A new review

Over on the child_lit listserv there was some discussion recently of a generalization made by a New York Times reviewer. The generalization was, roughly, "The secret lives of parents are uninteresting to kids"--and several child_litters took issue, claiming that parents are indeed important to children and to their literature. I agree that parents are important--as a parent myself, I'd like to think I matter!--but I still maintain that many children simply don't recognize their parents as individuals, with their own motivations, their own secrets, their own desires, and that children's literature therefore often simply removes or marginalizes the parents. That's as it should be.

In YA literature, however, parents can start to matter in different ways, and that's at least partly the subject of The Noah Confessions--and of my review of it (scroll down), now up at The Edge of the Forest. Check it out--and if you feel like it, take sides, go ahead!