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Jewish World Review
August 8, 2006
/ 14 Menachem-Av, 5766
Parents, beware: Rethinking ‘at least they're reading’
By
Karen Heller
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
A dozen copies were prominently displayed at the store, begging to be consumed like ripe fruit. "A sweet and delicious read," blurbed Ann Brashares, author of "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.'' My daughter liked that series, as well as the movie, so we bought a copy of Jodi Lynn Anderson's debut, "Peaches.''
By the first few pages, we were in serious trouble: Drinking, smoking, casual sex and salty argot, to say nothing of egregious grammar that some editor somewhere should have killed. It was all I could do not to grab a red pen.
Instead, I read the book aloud to my 10-year-old, modifying, excising and obfuscating as I went along, busting "Peaches'' from R to G, rendering it a different book entirely but one we managed to enjoy.
These books are aspirational, in that they're allegedly marketed to grades nine and above, while being consumed by readers considerably younger. But then much of popular culture is like that. Disney's breakaway smash is "High School Musical,'' not "Fifth Grade Rocks.''
It's a mystery why children, enjoying the idyll of youth, wish to spend time with moody, sullen, snippy, hormonally challenged adolescents wallowing in misery, but there you go.
High school students, as any stroll at the beach or pool will demonstrate, are reading "The Gossip Girls''/"It Girls''/A-List series or have graduated to grown-up titles entirely.
At a bookstore, I watch a group of Hilton-sister wannabes in white sunglasses twice the cumulative size of their skirts and tops, a look a parent might dub Just Kill Me Now, drool over Absolut literature, entirely ignoring "Peaches'' and its ilk.
Books have long been a refuge, a diversion, a potential escape from quotidian life. Today, many volumes cater to contemporary consumerism, aiming for a younger audience. Teens are reading "Sex and the City'' lit reconfigured for their demographic, when a better version already exists in televised syndication.
The truth is teenagers don't want to watch lonely older women teetering on the brink of cellulite. They want to read about moody, sullen, snippy, hormonally challenged adolescents wallowing in misery, albeit ones with higher Visa limits. Apparently, J.D. Salinger and S.E. Hinton will no longer do. They're reveling in shop lit.
Cecily von Ziegesar, the improbably named author of the "Gossip Girl'' oeuvre, once told me, in all seriousness, "I think my books are very similar to Jane Austen." Then again, Plum Sykes said she wrote "Bergdorf Blondes'' because she couldn't find a successor to Truman Capote and Edith Wharton.
In an ideal world, the words Manolo Blahnik would be forever banned from all novels. Comparisons to Jane Austen and Edith Wharton would also be prohibited for all novelists, especially authors prone to shopping references. What von Ziegesar has done is not ape Austen, whose work is terrific for teens (Wharton's is, too), but produce Judith Krantz for the Clearasil set.
An adult might rationalize these books by saying "at least they're reading," but it wouldn't calm matters for long. What was the last movie or television show that condoned teenagers having frequent sex with multiple partners, too many Cosmos and cigarettes, and shopping wantonly at Barneys, without punishment (car crash, social ostracizing, inferior swain) or moral lessons learned? You begin to understand the issue.
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So, parents need to be vigilant not only about the tube, the screen, the Internet and iTunes, but also the books kids read before they reach the age of reason, whenever that occurs.
There are terrific, age-appropriate works out there, like Catherine Murdock's "Dairy Queen'' or my friend Carol Weston's "Melanie Martin'' series (her "Melanie in Manhattan'' is just out in paperback), but you have to really look. You might have to read a bit even and not simply grab, as I did, the latest pretty blurbed volume off a prominent display rack.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Karen Heller is a columnist for Philadelphia Inquirer. Comment by clicking here.
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