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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
A new book argues that young adult novels are too dark. But should kids be sheltered from the real world?
Oct 18, 2004 | I was preparing for my big move to college, loading the car with freshman necessities -- the new computer, the photos of friends, the clothes I'd promptly abandon for more Massachusetts-blizzard-appropriate attire -- and lugging a box of old books to the trunk, when my mother stopped me. "Why are you taking those?" she asked, gesturing towards a pile of young adult novels like Francesca Lia Block's "Weetzie Bat" and Louise Fitzhugh's "Harriet the Spy." "You're not going to have space for them, or time to read them." Why am I taking these? I thought. And then I realized why: They were coming with me for comfort, for reassurance. "They're my friends," I said.
Mom and I both laughed, but it wasn't a joke, really; I felt like I needed these books around. Growing up, I relied on the books I read -- more than my family, more than friends -- to teach me about people, relationships, life in general. And I relied on their characters to remind me that, even though I perpetually felt like an outsider, I wasn't completely alone -- whatever I was feeling, someone had felt that way before.
This is what reading can do for you, at 8, at 11, at 14, at 18: It promises you that other people are out there, and that there's a life beyond your school and your neighborhood. It promises you that you're normal (or, at least, that you're not as weird as you think you are), and that, even if they exist only on the page, people have dealt with the issues you might be battling at home or school: neglectful parents, alcoholism, bullies, general ennui, whatever. Books allow you to fantasize and make sense of a world beyond your own.
In her new book, "Welcome to the Lizard Motel," a parenting memoir about childhood and middle school reading and imagination, writer Barbara Feinberg seems to have forgotten this. "Welcome to the Lizard Motel" takes place during the first six months of the 1999 school year and revolves around Feinberg's two children: her 12-year-old son Alex, a seventh grader, and his younger sister, 7-year-old second-grader Claire. An avid writer and reader who runs an after-school creative arts program for kids in Westchester County, N.Y. (the title of the book is taken from a story by one of her students), Feinberg is dismayed that Alex can't stand to read the books he's been assigned in language arts class, books touted as quality literature for middle schoolers. He loves reading fantasy, and he devours any book about the comedian Mel Brooks -- so why does he hate to read for school?
To find out, Feinberg decides to read Alex's class reading herself -- and is surprised when she agrees with her son. The books he's been assigned -- like Sharon Creech's novel "Walk Two Moons" and Karen Hesse's "Phoenix Rising" -- are serious novels whose protagonists grapple with dire problems and experience intense hardships -- death, abuse and abandonment. They're known as "problem novels," a catchall term for hyperrealistic children's and young adult (Y.A.) novels with issue-laden plots. Problem novels, as Feinberg learns, are often the recipient of the American Library Association's annual Newbery Award -- the highest honor given to children's chapter books.
