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Re: How much do we tell the children
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From: Sheila Welch <sheilawelch_at_juno.com>
Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2011 12:24:17 -0600
This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand
Thanks, Ellen, for writing your book, IN TROUBLE, and finding a publisher who was willing to accept it. As I mentioned in my earlier post, the local librarian advised me to use a pseudonym when my book, which includes an abortion, was published. Not being as brave as you, I followed her advice. There are other novels for teens that deal with this controversial issue, but they are few in number and often the abortion has already happened before the story begins. Very few books focus on the terror a young girl feels when she discovers she's pregnant. She has good reason to be frightened because pregnancy can be deadly, especially for girls under 15. Authors who write for teens should be allowed to create characters and situations that reflect the real world. Publishers should be seeking realistic fiction. Fantasy is wonderful, but many young people are hungry for books that speak the truth.
Sheila a.k.a. Anika Cassidy
On Tue, 22 Nov 2011 12:19:26 -0500 Ellen Levine writes: In my nonfiction book FREEDOM'S CHILDREN, not only is there the story of Emmett Till, but all the blacks I interviewed, who described their experiences as young people (ranging in age from 5 to 19) during the civil rights movement, were well aware of all the killings and brutalizations. They certainly knew about Till, but also the murder of white adults like Viola Liuzzo -- One African-American teen at the time told me, "she was a part of the family."
My recently published novel IN TROUBLE took quite a while to sell. It's the story of teen pregnancy, which is perfectly okay, but the story includes abortion, which is not. This is not an author not willing to tell, but self-censorship in publishing and media in general (adult as well as for young people). I was actually shocked at the degree of self-censorship going on. The Juno syndrome is alive and well, i.e., bring the fetus to term. But that's it. Even the soap "All My Children," which had an episode with a legal abortion not long after Roe v. Wade in 1973, thirty-three years later rewrote that show to say it never really happened: the fetus was in fact "kidnapped" and implanted in another woman who brought it to term! (Talk about our love of fantasy.) In this world where one in three women will have an abortion in her lifetime, where teen pregnancy is a serious problem, we're largely kept from talking about it. So my question is how much are they letting us tell the children. As someone noted, vampires
killing is fine, but the real stuff, mental and physical…
Ellen
www.ellenlevineauthor.com
Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2011 12:24:17 -0600
This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand
Thanks, Ellen, for writing your book, IN TROUBLE, and finding a publisher who was willing to accept it. As I mentioned in my earlier post, the local librarian advised me to use a pseudonym when my book, which includes an abortion, was published. Not being as brave as you, I followed her advice. There are other novels for teens that deal with this controversial issue, but they are few in number and often the abortion has already happened before the story begins. Very few books focus on the terror a young girl feels when she discovers she's pregnant. She has good reason to be frightened because pregnancy can be deadly, especially for girls under 15. Authors who write for teens should be allowed to create characters and situations that reflect the real world. Publishers should be seeking realistic fiction. Fantasy is wonderful, but many young people are hungry for books that speak the truth.
Sheila a.k.a. Anika Cassidy
On Tue, 22 Nov 2011 12:19:26 -0500 Ellen Levine writes: In my nonfiction book FREEDOM'S CHILDREN, not only is there the story of Emmett Till, but all the blacks I interviewed, who described their experiences as young people (ranging in age from 5 to 19) during the civil rights movement, were well aware of all the killings and brutalizations. They certainly knew about Till, but also the murder of white adults like Viola Liuzzo -- One African-American teen at the time told me, "she was a part of the family."
My recently published novel IN TROUBLE took quite a while to sell. It's the story of teen pregnancy, which is perfectly okay, but the story includes abortion, which is not. This is not an author not willing to tell, but self-censorship in publishing and media in general (adult as well as for young people). I was actually shocked at the degree of self-censorship going on. The Juno syndrome is alive and well, i.e., bring the fetus to term. But that's it. Even the soap "All My Children," which had an episode with a legal abortion not long after Roe v. Wade in 1973, thirty-three years later rewrote that show to say it never really happened: the fetus was in fact "kidnapped" and implanted in another woman who brought it to term! (Talk about our love of fantasy.) In this world where one in three women will have an abortion in her lifetime, where teen pregnancy is a serious problem, we're largely kept from talking about it. So my question is how much are they letting us tell the children. As someone noted, vampires
killing is fine, but the real stuff, mental and physical…
Ellen
www.ellenlevineauthor.com
---Received on Tue 22 Nov 2011 12:24:17 PM CST
