Tossing It Out

Respect is on the Tossing It Out agenda for this week. Bloggers and authors alike look to be respected for what they do. But writerly respect is a two way street between those creating and the audience for whom they create. When it comes to writing for children or young adults this issue of respect may extend to the community beyond the readers.

The content of YA literature can be a sticky topic. M. Gerrick (or you may know her as Misha Gericke) is currently making her rounds on a book blog tour for her latest release The Vanished Knight. On today's tour stop she addresses some of the concerns that have been expressed about YA literature and who is responsible for what.

Now let's hear from Misha:

Lee has generously offered to host me as part of my blog tour (THANKS AGAIN!!!) and asked that, if possible, I should write about something controversial.

So I thought… I’d write about writing rules and how I do love to break them. But… I’m figuring quite a few of you lovely readers might not be writers. And therefore, you might not give two hoots about how I go about writing, as long as the result entertains.

Instead, I’m going to go the whole hog and address something about YA Lit that keeps rearing its ugly head. But before I go into that, let me just stick my head into the hornets’ nest.

There seems to be a group of people who have this idea that a book written for Young Adults needs to have a moral in order for it to be worth being published at all. They believe that books need to be examples, the leading lights to those poor poor directionless young ones.

My problem with this point of view is, to say the least, multi-faceted. But since I’m trying to keep your attention, I’ll share the main points:

Firstly, who is anyone to decide what is and what isn’t worthy of publishing? How much damage has been done in the past by the ignorant burning books they didn’t even read? Censorship is never an acceptable option. NEVER.
Secondly, people completely miss-understand the writer’s place in society. We’re not preachers, teachers, parents or leaders when we write. We’re writers. Our job isn’t to teach kids how to think. It’s not even to teach kids to think.
Our tertiary job is to take the frame-works that you the parent raise your kids with, or you the teacher teach, or you the preacher preach, and give children a safe, often flexible environment in order to test their beliefs and values. Our secondary job is to reflect situations in some way. To give someone the space to wonder if they would have done the same thing, or whether they’d like to be more than they are. It’s to reflect situations, find resonance with our times, and to show potential, be it good, or just plain hellish. Our primary job? To entertain. Because without the entertainment value of our stories, none of our other functions are possible.

Morals and lessons aren’t entertaining. Themes, conflicts and plots are. As are twisted characters who curse, kill, drink and do all sorts of things that would make me cringe if it was my own kid doing that.

But here’s the last big thing for today. Teens are young, but they’re not stupid. Especially not the ones that read. They know the difference between reality and books, and what’s acceptable and where. They make choices based on what they know, or regardless of what they know. But not because of what a book told them. Books have been getting the blame for years, and I believe for one simple reason.

“Problem” children come from houses with little or no parental guidance. And there will always be parents who would rather blame something that can’t defend itself (that book with gasp!!! sex/drugs/murder/cursing in it) for possible issues that *may* arise, but most often don’t. They will never, however, look at themselves and find themselves lacking in the parenting department. Because that would be too inconvenient for them. Because then, they’d have to do the raising of their kids instead of teachers or, you guessed it, YA authors who never even met the kid.

*pulls head out of the hornets’ nest*

Thanks all for reading! I’d love to read your thoughts, even if you disagree. Attack my thoughts and beliefs with logic and, who knows? You might sway me. But if you attack me as a person, I’ll just ignore you for the senseless book-burner who probably you are.

And now, on to a lighter note--my book:

Since the death of her parents, Callan Blair has been shunted from one foster family to another, her dangerous secret forcing the move each time. Her latest foster family quickly ships her off to an exclusive boarding school in the Cumbrian countryside. While her foster-brother James makes it his mission to get Callan expelled, a nearby ancient castle holds the secret doorway to another land...

When Callan is forced through the doorway, she finds herself in the magical continent of Tardith, where she’s shocked to learn her schoolmates Gawain and Darrion are respected soldiers in service to the king of Nordaine, one of Tardith's realms. More than that, the two are potential heirs to the Black Knight—Nordaine's crown prince.

But when the Black Knight fails to return from a mysterious trip, the realm teeters on the brink of war. Darrion and Gawain set out to find him, while Callan discovers there is more to her family history than she thought. The elves are claiming she is their princess.

Now with Darrion growing ever more antagonistic and her friendship with Gawain blossoming, Callan must decide whether to stay in Nordaine—where her secret grows ever more threatening—or go to the elves and uncover the truth about her family before war sets the realms afire.

Bio

M. Gerrick (AKA Misha Gericke) has basically created stories since before she could write. Many of those stories grew up with her and can be seen in her current projects.

She lives close to Cape Town, South Africa, with a view over False Bay and Table Mountain.

If you’d like to contact her, feel free to mail her at warofsixcrowns(AT)gmail(DOT)com, Circle her on Google Plus or follow her on Twitter. If you'd like to see her writer-side (beware, it's pretty insane), please feel free to check out her blog. You can also add The Vanished Knight on Goodreads.

Links:

Respect is this week's theme on Tossing It Out. The reason for the theme is because on my Battle of the Bands post of Tuesday October 15th my song pick was "Respect". If you missed that post please check it out and vote on your favorite version of the song. My Monday post asked the question Do You Feel Respected As A Blogger? If you haven't commented on that post I wish you would as it will help me with some valuable information that I will be sharing later. And please return on Friday when I take the concept of respect to another level.

Thanks For Reading! Please share this post with others.

Special Addendum!!!
While you're at Amazon buying Misha's book THE VANISHED KNIGHT be sure to check out the following limited offer:

**FREE PROMOTION**

For 5 days only you can get a free download of FAR OUT: The Hiidden Truth by Elbert Derryberry.

A search for the Hidden Truth! A Futuristic Science Fiction adventure with a Christian slant. The hero travels through both space and time, to challenge the reader to question conventional wisdom and to look for the Hidden Truth.

I know author through the Writers Workshop West, the writing group of which I am a member. This is Mr. Derryberry's first book. I encourage you to download the book and give it a read. It's short so it will be a small investment of your time. And while it's free the monetary investment is nothing for you. If you read the book, please don't forget to review it on Amazon. Support this new author!