THREE BOOKS FOR THE SMARTEST TEENS YOU KNOW
National Public Radio (NPR)
December 24, 2009 Thursday
You’re listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.
For teenagers who devour books, the young adult section in a library
or a bookstore can get a little old. So for our series Three Books,
the young adult novelist Garret Freymann-Weyr suggests some books
for teens that were written for older audiences.
Ms. GARRET FREYMANN-WEYR (Novelist): The publishing world likes to say
that young adult literature is in a golden age, full of great writing,
and most importantly, growing sales in an otherwise dismal market.
But the genre is not without flaws. Many Y.A. novels don’t set the
bar very high in their language, character complexity or emotional
nuances, which is why I, a Y.A. author, like to encourage young
readers to venture into the adult shelves. Here are three non-Y.A.
novels featuring young characters that anyone – young or old – will
read with both joy and fervor.
In Peter Behrens’ "The Law of Dreams", a young Irish boy takes to the
road after his family starves in the potato famine and his home is
burned by a British landlord. As he travels through his ruined country,
Fergus O’Brien meets his share of thieves, prostitutes and soul mates.
Forced to endure enough physical trials and heartaches to suit even
the most thrill-addicted teenager, Fergus finds his way to a ship
sailing for Canada. Since this isn’t a young adult novel, there’s
no sappy ending that eases our hero’s hardship, only clean, elegant
sentences and page after page of heart- stopping adventure.
The teenage heroine in "Gilgamesh" by Joan London also travels far from
home. Edith Clark grows up on an isolated farm in Australia. And when
her cousin and his friend pay a visit her life is changed forever. She
spends one night with the friend, a young man from Armenia, and becomes
a mother nine months later. Although this could be a tired plot, in
"Gilgamesh" it becomes a new and powerful story as Edith and her son
travel to London and then to Armenia in search of the boy’s father.
World War II intervenes and she’s forced to wait out the fighting
abroad. By the novel’s end, Edith’s son is embarking on his own trip,
but Joan London’s writing – poetic, haunting and mesmerizing – will
stay by your side for years to come.
"Rumors of Peace," by Ella Leffland, treats a teen’s intelligence
with the respect it deserves, instead of viewing it as a type of
social plague. The main character comes of age among peers who are
each discovering what it means to be smart. Leffland’s novel follows
one girl’s passage from childhood to youth during the years between
Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima.
As Suse Hansen grows up and the world goes to war, she seeks out the
news in libraries and on the radio simply because it feels wrong not
to know. "Rumors of Peace" is a rare find that covers the emotional
and intellectual nuances that go into growing up.
What no one who markets or sells them likes to dwell on is that
young adult novels are a steppingstone, not a stopping place. Smart,
curious teens turn to books to discover the adults they will become,
not to see the kids they already are.
SIEGEL: Garret Freymann-Weyr, she’s the author of the novel "After the
Moment" and four other young adult books. Here are the novels that she
recommended for book-loving teens: "Rumors of Peace" by Ella Leffland,
"Gilgamesh" by Joan London, and "The Law of Dreams" by Peter Behrens.