Violence, swearing, sex, drinking, mental illness… teen/YA lit has had it all for over 40 years. Teen author Non Pratt on facing up to whatever readers fear – and exploring uncharted ethical territory

Ask an author on a teen/YA panel at a literature festival “Is anything off-limits in writing for teenagers?” and I’ll give you short odds on the answer being “No”.



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If you look at proto-YA classics (published before the YA genre really existed!) such as William Golding’s Lord of the Flies and JD Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye (published with an adult audience in mind but with teen protagonists) between them they tick practically every box on Teen Taboo Bingo:

Violence

Coarse language

Sexual references

Mental illness

Drinking

And when young adult literature truly emerged in the form of SE Hinton’s The Outsiders, a book written for a teenage audience, specifically addressing teen concerns, 17-year-old SE Hinton explored many of the same themes.

Today a teenager could ask for a book on almost any traditionally taboo topic and I’ll find you a writer who is prepared to take you there. Given our flagrant disregard for the concept of “unsuitable” topics for teens, are writers really the right people to answer the question at all?

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It’s nearly 50 years since The Outsiders was published – 40 since Judy Blume wrote the sex-accurate Forever – but last year Juno Dawson’s This Book is Gay (published as James Dawson) prompted a re-shelving of teen non-fiction in an Alaskan library and Courtney Summers’ sexually realistic Some Girls Are was removed as an option from a summer reading list in a South Carolina school. Closer to home (on a much smaller scale) I know of at least one school where my book Trouble – featuring pregnancy and the sex that is an essential part of getting pregnant – has been taken off the shelves after a parent objected to its presence.

If you asked the parents and care-givers who objected to these books whether anything is off-limits in writing for teenagers, their answer would be different from that of the writers.

There’s no knowing what will offend. The “sex” umbrella covers anything from the representation of respectful heterosexual/same-sex relationships and masturbation, to the much more frightening subjects of rape and prostitution. Violence against others is often tacitly accepted within a thriller, but self-harm becomes a matter of debate, and swear words offend on sliding scale that starts at “crap” and ends wherever one’s lexicon cuts out.

The boundaries exist; whether writers should obey them is another matter.

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Once a book is published, it is out of the writer’s control. All it takes is for one person to object to a book for no one in that school, or library, to be given access to it. What a writer can control are the words they put on the paper and it is our job to tell the story, not second-guess the audience – or the adults who police the audience. If we observe the rules of what we “shouldn’t” write about, then we are not preventing the students in a single school from reading our truth, we are preventing every reader in the world from reading it.

I’ve not encountered a writer who wishes to sensationalise the sensitive or glorify that which is dangerous, nor have I met an editor who would commission something with this in mind. This part of the publishing industry might seem subversive, but we are a largely responsible bunch and our willingness to tackle taboos springs from an understanding of how lonely and scary being a teenager can be. Through writing, we reach out to reassure readers that what they’re experiencing or thinking about is OK. There is great strength to be drawn from knowing you are not alone.

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That’s not to say that all taboo territory has been explored to its fullest extent – we hover around the borders of the sex boundary, but this year, Raziel Reid’s When Everything Feels Like the Movies, will take things a little further, delivering a devastating study in homophobic bullying, with Jude, the main character, possessing a sex drive that takes us beyond first dates and fumbles. But the dangers of homophobia isn’t the only hateful field that can be explored further, today’s teen market could accommodate more writers prepared to look at what lures teenagers to terrorism, the real fear of war that’s driving people to seek safety on our shores – and to tackle the ugly truth of the racism that might face them when they get here.

Scary subjects for anyone, really.

Ask a writer like me “Is anything off-limits in writing for teenagers?” and the reply will continue to be “No”. Whatever readers fear, writers will face.

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You can chat to Non Pratt @NonPratt about taboos and rules in teen/YA lit, together with Sally Green @Sa11eGreen and Louise O’Neill @oneilllo on Saturday 9 January from 4.55pm-5.40pm on Twitter, in Rude, Crude and Uncouth: The Shouldn’ts, Couldn’ts and Wouldn’ts of YA Lit Twitter chat #YAtakeover (hosted by Guardian children’s books co-editor Emily Drabble @EmilyDrabs).

#YAtakeover is a 24-hour event across Twitter and Instagram created by the @YAblooker launching 8 January at 9pm. For all the info, check out the YAfictionados website.