The problems with the problem YA fiction article.

Below, Toby referenced the Slate article about young adult "problem novels." Leaving aside the problems (no pun intended) with the limiting, dismissive "problem novel" label, there are still a lot of holes in Hulbert's argument. The librarians and other YA experts on both the long-lived Child-Lit mailing list and the ALA's YALSA-book mailing list (Young Adult Library Services Association) have pointed out, among other things, that while ostensibly discussing YA lit, she references a book that is about a much younger age group; she got the name of the Printz winner wrong (it's How I Live Now); she seems to have read The Buffalo Tree and not a single other YA novel of any ilk; and, in my own opinion, she's picking a fight that doesn't, by any stretch of the imagination, need to be picked. YA books are already a put-upon, much-maligned and grossly underappreciated segment of the ficion population. Sure, there are trite, lessony books that read like after-school specials. There are also striking pieces of writing in honest, astonishing voices that reflect an experience that kids are not likely to read about in Moby Dick or that tired, picked-over standard of high school lit class, Of Mice and Men.

And with that thesis statement, I'm off to do my laundry and think about my argument before I post more. But one last thought before I go: Hulbert says, "The genre, as teachers have discovered with the help of accompanying guides, lends itself to trendy and tidy didacticism." I'm inclined to think that the flaw there is not inherently with the book, but possibly with the teacher who thinks this sort of lesson is a good idea. And I love English teachers.