Where Have the Parents Gone in Young Adult Fiction?

OK, I admit it. I'm a total sucker for Top 10 (or 5 or 12 or whatever) lists, especially ones involving colleges. Show me a list of the most expensive universities, the least safe, best dorms/ worst dorms, and I am so there. So I'm thoroughly enjoying Forbes.com's photo-filled "World's Most Beautiful College Campuses" list, which includes the breathtaking Oxford (pictured, but Forbes' photo is even more beautiful), as well as Kenyon, Princeton, Scripps and other gorgeous universities. Stunning. Why didn't I apply to Oxford?"There is a lot of work that needs to be done by people who have skills to help with the immediate response to disaster before unskilled groups can start going 70-448 braindump there," Break Away programs director Samantha Giacobozzi told reporters at Inside Higher Ed. "The resources that would be utilized by alternative breakers would be better used by Haitians and people doing essential work. There isn't enough food, housing, water for everyone there already, so unless you have something to add, it doesn't make sense to go."

I myself have been blessed to have grown up with a stable family, in which both my parents are still married to one another; and are both alive. However, I realize that this is not the case with many children and their families today. I feel that books that are based around the experiences of orphans not only create an opportunity for children to have someone to relate to, and subsequently have a "voice"; but also, these books may also create empathy and understanding amongst those who have not experienced the loss of a parent or parents. I believe that all life circumstances, even if they do not necessarily reflect the major trends in family, deserve an opportunity to be examined.

I'd be interested to see if this is truly a growing trend or part of the orphan trope that's as old as children's lit. The Boxcar Children, Anne of Green Gables, etc. Talking to others, I've decided a character's loss of parents reflects some vital part of child development--it's an extreme expression of a child seperating from the parents. It may also serve some primal desire to fend for oneself. I recall thinking at 10 that if were suddenly without a family, I would get food this way, and find shelter here and... There are YA novels about the loss of a parent but you seem to be talking about stories in which the child is already alone, a family of one. And I think that has nothing to do with the reality of death in a family. It's a fantasy which many children find fulfilling not because of what it means about their parents but what it feels like to imagine themselves able to survive on their own.

Although I agree with Lisa that these books are great for some kids, I feel that it's a bit TOO much, for a couple of reasons. My husband died 15 years ago when my children were 7 and 4. The only book I could find for them to relate to was Jean Little's "Mama's going to buy me a mockingbird". Now, every second book has a dead parent, and like Ramona, I find it insulting. Far more kids grow up with divorced parents, and statistics will tell us that the kids who have serious problems as teens are those in single parent households where there's a divorce. Children of widowed parents have "issues", I agree, but don't usually have serious behavioural issues: there's loss and sadness, but their parent didn't leave them DELIBERATELY (suicide being the exception of course), so there isn't an abandonment "issue", unless the surviving parent becomes totally dysfunctional. AND, in reading for 2010 SB, I have to say there aren't any books (yet) where the protagonist has lost both parents, but over 50% where one has died. It was bothering me so much that I asked my kids to estimate a percentage of their peers (take facebook friends, or classmates, for example)who have lost parents, over the 15 years of their experience as "orphans". Less than 2%!!!!! As Lisa points out, reality is no longer the 2 parent, 2 kid kind of family. We must therefore conclude that these authors find it more "glamorous" for the parent to have died, than to have left.

Ramona's initial vent here actually morphed into a very insightful article on the topic, where YA authors get a chance to respond. Look for it in Volume 16 Issue 3 of "The Teaching Librarian".

As someone who grew up as an orphan, I think these books are great. Seeing your reality represented in the books you're reading is not only comforting, but reminds the reader they are not alone. There are lots of books still coming up with 2 parent, North American lifestyles, but look around, that's not who "we" are really anymore.