On Parenting in Childrens and Young Adult Literature; or How Harry Gets it Right Again

Children's picture books frequently feature wonderful relationships between little kids and their parents, or grandparents. Moms are heroes, Dad's idolized and a day with Grandma is the ultimate fun. Then you get to chapter books. Early chapter books have less and less of a presence of parents at all, which is sort of understandable since there's limited word space and content. These books are usually topic heavy and formulaic as well. Still, by the time one reaches the intermediate and YA novels. parents are either absent (physically or emotionally) or the enemy. I love to read and I love to read to my children. I look forward to the day I can share some of my childhood favorites with them, but at the same time those favorites don't always pass the test of being viewed through the lens of my adulthood.

I started ruminating on this topic while reflecting on "new" author Eva Ibbotson's novels and how they remind me a little bit of the feel of Noel Streatfield. Ms. Ibbotson's books have recently been republished. I missed them the first time around in the mid-eighties, which is a shame, since I would have been the perfect age for them. Her books are a wonderful combination of sweet romance and that sort of spunky princess character provided by many Disney movies. They are a nice fit for young teens who are not ready for adult romance novels, or sexually explicit content, but who also crave something more mature or romantic than intermediate books offer.

I began to think about the books that I DID enjoy at that age. There were no Barnes and Noble booksellers with huge YA selections. Waldenbooks was as big as it got, and they were in the shopping mall over thirty minutes away. Being car-less and living in a small town I mostly relied on K-Mart or the library. As a middle schooler I had a long lasting love of Trixie Belden, but little interest in Nancy Drew. Sweet Valley High held my attention for approximately a year and a half around eight grade. I discovered Robin McKinley around that same time, but she only had the three published novels then and a book of short stories. Jean Slaughter Doty's books also were great favorites of mine as were Sally Watson and Noel Streatfield. All of those were probably for younger readers than I, but I loved the stories. I still do. Eventually I discovered Anne McCaffrey (probably while trying to find more McKinley novels) and from then on out it was genre all the way through to my mid-twenties when I picked up a second job working as an assistant to the children's librarian one of the public libraries and rediscovered the joy of reading Children's and YA literature.

So many of those books have absentee parents or orphaned children. Now that I'm a mom that sort of bothers me. Now, I never noticed this phenomena as a child or teenager. Plucky orphans making the best of it by performing in the theatre? Seven teenagers of various age running wild through the town and country solving mysteries and making friends? The TV addict who wins the heart of her new school's star basketball player and resident hottie? I loved them all. There was barely a parent or guardian to be seen anywhere, although I do recall a sister in the book about the boob tube junkie. I know there were adults used as veritable MacGuffins in some of the mystery series, else how do our intrepid teens make the trip to the ranch out west, or to England to see the crown jewels and foil foul happening in the wax museum? Still, not one of the books I read then had any kind of parent figure that I saw in my own life, or that of my friends.

I understand that part of what makes reading fun is the escape from reality, the sense of empowerment a young reader gets from empathizing with a character who is able to problem solve on their own, or do things that the reader wishes they could do. It's just so darned unrealistic. Peaches, a recent read of mine, was pretty enjoyable in that "YA chick lit feel good sort of way." However the adults in it were all idiots or caricatures. Ann Brashares parents in the Traveling Pants series from the same sub-genre are more well rounded. They are actually engaged in the lives of their teenagers which is pleasant to see. This is such a rarity though, that it is one of the standout features of her series. I'll want to read those books with my own daughter some day and discuss how the different women interact. Much more common, however are the books where the teenagers are more mature, or capable than the adults. Such disparate books as Eoin Colfer's Artemis Foul and Stephanie Meyer's Twilight feature teen and preteen protagonist who make decisions for the betterment of their parents lives. It makes me wonder if that's just how teenagers SEE adults; as caricatures or peripheral necessities to cough up gas money and groceries or even worse as victims of a strange middle age senility.

Intermediate readers have the same problem. The younger characters often still love their parents, but the protagonists usually know better than the adults. It's a sort of insidious thing to encounter, as I think kids, pre-teens and teenagers rather naturally go through times when they think they know better than their parents. Reading these sort of books encourages a certain amount of back talk, acting out and rebelliousness. I'm reminded of Snape's description of Harry as a boy who can't follow rules that are there for his own safety. It's so true! By addressing the trope within the novel itself Rowling somehow makes it work while saying that it's not okay.

In fact, digressing to more Potter talk - one almost can't converse on this genre any more without doing so (ignore the elephant in the quidditch robes!) - Rowling's parents are awesome. Though she embraces the orphan making good storyline that I loved as a child, Harry's parents are still an important part of the story. Although James and Lily Potter are dead, their love for their son and each other is palpably real throughout the series. The Weasley's are the most in-touch, focused parents I've seen in a book in a long time. Scenes of Mrs. Weasley worrying about her family are exactly how I'd feel as a mother, and of course there's her moment in the arena in the last book as well. Not only do the Weasley family have active parents, they also have sibling rivalry financial problems and tempers which add to the realism. The students of Hogwarts have parents who stay abreast of the news in their world, are concerned about the kids and communicate with them on a regular basis. The Dursley's are comically deluded but they do love their son. Even Narcissa Malfoy is willing to lie to Voldemort for the sake of her boy. It fascinates me that the best parents to hit the market are in a fantasy series.

As a parent I'd like to see more of this sort of thing. I'm curious how much of the non-parent thing is the story-tellers and how much is the audience. Is it laziness on the part of an author to have a single parent household where death or divorce has created part of the drama for the story? Is it parents in refrigerators?* Or does it have more to do with that insane self absorption that comes from being thirteen (or any other "teen.") Are they catering to the audience? Maybe Rowling's broken more ground than just length of novels. Hopeful other authors and editors will realize that parents don't have to be the bad guys to bring the readers in. In the meantime I guess I can rest assured that, while I may notice the lack of parents in the novels, my kids will remain oblivious.

*This refers to a comic phenomena called Women in Refrigerators that refers to the practice of killing or maiming a hero's female love interest in order to give him angst, or inspiration. I'm trying to be funny in referring to the parents this way, but the more I think about it the more it bothers me as I mentally rack up a tally of books with dead parents. It's not just for Disney, folks!

Agnes and the Hitman by Jennifer Cruise and Bob Mayer

Take one writer with a weekly food column and anger management issues, add in a frying pan, a drooling hound, a hitman, the mob, a wedding and a two flamingos and you have a recipe for a great time.

Agnes and the Hitman is the second collaboration between Jennifer Cruise and Bob Mayer. The combination of he said/she said writing leads to a fabulously humorous adventure where both the kitchen disasters, fashion faux pas and sex scenes read with the same deft touch as the guns, bombs and explosives. That's not to say that men can't write sex, or women can't write about guns. It is just an example of the various expertise these particular two writers bring into play. Cruise and Mayer together bring more to the table than they do individually, and as they are both very readable authors on their own this is high praise indeed.

Don't Look Down was their first collaboration, and should not be missed. In fact, there is a guest appearance from Don't Look Down in the new book, and not one the reader would expect. Check them both out! You won't be sorry and might learn a few new uses for a frying pan that you hadn't thought of.

Nonfictionitis

I'm mostly a fiction reader. Say I read 100 books a year; maybe two or three of those are nonfiction. Sometimes none of them are. The nonfiction I DO read tend to be biographies. My husband is the opposite. He loves nonfiction. Now he's not reading as many as I do, but easily 4 out of five books that he reads are nonfiction. Last year may have slanted things a little for him since he read several of the Harry Potters, therefore upping his fiction count more than usual. He leans towards Christian thinkers, books about the creative process, business or government.

Anyhow, that said, I occaisionally check books out for him from the library. Neal Boortz's Somebody's Got to Say it was one of those. He didn't finish it in the three weeks we had it, and no one was waiting for it, so it got renewed. Now if a book spends six weeks laying on the floor in front of my potty chances are I'm going to pick it up and give it a thumb through. What with one thing and another I found myself reading a book by a talk radio host and enjoying it thoroughly. I didn't agree with everything the man says, but many of his ideas and opinions and statements intrigued me enough to want to go do my own research and formulate my own opinion, which is something I think the man would be satisfied by.

So that's one. Now I find myself intrigued by Jumbo, a book about the history of the famous circus elephant that got rave reviews in Entertainment Weekley. I'm a complete pushover for circus history. There's also Sin in the Second City that's on my waiting list at the library, about "high class" prostitution in Chicago during the turn of the [last] century. Today I almost bought one called Flower Confidential at Costco that caught my eye, all about the modern flower market being big business, and there was another one there, too, about a food critic and all of the stuff she goes through to be anonymous when she eats places. Oh, and if I can find where hubby stashed it, we've got a copy of The Company They Keep around here that's about CS Lewis and Tolkein and their writers group the Inklings.

So many books, and only a 2 hour nap time for the kids each day!I just find it interesting that I can go for months without ever setting foot out of the YA genre, or fantasy or whatnot, and all of a sudden my new interest is real life. Well, it's billed as real life...I should be okay as long as avoid those memoirists!

FreeRice

I mentioned it in passing in the last entry, but the phenomena that is FreeRice deserves it's own entry.

Looking for a fun way to kill five minutes online? Trying to improve your vocabulary in order to impress your friends or boss? Getting a handle on the English language? Taking the SAT or ACT tests anytime soon? Want to do more for the starving masses than clean your plate like your momma always told you?

FreeRice.com is for you.

Warning! It's highly addictive, but at least you'll be able to use the word vermicular in a sentance with ease. If you're reading this blog because you're, well, a reader then you may be like me and find pleasure in proof that reading really does expand your vocabulary. The parts of a knights armour pop up occasionally and I think the only reason I know what a pauldron is comes from reading Tamora Pierce's novels. Likewise I can link apostate and mendicant to Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Dart and so forth and so on.

So go have fun: You'll feed the hungry and your own mind. Just remember to set yourself a timer.

Web Comics

I spend a lot of time raving over the latest books I've read, and forget to give a little love to the things I read right here at my computer every day, or week.

Small World Cartoons by Tom Briscoe. This is a weekly web comic with a special place in my heart. The creator/illustrator is my beloved husband and those are my cats he hates on a regular basis. For inquiring minds...that's me playing freerice in the most recent offerings.

PVP by Scott Kurtz is a daily strip. This one had it's origins in roll playing and computer gaming, thus the title "Player Vs. Player." It's grown beyond that into a office sitcom with geeky tendancies, and it provides consistent entertainment. PVP has a large cast of characters, so there should be something for everyone. In fact, there's cat hate here, too, oddly enough, but this time it's the cat doing the hating.

Girls With Slingshots by Danielle Corsetto has no cats, but who can say no to the talking Scottish Cactus that the main character communes with when snockered?

Rhymes With Orange by Hilary Price has no ongoing storyline, and some are funnier than other. It's consistently amusing enough to bring me back on a daily basis, plus I the name just plain appeals to me.

Evil Inc. by Brad Guigar is the newest addition to my daily links. This one is all out geeky in premise, but in execution should appeal to anyone who's ever worked in an office, dealt with big business, had to call a help line or taken care of a three year old.

There are many more webcomics out there, and I'm open to reccomendations. These are just the ones I've found or been directed to and likes enough to go back to again and again and again. Check 'em out.

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld is a book set in a dystopian future where everyone undergoes an operation to become pretty on their sixteenth birthday. Not beautiful, mind, just pretty. Everyone is equally pretty and tall and even skin coloration is changed so that everyone is more or less the same. This sameness has been carefully researched and deemed what is best for society. The "pretty" operation is one of several mechanisms in place to prevent society from falling apart as it did hundreds of years ago as the ruins of ancient "Rusty" cities are preserved as silent testament. The Rusties of course, are (were?) us.

Uglies is a simple and yet convoluted novel. Ostensibly young adult, I still found it utterly engaging. In fact, I didn't want to put it down. Tally Youngblood, our heroine, has spent her whole life pining to be pretty. Westerfeld perfectly captures the intensity and "now"-ness of being fifteen going on sixteen. When Tally's new best friend declares that she doesn't want to be pretty and would rather live in the wilderness than undergo the operation both Tally and the reader are challenged to reevaluate what is important in life.

Westerfeld includes enough futuristic gadgets, action, romance and adventure to soften the moral lesson. There are even nifty science lessons on magnetics, gravity and biology that help present a very well thought out near future. Still, as much of a pleasureable thrill ride that Uglies provides, this is a book that makes you think. I would very much like to do this novel with a reading group and mine the many disparate elements that are prime discussion fodder.

Uglies is only the first book in a trilogy. Pretties and Specials tell the whole of Tally's story. The later books begin to rely on a lot of made up language and the interplay between some of the characters loses it's natural feel. I'm glad I read all three, but I enjoyed them in descending order: Uglies was phenomenal. Pretties was very good. Specials didn't do it for me at all. There's even a fourth novel set in the Uglies universe, with a new protaganist, but I'm almost afraid to read it. Just kidding. The latest book, called Extras is out in hardback meaning I must wait for the paperback release or try and get it from the library.

Blood Price by Tanya Huff

Tanya Huff's Blood Price, the first novel in her Victoria Nelson detective series, was the first book I read this year. There are five novels in the series and they are the basis of the (possibly defunct) Lifetime television series Blood Ties. I read Blood Price because a reading group I was participating in chose it. As an entry in the now innundated urban fantasy/detective genre the book seems sort of lackluster and cliched. I had to remind myself that it was written almost 20 years ago, and what is cliche now was fresh and new then, sort of. Still, while they must have gotten better for a tv series to be based on them, I think I would reccomend P.N. Elrod's Vampire Files or Jim Butcher's Dresden novels over the Blood set for readers looking for a series in this genre.

That said, Huff is at the top of her game in the recently released space Marine saga which starts with Valor's Choice and continues in The Better Part of Valor; These were combined in an omnibus edition called A Confederation of Valor. Her most recent novel was released in the summer of '07 and is called The Heart of Valor. * These are really great books. I enjoyed them just because they are good reads. Tight pacing, witty banter, realistic human behavior and interactions set in a compelling space age situation - it's a win-win situation! If you need more than that to reccomend them, well, I would imagine they would appeal to fans of Star Trek, anyone who enjoyed David Feintuch's novels, or even readers with an interest in military history or stratagems.

Valor covers the "sci" in the sci-fi/fantasy category, but Ms. Huff has also written a lovely set of fantasy novels. It has been several years since I revisited the "Quarters" books, but I remember them fondly. With as many books as I read a year, this alone is a telling compliment. Sing the Four Quarters is a stand alone novel set in a fantasy realm with a bit of magic, lively elementals called kigh and a music based type of religion which employ them. I'm a big fan of music in general and religion in books. It doesn't matter what kind, just that having any sort of middle age fantasy setting based upon our own seems to fall flat without acknowledging some sort of religion. I also like it when authors incorporate smells, hunger and bodily functions into their books, so maybe I'm a little weird that way. I digress: my point was that Sing the Four Quarters started with a hook that appealed to me and got better the further I read. Apparently Tanya Huff enjoyed playing in that world, too, as she gave us three more novels exploring it. Fifth Quarter and No Quarter follow the same set of characters in their own intriguing story in the same part of the world as the first novel. The Quartered Sea turns things on it's ear, taking the reader and a formerly minor charater on a heartwrenching journey into unchartered territory. These have also been collected as two omnibus editions.

All in all, I really do reccomend Tanya Huff as an author, but would direct readers to other works than the Victoria Nelson Blood series.



*In looking up the links for this I discovered that a fourth Valor novel is coming out this summer, as well. Glee! Valor's Trial just got added to my "to read" list!