Is No One Going to Say Anything?

Hello and welcome to my end-of-month newsletter blog post!

You can read last month’s newsletter here.

Following the very loose pattern I decided to set, these posts are a chance for me to update you on my writing projects and write about one of the things I love: Stories. Specifically for this month, rereading middle school/young adult books as an adult.

Why do this?

Great question. For me personally, it’s probably primarily due to nostalgia—because goodness knows I have plenty of other books on my TBR list—but there are other reasons too. I really enjoy rereading the middle school/young adult books I grew up reading:

Artemis Fowl, Percy Jackson, The Ranger’s Apprentice, the 39 Clues books, Secrets of Droon, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Chronicles of Narnia, and Harry Potter, just to name a few of the favorite series…

As a kid, these were all exceptional stories—and they still are when I read them today. But now, I pause and think to myself, “My goodness—these are children. Is no one going to stop them from doing this insanely dangerous thing? Why are all the adults just going along with it, nodding, and saying to themselves, ‘Ah, yes, this eleven-year-old child is about to be in mortal peril. This is all completely normal… ‘?!”

I know, I know—the target audience of these sorts of books is children (usually a few years younger than the protagonist). So it makes sense that they get in dangerous, exciting, and adventurous situations. They’re the protagonists!

It wouldn’t be fun for kids to read about, say, a thirty-five-year-old doing those same things. Because that’s what adults are supposed to do. For kids to be doing those things in stories—to an extent—is eye-opening. They can identify with the protagonist, which helps kids grow. I’m a big fan of that.

But I’m also a big fan of middle school/young adult books containing a hint of realism, regardless of genre. In my opinion, there should be at least one adult in the story who objects to what the child protagonist is experiencing. Because that’s also what adults are supposed to do.

And, to be honest, the idea of an adult in a children’s story doing that is rather humorous to me, so I appreciate it when it happens. Like when I recently read Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy.

The protagonist is a young girl brought into a world of magic, murder, and malevolent mages (Sorry, the alliteration just kept going!). She gets told by multiple adults throughout the story that she shouldn’t get involved in such things. And then she gets involved anyway, but I appreciated the realistic touch. (You can even read my appreciation post about the book here.)

That all being said, I think one of the strengths of middle school/young adult books is that in many cases, they remind readers that they don’t have to wait to grow up in order to take a stand against the darkness in life. They don’t have to wait to be kind, clever, and brave. They can do all of that right now.

In a humbling way, such books do that for adults too.

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Woo, February flew! I can’t believe it’s over already. I made some really good progress on projects this month. Here’s a quick breakdown:

• Speaking of middle school books where adults question what’s happening to the children protagonists… Edits continue on Rose & Ed Book III—almost halfway done with the final major edit.
• I also finished two rough drafts this month! One for a theological project (more on that at another time), the other is the fourth book in my whimsical fantasy series, Tales of Minz. I’m taking a break from those projects, letting the words sit for a bit, and then I’ll be getting to starting the editing process in a month or so.
• I posted the second short story of the year in February, and I’ll post another in mid-March. Catch up on past stories here if you’re looking for a good chuckle.
• You can also expect to see some more Book Appreciation Posts over on The Reading Corner once I get back to reading more in March.

Until next time,

Al