores have passed on it because it was a “clean” novel?

While I can’t know this for sure, I do know that the worlds of publishing and bookselling both certainly see the wild profits associated with titillating teen fiction, and are eager to have a piece of that pie. Most bookstores have a middle reader section and a separate teen section. There is no in between. So where does a clean YA novel suitable for younger readers go? The truth is there’s a limited amount of shelf space in that teen section and lots of books for booksellers to choose from to fill that limited space. If sex sells, and you were a dollars and cents businessperson, what sort of young adult book would you stock there?

What can we parents do? Do we prohibit our ‘tweens from the young adult section of the library or bookstore? If we do, we don’t allow them to mature in their reading, and they will miss out on wonderful books such as Nothing but the Truth (and a Few White Lies) by Justina Chen Headley, and titles by the very funny Sue Limb. Clean titles are out there.

Instead, I think the solution is two-fold. First, scan books that your kids are looking at. If there is an element of sleaze, chances are it’ll be right there on the cover or jacket flaps. Also, ask your librarian or bookseller for recommendations. They know books and can guide you in selecting ones that are at once exciting and challenging, yet appropriate. Just remember though that if your child really wants to read a book you are uncomfortable with, chances are that you will find him under his blanket with a flashlight reading that very same book! In this case, I suggest you read the book in question first yourself, then after he reads it, have a meaningful discussion about what went on in the story.

The second part of the solution is to remember the power that we consumers hold. When you find an author who writes wonderful, clean fiction suitable for your ‘tween, support that person. Write reviews of their books on Amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com. Recommend this author’s books to your librarian and to friends. Buy their books for birthday and Christmas presents. Tell your bookseller how much you love these particular titles and why. Believe it or not, this can turn the tide. If everyone reading this article would take these simple steps, perhaps soon we’ll be finding books labeled as ‘tween worthy, and publishers and booksellers eagerly promoting these titles, maybe even carving out a separate section for them in their shops.

The end result? A wider choice of books and better reading for all.

 

On Pulling an All Nighter (and how it saved my novel and my life!)

We freelance writers have it hard. It’s true, we do get to go to work in our jammies. We do get to take breaks whenever we want, even go back to bed if we feel like it! And we do get to bring our moody poodle to work with us every day. Still, we have it hard.

See, I write because it is my passion. It’s what I love. But when you work at home, life can easily take over your productive hours. I’m not talking about the whole gotta watch “Divorce Court” on TV, or gotta yak on the phone with my friends for hours, because that is not me. (Well, I DO waste way too much time playing Spider Solitaire, but let’s not go there right now…) 

What I’m talking about is real life. Like a family member needs minor surgery, so guess who takes them to the doctor’s office, the hospital, and nurses them back to health. That’s right, the person with the stay at home job and endless flexibility. And when my parents come into town because they are in the process of moving into my area, guess who spends an entire week with them driving them to appointments with electricians, and helping them find furniture and appliances. Yup. That’s me.  And when a niece comes in from India that I haven’t seen in years, and spends the week, it’s miss flexible freelancer who takes her to see the sites and shop, etc.

And I’m not complaining about any of that. It was all valid and important stuff to do, and I’m happy to help. BUT that represented an entire MONTH that I did not get to work on my newest novel. A month!!!! Who else but a work-at-home person could do such a thing? Sure, it represents flexibility, but it also represents lost productivity and lost potential earnings. If I were an office worker, I’d pass on much of that time spent. I’d have to. But how do you tell people, sorry, I can’t help you, I have to sit over here in this other room for a while instead. (And it doesn’t help that my office is also the guest bedroom!)

So I’ve got this novel half written, and I’m feeling really frustrated at this point. That’s when I decided to declare I was pulling an all-nighter. Yes! That was the answer. Come what may, I was going to lock myself in my studio, and everyone else would have to manage without me for 24 hours. Ha!

I picked a Saturday, and warned my husband and kids to plan around me. The first glitch was that my husband had a class he had signed up for that morning, which meant that I had to ferry my daughter to voice and piano lessons. Then get her lunch. But that’s okay. That just meant my stint would start at 1:30 p.m. Fine. Before I descended into my cave, my husband pointed out that I didn’t really need to work all night. I could just go to sleep at a normal time. I explained that I couldn’t. In my mind I had a deadline, and my novel was due to my imaginary college professor at exactly 1:30 pm tomorrow. My husband asked me what was for dinner. I gave him a blank stare and closed the door to my cave.

Yes! I’d made it. The funny thing about writing a book is that it is so open-ended. How long will it take? No one knows. What will you write? Anything! But as soon as I began my all-nighter, I started thinking in finite terms. I had a deadline, dammit!  I spent the first forty minutes clearing my office space of all distractions like bills, and pending college stuff for my daughter, and unanswered correspondence, until my desk was clear of everything but my manuscript, notes, and some writing supplies. Wow, was that energizing. It was like saying: This is what matters most to me.

Next I made a list of the tasks I needed to accomplish on my book. Just putting down these items helped me to focus and plan. I hadn’t done this before because, hey, I’d had all the time in the world!  I began going down my list of tasks. I incorporated edits from comments at my last writer’s group meeting. I reviewed scores of notes I’d jotted on historical elements in my novel, and thoughts about character, structure, etc., culling this pile and organizing it into logical groupings, and finally filing this info. This all took nearly two hours.

I got coffee and a snack, and brought them back to my studio.

Then I faced my biggest task: structure. I have a time-travel story thread in my book, with visits to the past altering the present, and lies in the past which are revealed and altered. Without a sound structure, I knew I was floundering with plot. So I grabbed huge pieces of construction paper and colorful markers, and made out sheets I labeled THE WAY IT WAS KNOWN, THE WAY IT REALLY WAS, THE WAY IT CHANGES, and THE CHANGES IN THE PRESENT ALONG THE WAY. I taped these all over my walls, along with a sheet for each character that displayed their main motivations, their secrets, and their motto.

By now it was 11 p.m., and I’d worked nearly 10 hours on my novel, not adding a single page. But all of this had to be done first.  I crossed out these items on my list. They were done, and I was energized. I could so go all night long like this. I could go days!  The house had become quiet. Downstairs, lights were off, my family was snoozing. I got more food and brought it up to my room again. And began, finally, to write. The ideas flowed, and my book grew. I’d started this night with around 150 manuscript pages. Could I possibly finish with my goal of 300 completed pages by tomorrow afternoon? I had to. If I didn’t, wouldn’t my imaginary professor give me an imaginary failing grade? Unthinkable.

Things whirred along until around 2:30 a.m. when everything went dark and then bright again. For a moment I thought I was blacking out from exhaustion, even though I wasn’t that sleepy yet. Then it happened again, and there was a weird noise downstairs. Huh.

I opened my door, and listened. Nothing. Still, I thought I’d better explore. Plus, I had a ton of dirty dishes on my desk that needed shifting to the sink in the kitchen. So I went down, and turned on another light. There was that noise again, along with the flicker. It sounded like a buzzer from an old-fashioned doorbell, and it was muted. Very weird. I went into the family room, and heard it again, and the air smelled acrid. Like burnt rubber.

My eyes grew wide as I realized what might be happening. I’m no expert, but I know the beginnings of an electrical fire. So I raced upstairs and woke my husband, and we spent the next half hour trying to find the source, and feeling the walls for heat, and finally identifying and shutting off the offending circuit. He went to bed, but I spent the next few hours alert, near the source of the smell with my cell, a lantern and my shoes at the ready for a possible emergency evacuation. I wrote on my lap top, checking every few minutes or so to make sure the air continued to clear and the threat was under control.

So did I finish my novel and make the grade? Well, after a few more hours of writing, I kept nodding off with my finger on the spacebar, adding many many useless pages of nothing, until I finally packed it in around 5 a.m. and conked out completely. I’d completed an additional 50 pages of writing, so, yeah, I failed in the eyes of my imaginary professor, but in my own mind the result was an A plus. See, I’d catapulted my book past boundaries that had ground me to a halt, and the structural work saved my novel.

That next day we had an electrician in. He cut open the ceiling where we’d heard the noise, and found the burnt and damaged wire, repairing the problem. If I hadn’t been awake, we might have all slept through this until the fire really took hold, and then…

So one all nighter. One saved novel. Four saved lives (five counting my moody poodle). Now that’s time well spent.