If you are the parent of a teenaged girl, grab the airsick bag in the pocket in front of you before you begin reading this.
I have been doing some research into what the kidlets are reading these days and what I’ve found is enough to send you screaming to a remote island, dragging your children out of the reach of the cultural pied pipers. Not only are Young Adult novels chocked full of liberal propaganda (nutty environmentalism, anti-NRA blather, pro-abortion agendas) they are as sexually explicit as the average issue of Penthouse Letters and peppered with lot’s “f” words, drinking, and drugging. I seriously could not even reprint 98% of what I’ve read. It’s that trashy. Here’s some gripping dialog.
I have been doing some research into what the kidlets are reading these days and what I’ve found is enough to send you screaming to a remote island, dragging your children out of the reach of the cultural pied pipers. Not only are Young Adult novels chocked full of liberal propaganda (nutty environmentalism, anti-NRA blather, pro-abortion agendas) they are as sexually explicit as the average issue of Penthouse Letters and peppered with lot’s “f” words, drinking, and drugging. I seriously could not even reprint 98% of what I’ve read. It’s that trashy. Here’s some gripping dialog.
“‘Hey, I noticed Blair was looking prety hot on Saturday night,’ he said. Nate
nodded as an image of Blair’s tennis-taut ass in her tight black dress surfaced
in his mind. She had looked good.
‘Course she’s not stacked like Jennifer,’
Anthony added.” (pg.56)
Then there’s the health class where they discuss,
“love, sex, shampoo, and the physiognomies of boys , among other things.” (pg.
59)
One future rocket scientist asks,
“Is it true that all the feeling is in the end part of the penis?” (pg. 62)
The teacher responds,
“Yes, the tip of the penis is very sensitive, but sensitivity varies from penis
to penis.” (pg. 63)
One wonders if the author couldn’t have fit just one more “penis” in that sentence. It’s a good thing American students aren’t bombarded with useless classes like Math and Science. Their “health” classes are far more informative and much more useful during their Spring Break orgies than algebra would ever be.
Then there’s a touching scene where Vanessa goes shopping for her first lingerie, hoping to impress her boyfriend.
“But maybe, just maybe, a Very Sexy rose lace plung demi bra and matching lace
tanga were just the type of thing she needed to make herself so irresistible to
Dan, he’d have his organic poetic moment or whatever it was he was waiting for
and decide he was ready to have sex.”(pg. 87)
Gloria Steinem should be proud. After all, this is what her Sexual Revolution did for us. It made it okay for every 12-year-old to be used and discarded by the men in their lives. I’m not quite sure that’s what she and her feminist friends were going for, but the casualties of the feminist movement keep getting trampled in the ever-expanding quest for “freedom” from men. (Which literally keeps putting us under them. I think I need to take another seminar on how that’s liberating.)
The examples I’ve given here are the tamest of the bunch. I don’t have the heart to post more. It’s too depressing. Parents, keep your kids away from this crap. Do NOT buy any Young Adult novels for your teens that you haven’t read yourself. Do not be happy the kids are reading without caring WHAT they are reading unless you want your child mired in sex, drugs, and the worst of today’s culture. I went to some bookstores in my neighborhood to do a little detective work and find out how these books are marketed. At my local Borders, I have to give kudos to the management for putting up a warning sign (albeit extreemly small) for parents that these books contain “adult material”. At the Barnes and Noble, however, there was no sign. When I questioned the clerks, they told me none of the parents had ever complained. According to them, most of these books are purchased by parents for their kids. I can only hope that it is because the parents have NO IDEA what’s in them. I would hate to think there are parents out there who know what’s in them and just don’t care.
Some will argue that you cannot stop teens from having sex or doing drugs or drinking underage….SO WHAT? Do we just give up entirely? And if that’s the case, why don’t we just hand out a bottle of Jack Daniels, some clean needles and a box of condoms on the first day of Junior High? Because some kids will not indulge if they are told about the consequences. Some kids will wait until they are adults to make adult decisions and I think we owe it to them to continue to fight against the movement to hurl all teenagers into adulthood at lightening speed. They deserve a childhood. These jerks that write these books are the enemies of childhood. They aim to rob your child of his or her innocence and they’re doing it without making a ripple in the societal pond. This should make you angry. As a parent, you should be livid that some twisted trust-fund-baby who had brainless parents is helping your child become a degenerate. Make some noise about it! Visit your local bookstores and get them to at least put up a warning for clueless parents.
Obviously, the sexual content is the most disturbing thing about these novels, but what is also distasteful is the brand marketing that is awash on every page. Nike, Prada, Manolo Blahnik, Gucci…it’s enough to make one wonder if these companies pay the authors for all the free advertising they’re getting. The characters are blinged out to the hilt in designer clothes, designer shoes, designer cologne, designer bags…it’s ridiculous! And I hope that today’s teenagers are smart enough to know when their being had. Where are the authors who are writing about extraordinary teens? Where are the stories that make your heart warm? The only visceral reactions today’s teen material evokes are shivers and ice cold dread. If those kids are the future, I fear tomorrow.
2 comments:
A life too short for so many libraries. There has to be a way to distinguish between those books worth reading and the garbage that is a waste of time and even worse, promotes the putrefaction of the soul. If you want to be reading good literature you should avoid anything that is not at least a hundred years old.
The garbage tends not to last so long. I cannot imagine anybody reading Dan Brown in the 22nd century, not because he didn't dream up a good story, but because his prose is insipid and jejune. On the other hand one can still preserve garbage for eternity by dressing it in beautiful words.
The story in this book that you are reviewing will not last by any count; the writing is unremarkable and the story seems entirely ordinary. Children are more interested in reading Harry Potter, the Lord of the Rings, and the Chronicles of Narnia, because these stories are extraordinary and beautifully written, and because they offer the mind a getaway from everything quotidian and pedestrian in their lives. This story seems no different than a day at school. (another reason to educate them at home? :-)
There are nevertheless a thousand samples of garbage in print for every gem to be discovered. If anyone is actually stimulated by the unsuccesfully prurient passages you quoted I wouldn't call what they are reading a problem, but a symptom rather, of something else.
Hopefully, our children will choose to read edifying works of literature. In the meantime, before they learn to read, can I borrow your book, now that you're done with it. :-)
While I totally agree that these insipid pieces of trash won't last, what concerns me is the lives they will affect negatively on the way out. I know teenage girls are reading these by the droves. Check it out on Amazon.com in the review section. Or go to the bookstore and see how many copies they stock. Or go to the library and see how you have to wait to get them! Believe me, young women ARE reading them and what concerns me is what concerns a lot of people. Too many of today's kids are joyless, selfish beings who are capable of things like Columbine, Virginia Tech, Daytona Beach gang rapes and other horrors. We need to ask ourselves why young girls think it's okay to take off their clothes like a porn star for an idiot with a camera and a Girls Gone Wild t-shirt. And one of the reasons is the cultural permissivness and the lack of real education!
Do you think they're reading 100 year old books in school? Not public school. Public school is a joke. They're learning how to give B.J.s and where to get abortions. In many high schools, they don't even teach basic economics anymore! I guess that wouldn't leave enough time for watching Michael Moore mockumentaries. (I actually have a friend who is a teacher and he shows his class Moore's movies. And he's supposed to be teaching English.)
With influences like those, I don't doubt for a minute that many young people are drawn to the worst in the young adult genre.
And I aim to expose it in order to educate parents. Parents who know are the only ones who can make a difference and steer Junior or Ginger to better reading material.
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