The Dark Side of Young Adult Fiction

I'd love to know how many of you are out there following this thread of Room for Debate on the Opinion Pages of the New York Times.  The question is:  "Why do bestselling young adult novels seem darker in theme now than in past years?  What's behind this dystopian trend, and why is there so much demand for it?"

The chosen debaters are Paolo Bacigalupi, Maggie Stiefvater, Jay Parini, Scott Westerfeld, Andrew Clements, Michelle Ann Abate, and Lisa Rowe Fraustino, with many others chiming in.

I rather like the tact Maggie Stiefvater takes.  I value Paolo Bacigalupi's sensibilities as a writer.  I have long struggled, especially since chairing the Young People's Literature jury for the National Book Awards in 2001, with the questions posited by Michelle Ann Abate.

What do you think?

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The Last Station: Reflections

Last night (at long last) we watched The Last Station, a movie about Tolstoy's final days.  I have long been fascinated by this chapter in history—the battle over the rights to Tolstoy's work, the conflict between his ideals and his living, his flight from the world he created (and his complex wife), his dying—a media spectacle—at the Astapova train station.  Jay Parini, an author of many books, an elaborator on many moods, published the book in 1990.  The movie, starring Christopher Plummer, Helen Mirren, James McAvoy, Paul Giamatti, and Anne-Marie Duff, came out last year.  I waited into the annealing dark of a hot day to go back in time and toward the artistry of a film that I found deeply moving.  I highly recommend that those of you who have not yet seen this film place two hours aside and watch.

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