Teenagers and Fiction

Maybe I listen to too many radio phone-ins, but it appears that the division between adults and teenagers is getting wider and increasingly complex. We as adults are generally never satisfied with what teenagers are - either telling them to 'grow-up' as teachers, or trying to trap them into permanent childhood as parents.
As illustrated by both Appleyard and the podcast, the concept of the teenager is a relatively new one. Before compulsory education, mass attendance at university and modern consumerism, perhaps that extra category was not required. People grew up as children, then worked, married, and/or had children of their own - and became adults. There was the world of children, and the world of adults.
Young people now are to be kept in school until the age of 18, with the government hoping that half of those will attend university, and so that leaves a huge amount of the population still not adhering to traditional notions of adulthood into their twenties. Of course though, these people are no longer children. Additionally, young people are experiencing adolescence at increasingly young ages. This phase then, between childhood and adulthood may consume as many as 10, or even 15 years of a person's life, yet is often written off as transitional.
With this in mind, it is baffling to realise that there is very little literature available for teenagers, such as Junk, especially considering the size of the market for the age group in other forms of media. One thing I have certainly learned from the various readings is that we need to accept teenagers as who they are at that time - not who we want them to become, or in relation to how they were as children. Authors need to represent the unique experiences of this age group more prolifically, and we as English teachers need to make every effort to understand their experiences, so that we can recommend that literature accordingly.

However, whilst this might make it tempting to be more accepting of 'teenagers' as a category, it's noteworthy that music - perhaps the most successful medium - makes no attempt to overtly categorise who it is intended for. So by that score the readings have made me a little unsure - should we embrace the concept of 'teenager' and seek to provide specifically for it, or would literature benefit from being free of such categories and teenagers be free to read both children's and adult fiction without self-consciousness? Maybe music still acknowledges the teenager, but does not patronise that group by marketing 'teen-music'.

Stephen mentions in the podcast that literature is generally only judged with hindsight, perhaps 30 years of it. If we look at the acknowledged classics, perhaps from the canon we've studied - it is noticeable that much of it is pre-1950, i.e. from the era before the concept of the teenager became significant. It's going to be hard for these books to represent the experiences of today's teenagers, and so I've also learned to be wary of the kind of snobbery that Burgess mentions and judge books for their value at the time for their audience.

I agree with Appleyard to a certain extent that teenagers need books that makes them think, but how is this achieved? I think that the reader needs an attachment to the characters and events, and so needs to identify with them, and this is backed up by Stephen's interviewee. If the reader empathises with the characters and events, he/she will begin to question the character's actions and thoughts in line with their own leanings, and so the thoughtful reader begins to emerge.

I believe that the controversy surrounding texts such as Junk was unfounded. I agree that having faith in young people to understand and deal with the issues is vitally important - and besides, there is nothing in Junk that could not easily be found by a pupil elsewhere. For example, followers of prime-time-aired Eastenders may be aware of a current story where a 16 year old prostitute is being pursued by a 14 year old boy who wants to use stolen money to run away with her. I also believe that the honesty of Melvin Burgess is less likely to cause the kind of rebellion that many are scared of, as opposed to didacticism. As Stephen's interviewee suggests, the experience of Burgess is crucial - nothing fuels rebellion like being told what to do by someone who doesn't know themselves the reasons why. Burgess takes the time to describe the 'good' effects of taking heroine - of course there are good effects, otherwise it wouldn't be so popular - and it would be pulling the wool over young people's eyes to pretend otherwise. This then makes the more critical parts of the book much more credible.

I have tried to think about this task with my teacher's hat on, so for me the understanding of children's literature is inextricably linked to the understanding of children, or teenagers.