Teen Fiction Is Going off the Rails
With ongoing reports of supposed “book bans” and legislation being passed to “combat” them, it’s important to understand what’s really going on. Both the side arguing that these books somehow “save lives” as well as the side saying, “You’re an adult writing for kids. You’re an adult editing, publishing, selling, and recommending to kids. Stop grooming,” need clarification.
To be exact, books aren’t being banned or censored, as they can still be bought anywhere. Books are, however, being deemed inappropriate for reading lists, classrooms, and kid sections in libraries. Much of the mainstream conversation around this topic is usually focused on books easily recognized for their content, such as Gender Queer and Breathe, but there are cartloads of books going unnoticed unless someone bothers to read them. (Examples here and here if you can stomach it.) Granted, some titles wrongly land on the do-not-recommend list.
Deliberate Publishing Shift
The shift in publishing for younger audiences, like most issues of the day, began decades ago, and it has only accelerated. In the mid-1900s, an influential children’s editor named Ursula Nordstrom impacted children’s publishing in ways, good and otherwise, that are still present today. One of the most notable changes she enacted was publishing books that, rather than promote morals and good behaviors, were instead “good books for bad children.”
A genre that’s always been dominated by female writers is increasingly expanding exclusive access to so-called queer and BIPOC writers.
Interestingly, some titles, like Where the Wild Things Are, don’t always garner second thoughts because they encourage “imagination” or something. Recall, however, that, in these books, there are no parents, morals, or good behavior in sight. And that is deliberate.
Fast forward to the past decade. Anyone who’s been following teen and young reader books for the last while will have picked up on shifts and trends that are par for the course of the industry. After Twilight proved that the young adult genre could be a moneymaker, the genre boomed and a slew of paranormal fiction hit YA shelves. Other trends include romantic triangles (one girl decides between two male romantic interests), dystopian fiction (often with climate-change-flooding themes), non-Western history, myths, and fantasy (a specific request of agents, hence the influx of Asian-themed books and authors as of late), enemies-to-lovers, and, most currently, the new romantasy genre.
Connection to YA and “Book Banning”
I’ve asked the question of book-world peers, but haven’t received a straight answer. Veterans and avid readers frustrated with the industry will confirm what not-lying eyes see as fact: that there have been major shifts in content, and almost no book is published from the major publishers without paying homage to certain checkboxes. Some don’t always see it right away, as quality of writing may override the ideas the writers are touting. The focus here is on content.
These latest shifts are not organic but have been foisted upon writers for years. While many gladly included them all along, most were not compelled to until recently. This includes writers who celebrate their religious beliefs in the acknowledgements, conciliatorily tossing in “her wife,” “his husband,” and the like.
Beyond the Cover of Teen Fiction
Supporters, and enforcers, of these types of stories claim there has to be romance in teen fiction because it’s a time of firsts, first tastes of freedom and responsibility, first jobs, first cars, first decisions without parents, and first love. And so, for a long while, this first love was sealed with a kiss most of the way or all of the way at the end of the story. It was short, infrequent, and much easier to overlook.
Now, take a multi-book series that first came out about a decade ago. The first book probably has a girl-guy romance, and there’s a good chance it builds to a big romantic kiss, kind of like the movies. Follow the series as the years progress and see what happens by the time the last book comes out. They’re probably sleeping with each other, and if the book is more recent, they probably have been for a while. They may have even broken up, slept with others, then gotten back together at the end. Or, a guy-girl romance suddenly becomes f/f or m/m, for the protagonist or secondary characters.
Alongside the political and social currents, the slowly moving wave of change morphed into a tsunami of deliberate attempts of normalization. Kisses are more descriptive. Touches linger and travel all over. Depictions previously only found in steamy Harlequin Romances became regular features of novels for adults, and then YA (largely read by adults, so it’s become a genre). Spice, steam, and heat levels have been turned way, way up.
Many parents don’t realize how far this has gone because they trust in the industry, which should have many reasons to be celebrated. Upon spotting a tween holding a thick fantasy I knew to be above her age level, I had to ask her mom about it. The mother was not as avid a reader as her daughter, and had her own responsibilities that kept her from staying ahead of her daughter’s reading list. She thought it prudent enough to tell her tween to stick to books marked 14+. She had no idea what’s in books these days. (The author of the child’s book has been described as the “queen of faerie smut,” if you’re wondering.)
Proponents of romance for teens will insist that inferno-heat levels of graphic, explicit detail saves lives because teens have to see themselves represented. What one thing has to do with the other is obviously not up for discussion from those of us without multiple letters after our names.
As if morality needs a degree. How the details of clothing removal, and beyond, saves lives, and why this is representation, when many behaviors described are cause for alarming concern and immediate intervention are not explained. Why representation can’t be found in universal values and deep awareness of the timeless human condition, instead of a demeaning oversimplification of someone into desired love interests, has yet to be addressed.
Instead, they insist sexual encounters must be explicitly, graphically depicted because (a) teens are doing this anyway, (b) “representation,” and (c) teens have to see what healthy relationships look like, the obvious reason to include step-by-step instruction with accompanying consent at each point. It’s not about “stage of consent,” but “age of consent,” even if most characters written by adults are underage. And don’t think this isn’t trickling into Middle Grade (ages 8-12) too.
And so, in books for teens, the new normal is that kisses are descriptive, touch is everywhere, clothes come off, and scenes in bed (and elsewhere) deliberately don’t fade to black. Just like the movies. The discussion among proponents is “what’s the best way to show a ‘healthy’ version of sleeping together” instead of “who said it’s healthy to be ramming any of this into a teen’s brain, anyway?”
Romances are no longer girl-guy, and if there is a love triangle, there’s a good chance it’s a girl choosing between one guy and one girl or both guys, an intentional promotion of polyamory.
Other topics shoehorned into books include a child born of a man and woman who now lives with another woman, abortion, bi/demi/trans/queer/et al, “systemic racism” (including against Asians, still considered minorities in publishing-land for now), girls being physically stronger than guys, non-magical female soldiers/warriors in combat, females being explicit about not wanting kids, girls making the first move with guys (as per girlboss/”consent”), pedantic feminism, female gender-bent retellings, leftist activism, and on and on. Many of these aspects cannot be noticed by the title or cover, which is why so many don’t fully understand how pervasive it is.
A genre that’s always been dominated by female writers is increasingly expanding exclusive access to so-called queer and BIPOC writers. Egregiously, books by “historically marginalized authors” are often penned by individuals who lean heavily into the above noted themes. The claim becomes that they’re banning books by minorities, without specifying what the author is writing about. Moreover, no one has conducted a thorough inquiry of all types among these minorities to know if this is how they want to be “represented.”
Pull up a list of recent/upcoming releases. Scan the shelves at your local bookstore. What do your “lying eyes” tell you? More importantly, notice what they’re not seeing? The move to adjust the window of inclusion hasn’t led to a widened frame, but merely a shifted, narrowed one.
This is a large, but only partial, portion of the books supposedly “banned” from reading lists, classrooms and kid sections at the library. It’d be great to join the chorus urging teens to put down their phones and pick up a book instead, but that would really depend on what they’re reading.
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