“Issue Books” for Kids

A common complaint I hear about YA and middle-grade novels lately is how saturated the market has become in "issue books." Whether it's drugs (Crank), facial deformities (Wonder), terminal cancer (The Fault in Our Stars), or losing a sister (The Sky is Everywhere), books for kids have gotten heavy.

Hazel & Augustus from The Fault in Our Stars

And I think that's a good thing.

Kids are going through heavy stuff. Honestly, they always have — life doesn't wait until you're 18 to throw stones at you. I went through some heavy things myself, and I could have used a few "issue books" as comfort and guidance. Instead, my library had books about dragons and tesseracts, or cheesy teen romances that culminated in (gasp!) illicit kissing. Most of the novels in the "young readers" section of the bookshop seemed to be written by adults who had never been young themselves. Childhood is innocence, they seemed to say — and we must keep our hands over those pretty little eyes.

While the adults were writing for sweet Ophelia (pre Act IV), many of us were dealing with real slings and arrows of misfortune. I survived a fatal car accident, several friends were enduring sexual abuse, and a handful of my classmates found their lives so unbearable they committed suicide. For me, not only would a book like The Sky is Everywhere have helped me, but if my friends had read that book, they might have been more patient with my loud, unending, wrenching grief. They might have been able to stick with me, instead of running away in panic.

And vice-versa: when a close friend told me her stepdad was molesting her, it had pretty much never occurred to me parent-figures could do that. So before I learned to believe her, to listen, to support — I recoiled. If I had read a book about that particular horror — which is unfortunately common — I'd have had a frame of reference. I wouldn't have been so shocked, wouldn't have said so many wrong things. I might have been a better friend.

Wonder author RJ Palacio with 8th-grade fan Michelle

Fiction builds empathy. Steven Pinker even argues that fiction is one of the major causes of the decline of violence we've experienced. When we read about a character going through an experience, we incorporate their viewpoint for a while. We can't know absolutely what it's like to be a child bride, or a terminal cancer patient, or a gay teen with Pentecostal parents; but when we listen to stories of these people — real or fictional — we come closer. The empathy gap narrows, and those "strange" people no longer feel so strange or scary. We are less inclined to hurt or marginalize people we empathize with.

I am not saying there's no room for lighthearted fiction — and the glut of heavy books about specific issues threatens to exclude books about universal issues. What makes Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret such a perennial best-seller is its timelessness: every girl gets her period. We need books about relatable kids dealing with everyday problems. We also need silly-light books like Diary of A Wimpy Kid. Some emerging writers for kids and teens are being told by agents that unless their book has a dead parent* or a suicidal friend in it, they won't publish it. That's a shame, because even kids who are going through a bad time want, like all of us, to rest their hearts with other subject matter from time to time. Variety is good.

Steubenville rape case: real life is often worse than fiction

Some of my friends worry that books like Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak, about date rape, will be too upsetting for their child. They worry their son or daughter will be damaged by reading about such awful issues: their kid doesn't know about stuff like that, and they don't want them finding out about it from a book. To be sure, Speak is not appropriate for the elementary school set. But it might be more
appropriate for middle-readers than parents realize. Eighth-graders are teenagers; sexual assaults do happen in junior high. And anyway: how else do you want your kid finding out about date rape? First, innocence is not protective. Second, parents are typically unequipped to have serious discussions about these issues, unfortunately: too often we find ourselves saying, "Erm—don't do that, OK?" and moving swiftly onward to safer territory. That, or we get so preachy our kids tune us out. The parental voice is necessary, of course, but novelists who delve into these issues tend to do a lot of research on the subject, and can bring an honesty that readers will trust. If it's well done, an issue book will usually teach readers effective ways to handle difficulties.

Rather than be alarmed at the number of issue books out there, I believe we should celebrate the opportunities these books give kids: readers can dip their toes into lives less privileged than their own; they can get a taste of virtual sorrow before real sorrow hits them. Fiction is a gentle teacher, far gentler than experience: the bad stuff will happen. Stories give us a way to navigate those waters.

What do you think about the growth of the "Issue Book" industry? Are some issues overdone, or depicted badly? What's missing from the shelves? What book do you wish had existed when you were a kid?

*Speaking of dead parents — as kid issues go, that one's pretty rare, yet a huge number of realistic-YA books deal with this topic. Conversely, we have a dearth of books about child sexual abuse. We are starting to see novels about date rape, which is good — news stories like Steubenville illustrate the need to write about that topic. But child molestation is a different issue, and seems to be untouchable at the moment. Tens of thousands of children are sexually abused every year in the US, often by relatives, and they have no narrative right now. Novels about these kids not only will make them feel less alone, but will start conversations. Kids might even feel safer disclosing their secrets, and those who could help them will be more equipped to do so. A good novel about an issue can do more to help than a hundred PSAs.