What has happened to the cautionary tale? All the
rage since the dawn of time, but now young adult writers such as Ellen Hopkins
and Alex Sanchez are turning their backs on the formula genre. In their
stories, those who do the wrong gain acceptance and little in the way of dire consequences.
Normally, a cautionary tale is told when the teller,
a wiser person with years of experience, wants to warn the listener, a naive younger
person, against a danger such as grab a hot poker and your whole body will burst
into flames. In the irrational example, the dangerous thing now done and
someone must endure horrible pain.
Cautionary tales are not based on normal circumstances
like break a law and go to jail, but hyper-penalties like point at a dog and lose
a finger even though the dog is a block away.
When I was a young adult, I remember reading an odd
connection between family members as an example. The daughter gets pregnant and
the grandmother has a heart attack. This cause and effect were directly
related, yet granny was probably a heavy smoker with a love of bacon.
Ellen Hopkins is the author of ten young adult and
two adult books all in verse format. Her titles for the YA crowd include her
first book Crank that is based loosely on her daughter’s addiction to crystal
meth to her latest Smoke. Each book possessing a potential to knock the socks
off us literally, but the consequences are actually common sense.
Young readers are already scared of becoming
pregnant or addicted to drugs, but Hopkins pushes the fear aside as her
characters work through solutions to make things better despite being pregnant
or addicted or both. And, yes, sometimes there are dire consequences, but
Hopkins keeps them in balance with the problem.
I read Tilt this weekend and thought, wow, times
have changed! Pregnancy happens, drugs happen and no one is struck down by
lightening. I have to say, while I read, I kept my head down waiting for the
boom!
The story follows two families with parents that are
either divorced or thinking about it. The young adults are in their senior year
of high school, and either popular or outsiders. The situations are tough, but
Hopkins brings solutions not consequences. Young readers will benefit.
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