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That’s right.

Andrew Smith.

And it’s fantastic. The latest in Steve Sheinkin’s series “Walking and Talking”.

Enjoy it.

Big time thanks to Steve for putting these together and for this one in particular.

Previous editions of this series include:

• Walking and Talking with John Corey Whaley
• Walking and Talking with Jenni Holm
• Walking and Talking with Gene Luen Yang
• Walking and Talking with Laura Vaccaro Seeger

 

 

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Hold on to your hats. It's time for another wild ride, and Andrew Smith is driving. Time, place, and point of view are expertly mixed to offer us: Ariel, a 15-year-old refugee from the Middle East in summer camp for tech detox, a historic Arctic expedition, a reincarnated crow, and a schizophrenic bomber. Books mentioned [...]

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I feel very connected being here tonight.

I suppose my books — Grasshopper Jungle in particular — are all about connections.

I have a cousin who lived with my family of four boys when I was very young. Her name is Renata, she has gentle Italian hands, and she lives near Phoenix now. I’ve never known any other Renatas, although the name is fairly common in Italy, which is where my family comes from.

The American writer Renata Adler was born in Italy, too. In the novel Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!, Kurt Vonnegut quotes Adler as having said that a writer is someone who hates writing.

Let me tell you how strongly I empathize with that statement.

I’m sure my close friends, and especially Michael Bourret, my agent, and Julie Strauss-Gabel, my editor, know all too well that from time to time I have a propensity to melt down about this thing I can’t stop doing even when it feels like I’m tearing chunks of stuffing from my soul. I think all of us who write feel the same way on occasion. At least, I sure hope so.

I wouldn’t want to be the only one, after all.

So Vonnegut wrote about a note he’d received from his agent after Vonnegut’s own writing-related meltdown. The note said this: “Dear Kurt — I never knew a blacksmith who was in love with his anvil.”

I wrote Grasshopper Jungle after I decided to quit writing, which happened in the summer of 2011. I realize that’s a strange thing to say: I wrote after I quit writing. A lot of bad things made me feel really terrible about being a writer, which is a different thing altogether than simply writing. Being a writer was making me sick, and I was losing sleep over it.

So I quit.

The thing is, I couldn’t really stop myself from putting new words on empty pages, but I could escape from all the rest of the being-a-writer stuff that was dragging me down. So I wrote this story about some kids who are all in love with each other and who accidentally trigger the end of the world from the economically downturned heart of Iowa. I had no intention of ever allowing anyone to read it, because the book was, at its core, about loving something that also destroys your world, which was awfully close to how I felt about being a writer in the summer of 2011.

Because here’s the thing: I didn’t really want people looking into my head after writing a novel about pizza, genetically modified corn, medieval saints, christened (and sometimes dissolving) balls, Paleolithic cave painters, urinal factories, cigarettes, barkless dogs, war, sexual confusion, and how all those things made seamless connections according to my thinking.

After all, I am certain that everything really is connected in some way. So I tried to write a book that was about everything.

That summer of 2011, when I wrote Grasshopper Jungle, was a rough time for me. I had just dropped my son off for his first year away at university and I couldn’t stand the thought of our being separated — disconnected — by such great distance. I wasn’t ready to let him go. And I filled that book up with all my confused frustrations, firing shots at every just-like-it’s-always-been thing I thought was stupid and pointless and unfair.

And I guess my son missed me, too, because in September he asked if I had anything of mine that he could read. He didn’t care what it was I sent him; he just wanted to see some of my words again. So, I was scared, but I asked him if he wanted to read this insane thing I’d just finished working on, called Grasshopper Jungle.

He said yes, but I made him promise to tell me after he finished reading it whether or not he thought I ought to go see a therapist. My son read the book the same day I sent it to him. I’ll reserve the content of his follow-up call for some future speech. It was a real humdinger.

People in Iowa say things like humdinger.

My books are things that connect me to my family, many of whom come from Iowa. Well, my in-laws do, at least. And I don’t even ask them to read my books; they just do.

And I’ll admit that a lot of the time I don’t really want people to read my books.

I sure got my wish for the first half-dozen or so of them I put out!

But the reason I frequently don’t want people to read what I write is because I can’t help but slip in things that are intensely personal. I try to disguise those parts. Whether or not this strategy works is debatable.

A boy in Iowa sent me a photo of himself, standing in a cornfield and holding up his copy of Grasshopper Jungle.

A same-sex married couple in Iowa asked if I would be willing to be named godfather to their son, who is going to be born this month.

An adult man in Iowa sent me a letter thanking me for writing a book about who he was when he was a teenager. He told me his life would have been much easier if there had been books like Grasshopper Jungle when he was a kid.

These are all true stories from people I have never met.

This is part of my history.

Sometimes I can’t help but see all the connections that keep crossing right in front of me.

Among my closest friends are other people who work over the same anvil I do, especially Amy Sarig King, who has powerful German hands and comes from Pennsylvania. And, like Vonnegut, I feel a sense of kinship toward all writers — in particular those who are fortunate enough to work in the young adult and children’s literature community.

To you all, I will end with another line from Vonnegut’s Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!, which goes like this:

“I am a brother to writers everywhere…It is lucky, too, for human beings need all the relatives they can get—as possible donors or receivers not necessarily of love, but of common decency.”

You are, for the most part, a very decent lot.

This is an incredible honor.

For more on the 2014 Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards, click on the tag BGHB14.

The post Grasshopper Jungle: Author Andrew Smith’s BGHB 2014 Fiction Award Speech appeared first on The Horn Book.

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Looking for books to buy for the reader on your holiday shopping list this year? Check out NPR’s Books Concierge. The service, which launched last year but has been updated and expanded for 2014, allows you to search the NPR staff’s favorite books of the year based on what you feel like reading.

The Book Concierge lets you mix and match from 26 different categories of reading including: Funny Stuff; Historical Fiction; It’s All Geek to Me; and Let’s Talk About Sex. All of the books are tagged with various categories, and you can hone in on your search. For instance a search for “It’s All Geek to Me” and “Love Stories” recommends Andrew Smith‘s 100 Sideways Miles. A search for “Funny Stuff” and “Music Lovers” nets Caitlin Moran‘s novel How to Build a Girl. The app features 250 titles. (more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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Keeping it really weird panel! #yalit14 pic.twitter.com/JQaliwMS2m

— Paula J. Gallagher (@paulajgal) November 16, 2014

There’s nothing better than a crowd of librarians and authors to remind me how lucky I am to be in this line of work, and to inspire me to keep on writing and earning my place among this bunch.

This past weekend, Austin hosted the annual YA symposium of the Young Adult Library Services Association. I participated in the Saturday evening Book Blitz — in which authors seated behind stacks of publisher-donated books get blitzed by librarians snagging their share of signed copies — as well as a Sunday-morning panel discussion including (left-to-right in Paula Gallagher’s photo above) Jonathan Auxier, Lisa Yee, Andrew Smith, moderator/organizer/wrangler Kelly Milner Halls, Bruce Coville, and Laurie Ann Thompson.

It’s going to be a full week, as I’ll also be speaking at the Indiana Library Federation’s annual conference — Shark Vs. Train is a winner of the Young Hoosier Book Award — and then reading Attack! Boss! Cheat Code! at a Barnes & Noble back here in Austin.

If you’re interested in hearing me talk for, oh, 27 minutes and 59 seconds, but won’t be making it to either of those events, I’m happy to offer a third option: this podcast interview that author Jason Henderson recorded with me last week. Enjoy!

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Sarah Mlynowski is the New York Times bestselling author of the Whatever After series as well as Gimme a Call, Don’t Even Think About It, Ten Things We Did (and Probably Shouldn’t Have), How to Be Bad (along with E. Lockhart and Lauren Myracle) and the Magic in Manhattan series. Originally from Montreal, Sarah now lives in the kingdom of Manhattan with her very own prince charming and their fairy-tale-loving daughters.

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and this is one of the many things I love about Jen.

Jen's whole piece, on Hairpin, is here.

Her final words are a sweet, right challenge:

So read, read Y.A., read adult literature, read blog posts, read magazines, read your box of Cheerios in the morning. Read all you can and want to read, acknowledging the easy and unchallenging and the difficult and complicated, and form your own opinions, trying to add a little room for nuance and understanding and openness in all that you do. That’s the best you can do as a reader, a writer, and a human.

And how honored am I to have Going Over included among works by Markus Zusak, Nina LaCour, Andrew Smith, Cammie McGovern, Laurie Halse Anderson, Sherman Alexie, Aaron Hartzler, E. Lockhart, and Matthew Quick on Jen's "10 Contemporary Y.A. Books That Made Me Think (and That I Loved)."

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The 2014 Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards for Excellence in Children’s Literature were recently announced. And the winner in the fiction category? Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith.

I was lucky enough to get an advanced reader copy of this YA back in early February before the novel was released and I have to say, it was one of the strangest books I've ever read. Parts made me laugh out loud, and parts made me wonder what Andrew Smith was smoking when he came up with this plot. Six-foot-tall grasshoppers taking over the world? Yeah. Like I said...

But the backbone of the story – the relationship between Austin, his girlfriend and his best friend – make it a worthwhile read. Even if you do have to suspend your disbelief as an enormous grasshopper makes a meal out of the chemistry teacher. Or when you happen upon chapter titles like, "Never Look for Ice Cream in a Sperm Freezer."

You can read The Horn Book review here. But if you'd like to read this YA novel for yourself, I'm giving away my ARC. Fill out the Rafflecopter below for your chance to win!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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In San Antonio, on the TAYSHAS panel, Susan Schilling asked what we do when we are not writing.

We are, in our own ways, living.

Nina LaCour remakes whole rooms, top to bottom. Dana Reinhardt pursues the immediate results—the appreciable outcomes—of cooking. Andrew Smith has not, in fifteen years, missed a day of running—wherever he is, wherever he goes, he heads out into the weather. Blake Nelson learns as much as he can (in sometimes funny ways) about people.

When I am not writing (and most of the time, I am not writing), I do many things that I am not particularly good at. Building objects out of clay. Raising seedlings into buds. Dancing the tango with my husband. And, also, sometimes all-consumingly, turning my nearly 100-year-old house into a home.

This past November, I began a quest to refinish my kitchen. To replace the broken things. To up the ante on the colors. To generate new light and life. It was a fraught proposition from the get-go—famously horrific weather, disappointing contractors, a leaking roof, delays, unforeseen expenses.

This morning she stands. Whole at last, complete.

I am, when I am not writing, living.

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If it weren't for Tamra Tuller, there would be no Small Damages, nor would there be the Berlin novel, Going Over. If it weren't for Chronicle Books, I would not have just spent an enriching two days in San Antonio, a city I have longed to see, among Texas librarians, who (rumor has it, and so it seemed to me) are among the very best in all the land.

Were it not for Susan Schilling, I would not have joined Dana Reinhardt, Andrew Smith, Nina LaCour, and Blake Nelson on the footwear spectacular TAYSHAS panel.

Were it not for the Texas Tea, I would have not finally met Justina Chen in person.

Were it not for a certain signing, I would not have found my best elementary school friend standing at the start of a line, waiting for me. Oh, my!!!

Were it not for a Chronicle dinner, I'd not have chilled with talented authors/illustrators K.A. Holt, Jeff Mack, Lizi Boyd, and Molly Idle; guests Renee Sanders, Debbie McComb, Sherri Bell, Ty Burns, Sheila Acosta, and Lynn Butler; and Chronicle stars Tamra Tuller, Sally Kim, Stephanie Wong, Anna-Lisa Sandstrum, and Jaime Wong.

Were it not for San Antonio itself, I would have never seen the Alamo, walked along the river, found my way to a secret cove, or peered into the wax museum.

We owe so much of our happiness to other people and well-loved places.

I am home. I am grateful.

I am grateful, too, to the incredible bloggers who kept the Going Over blog tour alive in my absence. And so, a few days late, I wish to thank:

ForeverYoungAdult, for asking me great graffiti questions, for posting such a beautiful review of the book, and for Tweeting out while I was airplane bound. That's all here.

KidLitFrenzy, for asking fantastic questions about the Going Over research process—and about my favorite indie bookstores. That's here.

Tales of a Ravenous Reader, for letting me talk about truth. That's here.

Like all the bloggers on the Going Over tour, these offer a chance to win a signed book and the audio book, among other things

Lots of gratitudes today.

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Andrew Smith.

They talk about him. They say, He's one of the smartest guys in the room. They say, He's one of the most charming. They say, Have you read? You've got to read. Here, they say. Is Grasshopper Jungle.

My friends, I've now had the privilege of reading this bright lime green marvel of a book, too. Plot synopsis, as provided by the flap copy:

In the small town of Ealing, Iowa, Austin and his best friend, Robby, have accidentally unleashed an unstoppable army. An army of horny, hungry, six-foot-tall praying mantises that only want to do two things.

This is the truth. This is history.

It's the end of the world. And nobody knows anything about it.

You know what I mean.

There, in those lines, is the confident craziness of the scheme, the rhythm of the tale, the sounds-convincingly-like-a-teen-but-is-written-by-a-guy-who-studied-Political-Science,-Journalism,-and-Literature-at-college-ness. This book is big, jammed with the promised promiscuity, the necessary confusions, and the wild what if's of a world that has turned terrible toxins on itself. One reads to see what will happen next, what can happen next, what these likable, mixed-up, also truly human characters are going to fumble upon next. It's sci fi. It's something else. It's Drew Smith.

Usually I quote from the pages of the stories themselves. But I just read the final final words, which happen to sit in the acknowledgments. There's a paragraph I really like, I really get, I really jive with. There's a paragraph that reminds all writers everywhere of how so much of our lives is predicated on finding just the right reader at the right time. Drew Smith now has a world full of readers. But this book all began with an agent who cared.

About two years ago, I decided to stop writing. Well, to be honest, not the verb writing, but I decided to get out of the business aspect of it, for which I have absolutely no backbone. I never felt so free as when I wrote things that I believed nobody would ever see. Grasshopper Jungle was one of those things. It was more-or-less fortune, then, that I happened to show the first portion of the novel to my friend Michael Bourret. He talked me into not quitting.

I'll be joining Drew Smith as well as Nina LaCour, Black Nelson, and Dana Reinhardt on the Tayshas Reading List and Authors next Thursday in San Antonio, TX. I can't wait to meet all the panelists and our moderator. Maybe we'll see you there.

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What to read, what to read?

There are a ridiculous number of books out there. It’s beyond intimidating. It is to me, at least. I’m not a particularly fast reader. I linger. I soak in the language and the story. I give up on a lot of books, not because life is short but because some books are damn long. And boring. I read from the bestseller list occasionally, and I check off a few cultural touchstones. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn √ The Fault in Our Stars by John Green √ Life by Keith Richards √ Rin-Tin-Tin by Susan Orlean √ A Song of Fire and Ice Vol. 1-3 by George R.R. Martin √√√ But most of the time, I flounder. I hardly ever know what to read next.

Sometimes I force noble projects upon myself. Read some classic mysteries, try some Booker Prizer winners, delve into some epic poetry from East Timor–you know, that sort of thing. I don’t always enjoy it. So recently I tried a different tack. I decided to go local. By local I mean I focused on books by authors I personally know, have met in my online social media adventures, or have heard about through the gossipy cabals that secretly rule children’s book publishing. I was so glad that I did.

Below I will share some of the engrossing and oft-overlooked middle-grade and young-adult books that I have enjoyed during the last few months. You can find their plot summaries anywhere, so I’ll focus on a few thoughts and feelings these books stirred in me. Perhaps it’ll inspire you to buy one or two for your friends, family or self. I realize this humble post won’t generate tons of sales for the authors, but if I can help at least one of them become a rich and ruthless media mogul with the ability to make and break men with a snap and a whistle, then it’s all worth it. So, without further ado…

The Boneshaker by Kate Milford. I knew of Kate’s book before I knew of her. That cover! A man with fire for hair! Burning fairgrounds! Miscellaneous creepiness! When I met Kate, I had to apologize. “I’ve been meaning to read that book,” I told her. She was kind. She didn’t say, “Well then get to it, Champ! I need more money for bourbon.”  (Or perhaps she did say that–details are hazy). In any case, when I did get around to reading the book, I was greeted with an elegant slice of Americana. A headstrong girl learns to ride a very difficult bike while finding time to challenge the devil himself. Automata, demon dolls, guitar pickin’ contests, what’s not to like? The book has received the inevitable comparisons to Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes but I like to look at it as historical fiction run through a hand-cranked nightmare projector. Yes, it’s world building, but it’s also world restoration–wiping the mud off the weird bric-a-brac and giving it new uses. Kate has two companion volumes currently out: the novella The Kairos Mechanism and the just-released The Broken Lands.

Trapped by Michael Northrop. I’ve tossed back a few beers with Michael in my day. A fine lad with a gregarious laugh. He’s also the creator of a remarkably taut and realistic thriller. Growing up in the snowbelt of upstate New York, I know a thing or three about blizzards and the existential yearnings of suburban youth from cloudy communities. I also know more than enough about survival–we did, after all, have a “Survival Unit” in my seventh grade science class. So I can tell you that when Michael traps a bunch of teenagers in a snowbound high school, his details are spot on (n.b. Michael only traps fictional teenagers in snowbound high schools…as far as I know). I was expecting melodrama. What I got was far more surprising. Michael’s latest, Rotten, will be out in the spring and stars a rottweiler named Johnny Rotten. I just hope there’s a “never mind the bullocks”/neutering joke in there.

Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma. Nova is truly a friend to all writers (as her never-ending and always-fascinating blog series attests) and one of the most dedicated authors of young adult fiction out there. Her lyrical, haunting tale of ghosts and sisterhood and the recklessness of rural youths is unlike anything on the market. In a way, you could call it a romance, but it’s not the girl-meets-swoonworthy-monster-man treacle we’ve all tired of. It’s about the romance of power, of being a big fish in a small pond (or reservoir, in this case). It’s about the twists of love and jealousy that bind together and choke families and small communities. It’s about 350 pages long. Nova’s new novel, 17 & Gone, is on the horizon. I’ve read the first chapter. Beautiful, scary stuff.

The Mostly True Story of Jack by Kelly Barnhill. I remember reading a fantastic early review of this book and since Kelly was someone I followed on Twitter, I thought I should check it out. I read the first chapter online and…gulp. This is the brand of middle-grade fiction that most people don’t know exists: dark, risky and intellectual. The set-up seems typical enough: new boy in town, mysteries to uncover. But when the perspectives start shifting and things get botanical and pagany, you realize you’re reading a story about the gnarly roots underneath, and not just the literal type. It’s a modern folk tale, but not in a jokey or revisionist way, which means it has guts to spare (as well as some tree sap). Kelly’s new fairy tale, Iron-Hearted Violet, is also getting great buzz.

The Dead Gentleman by Matthew Cody. Matt and I met when we were both debut authors, in the long ago year of MMIX (I’m pretty sure they only used Roman numerals back then). He told me that he was working on a book inspired by H.G. Wells and Jules Verne and featuring time travel, monsters in the closet and dinosaurs. I was obviously intrigued. When I finally had the chance to read the finished product, I was thrilled to find a yarn that was both pulpy and dripping with Victorian ambiance, a rip-roaring adventure of the old mold. If they make a movie of it, they should resurrect Ray Harryhausen to do the special effects. In case you haven’t heard, Matt’s Super is now out. It’s a sequel to his delightful anti-superhero tale Powerless.

The Marbury Lens by Andrew Smith. I don’t know Andrew, but my agent recommended I check out one of his latest. The cover promises some sort of steampunky or sci-fi adventure, along the lines of this or this. But it’s not really like those other books at all (at least I don’t think it is). It’s a psychological horror tale, about how trauma lays waste to our worlds. People are undoubtedly calling it dystopian fiction, but that’s not accurate either. What’s disintegrating here is not society, but the mind. And the book has one of the most spectacularly tense openings of anything I’ve read in years. Andrew’s sequel, Passenger, just hit shelves. Not for the faint of heart or stomach I bet, but riveting I’m sure.

Bigger Than a Breadbox by Laurel Snyder. I’d been meaning to check this one out for a while, ever since I noticed it was being published around the same time as The Only Ones. But I lollygagged, and Laurel beat me to the punch by reading my book first and writing a lovely review of it. So I immediately went out and got a copy of hers. I fired through it in three evenings and found myself nostalgic for my early reading experiences. I was weened on the junior versions of magical realism like The Indian in the Cupboard and Laurel’s book certainly lives up to that tradition. But its real magic is its plainspoken and intimate portrayal of a family falling to pieces and it made me remember what I’ve always truly cared about in fiction: emotion, confusion, difficult questions that don’t always have answers. I’ve never met Laurel, but I’ve learned through her Twitter feed that she’s working on a prequel of sorts. If it’s as poised and well-crafted as this one, I can’t wait to read it. In the meantime, we can all pick up her picture book The Longest Night when it arrives in February, right before Passover.

Because of Mr. Terupt by Rob Buyea. I sat next to Rob at the Collingswood Book Festival in October. He was passing through, on his way north to join his wife for their wedding anniversary, and he only had a couple of hours to meet his fans. He was greeted by an enthusiastic class of local 5th-graders who were reading this debut novel and were desperate for the author’s autograph. He signed a few dozen copies and prepared to hit the road. I trusted the kids’ endorsement, so I also had Rob sign a copy for me as he left. I read the book a few weeks later, by candlelight during the Hurricane Sandy blackout. I understood immediately what made him such a rock-star to these kids (and to their teacher). Rob has written an ideal book for the classroom, a story about a variety of children with conflicting perspectives and motivations, about mistakes, about the importance of forgiveness and understanding. It’s a thoughtful tale and he continues it in his second book, Mr. Terupt Falls Again. Assign this one to your fourth or fifth grade class and you’re sure to have hours of discussions.

So there you have it, my admittedly biased holiday book-buying guide. Each of these novels is available in paperback, so they can be had for less than ten bucks. Stuff a stocking, why don’t you?

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Okay. Let me tell you how much I hate YA.

I’m letting all the big reasons out today, so hang on.

First, a little backstory. I was e-talking with Lia Keyes the other day, and she mentioned to me about another author who thought that YA as a category should be done away with. She thought it would be interesting — fiery — to have me participate in this debate.

And, I’m, like, what debate? I totally agree.

I hate YA.

Here are my three biggest reasons:

1. YA has no definition. You may just as well call it “fiction.” And, because of this ill-defined super-categorization of what I believe to be a non-existent genre, people carry too many pre-conceived expectations about constraints on content and embedded curriculum (see point 2).

The thing is — and why YA is a pointless label — is that YA contains every genre of the broader category of fiction, from contemporary literary, to science fiction, paranormal romance, chick-lit, fantasy, humor, and so on. But the YA section in a bookstore is the vampire section.

It’s kind of like putting all adult fiction in the “Dan Brown” section. Remember, “YA” didn’t exist when Twain wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, or even when Harper Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird. I don’t think there was such a category when Stephen King wrote Carrie or ‘Salem’s Lot, both of which would definitely be stamped with the big Y and A if they were published for the first time today.

All those titles up there (and I’m sure you could think of many others) were just novels.

Let’s revisit the Venn Diagram from two days ago:

They’re still “adults,” right? Just “young” ones.

2. The Expectation and the Blues. (That’s the title of a really great song from Corb Lund)

(The Blues)… best “back-at-ya” comment I received from someone on the “Part 1″ installment:

“As a writer you can write for any age group you want, can’t you?

If you hated being a teenager why write for and about an age that made you unhappy?”

Okay. Now, I am definitely NOT speaking on behalf of all authors here, so don’t give me any superpowers I don’t already possess.

First, question one: I don’t write for an age group. Not ever. Nope. Totally wrong assumption. I write to tell a story. The only target in my mind is a story, NOT a demographic.

As far as question two goes: ouch. huh?

What a downer.

So, the expectation part: See, when people pre-suppose a work of fiction is only for a particular age group (and that age group happens to be… let’s say, high school kids), then they frequently get all caught up in the thought that what you write must contain some kind of curriculum geared toward the elevation or the insulation of the fragile “young adult” soul.

It’s pretty much what I’ve been railing against for two days now. And for those people who want to put the cart up front of the horse, and pre-plan a target demographic and constraints on content, that’s all totally fine with me.

Do you hear me? It’s fine with me.

Just don’t expect me to do it.

I just write stories. If people want to get all caught up in the debate about a writer’s lack of responsibility for including certain content elements, then they can’t possibly be talking about books for “adults,” whether they’re young, old, or anything else.

My readers are adults. Young ones and old ones. It’s a disservice, in my opinion, to treat them like children.

3. Back to Taxonomy: (And I know this will likely tick off a lot of my author friends, so, for that, let me apologize in advance)

Take a look at the Venn Diagram above, one more time. Now, where it says “People,” imagine the word “Literature.”

One of the things I’ve struggled with most — and, given

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I still hate YA.

You remember all those times your mom told you the old if-all-your-friends-jumped-off-a-cliff-would-you-do-it-too line? You know what I told my mom when she tried that one on me?

Um… no. I’d go down to the bottom and start looking for wallets and jewelry.

So, there’s this assumption that “young adults” make some kind of moral and ethical connection between choices made by fictional characters they empathize with and the REAL-WORLD decisions and actions they assume themselves.

Again, I’m not making this up, this comes straight from the Thought-Police sites of the Wonder(bread)blog I mentioned yesterday.

I think we’ve all known some particularly dumb kid at one point in our lives who jumped off his roof wearing a red blanket clothespinned to his neck after he watched an episode of Superman.

Yeah… broken femurs are actually pretty damned funny sometimes.

Everyone loves observing idiocy from a safe distance, but give kids… er… Young Adults credit that their B.S. filters are functional. For those whose filters are a little “glitchy,” like the red blanket boy mentioned above, we have one great hope: please do not attempt to breed.

One more bit about why I hate YA. I’ve been accused — multiple times, and by different “adults” — of being a bad father, because of what I write about.

First, allow me to fully confess and lay it all on the table: My first two books, Ghost Medicine , and in the path of falling objects have the words “damn” and “hell” in them (this is a hint that my next book,The Marbury Lens has quite an “expanded” vocabulary). They also include on- and off-screen references to underage sex, drinking, smoking, getting tattoos, chewing tobacco, suicide, driving without a license, and marijuana use.

So I’m a bad father. I made those things happen in my teenage kids’ world, didn’t I? I should have shielded their eyes and ears from such goings-on, and hope and pray that they remain untainted by reality, so they can live with me and their mother until well into their forties. As untattooed virgins.

Shoot me now.

You see, the clean-YA bloggers insist that you should never write anything if the prospect of your own kids reading it makes you feel “uncomfortable.”

Sometimes, dealing with things with your kids that make you feel a little uncomfortable is a preferential strategy to burying their heads in the sand and hoping they don’t catch passing glimpses of what the rest of the world is like.

So, yeah… I honestly do not feel uncomfortable at the thought of my fifteen-year-old son or my soon-to-be-thirteen daughter reading my stuff, because I know who they are, and I am there to talk about things with them (my son was devastated by something that a character did inGhost Medicine, which he read at thirteen).

Sometimes kids do have to make tough choices, and we can always count on the fact that fledgling, “Young” adults are definitely going to make mistakes — and, unlike red-blanket-boy, hopefully learn from them.

The bottom line, though, is that when we do let our “Young Adults” out into the world (as we do every single day — at school, at malls, hanging out with their buddies) and they get confronted with difficult choices, the voice in their head that tells them which course to take is not going to be that of a character in the most recent book they enjoyed.

If you’re worried about that, you better round up and hide all your red blankets, clothespins, and step-ladders.

Coming up tomorrow: My BIGGEST reasons why I hate YA.

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I hate YA.

Let me explain.

I hate YA for many of the same reasons I hated being a teenager: there are all these external expectations on who you are “supposed” to be, and, simultaneously, you’re trying to figure that out on your own.

Okay. Try this experiment. Close your eyes.

Wait. First, get someone to read this to you aloud. Or else, just pretend to close your eyes.

Now, let’s make a Venn diagram (I know… Venn Diagrams are the new black). The paper the diagram is on is “People.” Now, draw a circle for “Children,” and another for “Adults.”

Unless you’re a moron, those circles won’t be touching at all.

Now, draw a circle for “Young Adults.”

Again… moron test: that circle should be entirely enclosed within “Adults.”

If you’re a writer, you have to realize that there are certain mile markers we pass in order to become adult. It doesn’t necessarily happen at a predetermined chronological age, either. But it does happen. Bam! You’re an adult.

Young adults are inexperienced (because — duh! they’re “young”) at dealing with certain things, so they make mistakes. It’s forgivable in most cases.

Okay, now here’s a reason why I hate YA: A lot of people have this notion that YA literature should steer away from certain “adult” concepts. Those people wouldn’t pass the moron test described above.

I’ll confess that I read a certain “book blogger” who really emphasizes cleanliness as being an overarching responsibility in YA. I read that particular blogger because the person is actually a fairly decent writer, as opposed to so many illiterate dimwits who blog about YA. And, I’m not going to ID the blogger for two reasons: 1) I don’t want to get into a pissing match, and 2) I don’t want to increase the traffic on that particular blog… because it’s wrong.

A couple points this blogger makes about YA (and, by the way, I am an author who has two teens at home — one of each gender):

1. We, as authors, have a duty to raise strong, responsible adults who make strong, responsible decisions.

2. If there’s underage sex in a book, you are acting irresponsibly if you allow a teen to read it. Allowing a teen to read such a book is equivalent to endorsing irresponsible sexual behavior.

Okay, that’s the gist of this particular blogger’s theory on YA and the duty of authors and parents.

As to the first point, I agree that parents do have a responsibility to raise their kids to make ethical decisions. But it doesn’t always happen, and a great deal of what we learn as we pass those milestones toward “adulthood” comes at the expense of making mistakes. (A great line from Elvis Costello: “Some people can’t be told, you know, they have to learn the hard way.”)

Where I depart from the first point is that as an author, I feel a responsibility to tell as much as I can about WHAT IT IS REALLY LIKE OUT THERE… without necessarily condoning anything.

As far as point 2 goes (and — seriously — I am not making this up about this particular blogger), I suppose the blogger believes there is some magical moment, like the age of eighteen, when sex becomes okay. Now… a couple points. First, I realize I grew up in what truly was “The Greatest Generation,” and, no, it wasn’t WW2 (as I talked about with my friends Wendel and Yvonne a few weeks ago), it was the “Generation that used up the next 100 years’ worth of fun.”

And, really, I don’t think I knew anyone from that particular generation who waited for a specific number to show up on their driver’s license before having sex — whether underage or not.

Furthermore, in my own experience, and having seen a lot of the world, if we really could make people wait until they were sufficiently responsible, ethical, and psychologically strong before allowing them to so much as read about sex, then half the world would never be “of age,”

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