I remember being a gawky late elementary, early middle school student. My pre-teens and early teens were some of the weirdest times of my life. I was changing physically and emotionally. I wanted to try to fit in with a select group of people and because of this I changed the way I dressed, the way I did my hair, the way I talked, what I watched on T.V., what kind of music I listened to, and the list goes on and on and on. But one thing that didn’t change for me is what I was reading while growing up. I specifically remember reading tons and tons of “The Babysitter’s Club” books and also an assortment of “Sweet Valley High” series books. There was a “Making Out Series” by Katherine Applegate and also a “Fearless” series by Francine Pascal that I couldn’t stop reading. These books are places n the Chick Lit genre. Why was I so interested in these series of books? What made them so interesting and enjoyable that I couldn’t put them down? I searched my Google Reader in hopes of finding some answers to my questions.
According to Dana Yates who writes in the Daily Journal: San Mateo County’s Homepage:
“There is also a new proliferation of chick lit, a genre that gives this generation their own version of Nancy Drew, Baby Sitters Club and Sweet Valley High. The new generation of teen chick lit has the same salacious plot lines with a definite older vibe, which caters to today’s fast growing teens. It’s Judy Blume to a higher level. The stories are compared to a toned down Sex and the City or Paris Hilton escapades.”
Yates also interviewed Jennifer Laughran, a buyer for Burlingame Books Inc., who claims that she has
“stopped short of calling them [the new books] trashy”
when she acknowledges that she read the same kind of books when she was that age.
“I wouldn’t be as big a reader today if it weren’t for those books. There’s nothing wrong with them. It teachers them that reading doesn’t have to be hard. It can be fun,” Laughran said.
This I thought was a great ending article to heave read. It sums up how chick lit can be about some questionable topics and is often seen as trashy. But even with it’s negative drawbacks, Chick Lit is here to stay and is seen as a positive genre considering it engages it’s readers (promotes reading) and is also seen as enjoyable, fun, and not a text book, which I’m sure many enjoy.
Teen lit enters ‘golden age By Dana Yates
April 17, 2007 at 5:42 am
I agree with this completely. My own period of reading Chick Lit was brief, a few Sweet Valley High books in the fifth grade, but I can see the benefit to be had from encouraging young adults to read this type of literature. I tended to stick with more “grown-up” works and classics. In essence, I was a complete and utter misfit who had very little idea of how to socialize with the girls my own age. Maybe this type of lit would have helped with that, who knows? As for Chick Lit being “trashy”, the situations and language teenagers are exposed to on television is just as bad, if not worse. Never mind the situations that arise in an everyday school day when hundreds of adolescent hormones bombs are confined with their fellow classmates for hours on end! All in all, literature that young adults can connect to, that has relevance to their lives, and makes them want to read can only be good.
April 17, 2007 at 6:45 am
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April 17, 2007 at 8:26 pm
This comment is more in response to your topic than to your specific post, although I agree that I had some brief interest in the kind of “pre-teen chick-lit” that you are describing. The whole genre seems kind of superficial, and very specific to the audience, which is why I was interested to hear some insight on it from someone who had experience with publishing. Kristin Gore came to speak on campus a couple months ago, and she told our class that when her novel “Sammy’s Hill” was being reviewed and marketed, the publisher wanted to attach a “chick-lit” feel to the book, even though Gore hadn’t written it that way. Playing up the female lead made the book easier for the publisher to sell. What I thought was interesting was that right after she told us that, Gore said that the chick-lit genre is “dead” and that it “wasn’t selling anymore.” It made me think about how much of literature is based on pop culture, advertising, and current trends… one of those “don’t judge a book by its cover” things. Sometimes a book doesn’t get to pick its own cover.