From: Alixwrites at aol.com <Alixwrites>
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 11:46:58 -0400

Hear, hear, Ms. Meeker/Kerr (and may I say, I am deeply impressed to be sharing cyberspace with you).

I am coming out of lurk-mode to say that, no, I unfortunately think there are few, if any subjects that are too harsh for teenagers to deal with . . . they have to deal with all of them anyway. This week, I spoke with a group that included an English teacher from, arguably the "best" public school in Miami. She had read my book, Breaking Point, which is about two boys who plant a bomb at their school and also deals with the cruel treatment of outsiders. This young woman said she felt the book was disturbing . . . maybe too much for teenagers. I told her, "I attended your school in 1984, and not a lot has changed since then. But one thing that HAS changed since then is, when I was in school, I never worried that one of my classmates would take out a gun or plant a bomb. I never had to. Kids now do. I WANT people to be disturbed by the book."

As I well knew, that school had a bomb scare last year (a threat called in on the anniversary of Columbine. School was closed for the day). She understood what I meant.

I WISH the subject matter of young?ult books was foreign to teenagers. But, frankly, I've never spoken with a group where any TEENAGER raised a hand and said,
"Why did you write about this subject matter? Teens don't need to deal with this."

Just my .02

Alex Flinn www.alexflinn.com
Received on Fri 14 Jun 2002 10:46:58 AM CDT