Art Activism

Parents: Wanted – Dead or Alive

Lillian Beauregarde on 12 17, 2009

Working on the staff for Dragon*Con every year I’ve had the privilege to meet a great many people. A few years ago, I had the amazing opportunity to sit on a panel with Scott Westerfeld, author of the Uglies Series as well as many other Young Adult novels. During the panel on Utopias/Dystopias he said something that’s stuck in my head since then.

“A parent’s only job is to make sure their child
doesn’t end up in a YA Lit novel.”

Take a minute and think about the popular Young Adult lit novels:

Harry Potter
Parents: Dead
Challenge: To save the world from a wizard that tries repeatedly to kill him.
Parental Roll: None.

A Wrinkle In Time
Parents: Trapped or on another planet.
Challenge: To free the universe from IT, rescue Mr. Murry, rescue Charles Wallace.
Parental Roll: Slight – Mr. Murry does help at some point but the book’s main challenges are fought by the children. Mrs. Murry is still on Earth while this is happening so she has no way to participate.

Chronicles of Narnia – The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe
Parents: In London
Challenge: To save Narnia from the White Witch
Parental Roll: None

A Series of Unfortunate Events
Parents: Dead
Challenge: To escape the clutches of the evil Count Olaf … and other adventures.
Parental Roll: None. Not only is there no parent involvement but there’s also no adult who takes these three children seriously even under the most dire circumstances.

Twilight
Parents: Mom gone. Dad busy or pushed away
Challenge: Um… to avoid being killed by sparkly vampires or other creatures.
Parental Roll: Limited – Though her father is actually a part of her life in the first book, his influence is almost nil because he doesn’t have any idea what’s going on with Bella. (And do not make fun of me for having read Twilight. I read the first book while I was living in the Czech Republic and the books in English were not so easily found.)

I’m trying to think of one solitary instance where the parents are really involved in a character’s life in a YA book. They’re generally dead or distant… or both. Even in older novels such as The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy faces all of that peril all alone without even her adoptive parents. The Giver has his parents in it (after a fashion) but they don’t take part in any of the changes that happen to him.

Can someone tell me a YA Lit novel where the parents actually do some fightin’?

You could argue that the Weasley parents are fighters but they aren’t the parents of our protagonist. Even as the parents of main characters they’re kicked out of most of the fighting. (Though Mrs. Weasley killing Bellatrix with the “Not my daughter you bitch!” was awesome!) Most everything is done by Harry, Ron, and Hermione… without any of their respective parents.

This is hurting my brain.

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