The Good Will Prosper?

Young Adult Literature. Is it teaching teenagers how to deal with real life situations or just bad behavior? YAL is so popular today that you could find a book on just about any topic. Teachers have begun abandoning traditional literature for hip YAL books. Yes, teenagers are reading again. It's wonderful. But what kinds of lessons are we teaching through the books we have in our classroom? New York Times writer Julie Just argues that a lot of the problems in YAL is due to the parents. Classic young adult novels like The Outsiders and Contender deal with the story of orphans' "triumphant rise" (Just). But in today's YAL, more and more stories are dealing with problem-parents. Popular stories like Wintergirls and Once was Lost deal include parents that are too busy, too selfish, or too hungover. The parents in these books play a critical part in the hero/heroine's growth but what kind of message are they sending students? Most of these tales tell a story against these absentee parents. The hero/heroine moves beyond the life of their parents. Even in popular series like the Twilight series, parents are proven to be unreliable. In Twilight, Bella moves to Forks, WA to live with her dad because her mom is going to move around the country with her new, young husband (“I stared at her wild, childlike eyes. How could I leave my loving, erratic hare-brained mother to fend for herself?”). Are these representations of the "modern-family" teaching students that they can overcome a bad situation or that that behavior is acceptable?

While YAL as gotten a bad-rep for displaying (some) inappropriate themes, they are celebrated for teaching students some strong qualities. Female students in particular are now being taught to be strong, independent women through the books they read. YAL heroines are becoming better and better at overcoming the optiscles that society (or their crazy parents) have thrust onto them, teaching young girls the morals that these heroines learn along the way. In The Hunger Games series, the heroine, Katniss Evergreen, has to support her sister by hunting and eventually even taking her place in the hunger games (a to-the-death match-up of 24 young people in an televised arena) because their mother has all but abandoned them. Likewise, in Graceling, heroine Katsu has to overcome society's pressures to discover who she truly is. While some YAL teaches students to be strong in themselves, others teach different values. In the Harry Potter series, female lead, Hermione Granger, is intelligent and loyal. Hermione is an excellent example of how female stereotypes have changed in novels from the sex symbol to characters of substance. Characters like Katniss, Katsu, and Hermione are strong, intelligent women who are vital to each story. Strong characters help students develop their own sense of real-life solutions to real-life problems.

YAL is a way to get students to understand real life. No, the good don't away prosper and the bad don't always lose. But when we look at the way these characters handle life we learn lifelong lessons that we can apply to our world. Middle school and high school students are so malleable that if we, as educators, can teach them just a few solutions that they can use, it will be a success. Students can learn through YAL. Students can take these forms of entertainment and turn them into lessons. They may not think they're learning, but they are.

Yes, there are bad things in all forms of entertainment. But will students learn and grow from YAL? Absolutely. Do the benefits outweigh the negative? YES! Encourage students to read.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2133645/young_adult_fantasy_heroines_worth.html?singlepage=true&cat=38

Just, Julie. "The Parent Problem in Young Adult Lit." New York Times 1 April 2010, Online.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/books/review/Just-t.html?scp=1&sq=The%20Parent%20Problem%20in%20Young%20Adult%20Lit%20&st=cse