Thoughts after reading a NY Times book review > "Young Adult Fiction: Wild Things"

"These books look cute. They come in matched paperback sets with catchy titles, and stay for weeks on the children's books best-seller list. They carry no rating or recommended age range on the cover, but their intended audience — teenage girls — can't be in doubt. They feature sleek, conventionally beautiful girls lounging, getting in or out of limos, laughing and striking poses. Any parent — including me — might put them in the Barnes & Noble basket without a second glance. Yet if that parent opened one, he or she might be in for a surprise." ... "The "Clique" novels are all about status. But sex saturates the "Gossip Girl" books, by Cecily von Ziegesar, which are about 17- and 18-year-old private school girls in Manhattan. This is not the frank sexual exploration found in a Judy Blume novel, but teenage sexuality via Juicy Couture, blas and entirely commodified...."

<><><><><><>

This is an exerpt from a review by Naomi Wolf in the NY Times today on a new and very popular trend in young adult fictional works on the best seller lists. Check out the semi-critical, but not fully aware (in my opinion), review in full HERE. I was so shocked by what is passing for literature and culture these days in our "great" society that I thought I would share the link and a few thoughts.

These books are selling literally millions of copies and passed off as "young-adult fiction" for girls. Complete with oral sex and other very explicit scenes featuring young teens, this is the "literature" that is shaping millions in the next generation of American women.

What are your thoughts? Are your children or your friends children reading these books? What role does this sort of "literature" play in influencing the values of the next generation? What happened to the venerated "classics" - are they no longer relevant to our kids.

Should a classic book be discarded if it becomes "irrelevant" to us or should we endeavor to become relevant to virtuous works - such as those by Homer, the Fathers of the Church, Jane Austen, Fyodor Dostoevsky; who could discount modern writers like Madeline L'Engle or CS Lewis?

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." -- Philippians 4:8

Is the notion of calling our children, ourselves, to the heights of Truth, culture and virtue no longer a priority? Are we simply to be "tolerant" of the mass consumerization of such base humanity targeting our children in the name of freedom, or worse, art?

Or will we dare to judge and be prejudice when required, scrutinize and criticize, teach discernment and even shelter our children if need be?

I pray we will, so that in forming their minds by what is higher and most noble, their souls too may be shaped into the likeness of the image of the One who created us all.

Justin