5.6 First kill the parents

Getting rid of parents – often literally – is something authors of fiction for children and young adults have been doing for centuries. Even in stories published over the last decade or so, a body count of parents killed off before a story gets going would be ludicrously high. Others go away on business, or are living with new partners, in homes too far away for the protagonist to visit. Mums and dads allowed to remain in the narrative have tended to be minor characters, providing the protagonist with meals, lifts to school and unwanted advice. The assumption that young people do not want grown-ups interfering – in their lives or in their literature – remains true, to some extent. But it begs the question: Since the lives of most teenagers are heavily influenced, and controlled, by adults – be they parents, carers or teachers – how can a writer accurately portray that life if adults are banished from the story? YA author Karen Healey considers this question on the Strange Horizons magazine website.

Increasing numbers of YA authors are bucking the trend by giving adult characters more of the limelight. And while there is nothing new about casting adults as villains, a significant number of YA stories are now featuring grown-ups whose inner demons or downright ineptitude pose a significant challenge for the young protagonist.

A Blue So Dark by Holly Schindler is a good example of this. Now read Sarah Ockler’s discussion of the ‘parent problem’ in fiction for young adults.