Teenage Fiction and the issues around it.

How have all the readings developed your understanding of children’s literature and the issues surrounding it?

Teenage fiction appears to be a big grey area in my eyes and there does seem to be a select few who actually address this genre specifically, I have to agree with Burgess on this that there does seem to be a gap in the market here. This often troublesome time as a teen Appleyard (1991) identified as accompanied by a want for freedom without the want for responsibility. This is such a transitional period that I do feel books that speak quite directly about experiential issues during this transition are some of the more popular e.g. Junk. Or shall I say were more popular when I was at school. I found the last point on the pod cast a very good summary of what children’s literature should be; texts that are ‘about childhood, suitable for children and also read by children.’ (Hollindale,1997). This seems like very reasonable criteria to me. It seems what kind of literature children will identify with will vary greatly, which will be something to take into consideration when teaching. C.S. Lewis’s view that the canon of children’s literature should consist of books which both appeal to adults and children made me think. I personally do think the type of books that you can return to and take that little bit more from are very special, but I do not like the way that C.S. Lewis’s criteria emits certain books which at the time of being a teenager can be very significant for the reader e.g. Judy Bloom.


Anything which gets children to read is fantastic. From the results given in the Appleyard (1991) NEAP survey that nearly half of the thirteen year olds could not name a novel that they had read outside school I felt that the kids were missing out. Also that 75 percent of the 17 year olds said that they read for less than one hour for pleasure a day, 60 % said they had spent an hour to three hours watching television the night before! I understand that statistics shouldn’t be taken as gospel but having worked in a secondary school I do feel that a great amount of importance will be in making books accessible and using and recommending texts which may get that relationship with books off the ground. It seems that making the literature accessible and relevant is going to be quite the challenge…..



I thought Junk was a brilliant contribution from Burgess, really engaging, the multiple narrative was incredibly insightful. You actually felt that you were in St Paul’s amongst and with these characters, I suppose it helped that Burgess had drawn these characters from real life experiences and friends/people he knew. The characters were also flawed not picture perfect. Junk champions the thought of Piaget who stated that children are not limited to think about real objects and are able to deduce ideological systems, to develop ideals and see things from others point of view. One is able to think about thinking and have the ability to reflect critically on their own thoughts; also adolescent’s ability to introspect is often accompanied by self consciousness and egocentrical thinking. Burgess captures this cleverly all characters have depth with Tar, Gamma, Lily and Rob displaying realistic teen egocentrism and struggles with identity or you could say the attempted avoidance of these struggles (freedom without the responsibility). The book grants the reader with autonomy to glean what they want from the text. Yet it is undeniable that from seeing the character’s short lived hedonistic period of heroin use followed by their arduous battle to overcome this addiction is a strong warning message to the reader. The reader is truly given the scope to reflect on the characters and to form their own opinions. Such a book that provokes thought like this is highly memorable. Strangely enough I remember reading a book by Beatrice Sparks called ‘Go ask Alice’. This reads as diary entries from a girl who dies of a drug overdose after leaving home. I was enthralled in it plus there was an added intrigue as a couple of my friends were reading it. This is testimony to the influential impact of what your peers are reading and as mentioned on the pod cast Teens fascination with stories regarding the darker side of life. It is a mistake to make these kinds of texts unobtainable to children I do have to agree with Burgess when he emphasizes that teenagers will hear about crime, probably watch 'Trainspotting', sneak into the cinema watching films that have been advised for over 18’s. It is just better to generally give children a wide choice of literature so that they can enjoy variety and decide what type of books they prefer.

Adolescents are full of self questioning and anxieties (Appleyard 1996) which I feel can be helped and aided by reading books. I don’t think it is harmful for peers to embrace the culture of reading fads around them (at least they are reading!) Reading does develop over time and as Winnicott (1971) mentioned in the Appleyard article, immaturity is healthy in one’s teens.


Harding (1968) cautioned about teaching children to purely analyse, judge and interpret texts, flagging up whether the appreciation of the literature is lost? In teaching adolescents and even university undergraduates Harding stressed that “It is literature, not literary criticism that is the subject”. Although literary criticism is a big part of studying literature I feel that children do need a way into reading; the affective response which results from reading is paramount in rousing a child’s imagination or their ability to relate to the text. The power of this should not be underestimated. There is an incredibly pertinent argument which I feel actually divides the two books ‘Wolf’ by Gillian Cross and ‘Junk’ by Melvin Burgess. ‘Wolf’ uses a great deal of interesting literary techniques like intertextuality using a variety of Wolf stories e.g. ‘Boy who cried wolf’ and ‘Three Little Pigs’. The suspense is also built up cleverly with the story actually being a modern retelling of the ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ story. I appreciate this but felt that the characters did not contain much depth or possess that personable, human emphasis that came through strongly in ‘Junk’. I felt that ‘Wolf’ contained more literary devices to be appreciated, I really don’t know how wowed children would be with the intertextuality and also as the girl in the interview (discussed on pod cast) stated her knowledge of the IRA was slim so she felt she could not reach full understanding. ‘Junk’ ticked more boxes in its accessibility to teenagers in that they could be emotionally swept away in the experience (Nell 1988); but also the book gave the reader the credit to be able to reflect on the characters, become an observer and evaluator of self and others. This accounts for the teenager’s new-found disparity between the inside and outside of experience (Appleyard 1996).

Over and above all this it seems important to take both an academic and a personal approach in teaching teenagers fiction. As the study from Purves (1981) noted the teachers more focused on personal teaching weren’t allowing for the academic abilities of their class to grow and the academic teachers were potentially hindering the level to which children may enjoy books. I’m sure there must be a balance between these two approaches where great appreciation of both sides of a great literary works can be embraced. After all the readers enjoyment and the author’s literary techniques are inextricably linked in my eyes.