Young Adult Fiction is too Dark for teengers. True or False

Young Adult Fiction is too Dark for teengers. True or False

this is the question for my history enquiry. we're researching topics which interest us. i'm using Meghan Cox Gurdon's 'article' Darkness to Visable as the jumping board for my research/report.

so if anyone wrote responses or knows of any respones could you send me links or titles via comments.
i'd also appriciate any other information on the topic, books, articles, websites. ANYTHING.
i'm researching book banning and anything relating.

thank you so much.

Have you seen Ally Queen

yes, I'm a lazy blogger. sorry :) i did in fact read this a week or so ago :/ so if it's a little vague i apologise.

Title: Have you seen Ally Queen
Author: Deb Fitzpatrick
First Published: 2011 by Fremantle Press


Ally Queen is 15 and not happy. forced to move from her home, friends and well-stocked deli down south go the tiny beach town of Melros near Mandurah. and now they've moved things seem to go from bad to worse. all the kids are bogans and surfies. the only good thing she can find is the beach.


i really enjoyed Have you seen Ally Queen for the most part.
to start with Ally annoyed me a bit, she complained quite a bit and she was Dramatic, but to be fair, teenagers are. i grew to like her though, her voice is genuine and the writing is spot on except for a few words, like poxy. Capitalism and her identity are big themes. as she learns to like herself, you find yourself fond of her too. if you find her annoying to start with it IS worth persisting. 100% worth it.

i quite like that her parents are characters too, more prominently than in most YA. i like that they were flawed!! while they showed Ally's faults the parents weren't perfect, which was nice. so often as a teenager i see something the teenager's doing wrong, often something I've done, and the parents being perfect. the author trying to teach the teen (often nicely) that they're over-reacting or upsetting their parents when they shout. never though have i read a book where the parent and child were both responsible for the fight.

the description in the book was good, especially of Ally's feelings, but i feel Deb Fitzpatrick missed a great opportunity to describe the beautiful beaches and scrubby mountains that are down-south of Perth. i really loved how i could picture it all because these are places i know, or at least roughly. it's so nice have a book set in Western Australia. i love it if other people got a little more of the view.

i found the discussions of the happiness a bit full on, though very interesting. i really took a lot of it to heart. characters with such strong convictions made for an strong story. i loved the deceptions of Ally and Rel's relationship, it was much more realistic than normal in YA. they were friends, and the Love stuff was a little awkward, unsure, but beautiful. the descriptions of some of the things Ally did like mountain climbing and fishing made me jealous. it was familiar of holidays and school camps, and made me want to do things like that more often.

the best thing i can say though, is that it captured Australia's love of the beach in the best way I've read.

Mice

title: Mice
Author: Gordon Reece
Published: Allen and Unwin 2010

Shelley and her mother are mice by nature. they have been bullied their whole lives and in a desperate attempt to escape they move to an isolated cottage in the country. they think they will be safe there, but trouble has a way of finding you. Even Mice have a breaking point.
a mind twisting, electrifying thriller.

Quick Review
i was expecting a typical adventure, thriller story. this wasn't. the boundary between good and evil characters was broken, i had never realised how much i relied on that basic idea. it has the gore, horror, violence and action typical of a thriller, but the interesting part of this story is the psychological side. the journey in Shelley mind is the interesting, in many parts Confronting aspect of Mice. the story shows the effect of violence and it is disgusting, but so fascinating.

Babble
i really thought mice was a good read, but not in an enjoyable way. there was one point where i wanted to stop reading, it was really bothering me, but i had to finish. i found it really confronting, the ideas of violence and personal character were new, even if i don't agree with all of Shelley's views. in the moments where good and evil almost swap places i was shocked, horrified almost. like watching Of Mice and Men almost or The Kite Runner.

Shelley was quite an annoying character, very weak. i still felt sorry for her. while she was always reliant, she had been a victim of great violence. the transformation towards the end was satisfying. the ending was average in general, it was all to sudden and neatly tied up for me. i feel if had been part of the story i would never had recovered that fast. i did think that the change in the character of Shelley and her mother was good to see in a literary and personal sense.

the book was written to build suspense and Reece certainly managed that. the interesting thing about the writing was how in some parts it seem to be told from the present, in past tense, but some bits were like Shelley was remembering it, recounting it later in life. it flowed seamlessly, but had an interesting affect.

a decent book, worth reading, especially on a psychological level.

Perth YA fans Unite!

do you live in Perth?
are you sick or never meeting your favourite authors?
sick of authors who always skip Perth?
THERE IS AN EASY ANSWER!

a group of us Perth bloggers have decided to band together to bring YA authors to Perth.
to do this we are contacting publishers and authors showing our interest, BUT we have to prove that coming all the way to Perth is worth the time and the money. THIS is where we need your help! we need to show you to show that YOU want them to come.
there are 3 ways to do this:
1. sign our petition
- just click here to sign. by signing you are just showing your support you won't get told anymore information about blogging and author events.
2. subscribe to our blog- Perth YA Fans Unite!
by subscribing you will be kept up to date about what we are doing in terms of meeting up and our plans of action. as well as author events.
3. like us on facebook.
if you have facebook please like us! hopefully this page Will work as a way to spread the word about events and to show publishers the size of our YA fan base.

we are just starting off and desperately need to spread the word about our group and get as many people liking our page and signing the petition as possible.
not only are we aiming to bring authors to Perth, but it's nice to connect our YA book blogging community.

see our blog for more information about us. email ya.perth@gmail.com or cherry-banana-split@hotmail.com if you would like to come along to our meetings or have any ideas.

Graffiti Moon

Title: Graffiti Moon
Author: Cath Crowley

Lucy is in love with Shadow, a mysterious graffiti artist.

Ed thought he was in love with Lucy, until she broke his nose.

Dylan loves Daisy, but throwing eggs at her probably wasn't the best way to show it.

Jazz and Leo are slowly encircling each other.

An intense and exhilarating 24 hours in the lives of four teenagers on the verge: of adulthood, of HSC, of finding out just who they are, and who they want to be.
From the Pan Macmillan Australia Website


loved it, one of my favourite reads of the year.
i loved the characters, the original plot line, the dynamic writing. it dips into memories building to this night, while driving the adventure forward smoothly.
the use of detail was so good, i could almost feel the heat.
my favourite thing though were the poems. Amazing.
it's funny as well :)
i read this months ago while i was having tests/assessments etc and didn't get t review it, but i feel I've said all i need to.
so sweet, so true. not quite like anything I've read before.

Quotes
"Your idea of romance requires a corset and a time machine. Loosen up for once." - Jazz

"... but I guess love's kind of like a marshmallow in a microwave, on high. After it explodes it's still a marshmallow. But, you know, it's a complicated marshmallow." -Lucy-

"he can't remember when he lost them
But he lost the daytime things" -Leo-

The Friendship Matchmaker

Title: The Friendship Matchmaker
Author: Randa Abdel-Fattah
First Published: Scholastic 2011

Lara Zany in Potts Court Primary's 'Official Friendship Matchmaker'. she is writer of the Friendship Rules-which she is certain work, all friendships are approved by her and people come to her to sort out all their fights. she can take the Loneliest Loser and find them a best friend. Then Emily Wong turns up on the first day of 2nd term and disagrees to conform, why should she have to eat cheese sandwiches instead of meatballs for lunch? why shouldn't she paint her nails in different colours? Lara's rules are about to be put to the test.

Quick Review
a brilliant book for girls of about the age of nine. a nice reminder of how special friendship is, how it works and the importance of being yourself. it's simply written, with a big font, only about 170 pages with lists of rules from Lara's Friendship Manual.

Quote
She was obviously in the mood for looking like a zebra: black & white striped t-shirt, black skirt with a thick white hem, black headband and white hair tie, and one black and one white earring. Plus black runners and white socks. "is it international Save the Zebra Day?" i asked.
she smoothed and her skirt. "Thanks" she said enthusiastically "i do look great"
What Cheek!

Babble
i enjoyed the friendship matchmaker, though it's clearly meant for a younger audience. though it's clearly bad the way Lara encourages people to completely change who they are to make friends you understand why she does it. it's clear there's a story behind it. this is a laboured point from the beginning, i found it to be a bit too obvious, which would be fine for nine year olds. the back story of Lara comes out at the end, but it was a bit rushed.

Emily's a great character i loved hearing about her ideas and clothes. she has a shirt, but i won't ruin the surprise :) she's also kind, and smart and determined to be true to herself and unique.
Lara's lovely to because behind her rules is actually a desire for everyone to have a best friend, she just isn't sure how to go about it.
it also has a cute cover ans swirls and stars throughout the book.
best of all i think there's going to be a sequel

Nightpeople-The Darklands trilogy

title: Nightpeople
Author: Anthony Eaton
Published: 2005 Queensland Press

Saria is the last of her kind, the final child of the Darklands, a quarantined expanse of outback desert, contaminated hundreds of years earlier by the remote and mysterious Nightpeople. In a dying world, she is the last ray of hope.

Spirited away at her birth before the Nightpeople could remove her from the genetic pool, Saria, now in her early teens, is summoned to appear before the Council of Dreamers. There she discovers the story of her past, and the nightmare truth of her people's future, and as history draws the Darklanders towards an inevitable fate, Saria determines to take the only course available to her, whatever the cost.

Nightpeople, the first book of the Darklands trilogy, explores a society turned in on itself and a future which readers will find both alien and disturbingly familiar.

I love the sound of this book, fantasy and Aussie books and two of my favourite things so i thought that i was set to love this book. i met Anthony Eaton last term and the way he described it the idea sound fantastic as you'd think from the blurb pinched from his website. i was very excited when i got it for holiday reading from the library.

the book begins really well, you really want to know what's going to happen to this baby saved from the 'nightpeople', and the 2nd chapter was good as well. Eaton has you wanting to know what's going to happen and what makes Saria special, but the story seemed to fizzle out after the first 2 chapters, for me at least. i kept reading but it seemed like nothing was really happening. i tried on many occasions to finish is, but i just didn't get through it. it went back to the library unfinished. I'd like to try it again some time, because i love the idea of an Australian set fantasy and the premise was brilliant, but the writing let t down. not enough happened, or enough was given away to keep me hanging on. it seemed to drag.

this said, i plan to try some of his other novels, because he was just lovely and hilarious.