Linda Holmes, SO GOOD on the WSJ YA thing: [link]
I am not...I am not the damsel in distress. I am not some case. I have to work this. I've lived in a cave for 5 years in a world where they killed my kind like cattle. I am not going to be cut down by some monster flu. I am better than that. What a wonder...how very scared I am.
Fred ,'A Hole in the World'
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
Jesse - Jun 06, 2011 9:50:39 am PDT #15127 of 28282
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.
Toddson - Jun 06, 2011 9:51:58 am PDT #15128 of 28282
Friends don't let friends read "Atlas Shrugged"
jeepers ... I grew up before a lot of the vaccines came out - I remember getting polio booster shots (ow!) and still have a scar from an early smallpox vaccination. I had measles, and mumps, and chicken pox; the measles came close to doing some serious damage - I seem to be missing some basic immunities. The Salk vaccine came out and they lined up every kid in town and gave us sugar cubes and that was the end of that. No problems with going to the public pool in the summertime, no polio scares. Yay for science!
megan walker - Jun 06, 2011 9:54:54 am PDT #15129 of 28282
"What kind of magical sunshine and lollipop world do you live in? Because you need to be medicated."-SFist
Linda Holmes, SO GOOD on the WSJ YA thing: [link]
Really good.
And, seriously, Johnny Tremain, which I read in middle school? Shudder.
Amy - Jun 06, 2011 9:55:02 am PDT #15130 of 28282
Because books.
Thanks, Jesse! I've been trying to follow all of the responses, but there are so very many at this point.
I want to marry the writer of that piece, though, just for this:
If depression were treatable with copies of Cherry Ames, Jungle Nurse, they wouldn't make medication for it.
Jesse - Jun 06, 2011 9:56:34 am PDT #15131 of 28282
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.
Linda Holmes is the best. And has been since she was Miss Alli on TWOP.
sumi - Jun 06, 2011 9:57:12 am PDT #15132 of 28282
Art Crawl!!!
I remember reading things like Go Ask Alice , Rosemary's Garden , The Bell Jar when I was in the YA stage.
Amy - Jun 06, 2011 9:58:50 am PDT #15133 of 28282
Because books.
Do you mean I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, sumi?
sumi - Jun 06, 2011 9:59:37 am PDT #15134 of 28282
Art Crawl!!!
Yes, that is exactly what I read. Apparently, it damaged me so much that I can't even remember the title.
Amy - Jun 06, 2011 10:00:23 am PDT #15135 of 28282
Because books.
Yeah, that was a rough one. Excellent book, but not pretty in any sense of the word.
Toddson - Jun 06, 2011 10:01:40 am PDT #15136 of 28282
Friends don't let friends read "Atlas Shrugged"
When I was in my teens, the books aimed at my age group were ... well, they didn't have a lot of substance. I read them - they were usually about girls trying to get the boy they "loved" as a boyfriend. I read a lot of Nancy Drew. And, until I was 12, I'd sneak into the adult section of the library and crouch on the floor to read "grown up" books. Once I hit 12, they'd let me actually check them out and read them at home. But I'd reread the Wizard of Oz books, and I'd read my father's science fiction, and my mother's Shakespeare from her college classes and, well, just about anything I could put my hands on (at breakfast I'd read the cereal box if nothing else was to hand).
I think having YA books that deal with the lives kids are actually living - all the mess and the misery and awful things that happen - give them the assurance that they aren't the only ones, that life isn't a mess because there's something wrong with them. Trying to pretend that life is always beautiful is just a lie. And, to paraphrase Mira Grant, the truth and a lie can both hurt you, but only one will heal you afterwards.