Teens and Poverty

Teen Librarian Toolbox has highlighted books on hunger and poverty in teen literature. Karen Jensen makes a good point that we think of YA books as mostly aspirational stories of characters with great privilege, beauty, and wealth, but there are many titles that present the reality of teen poverty, as well. And YA literature should be a space for readers to both experience lives similar to their own and to learn about diversity, to stretch and to be held.

I have been thinking of lot about the gross excesses and need that are starkly obvious at this time of year and how ambivalent we feel about it all and how overwhelming consumerism and struggle are. 2014 in America was about many things, including oppression and protest and record numbers of homeless people in shelters.

For another fictional look at the news, at outrage and protest, try Kekla Magoon's How It Went Down, which is about a black teen shot and killed by a white man and the aftermath of it all.