Friday, July 9, 2010

The strange, dark state of teen fiction

I visit our local public library at least a couple of times every week, and over the last year or two I've noticed a marked trend in the Young Adult section: instead of Arthur Ransome titles, Hardy Boys or Encyclopedia Brown books, the shelves are filled with stories of teenage werewolves and teenage vampires coping with pimples, or female fare featuring lesbianism, or girls sleeping with their teachers. 

And this is the public library in ultra-conservative Lynden, Washington! What, I wondered, was it like elsewhere? So I did a little digging on Amazon.com, and compiled this list of the top 30 bestselling teen fiction books. Let me tell you, my kids are not going to go to the library without me! (Click on the graph to make it bigger)


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