When I first entered the world of middle-grade books,
THE BABYSITTER’S CLUB series was in its heyday, and I was part of the prime
demographic. Because I was not quite old enough to actually babysit, hanging out with whiny toddlers
sounded glamorous whenever Claudia and Stacey were at the helm.
And the girls never seemed as uncertain or mixed up inside
as I felt. Oh, sure, they had their
conflicts and moments of oops-why-did-I-like-that-jerk-anyway? revelations, but
they faced it all with polish and confidence.
As a young reader, the stories I devoured were educational,
whether they were intended to be or not. They taught me ways I could respond to
certain situations. Or, if I wanted to
be like Stacey and Claudia, ways I ought to respond. They also gave me an idea of a “normality”
that might exist outside of my own experience.
This unintentional education spills over into what I call the Disney-channel wistfulness, that moment when viewers feel as
though their lives should be more like that easy 30-minute sitcom episode, the
one where the girl knows exactly how to confront the bully or snag the
attention of the cute boy.
well as entertaining.
I think Disney and a lot of contemporary middle-grade books aim
for the awkwardness that comes with the transitional years between childhood
and adulthood, but they often leave the protagonist with a maturity beyond
their years.
Maybe it was just my own
personal brand of preadolescent challenges, but I never had a completely
platonic male friend who I could just hang out with one-on-one, the way boys
and girls in most middle-grade novels (mine included!) do with such ease.
Instead, there were always odd undercurrents and
insecurities and hormones and why-in-the-world-did-I-say-that? moments with no
happy resolution. I think of my first
dance, when the boy I actually liked asked me to dance, and I was stopped
cold. “No thanks,” I said to him and the
cluster of boys standing by him for moral support. “Maybe next time.”
In a book, the heroine would never flail with unpredictable
insecurity. She would know how to
reasonably respond in a mature-beyond-her-years-yet-somehow-age-appropriate way
to her crush.
Or, even if she had blundered, there would actually be a next time, when all would work out well at the next dance.
Or, even if she had blundered, there would actually be a next time, when all would work out well at the next dance.
Of course, this is part of the reason we choose
fiction. None of us really wants to
crack open a book and read what actually happens in someone’s everyday life,
right? But what does it do for young
readers to have that false normal or Disney-wistfulness planted right there in
their imaginations?
I struggle with this as an author – balancing the tension of
perceived reality and fantasy-world. I
think I’m not alone. L.M. Montgomery,
one of our favorites around Project Mayhem, lamented that her heroines were, in
my words, too pure, that she wasn’t allowed to have them deal with thoughts and
feelings that girls, even in Montgomery’s time, really did. As someone who lived and breathed Anne
growing up, I wonder if it could have helped to know that Anne actually wasted
a lot of hours mooning over Gilbert.
What do you think? Is
it possible to create realistic relational dynamics in fiction or will they
always be shaped by our wish-fulfillment and desires of how things ought to be? Are there any middle-grade books
that you think deal with realistic relational dynamics particularly well?
Oh, and, Nick, wherever you are, I really am sorry about
that dance.
