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Dystopias, Disasters and Other Futurescapes
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From: Megan Schliesman <schliesman_at_education.wisc.edu>
Date: Tue, 03 Aug 2010 13:42:54 -0500
Let's start our CCBC-Net discussion for the first part of August: Dystopias, Disasters and Other Futurescapes.
Speculative fiction is not a genre I generally seek out, though I'm an avid appreciator of both Suzanne Collins's "The Hunger Games" trilogy and Patrick Ness's "Chaos Walking" trilogy, among others. Still,without even trying, my reading over the past month in order to stay on top of new books for children and teens has included several bleak perspectives on the impact of global warming ("Ship Breaker" by Paolo Bacigalupi; , "X Isle" by Steve Augarde), book that look at the abuse of technology and its impact on the disenfranchised ("For the Win" by Cory Doctorow, "The Unidentified" by Rae Mariz) and even a children's book that blends an old fashioned sensibility with the very modern issue of supply and demand for oil ("Crunch" by Leslie Connor).
A recent "New Yorker article" by Laura Miller, "Fresh Hell," discusses the boom in dystopian fiction for young adults. Millers offers up that series like "The Hunger Games" trilogy by Suzanne Collins, and "Uglies" by Scott Westerfeld, with teens struggling to survive in a world over which they--at least at first--have little control, as mirroring the way young adults often feel about their relationship to the larger world, writing: "Dystopian fiction may be the only genre written for children that’s routinely /less/ didactic than its adult counterpart. It’s not about persuading the reader to stop something terrible from happening—it’s about what’s happening, right this minute, in the stormy psyche of the adolescent reader."
(Read her entire article at
What are your thoughts regarding specific books or series, or the current boom in speculative fiction for youth? Do you see differences between futuristic books being published today and those that were published in past decades for children and teens in terms of subject matter, audience appeal, or even intent?
Megan
-- Megan Schliesman, Librarian Cooperative Children's Book Center School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison 600 N. Park Street, Room 4290 Madison, WI 53706
608/262-9503 schliesman_at_education.wisc.edu
www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/
Received on Tue 03 Aug 2010 01:42:54 PM CDT
Date: Tue, 03 Aug 2010 13:42:54 -0500
Let's start our CCBC-Net discussion for the first part of August: Dystopias, Disasters and Other Futurescapes.
Speculative fiction is not a genre I generally seek out, though I'm an avid appreciator of both Suzanne Collins's "The Hunger Games" trilogy and Patrick Ness's "Chaos Walking" trilogy, among others. Still,without even trying, my reading over the past month in order to stay on top of new books for children and teens has included several bleak perspectives on the impact of global warming ("Ship Breaker" by Paolo Bacigalupi; , "X Isle" by Steve Augarde), book that look at the abuse of technology and its impact on the disenfranchised ("For the Win" by Cory Doctorow, "The Unidentified" by Rae Mariz) and even a children's book that blends an old fashioned sensibility with the very modern issue of supply and demand for oil ("Crunch" by Leslie Connor).
A recent "New Yorker article" by Laura Miller, "Fresh Hell," discusses the boom in dystopian fiction for young adults. Millers offers up that series like "The Hunger Games" trilogy by Suzanne Collins, and "Uglies" by Scott Westerfeld, with teens struggling to survive in a world over which they--at least at first--have little control, as mirroring the way young adults often feel about their relationship to the larger world, writing: "Dystopian fiction may be the only genre written for children that’s routinely /less/ didactic than its adult counterpart. It’s not about persuading the reader to stop something terrible from happening—it’s about what’s happening, right this minute, in the stormy psyche of the adolescent reader."
(Read her entire article at
What are your thoughts regarding specific books or series, or the current boom in speculative fiction for youth? Do you see differences between futuristic books being published today and those that were published in past decades for children and teens in terms of subject matter, audience appeal, or even intent?
Megan
-- Megan Schliesman, Librarian Cooperative Children's Book Center School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison 600 N. Park Street, Room 4290 Madison, WI 53706
608/262-9503 schliesman_at_education.wisc.edu
www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/
Received on Tue 03 Aug 2010 01:42:54 PM CDT
