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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from how stupports

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Speaker 1: dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen

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Speaker 1: and I'm Caroline and this is the two thousand fourteen

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Speaker 1: annual Stuff Mom Never Told You Summer Book Edition Podcast,

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Speaker 1: Episode Podcast Chapter four. Join our book Club, Join our

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Speaker 1: book Club. Yeah, every summer we get real book nerdy

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Speaker 1: and devote a podcast to some aspect of books, publishing, literature,

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Speaker 1: and partially timed with the Fault in our Stars coming

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Speaker 1: to the big screen this summer, and partially because stuff

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Speaker 1: I've Never told You folks really seem to like this

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Speaker 1: idea when we tossed it out on Facebook and Twitter.

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Speaker 1: We're going to talk about why a lit young adult

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Speaker 1: literature that's right? And of course this immediately, like all

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Speaker 1: of my research for this episode was really just REVERI

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Speaker 1: just just me going back into time traveling sequence in

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Speaker 1: my mind, remembering reading books like The Giver or Catcher

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Speaker 1: in the Rye a separate piece The Outsiders, Stay Gold,

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Speaker 1: pony Boy, and I just reread Enders Game not too

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Speaker 1: long ago in anticipation of seeing the movie, and then

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Speaker 1: I heard that it was not so great. I'm not

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Speaker 1: sure if that's true. Correg me if I'm wrong, but

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Speaker 1: I just didn't want to ruin it because I love

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Speaker 1: Enders Games so much. Well, an Enders Game and The

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Speaker 1: Fault in Our Stars are by no means the only

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Speaker 1: y novels that have been developed into movies. I mean,

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Speaker 1: we are definitely living in a time of the reign

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Speaker 1: of y A because if you think about it, Harry Potter,

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Speaker 1: Twilight and the Hunger Games, those massive franchises as they

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Speaker 1: are now all start it out as y A books. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: why A books that drew humongous audiences of all ages.

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Speaker 1: Because key to the success of so many books is

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Speaker 1: not just having the fourteen year old or the eight

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Speaker 1: year old or however old you are picking up the

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Speaker 1: book or asking mom to buy it. It's sucking in

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Speaker 1: those grown ups who are just fascinated by the clear

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Speaker 1: and compelling, incredible storylines that a lot of these books have.

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Speaker 1: And I gotta tell you, Caroline, I read The Fault

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Speaker 1: in Our Stars by John Green, which right now, that's

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Speaker 1: like I mean, it has been on a best seller

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Speaker 1: list for ages at this point, and I had seen

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Speaker 1: the book mentioned in a lot of places. I had

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Speaker 1: read a glowing review of it in the New York Times,

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Speaker 1: and so of course I bought it. I was going

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Speaker 1: on vacation and wanted a book to read, so I

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Speaker 1: picked it up and I started reading it, not knowing

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Speaker 1: that it was a y A book. And it's fantastic.

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Speaker 1: It really is a great read. But there were times

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Speaker 1: when I was like, you know this, this really this

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Speaker 1: is really reading like a adult novel, and got on

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Speaker 1: the internet again, Well, what was it about it that

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Speaker 1: made you think it was written like a young adult novel?

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Speaker 1: Just the way that young adult novels are, particularly in motive,

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Speaker 1: and just the way that John Green writes the characters

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Speaker 1: internal monologues and their conversations with each other. Um, just

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Speaker 1: there's a particular y a tone of just sheer honesty,

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Speaker 1: like cutting through all of the lyric pros that you

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Speaker 1: might see in more adult fiction, which kind of just

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Speaker 1: sounds like porn. Uh. It's that they kind of gave

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Speaker 1: it away as a Y book, but it's it's nonetheless good.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's another example of a y A

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Speaker 1: title that is now beloved by young and old well right,

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Speaker 1: and that has a lot to do with in the

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Speaker 1: Association for American Publishers ranked Children's and young adult books

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Speaker 1: as the single fast, just growing publishing category. A lot

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Speaker 1: of people are having that reaction to these books that

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Speaker 1: I mean, young or old, wherever you fall. A lot

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Speaker 1: of people just love these books. And I think that's

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Speaker 1: so important. One thing that you hear people say, and

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Speaker 1: have heard people say forever about like Harry Potter, for instance,

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Speaker 1: is that it doesn't matter if the writing is that

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Speaker 1: more emotive young adult style or if it is about

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Speaker 1: witches and wizards. The fact that you're getting kids to

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Speaker 1: read is so important. And um there was a twenty

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Speaker 1: Scholastic Kids and Family Reading Report survey, for instance, that

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Speaker 1: talked to kids between nine and eleven. Six of those

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Speaker 1: kids said they read books for fun and to be

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Speaker 1: inspired by storylines and characters, and half said that they

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Speaker 1: read books to help figure out who they were and

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Speaker 1: who they could become. So how important that we give

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Speaker 1: them good quality storylines and reading material to sort of

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Speaker 1: go on those personal journeys with. And I remember going

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Speaker 1: on some of those personal journeys particularly, and I feel

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Speaker 1: like this excuse on the younger end of y A.

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Speaker 1: But I devoured Beverly Cleary books, the Ramona series, and

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Speaker 1: I felt like I identified with her so much, and

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Speaker 1: when she would experience something that I had experienced, it

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Speaker 1: validated like my experience, and yeah, I totally get it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because these books are being used by kids, and I mean,

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Speaker 1: we're going to talk more about this, but these books

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Speaker 1: are being used by kids to work through things, you know,

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Speaker 1: especially when we get into the topic of boys and

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Speaker 1: young men being given books that give them more credit

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Speaker 1: as readers than just being about football or just being

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Speaker 1: about like solving you know, solving a problem on their

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Speaker 1: sports team. Yeah, and and for why a lit today too,

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Speaker 1: it's really breaking new ground exposing kids to protagonists who

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Speaker 1: are transgender, or might have gay parents, or you know,

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Speaker 1: like kind of exposings to more diverse perspectives. And um,

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Speaker 1: it's not just young adults that this is appealing to,

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Speaker 1: as we have now established, there's also been the rise

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Speaker 1: of quote unquote kid lit book clubs among older readers,

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Speaker 1: adults getting together intentionally reading say the Fault in Our

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Speaker 1: Stars or the Giver or are you there, God, it's

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Speaker 1: me Margaret. I would love to be in a Judy

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Speaker 1: Bloom book club. I'm just saying, so, first of all,

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Speaker 1: why don't we kick off with a brief history of

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Speaker 1: y A because, uh, this genre hasn't been around forever. Well, right,

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Speaker 1: because when you think about our history as a society,

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Speaker 1: let's not get too big with us. But if you

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Speaker 1: think about our own history and give it some context,

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Speaker 1: when did teenagers become a thing? I mean that wasn't

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Speaker 1: until about the nineteen forties that teenagers were even their

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Speaker 1: own distinct social group with special teenagery types of needs,

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Speaker 1: you know, like going and getting a mall and playing

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Speaker 1: some tunes on the jukebox with Johnny. We're really we

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Speaker 1: would have been real hip teams back then, Caroline, I'm

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Speaker 1: obviously so hip. But in two you have the publication

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Speaker 1: of Maureen Daily's seventeen Summer Consider the first ever young

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Speaker 1: adult novel, and of course it's followed by a bunch

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Speaker 1: of sports books for boys and more first love books

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Speaker 1: for girls. They were pigeonholed as those being their only

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Speaker 1: interests very early on, and then in the nineteen sixties,

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Speaker 1: not so long ago, the Young Adult Library coins the

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Speaker 1: term young adult, and moving into the seventies, we see

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Speaker 1: a popularity peak in y A with none other than

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Speaker 1: Judy Bloom And you also have Robert Cormier's The Chocolate

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Speaker 1: War and Lois duncan Uh, and all of this kind

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Speaker 1: of spun off into y A as a genre of

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Speaker 1: the single problem novels. Right, And a lot of people

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Speaker 1: who are passionate about young adults, the young adult genre, um,

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Speaker 1: whether they're writers or just readers, kind of complain about

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Speaker 1: this period in young adult history, about the formulaic like

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Speaker 1: solving one problem, whether it's you know, parents splitting up,

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Speaker 1: or whether it's drugs at school or whatever. You know,

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Speaker 1: a lot of people out there saying, hey, life is

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Speaker 1: more complicated than just solving one problem. You know, life

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Speaker 1: is not a sitcom. Yeah, I mean this was essentially

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Speaker 1: the Degrassi of the novelized version of Degrassi, where every

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Speaker 1: single episode is a new tough teen issue to tackle. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: But in the nineteen eighties we start to see more

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Speaker 1: genre fiction, including one of my personal favorite writers growing

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Speaker 1: up are Al Stein. He releases his Fear Streets series

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Speaker 1: in the eighties. You also have Sweet Valley High, which

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Speaker 1: Kristen I never I never read Sweet Valley High. I

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Speaker 1: never read The Babysitters Club. I read some Babysitters Club.

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Speaker 1: My older sisters read Sweet Valley High. I think that

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Speaker 1: by the time I got around to Sweep Valley High,

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Speaker 1: I was in a very strong little women face, so

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Speaker 1: I just reread that a lot. So. Also in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, even though we're seeing different types of genre

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Speaker 1: fiction emerged for young adults, a National Endowment for the

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Speaker 1: Art to study showed that between two and two thousand two,

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Speaker 1: the number of young adults reading actually dropped a significant percent.

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Speaker 1: It was down, but starting in two thousand two and

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Speaker 1: going through two thousand eight, it was up twenty one percent.

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Speaker 1: Amid all this, you have some really interesting things going

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Speaker 1: on in the young adult publishing world. Though. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: really in the early two thousand's where publishers begin marketing

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Speaker 1: directly to teens and lo and Behold, when you start

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Speaker 1: targeting your audience, you start getting a lot of returns.

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Speaker 1: And this is also when we have the rise of

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Speaker 1: the dystopian teen novel allah, Hunger Games, and um. Jennifer

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Speaker 1: and Barnes is a young adult author and a cognitive

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Speaker 1: science scholar who was asked about the particular early two

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Speaker 1: thousand the early aughts dystopian appeal, and she said, just

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Speaker 1: like adolescence is between childhood and adulthood, paranormal or other

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Speaker 1: is between human and supernatural. Teens are caught between two worlds,

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Speaker 1: childhood and adulthood, and in y A they can navigate

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Speaker 1: those two worlds and sometimes dualities of other worlds. I

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Speaker 1: feel like a lot in YA is often very symbolic

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Speaker 1: of or not so symbolic, just hammering home transition, transition.

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Speaker 1: You're going through this transitional phase. And just in terms

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Speaker 1: of publishing, there were three thousand y A titles published

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Speaker 1: then in two thousand nine, as a result of publishers

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Speaker 1: starting to see a return on their marketing to teens,

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Speaker 1: you have thirty thousand y A titles being published. I

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Speaker 1: mean it is big business, especially now too with e books.

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Speaker 1: You've had more y A titles than ever before. Well sure,

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Speaker 1: because in that same period that you just cited, you

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Speaker 1: have the five Harry Potter books. Between two thousand four.

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Speaker 1: That's when the five Harry Potter books come out, and

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Speaker 1: that's when everybody, like everybody's world exploded. I remember being,

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Speaker 1: however old you are in anyway, I remember being like

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Speaker 1: a teenager and thinking like, what is going on in

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Speaker 1: the universe. It's exploding over this Harry Potter gibberish because

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Speaker 1: people were making money. You know what adults love doing,

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Speaker 1: It's making money. That's right off of the backs of children.

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Speaker 1: But also I had a lot of my friends who

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Speaker 1: were obsessed with Harry Potter. But so okay, moving forward

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Speaker 1: from from just talking about young adults, In two thousand nine, St.

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Speaker 1: Martin's Press launched the new adult genre, featuring characters in

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Speaker 1: their late teens in early twenties, working through some of

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Speaker 1: those slightly old their young adult issue. This is so millennial.

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Speaker 1: When I read this, it's just everything. It's like our

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Speaker 1: millennial generation pigeonholed into a genre because new adult covers

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Speaker 1: issues of separation and an attachment individual adan and romantic,

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Speaker 1: sexual and economic independence. Essentially like we were now maybe

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Speaker 1: at the space to where, okay, in the early twentieth

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Speaker 1: century we have the establishment of this idea of childhood.

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Speaker 1: Then in the nineteen forties and fifties you have the

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Speaker 1: establishment of this idea of teenage shood. And now with

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Speaker 1: the millennials, it seems like we're now in this era

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Speaker 1: of the development of this new adult young adult who

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Speaker 1: is also an adult idea, you know, who might be

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Speaker 1: living at home maybe not. And now we have literature

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Speaker 1: all for us and that's probably not a bad idea

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Speaker 1: for publishers bottom lines, especially when you consider of young

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Speaker 1: adult books purchased in twelve were bought by adults between

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Speaker 1: eighteen and forty four years old. That's coming from a

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Speaker 1: market research firm, but another recent Pew survey found that

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Speaker 1: people between sixteen and twenty nine are checking out books

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Speaker 1: more than anyone else from libraries. So this is a

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Speaker 1: group that's like hungry for for literature geared towards them.

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Speaker 1: I'm in that group. I totally use my library card

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Speaker 1: and I support my public library, even though yes, it

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Speaker 1: can be inconvenient to get to at times. But this

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Speaker 1: Summer Books episode stands in contrast to last year's episode

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Speaker 1: when when we really talked about the issue of uh,

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Speaker 1: can you tell a gendered book by its gendered cover?

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Speaker 1: Talking about whether or not female authors are taken as

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Speaker 1: seriously and marketed via book covers as seriously as male authors,

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Speaker 1: and when you transition, and that's more with adult fiction,

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Speaker 1: but when you transition now into y A, the conversation

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Speaker 1: is more, Ah, there's so many women and they're just

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Speaker 1: writing stories for girls. What about men? It's like the

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Speaker 1: exact opposite, right, Megan LeWitt Over at The Atlantic looked

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Speaker 1: at NPR Books Listener curated one hundred best ever teen

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Speaker 1: novels and found that it is dominated women are dominating

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Speaker 1: in this list, women like Harper, Lee, Suzanne Collins, J.

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Speaker 1: K Rowling, sc Hinton outsiders what what. She found that

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Speaker 1: sixty of all two hundred and thirty five titles suggested

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Speaker 1: by the readers were written by women. And when it

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Speaker 1: comes to the readership that these authors appear to be

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Speaker 1: writing for, at least reported on in the New York

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Speaker 1: Times in two thousand eleven, it seems like a lot

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Speaker 1: of these stories are for girls. Um. There's a quote

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Speaker 1: from this article. At the two thousand seven a l

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Speaker 1: A conference, a Harper executive said that at least three

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Speaker 1: quarters of her target audience were girls, and that they

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Speaker 1: wanted to read about mean girls, gossip girls, freenemies, and vampires.

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Speaker 1: And in that same article, the writer talked to Michael

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Speaker 1: cart who's the past president of the Young Adult Library

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Speaker 1: Services Association, and he was arguing that we need more

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Speaker 1: books that invite boys to reflect on what kinds of

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Speaker 1: men they want to become. We need to It's great

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Speaker 1: that we're giving all these girls all these books, but

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Speaker 1: we need some more books focusing on boys so that

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Speaker 1: they can reflect on their own young developing masculinity. But

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Speaker 1: ask for the question of why female authors tend to

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Speaker 1: dominate y A. Uh, there's this idea that, especially now,

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Speaker 1: you basically have a lot of young female novelists jumping

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Speaker 1: right into writing y A and then it's being bought.

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Speaker 1: These stories are being bought by female editors and then

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Speaker 1: being stocked by female librarians, and then being taught by

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Speaker 1: female teachers. So hey, guess what, when you have the

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Speaker 1: feminization of certain kinds of industries, you create certain cycles

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Speaker 1: like this apparently, And as Megan LeWitt goes on to

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Speaker 1: talk about in her piece in The Atlantic, there's also

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Speaker 1: maybe the idea that since y A as a genre

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Speaker 1: is all about representing worlds of limitless potential of teaching,

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Speaker 1: you know, young kids how to make that transition to

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Speaker 1: adulthood in a more empowered kind of way, perhaps that

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Speaker 1: you know, translates to the publishing world as well, to

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Speaker 1: where perhaps y A is a little bit more and

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Speaker 1: inured from adult literatures. Gender bias that that often happens

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Speaker 1: in terms of male authors like Jonathan Franzen being seen

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Speaker 1: as a more serious writer and nothing against Jonathan Franzen,

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Speaker 1: big fan. So you know, we were just discussing, um,

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Speaker 1: we've been discussing gender and things being dominated by women.

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Speaker 1: Do we need more strong boy characters for our male

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Speaker 1: readers out there? There's a whole lot of interesting diversity

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Speaker 1: issues out there in this young adult field, and we're

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Speaker 1: going to get into a lot more of this. And

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Speaker 1: we come right back from a quick break. So as

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Speaker 1: we mentioned when we were jumping through the history of

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Speaker 1: y A in the nineteen seventies, you sort of have

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Speaker 1: its spiral into these single problem novels where every novel

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Speaker 1: is a new issue, whether you know, parents are getting

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Speaker 1: divorced or the team got pregnant, on on and on

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Speaker 1: and on. And even though we've moved away from that

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Speaker 1: more formulaic nine seventies style, why is still focused today

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Speaker 1: on not necessarily just single problem issues, but nonetheless like

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Speaker 1: there is a particular focus on Okay, are we going

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Speaker 1: to talk what what kind of obstacle is this younger

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Speaker 1: character going to get through? And will there be issues

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Speaker 1: of you know, LGBT diversity or racial diversity, like what's

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Speaker 1: going on with these kids stories? I feel like there's

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Speaker 1: more strategic focus on issues rather than just a blanket

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Speaker 1: story in y A because a lot of it seems

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Speaker 1: to be teaching kids a lesson right and and like,

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Speaker 1: you know, like I mentioned earlier in the podcast, a

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Speaker 1: lot of kids, particularly younger kids, report that they do

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Speaker 1: read books to figure out where they want to take

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Speaker 1: their lives. Not only do they want to let their

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Speaker 1: imagination run free, but they also sort of want to

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Speaker 1: figure out, like where do I fit? And it can

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Speaker 1: be hard for kids who are different than what is

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Speaker 1: the normal presentation to find their place when they're not

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Speaker 1: even written about the normal presentation being like a you know,

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Speaker 1: cis gender straight, white, male or female protagonist. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: so there's been a lot of attention paid of late

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Speaker 1: to diversity representations in y A lit. And uh, this

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Speaker 1: data we're about to toss out at you is coming

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Speaker 1: from Published year Is Weekly and some analysis from Ellen O,

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Speaker 1: a y A author who is writing for a racialitious

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Speaker 1: And as of March two thousand, fourteen, of the one

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Speaker 1: three young adult titles on the publisher's weekly list, twenty

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Speaker 1: three count as diverse. So just of the total are

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Speaker 1: really diverse novels, and twelve of those three titles involve

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Speaker 1: main characters of color. Seven of the main characters are

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Speaker 1: LGBT and about seven are disabled. Yeah, and speaking specifically

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Speaker 1: about characters of color, Young adult author Sharon Flake, writing

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Speaker 1: in the New York Times Room for Debate section, called

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Speaker 1: for more non white protagonists, and her reasoning was that

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Speaker 1: when African American characters speak, it gives not just black

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Speaker 1: youth permission to speak and see the value of who

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Speaker 1: they are, but others as well, Like, how important is

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Speaker 1: it when kids are young and they're developing, and they're

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Speaker 1: learning about the world through literature through the eyes of

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Speaker 1: these characters, How important it is to let them see

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Speaker 1: the world through someone else's eyes if they're learning about

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Speaker 1: other people or in the case of these characters of color,

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Speaker 1: who seemed to be largely missing from these narratives, it's

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Speaker 1: so important for these kids to see themselves reflected in

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Speaker 1: the pages exactly. I mean, I think you know. I

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Speaker 1: mentioned my love for Ramona Quimby earlier. Part of that

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Speaker 1: deep connection was the fact that she, like me, was

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Speaker 1: a younger sister with brown hair, kind of a tomboy.

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Speaker 1: Her father smoked, and she didn't like it. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it was down to the tea, I felt like I

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Speaker 1: was reading about someone who could be my twin. Well

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Speaker 1: and and speaking though of protagonists of color, Victoria law

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Speaker 1: Over at Bitch did an entire blog series called Girls

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Speaker 1: of Color in Dystopia, looking closely at the representation of

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Speaker 1: girls of color in forty y a books, and she

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Speaker 1: found that only fourteen had grows of color as prominent characters,

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Speaker 1: four had girls of color as sidelined or very minor characters,

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Speaker 1: and twenty two of them had no identifiable girls of

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Speaker 1: color in them at all. Right, she actually highlights short

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Speaker 1: story anthologies diverse energies and after nineteen stories of apocalypse

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Speaker 1: and dystopia, and she's she was writing also about how

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Speaker 1: you know? She pulled some of these book ideas from

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Speaker 1: various places around the internet, but she also used her

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Speaker 1: daughter as someone to suggest titles for her to read,

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Speaker 1: kind of driving home that idea too, that Hey, you know,

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Speaker 1: our daughters are watching or our sons are watching, we

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Speaker 1: need to provide them with characters they can really relate to. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And and similar to last year's book episode on can

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Speaker 1: You Judge a Book by Its gendered cover? Why, author

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Speaker 1: Ellen oh Over at Racial Isious was calling for more

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Speaker 1: diversity in why A covers instead of the go to

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Speaker 1: pretty white girl on the cover, because and she likens

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Speaker 1: it to a need for diversity and fashion saying to

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Speaker 1: say that only pretty white girls can sell y A

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Speaker 1: books is not a business model that publishers should approve of,

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Speaker 1: and that's not true. We need to look no further

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Speaker 1: than the gender neutral and iconic covers for the Hunger

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Speaker 1: Games and Twilight series to see the truth. And even

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Speaker 1: though you know the Hunger Games and Twilight series are

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Speaker 1: starring you know, pretty white girls, it's a good point

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Speaker 1: that it's not those faces that we're sending those books

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Speaker 1: flying off the shelves. And and speaking of representation as well,

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Speaker 1: it was also notable that The Fault in Our Stars,

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Speaker 1: which stars a team with a disability, has been the

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Speaker 1: top selling title for two thousand twelve and two thousand

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Speaker 1: thirteen in the genre. Right and correct me if I'm wrong,

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Speaker 1: considering I have not read it or seen a movie,

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Speaker 1: but I mean it's it's really emotional and very emotional, right,

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Speaker 1: And and one point that people make about these young

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Speaker 1: adult novels is that they their prose is so clear,

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Speaker 1: and they tend to use emotion as a way to

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Speaker 1: tell these transformational stories that that well young people or

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Speaker 1: adults can really relate to. UM And speaking of relating

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Speaker 1: to characters, do you like that transition? Thank you? UM.

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Speaker 1: We also need to talk about, obviously LGBT characters in

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Speaker 1: young adult fiction. UM and Melinda Low. Young adult author

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Speaker 1: Melinda Low, was talking about this very topic. She pointed

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Speaker 1: out that two thousand three was a watershed year for

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Speaker 1: LGBT characters in y A because that year we saw

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Speaker 1: the publication of David Levithan's Boy Meets Boy, Julianne Peter's

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Speaker 1: Keeping You a Secret, Brent Hardinger's Geography Club, and Alex

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Speaker 1: Sanchez's Rainbow High. And just two years later in two

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Speaker 1: thousand five, we saw twenty five LGBT young adult novels published.

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Speaker 1: But Melinda Low does point out that a majority of

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Speaker 1: these titles are about sis gender gay guys, which is

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Speaker 1: kind of fascinating. That's usually a gay male protagonist, and

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Speaker 1: they're almost always in a contemporary genre. There's little intersectionality

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Speaker 1: going on where you might have uh, disabled lesbian leading

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Speaker 1: the way or you know, a gay protagonist in space,

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Speaker 1: or you know, there's not much not much, Uh, there's

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Speaker 1: very little cross sectioning happening, So similar to what ellen

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Speaker 1: O said about, you know, presenting young adult covers with

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Speaker 1: only young girls, young white girls on the cover, and

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Speaker 1: how there's this perception that that's all that will get

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Speaker 1: these books to sell. Low points out that there is

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Speaker 1: a persistent belief among a lot of agents and publishers

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Speaker 1: that LGBT main characters don't sell, that anybody who is

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Speaker 1: different from the very structured norm will not attract a

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Speaker 1: wide enough audience. But the gay characters in Cassandra Claire's

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Speaker 1: Mortal Instruments series, we're so popular that they spawned a

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Speaker 1: New York Times best sell e book series called The

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Speaker 1: bin Chronicles. And then there's also the Pretty Little Liar series,

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Speaker 1: which has been wildly successful and yes, turned into that

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Speaker 1: show on the CW, which has a bisexual main character

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Speaker 1: and sometimes heard bisexuality is explored in that. So it's

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Speaker 1: a bad argument that hey, LGBT doesn't sell, Yeah, it does.

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Speaker 1: Let them write that. Yeah. And part of that whole

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Speaker 1: thing about telling authors that your gay character won't sell

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Speaker 1: very well is there's also this ugly effort to get

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Speaker 1: writers to straighten their gay characters that they've written and

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Speaker 1: there are even authors out there who talk about, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: my editor went in and made these changes without even

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Speaker 1: consulting me. Made this character, whether it's one of the

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Speaker 1: main characters or whether it's sort of a side character,

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Speaker 1: made this person straight without even asking me. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: at the risk of being blacklisted by agents and publishers.

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Speaker 1: Not too long ago, Rachel Minija Brown, author of All

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Speaker 1: the Fishes Come Home to Roost, and Sherwood Smith, author

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Speaker 1: of Crown Duel and a lot of other y books,

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Speaker 1: wrote about wrote a blog post about how an agent

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Speaker 1: offered to sign them only if they straightened a gay

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Speaker 1: character in a book that they co wrote, and they

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Speaker 1: talked about how anecdotally this happens pretty frequently, and they

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Speaker 1: didn't out the agent who brought this up, but they

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Speaker 1: said that they hear about this a lot from other

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Speaker 1: authors who don't want to speak up about this, because

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Speaker 1: if you start going around telling secrets about what agents

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Speaker 1: are telling you, what conditions they're laying out, then you know,

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Speaker 1: the publishing industry might might shut you down. And they

430
00:26:36,080 --> 00:26:38,760
Speaker 1: did underscore and stress the fact that a lot of

431
00:26:38,760 --> 00:26:40,679
Speaker 1: this has to do with money. They said, you know,

432
00:26:40,720 --> 00:26:42,919
Speaker 1: we're not trying to make a commentary on anyone's personal

433
00:26:42,960 --> 00:26:46,160
Speaker 1: beliefs or lifestyles or anything as far as the agents

434
00:26:46,200 --> 00:26:50,120
Speaker 1: themselves go, because in their personal lives, maybe maybe they're gay,

435
00:26:50,320 --> 00:26:53,320
Speaker 1: or maybe they are totally supportive of gay rights. But

436
00:26:53,520 --> 00:26:56,080
Speaker 1: the fact remains that they are an agent of a

437
00:26:56,200 --> 00:26:58,800
Speaker 1: larger company which is trying to make money. And if

438
00:26:58,880 --> 00:27:02,160
Speaker 1: that part line for that company is that gay characters

439
00:27:02,200 --> 00:27:04,679
Speaker 1: don't sell, the agents have to tow that line. But

440
00:27:04,800 --> 00:27:08,879
Speaker 1: nonetheless you do have authors who are persisting and writing

441
00:27:09,200 --> 00:27:14,160
Speaker 1: multiple lgbt y A titles, such as Alex Sanchez, Ellen Hopkins,

442
00:27:14,280 --> 00:27:17,240
Speaker 1: and Ellen Whitlinger. And so I have a feeling the

443
00:27:17,280 --> 00:27:20,320
Speaker 1: more authors continue to write these books, the more they sell,

444
00:27:20,720 --> 00:27:23,600
Speaker 1: the more that old line of thinking within publishing houses

445
00:27:23,640 --> 00:27:28,480
Speaker 1: will hopefully erode. And I mean, race and sexuality are

446
00:27:28,520 --> 00:27:34,080
Speaker 1: are just two aspects of issues, life issues, societal issues

447
00:27:34,119 --> 00:27:39,200
Speaker 1: that get figured out through reading these books. Gender roles themselves,

448
00:27:39,320 --> 00:27:41,879
Speaker 1: whether you're gay or straight, black or white, are also

449
00:27:41,960 --> 00:27:44,960
Speaker 1: like a huge portion of what these books are about.

450
00:27:45,119 --> 00:27:48,960
Speaker 1: Just figuring where figuring out where you stand. Yeah, one

451
00:27:49,040 --> 00:27:51,600
Speaker 1: quote that jumped out to me from Melinda Lowe is

452
00:27:51,640 --> 00:27:55,560
Speaker 1: that a lot of the discourse on why fiction, especially

453
00:27:55,600 --> 00:27:59,600
Speaker 1: in this era of Twilight has been about gender, particularly

454
00:27:59,640 --> 00:28:03,440
Speaker 1: whether why a fiction provides good role models for girls

455
00:28:03,480 --> 00:28:07,239
Speaker 1: and boys. And I mean it makes sense that a

456
00:28:07,280 --> 00:28:10,960
Speaker 1: lot of these gender role issues are inherently tied up

457
00:28:11,000 --> 00:28:14,480
Speaker 1: in y A because they're taking place, yet again in

458
00:28:14,600 --> 00:28:18,679
Speaker 1: with characters going through this transitional period of you know,

459
00:28:18,880 --> 00:28:22,399
Speaker 1: moving from being a teenager or a child into being

460
00:28:22,480 --> 00:28:26,040
Speaker 1: a woman or a man whole woman, and what does

461
00:28:26,080 --> 00:28:28,560
Speaker 1: that mean? What does that mean in terms of you know,

462
00:28:28,640 --> 00:28:32,560
Speaker 1: your agency, how how you interact with people, what you

463
00:28:32,880 --> 00:28:35,600
Speaker 1: what your ambitions are, right, And I mean speaking about

464
00:28:35,680 --> 00:28:38,440
Speaker 1: agency and Twilight, I mean a lot of people's argument

465
00:28:38,480 --> 00:28:40,760
Speaker 1: about those books is that Bella is sort of a

466
00:28:40,800 --> 00:28:44,160
Speaker 1: shell of a character who lives for men, or these

467
00:28:44,200 --> 00:28:46,800
Speaker 1: two men in particular, and that you know, she's not

468
00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:49,600
Speaker 1: living for herself and her own purposes, and that she's

469
00:28:49,600 --> 00:28:52,280
Speaker 1: not a good role model. But it is that issue

470
00:28:52,320 --> 00:28:54,680
Speaker 1: of having good role models that young adult author Steve

471
00:28:54,840 --> 00:28:58,600
Speaker 1: bresen Off was tackling when he said that we need

472
00:28:58,640 --> 00:29:01,320
Speaker 1: to see more characters that we've mind compelling, be they

473
00:29:01,360 --> 00:29:04,720
Speaker 1: boys or girls, not because there's a shortage, but because

474
00:29:04,760 --> 00:29:08,520
Speaker 1: that's what realistic fiction is, and we love realistic fiction

475
00:29:08,960 --> 00:29:12,240
Speaker 1: well and it does seem too that speaking of gender roles,

476
00:29:12,560 --> 00:29:17,120
Speaker 1: feminism has a pretty good place in why fiction. I

477
00:29:17,160 --> 00:29:20,840
Speaker 1: think if you talk to a lot of women our age,

478
00:29:20,880 --> 00:29:23,520
Speaker 1: they cite Judy Bloom and are you there, God, It's Me,

479
00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:26,640
Speaker 1: Margaret and Forever as being these books that sort of

480
00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:31,040
Speaker 1: lit those early fires of thinking about their female identities

481
00:29:31,120 --> 00:29:33,520
Speaker 1: and how they relate to the world in that way.

482
00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:37,120
Speaker 1: And Kelly Jensen, who's a librarian who has a rights

483
00:29:37,160 --> 00:29:41,560
Speaker 1: for fantastic blog stacked was said quote, and oh, how

484
00:29:41,600 --> 00:29:45,920
Speaker 1: the young adult world embraces feminism with wide open arms.

485
00:29:46,040 --> 00:29:48,280
Speaker 1: And I wonder though, too, side note if this is

486
00:29:48,480 --> 00:29:51,560
Speaker 1: related to the fact that this is an area of

487
00:29:51,560 --> 00:29:55,640
Speaker 1: the publishing world where you simply have more female voices

488
00:29:55,680 --> 00:29:58,520
Speaker 1: and more female representations, so maybe it is more open

489
00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:02,200
Speaker 1: to these kinds of themes. But she cited some contemporary

490
00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:07,400
Speaker 1: examples such as My Big Fat Manifesto by Susan Vote,

491
00:30:07,560 --> 00:30:12,960
Speaker 1: which is about this girl who is very overweight, but

492
00:30:13,080 --> 00:30:17,440
Speaker 1: she's her high school's advice columnists and she's like totally

493
00:30:17,440 --> 00:30:19,800
Speaker 1: cool with her own by. She loves her shape, she

494
00:30:19,880 --> 00:30:23,600
Speaker 1: loves the skin that she is in, and it's actually

495
00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:28,400
Speaker 1: her boyfriend who is also overweight and ends up deciding

496
00:30:28,480 --> 00:30:31,720
Speaker 1: that he wants to you know, go through some physical

497
00:30:31,720 --> 00:30:35,000
Speaker 1: transformation and lose some weight, and she supports him in

498
00:30:35,080 --> 00:30:37,640
Speaker 1: that it's not the typical thing of well, you know,

499
00:30:38,960 --> 00:30:41,480
Speaker 1: she's going to go through her own transformation and lose

500
00:30:41,480 --> 00:30:43,240
Speaker 1: a bunch of weight and then become prom queen and

501
00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:47,200
Speaker 1: everyone lives happily ever after. Yeah, this character and this

502
00:30:47,240 --> 00:30:51,120
Speaker 1: book gets to love herself. She gets to love herself,

503
00:30:51,200 --> 00:30:54,960
Speaker 1: unlike so many other heroines of similar books that that

504
00:30:55,000 --> 00:30:56,920
Speaker 1: are out there, but she gets to love herself, and

505
00:30:57,000 --> 00:31:01,000
Speaker 1: she gets to support her boyfriend in pursuing what will

506
00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:05,920
Speaker 1: make him happy for himself, making those choices for his body.

507
00:31:06,120 --> 00:31:10,040
Speaker 1: And speaking of which she also named checks Megan McCafferty's

508
00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:15,920
Speaker 1: Bumped series, which is essentially dystopia meets reproductive rights. It

509
00:31:15,960 --> 00:31:20,400
Speaker 1: takes place in this era when girls are essentially sold

510
00:31:20,480 --> 00:31:25,760
Speaker 1: off to be breeders, and so it goes into all,

511
00:31:25,840 --> 00:31:27,760
Speaker 1: I mean, you can imagine all the different you know,

512
00:31:27,840 --> 00:31:33,000
Speaker 1: related themes over autonomy of over one's body and agency

513
00:31:33,080 --> 00:31:38,400
Speaker 1: and again, yes, reproductive rights. But um, I really enjoyed

514
00:31:38,680 --> 00:31:44,920
Speaker 1: reading about reading about the perspective on characters in these

515
00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:48,760
Speaker 1: books that focus on body issues, because you know it's

516
00:31:48,800 --> 00:31:51,320
Speaker 1: not I don't know. I don't know that I've ever

517
00:31:51,360 --> 00:31:53,680
Speaker 1: read a young adult novel that focused on like a

518
00:31:53,720 --> 00:31:57,200
Speaker 1: weight lost journey or someone who won the one her

519
00:31:57,400 --> 00:31:59,680
Speaker 1: dream man or got a spot on the cheerleading squad

520
00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:01,600
Speaker 1: after losing a bunch of weight. I know that it's

521
00:32:01,640 --> 00:32:06,000
Speaker 1: something that we covered in our movie Makeover episode, but

522
00:32:06,880 --> 00:32:10,200
Speaker 1: over it stacked. Kelly Jensen again points out that there's

523
00:32:10,240 --> 00:32:14,600
Speaker 1: all of these really problematic weight loss and just weight

524
00:32:14,680 --> 00:32:17,880
Speaker 1: centric tropes that tend to be focused on in young

525
00:32:17,920 --> 00:32:20,920
Speaker 1: adult novels. Like I said earlier that character in My

526
00:32:20,920 --> 00:32:24,840
Speaker 1: Big Fat Manifesto got to love herself. She was written

527
00:32:24,840 --> 00:32:27,040
Speaker 1: as someone who loved herself, whereas a lot of times

528
00:32:27,040 --> 00:32:31,680
Speaker 1: in young adult novels, characters who are overweight are portrayed

529
00:32:31,760 --> 00:32:37,239
Speaker 1: as people who they could lose weight if they wanted to,

530
00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:40,160
Speaker 1: but maybe they just can't get up the energy or

531
00:32:40,160 --> 00:32:42,480
Speaker 1: the desire to, or they have a lack of support

532
00:32:42,520 --> 00:32:47,680
Speaker 1: from their family, or that they're constantly plagued by fat

533
00:32:47,760 --> 00:32:51,400
Speaker 1: related fears, like their entire life is revolving around the

534
00:32:51,440 --> 00:32:53,320
Speaker 1: fear that they're going to break a chair. They're not

535
00:32:53,400 --> 00:32:56,360
Speaker 1: allowed to just be characters who exist and who are

536
00:32:56,400 --> 00:33:00,320
Speaker 1: also overweight. Yeah, and so she she highlights those being

537
00:33:00,400 --> 00:33:04,600
Speaker 1: some problematic tropes that often pop up in y novels

538
00:33:04,680 --> 00:33:08,840
Speaker 1: and important to highlight that because this is the age,

539
00:33:08,840 --> 00:33:12,640
Speaker 1: as we were talking about in our body shaming epidemic episode,

540
00:33:12,760 --> 00:33:16,480
Speaker 1: where I mean, these are the formative years for how

541
00:33:16,680 --> 00:33:23,440
Speaker 1: we perceive our own bodies, So definitely important to talk

542
00:33:23,480 --> 00:33:26,880
Speaker 1: about body issues in as healthy way as possible and

543
00:33:27,040 --> 00:33:31,080
Speaker 1: over At School Library Journal, Minas Dar highlights some books

544
00:33:31,080 --> 00:33:34,240
Speaker 1: that do that really well, such as I Am j

545
00:33:34,480 --> 00:33:37,480
Speaker 1: by Crisp Beam, that doesn't look so much at weight

546
00:33:37,560 --> 00:33:42,960
Speaker 1: issues but rather um tackles transgender realization. Um. There's also

547
00:33:43,280 --> 00:33:46,400
Speaker 1: Skinny by Donna Cooner that is sort of an anti

548
00:33:46,480 --> 00:33:49,960
Speaker 1: fairy tale about a girl who gets gastric bypass surgery

549
00:33:50,040 --> 00:33:52,320
Speaker 1: and initially think, oh no, we're starting to pedal in

550
00:33:52,360 --> 00:33:56,000
Speaker 1: some tropes here, but the weight loss ends up having

551
00:33:56,520 --> 00:34:01,840
Speaker 1: unintended negative results as as the story progresses. Yeah, and

552
00:34:01,920 --> 00:34:04,880
Speaker 1: Jensen writes, I mean talking about those tropes regarding weight loss,

553
00:34:04,920 --> 00:34:08,120
Speaker 1: she talks about how a lot of these books might

554
00:34:08,239 --> 00:34:12,480
Speaker 1: feature a character who loses weight and as a result,

555
00:34:12,680 --> 00:34:14,359
Speaker 1: just just like we see in movies all the time,

556
00:34:14,440 --> 00:34:18,200
Speaker 1: is rewarded with the boyfriend with the prom, queen recognition

557
00:34:18,320 --> 00:34:21,360
Speaker 1: or whatever. And Jensen writes that, you know, it's important

558
00:34:21,440 --> 00:34:25,240
Speaker 1: to know for our young girls that losing weight doesn't

559
00:34:25,239 --> 00:34:30,080
Speaker 1: automatically earn you all these things, you know, popularity, boyfriends,

560
00:34:30,080 --> 00:34:32,360
Speaker 1: all the stuff. That it's important to love yourself and

561
00:34:32,400 --> 00:34:35,320
Speaker 1: be strong and who you are and earn those things

562
00:34:35,360 --> 00:34:39,200
Speaker 1: through being yourself rather than simply fitting into a certain

563
00:34:39,239 --> 00:34:43,040
Speaker 1: sized dress. Well, and the fact that there is that

564
00:34:43,160 --> 00:34:50,160
Speaker 1: focused on the you know, communicating body positivity, representation, adventure,

565
00:34:50,719 --> 00:34:55,200
Speaker 1: overcoming obstacles that continue to run throughout Y A fiction.

566
00:34:55,440 --> 00:35:00,480
Speaker 1: It's so surprised that the appeal lasts beyond a younger leadership.

567
00:35:00,520 --> 00:35:01,799
Speaker 1: I mean, we could go on and on and on

568
00:35:01,840 --> 00:35:04,719
Speaker 1: about the different kinds of issues that Why It tends

569
00:35:04,760 --> 00:35:08,080
Speaker 1: to tackle. But to wrap up this episode, let's talk

570
00:35:08,120 --> 00:35:11,600
Speaker 1: about the the adult appeal of why A. Why do

571
00:35:11,680 --> 00:35:13,959
Speaker 1: we keep reading these books and wanting to talk about

572
00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:15,640
Speaker 1: these books? I feel like, if you get in a

573
00:35:15,719 --> 00:35:19,480
Speaker 1: room with women in their twenties and just say the

574
00:35:19,520 --> 00:35:22,920
Speaker 1: two words Judy Bloom, there you go. You're gonna be

575
00:35:22,960 --> 00:35:26,200
Speaker 1: talking for the next hour. Yeah, it's funny how passionate

576
00:35:26,280 --> 00:35:29,160
Speaker 1: so many adults feel about these genres of books, whether

577
00:35:29,239 --> 00:35:32,000
Speaker 1: they read them in their childhood and are revisiting them

578
00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:34,080
Speaker 1: now or whether they're reading them for the first time.

579
00:35:34,640 --> 00:35:37,839
Speaker 1: But they also a lot of these writers, a lot

580
00:35:37,840 --> 00:35:40,920
Speaker 1: of these readers will talk about how it's not uncommon

581
00:35:40,960 --> 00:35:44,280
Speaker 1: to be totally criticized and made fun of by your friends.

582
00:35:45,040 --> 00:35:51,000
Speaker 1: But Scholastic actually started an I read y a campaign

583
00:35:51,120 --> 00:35:53,880
Speaker 1: to promote it for all ages, saying like, hey, guys,

584
00:35:53,920 --> 00:35:56,239
Speaker 1: it's okay to be a grown up and really love

585
00:35:56,280 --> 00:35:59,040
Speaker 1: the way these stories are told. Yeah. And Melinda Lowe,

586
00:35:59,040 --> 00:36:01,120
Speaker 1: whom we've started a number of times now, whose author

587
00:36:01,280 --> 00:36:06,040
Speaker 1: also a y author, started a hashtag why adults read

588
00:36:06,040 --> 00:36:09,560
Speaker 1: why a on Twitter, and some of the responses she

589
00:36:09,680 --> 00:36:13,600
Speaker 1: received included, I enjoyed the immediacy of the stories in

590
00:36:13,640 --> 00:36:15,640
Speaker 1: the sense of being at the beginning of the path

591
00:36:15,800 --> 00:36:19,200
Speaker 1: of who you'll become. And I love the intensity of

592
00:36:19,200 --> 00:36:23,439
Speaker 1: the first time experiences, experimentation and growth that we're told

593
00:36:23,480 --> 00:36:28,200
Speaker 1: to stop doing as adults. Right and agent Meredith Barnes

594
00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:31,799
Speaker 1: was discussing this very same topic, and she says that

595
00:36:31,880 --> 00:36:35,120
Speaker 1: every decision feels life changing, and every choice in these

596
00:36:35,160 --> 00:36:37,680
Speaker 1: books can seem life or death. The emotions are no

597
00:36:37,840 --> 00:36:41,440
Speaker 1: more or less valid than what one might experience at thirty,

598
00:36:41,480 --> 00:36:44,120
Speaker 1: but it's the first time and thus very powerful. And

599
00:36:44,160 --> 00:36:47,040
Speaker 1: who was it who also pointed out that if a

600
00:36:47,600 --> 00:36:50,839
Speaker 1: young character is on the precipice of should I do

601
00:36:50,920 --> 00:36:55,000
Speaker 1: drugs or whatever the case, maybe there's like almost like

602
00:36:55,040 --> 00:36:58,160
Speaker 1: a loss of innocence at stake, whereas if an adult

603
00:36:58,520 --> 00:37:00,360
Speaker 1: does it, it's more like, oh, well, that adult is

604
00:37:00,400 --> 00:37:04,040
Speaker 1: just making an adult choice. And in The New York Times,

605
00:37:04,080 --> 00:37:08,120
Speaker 1: Patrician McCormick, who's an author, was quoted as saying that basically,

606
00:37:08,160 --> 00:37:11,279
Speaker 1: also what attracts grown ups to young adult fiction is

607
00:37:11,320 --> 00:37:14,840
Speaker 1: that young adult authors are taking risks with narrative structure, voice,

608
00:37:15,160 --> 00:37:17,560
Speaker 1: and social commentary that you don't see is often in

609
00:37:17,640 --> 00:37:20,359
Speaker 1: adult fiction. And there's something I don't want to use

610
00:37:20,360 --> 00:37:24,200
Speaker 1: the word here, but there's something like very clear and

611
00:37:24,360 --> 00:37:28,239
Speaker 1: almost emotional about these young adult novels and the way

612
00:37:28,239 --> 00:37:30,560
Speaker 1: that they're written that maybe you don't see in a

613
00:37:30,600 --> 00:37:34,480
Speaker 1: bunch of adult books that are trying to be that

614
00:37:34,520 --> 00:37:37,560
Speaker 1: are trying to be epic. Yeah I won't name names,

615
00:37:37,600 --> 00:37:39,759
Speaker 1: but you know the books that are more like dramatic

616
00:37:39,920 --> 00:37:43,920
Speaker 1: and overwrought for drama's sake. Yeah, I flew through the

617
00:37:43,920 --> 00:37:47,719
Speaker 1: first Hunger Games novel because not not because I'm an

618
00:37:47,719 --> 00:37:51,760
Speaker 1: amazing speed reader, but just because the dialogue in the action,

619
00:37:51,800 --> 00:37:54,960
Speaker 1: like everything is so clear cut. You can literally lose

620
00:37:54,960 --> 00:37:57,520
Speaker 1: yourself in these books and sort of gobble them up

621
00:37:57,880 --> 00:38:00,840
Speaker 1: very quickly, which can be a nice moment of escape

622
00:38:00,880 --> 00:38:03,759
Speaker 1: from our day to day hectic adult lives. I know,

623
00:38:03,920 --> 00:38:06,319
Speaker 1: maybe I need to now go read a bunch of

624
00:38:06,360 --> 00:38:09,560
Speaker 1: young adult novels because I I've been reading a lot

625
00:38:09,640 --> 00:38:15,319
Speaker 1: of nonfiction regarding like how our brains work. I feel

626
00:38:15,360 --> 00:38:18,840
Speaker 1: like I need maybe a bit of a h escape,

627
00:38:18,880 --> 00:38:21,200
Speaker 1: a bit of a mental clarity escape. Oh and I

628
00:38:21,239 --> 00:38:25,280
Speaker 1: feel like y A is perfect for summer reading because

629
00:38:25,320 --> 00:38:26,920
Speaker 1: you just want if you just want a little bit

630
00:38:26,920 --> 00:38:29,399
Speaker 1: of it doesn't necessarily have to be light fiction. I mean,

631
00:38:29,400 --> 00:38:32,560
Speaker 1: they talk about really tough stuff sometimes, but it can

632
00:38:32,800 --> 00:38:35,640
Speaker 1: that tough stuff can sometimes be easier to wade through

633
00:38:36,320 --> 00:38:39,640
Speaker 1: in a y A format. And I'll tell you my

634
00:38:39,719 --> 00:38:43,799
Speaker 1: summer reading project this year, Caroline and listeners. I'm gonna

635
00:38:43,800 --> 00:38:47,600
Speaker 1: be honest with you. I've never read Judy Bloom. I

636
00:38:47,640 --> 00:38:49,680
Speaker 1: was not allowed to read Judy Bloom as a child

637
00:38:49,719 --> 00:38:53,640
Speaker 1: because my mother thought that she was too scandalous. Yes,

638
00:38:53,760 --> 00:38:56,720
Speaker 1: it's true. So I want to go back and read

639
00:38:57,120 --> 00:38:59,840
Speaker 1: for the first time. Are you there, God, it's me Margaret.

640
00:39:00,040 --> 00:39:03,040
Speaker 1: I have never read Judy Bloom either. We gotta do

641
00:39:03,160 --> 00:39:05,680
Speaker 1: it for the sake of the fact that we're doing

642
00:39:05,719 --> 00:39:07,920
Speaker 1: this episode, and then maybe we can have our own

643
00:39:07,960 --> 00:39:11,600
Speaker 1: book club on the internet. Oh, an internet book club?

644
00:39:12,120 --> 00:39:14,359
Speaker 1: Well I think with that, should we turn it over

645
00:39:14,400 --> 00:39:19,040
Speaker 1: to our reading listeners? Yeah, let us know what kind

646
00:39:19,080 --> 00:39:21,279
Speaker 1: of why A you love? What are some of your

647
00:39:21,320 --> 00:39:24,640
Speaker 1: favorite titles, what are some of your favorite series? What

648
00:39:24,920 --> 00:39:28,480
Speaker 1: is it about why A that has such a lasting appeal?

649
00:39:28,680 --> 00:39:33,520
Speaker 1: Or are you people like Time editor Joel Stein, who

650
00:39:33,640 --> 00:39:36,040
Speaker 1: in that New York Times room for debate about why

651
00:39:36,080 --> 00:39:40,240
Speaker 1: was the one person saying, no, adults should not read

652
00:39:40,400 --> 00:39:43,800
Speaker 1: these books because they're for kids. What a negative? Nancy

653
00:39:44,280 --> 00:39:48,160
Speaker 1: go Away read some Thomas Pension come on, grow Up,

654
00:39:48,160 --> 00:39:52,920
Speaker 1: which I mean, I understand that, but why is also fantastic. Um,

655
00:39:52,920 --> 00:39:56,200
Speaker 1: So email us your why A thoughts mom stuff at

656
00:39:56,200 --> 00:39:59,120
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com and you can find all

657
00:39:59,160 --> 00:40:01,200
Speaker 1: of the links to all the sources that we're talking

658
00:40:01,239 --> 00:40:02,560
Speaker 1: about if you want to look at any of these

659
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:06,760
Speaker 1: publishing sources. Were also going to have a giant list

660
00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:11,160
Speaker 1: of why a recommendations for you over at stuff mom

661
00:40:11,239 --> 00:40:13,279
Speaker 1: Never told you dot com, So be sure to head

662
00:40:13,280 --> 00:40:15,560
Speaker 1: over there and check that out. And we got a

663
00:40:15,560 --> 00:40:22,440
Speaker 1: couple of letters to share with you right now. I

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00:40:22,480 --> 00:40:25,800
Speaker 1: have a letter here from Cheryl that's related to our

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00:40:26,800 --> 00:40:29,759
Speaker 1: Military Wives episode. And in that episode, you know, we

666
00:40:29,800 --> 00:40:34,640
Speaker 1: talked about how uh spouses being deployed and being gone

667
00:40:34,640 --> 00:40:37,319
Speaker 1: for long periods of time, how that must relate to

668
00:40:37,440 --> 00:40:43,000
Speaker 1: other professions to that have uh, you know, long times away.

669
00:40:43,040 --> 00:40:46,799
Speaker 1: Basically anyway, Cheryl wrote that, um, I went into it

670
00:40:46,920 --> 00:40:48,960
Speaker 1: very interested as I have a close friend who is

671
00:40:49,000 --> 00:40:51,520
Speaker 1: a military wife with a deployed husband and two children

672
00:40:51,560 --> 00:40:53,960
Speaker 1: under three. To make it through the deployment, she has

673
00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:56,359
Speaker 1: moved cross country to stay with her folks who lived

674
00:40:56,360 --> 00:40:58,560
Speaker 1: two doors down from me. I wanted to see how

675
00:40:58,600 --> 00:41:00,920
Speaker 1: her experiences reflected your endings and found them to be

676
00:41:01,000 --> 00:41:03,120
Speaker 1: quite similar. So thank you for bringing awareness to the

677
00:41:03,120 --> 00:41:06,160
Speaker 1: tough times on the home front for these families. The

678
00:41:06,200 --> 00:41:09,280
Speaker 1: podcast did get me to thinking about what may surprise folks,

679
00:41:09,320 --> 00:41:13,640
Speaker 1: is a strangely related topic doctors, wives and clearly husbands too.

680
00:41:13,680 --> 00:41:16,440
Speaker 1: But you get the point. My friend and I find

681
00:41:16,560 --> 00:41:19,640
Speaker 1: welcome support in our shared experiences and feelings related to

682
00:41:19,640 --> 00:41:22,920
Speaker 1: the stresses impacts on our children in general lifestyles created

683
00:41:22,920 --> 00:41:26,640
Speaker 1: by our husband's professions. If ever there was a stereotype,

684
00:41:26,640 --> 00:41:28,800
Speaker 1: it would be the golf playing doctor and his wife

685
00:41:28,800 --> 00:41:32,240
Speaker 1: the well dressed tennis player. Oh, how inaccurate and lovely

686
00:41:32,320 --> 00:41:35,400
Speaker 1: sounding that is. My husband and I are eight years

687
00:41:35,440 --> 00:41:38,960
Speaker 1: into his ten years of training. When we finish, he

688
00:41:39,040 --> 00:41:43,160
Speaker 1: will be a neonatologist. This road is incredibly misunderstood by

689
00:41:43,160 --> 00:41:45,880
Speaker 1: anyone outside the field, starting with our own well intending

690
00:41:45,920 --> 00:41:50,240
Speaker 1: families and friends. The stress, massive work hours, regular twenty

691
00:41:50,239 --> 00:41:53,520
Speaker 1: four to thirty hour workships, and monetary and emotional strain

692
00:41:53,880 --> 00:41:56,840
Speaker 1: all play significantly into the dynamics of the work and

693
00:41:56,920 --> 00:41:59,879
Speaker 1: home life. It is a no frills, stressful life much

694
00:41:59,880 --> 00:42:02,719
Speaker 1: of the time, similar to that of our wonderful military families.

695
00:42:03,239 --> 00:42:05,640
Speaker 1: Doctor's wives at least have the benefit of seeing their

696
00:42:05,719 --> 00:42:08,360
Speaker 1: husband's most days, even if only for a few minutes.

697
00:42:08,719 --> 00:42:10,600
Speaker 1: As part of our coping, I take our todler to

698
00:42:10,640 --> 00:42:12,680
Speaker 1: see my husband at the hospital for dinner on Friday,

699
00:42:12,760 --> 00:42:14,680
Speaker 1: so they at least don't get too many days without

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00:42:14,719 --> 00:42:17,520
Speaker 1: seeing each other. And Cheryl says, please don't get the

701
00:42:17,520 --> 00:42:19,600
Speaker 1: wrong impression. I am in no way trying to diminish

702
00:42:19,640 --> 00:42:22,200
Speaker 1: the incredible sacrifice made by those in the military, nor

703
00:42:22,239 --> 00:42:24,719
Speaker 1: trying to gain sympathy for doctor's wives, only looking to

704
00:42:24,760 --> 00:42:28,880
Speaker 1: offer the real insight behind this stereotype. So thanks so much, Cheryl,

705
00:42:29,440 --> 00:42:31,520
Speaker 1: and I've got to let her here from Jenny about

706
00:42:31,520 --> 00:42:34,759
Speaker 1: our episode on Bronies, and she writes, I'm the mother

707
00:42:34,800 --> 00:42:36,520
Speaker 1: of a two year old girl who is a huge

708
00:42:36,560 --> 00:42:38,719
Speaker 1: My Little Pony fan, and my husband and I like

709
00:42:38,800 --> 00:42:40,960
Speaker 1: the show quite a bit as well. It's well written,

710
00:42:41,040 --> 00:42:45,160
Speaker 1: the artist attractive, and unlike of kids cartoons, it doesn't

711
00:42:45,160 --> 00:42:47,719
Speaker 1: make us want to shoot ourselves in the head. When

712
00:42:47,719 --> 00:42:50,480
Speaker 1: the little one asked to see the same episode yet again,

713
00:42:51,040 --> 00:42:53,160
Speaker 1: I think it's awful the way young boys and some

714
00:42:53,239 --> 00:42:56,400
Speaker 1: earnest young men are bullied over him enjoying this show.

715
00:42:56,960 --> 00:42:59,920
Speaker 1: That said, in many ways, I am annoyed at the

716
00:43:00,040 --> 00:43:02,560
Speaker 1: Roney's subculture and some of the ways that it behaves

717
00:43:02,600 --> 00:43:05,440
Speaker 1: as an entity. They behave in a very entitled manner,

718
00:43:05,520 --> 00:43:07,799
Speaker 1: often getting upset when the show dares to cater to

719
00:43:07,840 --> 00:43:10,520
Speaker 1: its intended audience instead of them, and they buy up

720
00:43:10,560 --> 00:43:13,520
Speaker 1: all the merchandise before kids can get to them. But

721
00:43:13,560 --> 00:43:16,439
Speaker 1: there's one thing that is worst of all. They create

722
00:43:16,560 --> 00:43:20,600
Speaker 1: pony porn and don't tag it. Little kids who want

723
00:43:20,640 --> 00:43:23,440
Speaker 1: to find pictures of their favorite characters will see awful

724
00:43:23,520 --> 00:43:26,160
Speaker 1: things if they search for them on Google images or

725
00:43:26,200 --> 00:43:29,280
Speaker 1: being even if the safe search is on. They basically

726
00:43:29,320 --> 00:43:31,960
Speaker 1: make fandom an unsafe place for the target audience for

727
00:43:32,120 --> 00:43:37,640
Speaker 1: this show, children, and that is unforgivable. So she also

728
00:43:37,680 --> 00:43:41,080
Speaker 1: goes on to say though, that the ponies are rad

729
00:43:41,280 --> 00:43:45,000
Speaker 1: and that she really enjoys, you know, letting her daughter

730
00:43:45,000 --> 00:43:48,160
Speaker 1: watch this show. She says she not only learns about love, friendship,

731
00:43:48,160 --> 00:43:50,960
Speaker 1: and caring, but also about strength and virtue and how

732
00:43:51,000 --> 00:43:53,319
Speaker 1: there are many ways to be a girl and they

733
00:43:53,320 --> 00:43:55,520
Speaker 1: don't all look the same. And that's not only okay,

734
00:43:55,560 --> 00:43:58,120
Speaker 1: it's awesome, and I'm happy that it's not just little

735
00:43:58,160 --> 00:44:00,799
Speaker 1: girls but also little boys and young men who are

736
00:44:00,880 --> 00:44:03,880
Speaker 1: learning this lesson as well, but clearly one lesson they

737
00:44:03,880 --> 00:44:07,839
Speaker 1: need to learn too. If it's happening, tag your pony

738
00:44:07,920 --> 00:44:12,080
Speaker 1: porn for the children's sake, Lord, tag your pony porn.

739
00:44:12,440 --> 00:44:15,120
Speaker 1: And with that, we invite you to write us mom

740
00:44:15,120 --> 00:44:17,480
Speaker 1: and stuff at how stuff works dot com. No, we're

741
00:44:17,480 --> 00:44:20,200
Speaker 1: not implying that all brownies are making pony porn, just

742
00:44:20,280 --> 00:44:22,920
Speaker 1: for the ones that do tag it please. You can

743
00:44:22,960 --> 00:44:26,400
Speaker 1: also find all of our social media links, podcast blogs,

744
00:44:26,440 --> 00:44:33,400
Speaker 1: and videos at stuff mom Never Told You dot com

745
00:44:33,440 --> 00:44:35,839
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics, does

746
00:44:35,880 --> 00:44:45,400
Speaker 1: it how stuff works dot com