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Guest Post: On Writing Realistic, Flawed Parents in YA by Bryan Bliss (& giveaway of NO PARKING AT THE END TIMES)

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I’m really excited to share this guest post from debut author Bryan Bliss today. Bliss is the author of No Parking at the End Times, which I wrote about earlier this week. When I finished the book, I couldn’t stop thinking about the portrayal of the parents in this story, and I asked if he’d be interested in talking a bit more about parents in YA fiction. It’s a topic that comes up in terms of parents being bad pretty frequently, but rarely do we look at parental intentions in YA fiction — what if parents aren’t bad but don’t always come off in the best light, despite doing what they think is right?

Enjoy this thoughtful post and at the end, you have the chance to win a copy of Bliss’s novel.

Bryan Bliss is the author of No Parking at the End Times. He has worked with teenagers for more than ten years and holds an MFA from Seattle Pacific University. This is his first novel. You can find him on Twitter @brainbliss. 

When people read my debut novel, No Parking at the End Times, the first thing I hear is some combination of: Those awful parents! and Somebody call Child Protective Services! As they make mistake after mistake (most of which would be unforgivable on their own), and continue risking everything because of the misguided prophecy of a radio preacher… let’s just say that readers don’t exactly empathize with them.
And I get it, I really do. Facebook alone gives me enough reason to seek out blood pressure medication. Stories about parents who take their daughters – and its always the daughters – to purity balls are guaranteed to get my blood going. Yet, whenever somebody gets in a huff about the parents in my novel, I pause and immediately think: Yeah, but…
From the very beginning, I wanted No Parking to be a story about a girl losing faith in her parents. Granted, it would happen on a bigger scale than most of us will ever face. But that rush of understanding – when and how a teenager transitions to the reality that her parents are not perfect – is so real, so painful, it fueled every moment of the book. But it left me with a challenging quandary: what do you do with parents who – arguably – have ruined the lives of their children? How do you write about the people you’d usually mock on Facebook?
The problem, of course, is that many parents in young adult fiction are not flawed. Sure, they have cute issues – you know the type. Oh Dad, you’re so goofy! Mom! Stop trying to buy me all these clothes… I don’t want to wear a dress! These central-casting problems can easily be spun as authentic in the pages of a novel. They become subplots, little moments that challenge the main character in-between bigger plot points.
And that’s fine. I’m not going to talk badly about these characters. 
But I want more. A lot more. 
I want to see the perfect mom lose her shit at the school assembly. I want to see the dad who’s struggling to make rent accidentally – and regrettably – snap at his kids. I want parents who, in the pages of our novels, make real mistakes that actively and deeply affect the lives of their children. If we’re going to claim that young adult literature has depth – which it certainly does – we need to give our parents scars. We need real representations of the adults in most teenagers’ lives. We need them to be fallible. And we need to understand why they are that way.
A case could be made that there are already plenty of flawed parents in young adult literature. Richie, from Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor and Park immediately comes to mind. Is there a more despised character in YA? For me, no. But is Richie flawed or is he a villain? For some, the line between the two is blurred – and not to our benefit. I struggle to find the moment when Richie is ever supportive, when he shows me that he is a loving adult for the children and teenagers in that story. 
And that’s why the vitriol for the parents in No Parking is so confounding. In their own confused way, they are trying to do the right thing for their kids. Their belief system tells them that – if they sell everything, if they really believe – they will be rewarded. So when the End doesn’t come – when a desperate family has its only answer taken away – what do they do? 
They stay. Of course they stay. This is their answer. What happens if they leave and then the Rapture happens? What then? No matter what anybody says, I will argue this point until I am out of breath. They stay.
Because they are good parents. They are confused parents. They are flawed parents. In my mind, these three things are inextricable and necessary. To use the parents in my novel simply as a way to mock their belief – without realizing how much pain they’re in, how worried they really are – is not only a mistake for the story, but also for the readers.
If we’re going to create believable adults in young adult literature, we need to be brave enough to not only write unlikable and flawed parents – but to write them with the same care and compassion we bring to Nuclear Mom and Dad.  If we don’t, we’re in danger of teaching teenagers that adulthood means finally having all of our shit worked out.

But I’m still not there. Are you?

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Want to win a copy of Bliss’s No Parking at the End Times? I’ll give away two finished copies sometime mid-March. As long as you can get books from the Book Depository, you can enter!

Getting Started with Comics: Guest Post from Becca and Allison of This Week in Ladies

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We’re super excited about the guest post we have to share today. Becca and Allison are two librarians who Kimberly and I went to the University of Texas iSchool with back in the day, and they’re the voices and brains behind the awesome “This Week in Ladies” podcast, which is all about women in pop culture. They asked if we’d be interested in a guest post about getting teens — and new readers who aren’t quite teens anymore — started with reading comics. 

Of course we are! 

If you’re looking to get started or want to help other readers kick off a comics reading spree, this is the post for you. 
Becca and Allison, the team behind the podcast This Week in Ladies,
are a couple of punk ass book jockeys who live in Austin, Texas. They
spend their time eating queso, haunting their local comic book shop, and
getting way too invested in pub trivia.
So you think you’d like to try comics, but it seems like… a lot. We get it. The entry barrier to comics can be really high, especially if you’re reading about characters who’ve been around fifty or more years. Figuring out what to read, and in what order, can be really complicated.

We were in the same place two years ago. After Marvel’s The Avengers came out, though, we had Avenger fever and dove into the world of comics, slowly figuring out how to parse this format and this industry. Two years ago, neither of us knew what a pull list was, and now we haunt our local comic shop every week.

So we’ve compiled a list of recommended comics for you, divided into two categories: Marvel All In, and Badass Ladies. (Sorry, DC.) Our Marvel recommendations will help you dive in further if you like the movies, the TV show, or People’s Sexiest Man Alive. Badass Ladies recs are for people who need more badass ladies in their lives. Which is all of us.

Want to read some of these? Most have been compiled into trades (that’s when a few, usually six, monthly issues get put into a softcover book together), which you can purchase from your local comic book shop, or borrow from your local library.

And, if this leads you down the rabbit hole, you can always check out our podcast, This Week in Ladies. Every (other) week, we talk comics, books, and pop culture in general from a feminist perspective.

Marvel All In

Young Avengers
Writer: Kieron Gillen, Artist: Jamie McKelvie
The Young Avengers, who first appeared in 2005, were created by Allan Heinberg and Jim Cheung. They are a ragtag group of teen heroes modeled on the original flavor Avengers (Kate “Hawkeye” Bishop, for example, shoots arrows, wears purple and has no superpowers), who step up to fill the superhero void created by the Avengers: Disassembled storyline. Though the 2013 series occurs in the same continuity, you can still jump in here without being lost. Gillen’s snappy dialogue, filled with slang and pop culture references that feel totally natural, combined with McKelvie’s clean, cool art and Matthew Wilson’s vibrant coloring, creates a series that feels young, fresh and fun, but not frivolous. World-saving is still serious business, after all, even for teens.

Runaways
Vol. 1 [Wikipedia’s your best bet to follow the progression of this one]
Writer: Brian K. Vaughan (also written by Terry Moore and some guy you’ve probably never heard of named Joss Whedon), Illustrator: Various
The Runaways are a ragtag group of superpowered teens whose parents are part of an evil organization called the Pride. Wanting nothing to do with their parents’ bad guy ways, the teens run away together, and adventure ensues. While this storyline is situated in the same Marvel universe as those involving the major heroes (the Runaways, for example, encounter the Young Avengers during the events of Civil War), you don’t need any knowledge of that world at all to enjoy Runaways. In fact, this book will introduce you to a lot of the Marvel characters and mythology in a really accessible way. Still not sold? One of the Runaways has a dinosaur sidekick named Old Lace. (Sub-rec: anything ever written by Brian K. Vaughan)

Guardians of the Galaxy
Vol. 1 (and ongoing)
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis, Artists: Steve McNiven, Sara Pichelli
Chances are you’ve heard of the Guardians, as they did star in the second-highest grossing movie of the year. You probably already know they’re a ragtag group of space bandits who’ve taken it upon themselves to, well, guard the galaxy. While I’m not sure I’d say the book is better than the movie, it’s definitely funnier. It also has four fully-realized, interesting characters with back stories and relatable motivation, while the movie maxed out at two (Drax, unfortunately, is still lacking). The Guardians are a bit grittier than the Avengers, and more likely to justify questionable means with righteous ends, of which they are well aware, making this a little more thoughtful than your standard space action/adventure/comedy.

She-Hulk
Writer: Charles Soule, Artist: Javier Pulido
Soule’s She-Hulk has a lot in common with Matt Fraction’s Hawkeye, including art by Pulido. Like Hawkeye, She-Hulk is about what Jennifer Walters does when she’s not with the Avengers, which is practice law. After falling out with her law firm, Walters strikes out on her own, focusing on cases that involve the superhero community. She works with a ragtag group of fellow badass ladies–landlord and former mutant Sharon, investigator and costumed crusader Patsy, and paralegal-with-a-past Angie. With this cast of characters, Soule soundly answers that age-old and infuriating question: Can authors write believable characters of the opposite sex? If you’re looking for a book in which Walters Hulks out a lot, this one isn’t for you. If you’re looking for a book about a mature, adult woman who’s good at her job and has healthy relationships with friends and colleagues, give it a go.

Captain Marvel

Writer: Kelly Sue DeConnick, Artists: Dexter Soy, Emma Rios, Filipe Andrade, David Lopez
For starters: July 6, 2018. Carol Danvers, originally created as overtly feminist superhero Ms. Marvel in the 1970s, comes into her own in her new solo title, which debuted in 2012. The former Air Force pilot leads a ragtag team of veterans, nerds, and little girls as they battle evil forces at home and across the galaxy. Carol is smart, fearless, caring, and prefers punching to talking. Her best friend, Spider-Woman, shows up for a few issues, too. DeConnick pairs with a few illustrators over the series, and each one brings something different to Carol (though her hair is always crazy). Read this to see why the Carol Corps is the most dedicated fanbase of any Marvel character.

Ms. Marvel

Vol. 1 (and ongoing)
Writer: G. Willow Wilson, Artist: Adrian Alphona
A ragtag group of good students in New Jersey battle supervillains, alligators in the sewer, and strict parents. The new Ms. Marvel is Kamala Khan, a Pakistani-American Muslim teenager living in Jersey City who LOVES superheroes (some of her fanfiction has received A LOT of hits, thank you very much). Now that Carol Danvers has traded in for her new name, Marvel created a brand new character to take over the old moniker (inspired by Marvel editor Sana Amanat’s teen years). Kamala’s faith and culture absolutely inform her character and her storylines, but she’s a whole person, not just a caricature or an afterschool special about diversity — she’s funny, earnest, and deeply weird.


Avengers Assemble

Writer: Kelly Sue DeConnick, Artist: Stefano Caselli
Avengers Assemble is the comic Marvel debuted to draw in fans of the movies, so it features a ragtag team you may have seen a blockbuster summer film about. During Kelly Sue DeConnick’s run, the comic featured a variety of teamups, including a number of Avengers introducing teenager Spider-Girl to the realities of superhero life and Iron Man and the Hulk making a competition out of rescuing a scientist friend who’s been captured by villains (loser walks through downtown Manhattan naked). Caselli’s crisp, bright, clean-lined art is the perfect complement to this story, which, even though it’s about superheroes, is among the most real things we read. Funny, but always with a fantastic heart.

New Avengers

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis, Artists: Various
Starting in 2005, New Avengers featured a ragtag crew of every Avenger you’ve ever heard of (and a bunch you haven’t). The storyline came out of the aftermath of the Avengers disbanding after failing to stop the Scarlet Witch (read up on this before Avengers: Age of Ultron comes out!). Over the five years Bendis wrote it, they tackled the Civil War (to be featured in Captain America 3), the rise and fall of intelligence agencies (and how to navigate allegiance to those agencies), seeing old friends go evil, and how to be married and a superhero at the same time. This is your sweeping epic melodrama. (New Avengers is the most sprawling thing we’re recommending here, and honestly, the Wikipedia page is probably your best guide to the trades.)

Badass Ladies

Lumberjanes

Vol. 1 (and ongoing)
Writers: Noelle Stevenson & Grace Ellis, Artist: Brooke Allen
Did you like the “Pawnee Rangers” episode of Parks & Recreation? Do you wish it had more magic? Then oh my bell hooks, is Lumberjanes the comic for you. Featuring a ragtag group of campers at a summer camp with some seriously mysterious happenings, Lumberjanes is funny, silly, and deeply weird. Our campers battle werewolves, gods, controlling counselors, and hypnotized boy campers, earning a lot of great badges along the way.

Rat Queens

Vol. 1 (and ongoing)
Writer: Kurtis J. Wiebe, Artist: Roc Upchurch
I like to think of the Rat Queens as the Lumberjanes after they grow up and discover sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. As you might imagine, then, this one has more mature content than the rest of the titles on our list. On its face, Rat Queens is a fantasy book about a ragtag group of marauders–sorceress Hannah, warrior Violet, healer Dee, and thief Betty. But, it’s really about found family, gender and sexuality, growing up and kicking ass. Oh, and it’s hilariously funny.

Fray

Writer: Joss Whedon, Artist: Karl Moline
Fray is about a ragtag group of…well, actually, Melaka Fray is kind of a loner. Unlike her predecessor Buffy Summers, she doesn’t have a Scooby Gang. Or a Watcher. Fray takes place well into the flying car-future. There hasn’t been a Slayer in two hundred years and nobody even knows what vampires are, so no previous knowledge of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is required to enjoy this book (unlike this review). The book’s got a lot of Whedon hallmarks–Badass lady? Check. Quick-paced dialogue heavy on the fictional slang? Check. Death of a beloved character? CHECK. The art is both colorful and gritty, perfectly capturing the atmosphere of Fray’s dystopian future.

Batgirl Beyond

Writer: Scott Peterson, Artist: Annie Wu
OK, DC, you get this one. The Batman Beyond universe is set in a future where Bruce Wayne is a bitter old man and Neo-Gotham is once again the lawless place of his youth. High schooler Terry McGinnis is the new Batman, and former Batgirl Barbara Gordon has succeeded her father as police commissioner. In Batgirl Beyond — tragically, a single issue, and not an epic that went on forever — Barbara Gordon meets a new young (woman of color!) Batgirl on the rough side of town, and together they take on a evil business dude. Annie Wu designed the costume, and designed it to look like it was created by the character, making it unlike a lot of other female superhero costumes. This Batgirl is funny and cocky and it’s a damn shame we never got to see more of her.

Let’s Move Beyond the Gender Binary: Guest Post by I. W. Gregorio

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Since gender has been a topic through some of the posts this week — and a topic we talk about frequently here at STACKED — let’s round out this week of contemporary YA with another post about gender. . . and about sex. Welcome to upcoming debut author I. W. Gregorio. 







I. W. Gregorio is a practicing surgeon by day, masked avenging YA writer by night. After getting her MD, she did her residency at Stanford, where she met the intersex patient who inspired her debut novel, None of the Above (Balzer & Bray / HarperCollins, 4/28/15). She is a founding member of We Need Diverse Books™ and serves as its VP of Development. A recovering ice hockey player, she lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two children. Find her online at www.iwgregorio.com, and on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and Instagram at @iwgregorio.












Anyone who’s ever walked down the aisles of a toy store knows that the gender binary is a monolith that is almost impossible to topple, and I admit freely to being someone who’s tried and failed. For the first two years of my daughter’s life, I clothed her preferentially in non-pink clothing. I gave away onesies and bibs that had the word “princess” on it (once, I even took scissors to cut them out). Instead of dolls, I got her Thomas the Tank Engine trains and Legos.

Then she started preschool, and she’s now a princess-loving, pink-wearing girlie girl who is begging for an American Girl doll for Christmas. Which is fine, except that I fear that her internalization of stereotyped “girliness” won’t stop at toys and clothes.


The gender binary is insidious, impacting our everyday lives in countless ways. I struggle against its restrictions every day in both of my professions. As a female surgeon, I encounter it when my colleague makes an offhand comment about how he prefers it when I don’t wear scrubs (as they’re “so unflattering”). As an author, I see it on the shelves: books are divided into “girl books” and “boy books.”


Binary thinking does harm to both women and men. The stereotype of women as submissive, nurturing caretakers has caused generations of girls to grow up thinking that to be assertive is to be bossy, and that their education and employment is less important than that of their male counterparts. Likewise, damage is done to men who go through life being called “sissies” for showing emotion, or daring to like musicals or art or literature. The gender binary also contributes to homophobia, by dictating who people “should” love, and transphobia, by failing to recognize that one’s biological sex doesn’t always correlate to gender identity.


The truth is that men should be allowed to wear pink, and women shouldn’t have to fear being labeled “butch” for wanting to play football. Pigeonholing certain traits as masculine or feminine is self-defeating, and prevents all of us from being our truest and best selves.


Some people defend the gender binary by saying that it’s based on biology. If gender stereotypes were restricted to the fact that men need jockstraps and women require bras, I’d be fine with that. But there is no biological reason, for example, why girls should prefer the color pink or books with skinny girls wearing dresses on the cover. Indeed, studies have shown that the presence of personality traits like assertiveness, empathy, and interest in science don’t significantly differ between men and women.


The dagger to the heart of the gender binary, however, is the fact that most men and women have physical traits specific to one sex only, but not all. There’s an exception to every rule, and in this case it’s the existence of intersex conditions in which people are born with sexual characteristics that are neither wholly male or wholly female (PSA: In the old days, people used the term “hermaphrodite,” which is inaccurate and considered offensive by most of the intersex community). For a great primer on intersex, please read this FAQ from the Intersex Society of North America.
For a long time, intersex has been invisible in popular culture because of the fear and stigma surrounding it (one exception is Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex). But things are changing – MTV recently revealed that one of its main characters is intersex, and just last week the press reported on an intersex woman with a connection to Michael Phelps. I have conflicting feelings about the press coverage of the Phelps case, for reasons well articulated here, but I am encouraged by the increased visibility of intersex and transgender people in the media overall.  


The gender binary isn’t going to disappear overnight. It can only be dismantled and undermined slowly, story by story. That’s where we have the responsibility as authors and readers to seek out literature that shows us that gender isn’t a binary – it’s a spectrum. Not everyone who is born with XX chromosomes is attracted to men, identifies as a woman, or has a uterus. To assume otherwise ignores the biological diversity of the human race.  


In an essay for PEN/American, I wrote that the first gay person I ever met was in a book (Mercedes Lackey’s Magic’s Pawn). The same is true for the first intersex person (Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex), and the first gender-fluid person (Kristin Elizabeth Clark’s Freakboy). I am so grateful to all of these books for opening my mind to the spectrum of gender identity and sexual orientation. But the binary-busting books don’t stop there – they include novels about girl football players, like Catherine Gilbert Murdock’s Dairy Queen, and picture books about little boys who love wearing dresses like Sara and Ian Hoffman’s Jacob’s New Dress.


To read about others is to know them. To know them is to expand your world. Here’s to reading books that show a world beyond the gender binary. Here’s to showing our kids that girls can have masculine traits and that boys can be feminine, too.

By the way: Recently my daughter started Tae Kwon Do lessons. Her favorite color is now black.  

Boy Meets Girl: Guest Post by Lamar Giles (author of Fake ID and Endangered)

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How often is it that female authors are asked to talk about how they write male main characters? Let’s flip the script this time and see what a male author has to say about writing a realistic teen girl character. Welcome Lamar Giles!




Lamar “L. R.” Giles writes stories for teens and adults. He’s never met a genre he didn’t like, having penned science fiction, fantasy, horror, and noir thrillers, among others. He is a Virginia native, a Hopewell High Blue Devil, and an Old Dominion University Monarch. He resides in Chesapeake, Virginia, with his wife.


Fake ID is available now and Endangered will be available in April. 








Awhile ago I was on a panel talking about my new book ENDANGERED, which will be out in April. I was discussing the protagonist—Panda—and how “she” does this, and “she” does that. During the Q&A, an audience member raised her hand and said something along the lines of, “So, you’re writing a girl? Are you worried about that?”
Well…I wasn’t until then. 
I answered her question more elegantly than that—and because I write suspenseful things, I’ll hold off on telling you that answer. Instead, I’m going to focus on the broader topic, writing outside of one’s gender, and the trio of FAQs that often come along with it.
1) How do you do it? One word at a time (rimshot!)
2) Why? Because “write what you know” only takes you so far.
3) Should you be allowed to? Of course, and anyone who tells you you can’t should be plucked squarely (but gently, we’re not ruffians here) in the forehead.
Now that that’s out of the way, I told that audience member…Wait, what’s that? You’d like a little more detail on the how, why, and should questions. Some useful advice. Well, okay.
Whenever someone writes a character who isn’t a mirror image of themselves there’s inevitably the questions about the writer doing that character justice and/or should they have even attempted to write so far from their own purview? This concern is relegated mostly to writing outside of one’s gender or race (because no one has a problem with paunchy introverts writing about superheroes who  live in dystopian futures and lead freedom fighters against corrupt governments). Because of my involvement in diversity movements, I’m often asked to comment on who’s allowed to write about what. My unwavering answer—write what you want. 
No one should be able to dictate what happens between a writer and the blank page other than the writer herself. 
However, the second part of my unwavering answer is be prepared to get called out if you’ve been lazy on your research, relied on stereotypes to flesh out your characters, or been wholly offensive in your portrayal. 
Seems risky. Feels risky. Why go there at all?
I can’t speak for other writers, but I always want to grow, moving beyond my comfort zone. Nick Pearson from FAKE ID, I can write about him all day. There’s a lot of me in him. Panda comes from a different, harder to reach place. But…
NOT BECAUSE SHE’S A GIRL.
Because she’s had stuff happen to her that I’ve never experienced. Because she does things I could never do. The way she processes information is way different than how I do. These are exciting things to get into when you’re writing. 
Though, that doesn’t make me exempt to what I’ve said before. I could’ve gotten something wrong, I could’ve written some stereotypical things, I hope I won’t offend anyone, but you don’t know until it happens.
So, was I worried about writing a girl? Not really. I told the audience member, at that long ago Q&A, that I didn’t think of Panda as a girl, but as a person. Her own person. She does things, says things, and thinks things that Panda would think. Did I pull it off? 
I’ll worry about that another day.

Socioeconomic Class in Contemporary YA Lit: Where Are The Poor Teens? Guest Post by Librarian Faythe Arrendondo

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There’s been more and more talk lately about the lack of diversity when it comes to socioeconomic class in contemporary YA fiction. Today, librarian Faythe Arrendondo talks about why this conversation is important and why we need to see more poor kids in realistic YA. 

When she’s not wasting time on Twitter, Faythe Arredondo is a teen services librarian is a rural (poor) area of California. She’s a fan of dogs, hockey, popular culture, and getting ragey about things people take for granted.  










For most of my life, I have been surrounded by people that can be classified as “rural poor.” It’s the nature of our agricultural area, especially now that we are in the midst of the worst drought anyone can remember.  I’ve worked in or around the same area since I became a librarian. Nothing I see is new; it’s just how life is.


I’m not sure how the topic was brought up, but I think I mentioned how poor people in young adult literature aren’t a “thing” like vampires and werewolves were/are. This sparked an immediate reaction from three of the teens sitting in my office. They went off on how you never “see anyone” like them. How there is “no middle” and characters are either homeless, from a drug riddled home, or rich. There are no characters that are just living life and trying to find their way in an “instant gratification takes too long” society. You don’t read about characters who have a place to live and food to eat, but “don’t have the extras.” As I listened to them talk, my soul hurt. Here are three teens that know they are doing okay in life, but society would look at them with pity. That day I found out for certain the parents of these particular kids didn’t work and their money comes from the government.


Some people would feel sorry for them because they don’t have the latest iPhone, or an iPad, or a computer. These are things that a lot of people take for granted but for a lot of families, these things are an extravagance. Why is this? My gut reaction is because of popular culture. There are no leads in contemporary TV shows, movies, or books where an adolescent character doesn’t have a cell phone or an Internet connection at home. In the fall of 2013 I started a study hall at the library when I found out that a couple of the teens couldn’t finish their homework because they shared their small apartment with eight other people. They also couldn’t get some of their homework done because teachers were putting the homework assignments and extra credit online. These teens would walk 20 minutes from school to the library and study for at least two hours. They would have to leave by 6pm because their walk home took almost an hour. They couldn’t afford bus passes.


This isn’t abnormal. These kids aren’t special cases. This is their norm. According the National Center for Children in Poverty, 41% of adolescents (their definition is ages 12-17) live in low-income families. This is fact. I didn’t know these numbers when I decided I needed to call attention to the lack of the socio-economic diversity (low-income) in books. I only knew what I saw on a daily basis and what I lived with growing up.  We didn’t have the “extras” growing up, yet all I seemed to see when I read YA books were teens who had everything and didn’t have to worry about trying to finish their homework to avoid flunking.


So why isn’t this large group of teens represented in culture? When was the last time you read a book about low income kids that didn’t involve drugs, aliens, the supernatural, government control, or a natural disaster? Can you recall a book when teens are from a low-income family that takes place in modern society? Where things like a cell phone or computer aren’t commonplace? Or the family is on welfare? Reading should open up your worldview, but not discussing low-incomes teens or families is failing all readers.


I was given access to the Children’s Literature Comprehensive Database and I did some searching trying to find books that had low-income families.  The first search I did was for “poor” with 2013 and 13-18 as filters.  That returned just 68 results.  Of those, 22 used “poor” as a descriptor including “poor judgment” and “poor little rich girl.”  Only eight of these results actually had low-income teens or similar situations in the books.  A couple of months later I decided to use the same filters but try “poverty” instead and only found nine of 46 books had low-income teens.    


To say I was disappointed in the results would be an understatement. I thought there would be more, but I did find some titles that address socioeconomics. I read a lot and I don’t remember more than a handful that talked about poor teens and their lives. These are the books that we need to talk about and read. The more we read, the more demand there will be.


The first one that immediately comes to mind is Sherman Alexi’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. This books tackles so many issues that a lot of YA books shy away from. It is probably one of the first books I can remember reading that actually addressed being poor. To try and get ahead, Junior had to make an effort and attend school off the reservation. This reminded me of the teens I work with at the library. They make the extra effort a lot of people take for granted.


The Distance Between Us by Kasie West tackles the rich versus poor in a small coastal town. Money is an obvious issue and drives most of the plot, but it takes the easy way out in the end by having the protagonist find her wealthy grandparents. This theme also plays a part in Maggie Stiefvater’s Raven Boys (of which I’ve only read book 1). It’s a point of contention between the characters almost every time they interact. The book isn’t exactly contemporary, but I felt it should be mentioned along with The Distance Between Us.


In The Lure by Lynne Ewing, Blaise lives outside of Washington DC where life is not easy. By being a “lure” for the local gang, Blaise can find money, safety, and love. She lives in a broken down neighborhood where violence is commonplace. She sees being in a gang as her only way to survive and have money. Lack of money is the driving factor in this book and it’s a favorite among some of the teens in my library.


On the flip side, Lauren Oliver’s Panic takes place in rural New York. These kids are some that I recognize: teens who want to get out of their life, want to break the cycle and who have to work if they want the extra things. The teens in this story all have cells phones, but they all also seem to have jobs.  They literally risk their lives to win money so they can start their lives some place else. The plot may seem a little far-fetched, but the motivating factors are genuine.


One author who always incorporates low-income teens is Katie McGarry. In her latest, Take Me On, the protagonist and her family were evicted from their home and are temporarily homeless. The rich guy in the story is cut off from his parents and also ends up homeless for a little while. Prior to this novel, each title had a protagonist who was in the foster care system. By book three in the series, two of the characters lived in their own apartment, but always had to worry about making rent. I recommend these books to my teen patrons because they contain something for everyone.


The latest book to capture my attention is Gabi, a Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero. It is a book people need to talk about more and handles almost every issue a teen can face. It’s the first time I read a book and could see actual people in the characters, with situations that happened to people I know. When Gabi loses a cell to water damage, she didn’t get a new one right away. In fact, she had no real plans to replace it because she had no money. I can recall several instances in other books when a teen lost their phone and it was replaced instantly.

These are just a handful of books I’ve read and thought they did a good job of addressing low-income families. I want everyone to read these books and talk more about them, but it’s not enough. These are a fraction of books published.  Why can books about vampires, angels, aliens, werewolves, and so on be published ad nauseum, but we can’t publish fiction that actually reflects its readers?  Why can’t there be more books about teens that live in a low-income family? It’s up to us as readers to question publishers and writers as to why we aren’t seeing these teens in literature. If we don’t ask, they won’t realize there is a need.