Think Tank Tuesday: Us Against the World

Change has always been part of our lives. When we were younger, we watched the seasons change (or watched the weather change every ten minutes if you live in Ohio like I do), and we saw ourselves change as we grew. We got legs we didn't know what to do with, weight gain we didn't know how to handle, and social change that we weren't quite sure how to navigate. But these changes didn't just happen out of the blue like it appeared to us that we did. The whole 'thing' about change is that it is catalyzed - something happens that makes us change. In the case of our bodies, hormone signals tell various body parts to develop, mature, or sometimes come about at all. Socially, environmentally, though, something happens to us that we understand. When the weather gets chilly and the sun hides away, we feel less happy, more tired and stressed. If someone argues with you and you avoid them for a few days, that social change was started by that fight.

The thing is, in young adult fiction, change is necessary. Part of the gig of being a young adult (or any sort of human being, really, but especially at this age range) is that you are constantly changing. Physically, emotionally, cognitively, socially. You go through a period where you are not the same person you were an hour ago, and considering your earlier years of mostly stasis (staying the same), this is pretty freaking scary. You can't exactly tell who you are, much less tell others who you are. Yet it seems to me that in YA literature, especially popular literature, everyone has themselves figured out, it's the external changes they have to navigate. I mean, there are some people who go through the changes early and get at a more stable existence in their late teens, but at sixteen years old pretty much everyone is a Molotov cocktail of hormones, decisions both good and bad, and short-term aspirations. It's why so much realistic fiction lies in getting a significant other or getting a former lover back. These are short-term goals that require a little change but that are very easy to accomplish in the grand scheme of things. It's easier to get a boyfriend than it is to change the world, just ask Tris Prior, Katniss Everdeen, or Harry Potter (girlfriend in this case, but he had the hardest time of the three of them. Poor awkward little nugget.)

So we've covered the fact that change is the only reason books are written or that people encounter different scenarios, but what about characters? Half of the whole book (or more if you're into classics like Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man) is about the character becoming a different person. There's even a term for a book that talks about coming of age: bildungsroman. Not exactly the prettiest name, but there are so many books that explore the young adult age range and how people change during that time they have their own term. And if you've seen a Joyce book, his bildungsromans are thicker than my arm. The elements of change a person experiences during their time as a preteen and adolescent are so complex people write whole books about it. So why don't we have that in young adult literature as a minor element? People change, of course, but is that it? Someone becomes more compassionate, another learns about loss, but there's no way that's all the changing they do. Look around, check out books filed under 'bildungsroman' or 'coming of age'. Embrace the fact that characters at this age are changing drastically, just as we are. Does that mean they can't save the world? No, but to write them like an adult and focus mostly on how their decisions change based on experience is to shut out a beautiful and extensive part of what it means to be a teenager. We are still changing, forever and always. Maybe it's about time we stopped pretending like we don't.

Still changing too,

Brie