Children’s books not wild enough?

Maurice Sendak, author of Where the Wild Things Are, states in an article that today’s children’s writers are to being too safe. He says that authors today aren’t giving a realistic picture of the lives that children must face today, and that is doing those children readers a disservice. He seems to feel that adults want to hold to the tenant that childhood is a fun, happy time full of play and excitement, while many children live pretty horrendous lives. He does go on to say that children’s books should end happily, that children should have a sense of hope that everything will be ok, but adults should not patronize them and make them think life for all other children is a rose garden full of thornless roses.

To some degree, I agree with him. I hate to read books that feel patronizing. When you read a book you don’t want to come away thinking, ‘it was okay, but I don’t think the author has any clue what it means to be a kid today.’ Some adults go too far and only discuss the nitty-gritty only get to the problems. This isn’t bad necessarily, if it is vital to the character development or the theme of the book, but often, adults do this so that they seem to understand kids today. Throwing in curse words every other word because ‘that’s the way kids talk’ misses the point of why they talk that way in the first place. That needs to be felt through the books.

Some writers just “get it”. Sarah Dessen, for example, really  understands kids. Another writer, somewhat controversial, that I adore is Brooke Taylor, author of Undone. As a writer of Young Adult novels, I try to be very careful in being true to my readers, what they  live through, how they talk, etc. I take special pains in making it “real”, which is hard since I write Alternate History novels! Making the protagonist’s live “real” for teens today when the novel is set in the 1st Century is tough, but hopefully makes my novels worth reading.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/sep/19/childrens-books-not-wild-maurice-sendak