Teen Fiction
My brain has done a major jump this week. I've gone from finishing my 5th historical novel, to "researching" for a girls' teen fiction book idea.I've been reading some secular teen stuff in my spare time. OH MY!
Here is the opening page for a book called Peaches, by Jodi Lynn Anderson, and it's a best-seller. Hmmmm, I wonder why.
Every spring since she had turned thirteen had started the same way for Murphy McGowen. She started feeling restless at the very same time as the crocuses began busting out of their buds every year. She'd start to want to bust out of her skin too, into a skin that lives, say, in New York, or Paris, or Buenos Aires, anyplace that wasn't Bridgewater, Georgia. Outside the historic downtown district--which was basically unlived in and which barely any tourists came to--the town was mostly a strip of motels, fast-food joints, and traffic lights.
From then on, each spring had started with
A. The restlessness
B. The ache in her chest for the thing she didn't know was missing
C. The guy with the hand up her shirt.
At fifteen, there was also the addition of the other hand, down the pants--usually cords, sometimes army surplus, all three dollars or less at the Village Thrift . . .
Yeah, that is why I don't let my daughter read these books! At fourteen, I keep feeding her Christian fiction. I'd rather have her read Brandilyn Collin's murder stories than this! Yikes!
So what do YOU think about the stuff publishers are printing for our teens??? Even if our kids aren't reading the stuff . . . there are plenty of teens who are!
posted by Tricia Goyer @ 6:57 AM
5 Comments:
Oh my gosh.
Does the story get better or worse? Is there a lesson?
I'm still reading. I'll let you know!
Yikes! But they've been pubishing that stuff for decades. Just think of the stuff our generation read. Judy Blume comes to mind and Are You there God, It's me Margaret? and others. I'm sooo glad there's good Christian fiction available to our kids and awesome Christian music as well.
I'd rather not have my child reading stuff like that...but realistically I know that she knows a lot more than I would like for her too (she hears things but is still a young teen ~ jr.high).
I'd much rather know that she was reading about this type topic with a Christian point-of-view instead of a wordly point-of-view. That would sure beat the "dirty books" that were available when I was a kid. Honestly, I'm concerned that the Christian view might be lost when the hormones kick in reading such graphic descriptions. It would just depend on the maturity level of the reader, I guess.
Wow. And we worry about TV! This convinces me that we have to get our kids reading books well before they're teenagers so that they'll know good literature when they see it.
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