I read a fair amount of young adult fiction-both as part of my job as a professor of secondary education and as a parent of two girls ages 11 and 14. I just finished reading Moon over Manifest, the 2011 Newbery Award winner, by Claire Vanderpool. I liked it, although perhaps not as much as some of the other Newbery Award winners I’ve read. I’ll recommend it to both my girls. The 11-year-old might read it; the 14-year-old will definitely turn her nose up at it.
Moon over Manifest is about a girl named Abilene Tucker who is sent by her father to spend the summer in Manifest while he works the railroad during the Great Depression. From there, it follows a fairly common plot arch-Abilene makes some unusual friends (including Miss Sadie, a “diviner” from Hungary and Shady Howard, a bootlegger and saloon owner), learns some important lessons, and grows up a bit.
As I was reading it, I couldn’t shake the thought that there was something amiss-or something unfamiliar to my modern-day sensibilities. After finishing the book, it dawned on me that what felt strange to me was the way in which Abilene and her schoolgirl friends have all sorts of intimate, unsupervised interactions with adults. And then I realized that this is fairly common in young adult fiction.
In Because of Winn Dixie, Opal befriends Gloria Dump, an alcoholic who Opal thinks is a witch the first time they meet. In The Higher Power of Lucky (loved this book), Lucky Thimble listens in at AA meetings (which contributed to the sh*tstorm of crazy from book banners when this book was announced as a Newbery Award winner in 2007). In Everything on a Waffle, Primrose Squarp similarly befriends restaurant owner Miss Bowzer, who serves everything on a waffle. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Jem and Scout interact regularly with Miss Maudie and Miss Stephanie Crawford. Shoot-they run all over Macon unsupervised and even watch hours of courtroom drama–and no parent is hovering over them!
Maybe it’s just my family, but my kids don’t run around unsupervised-ever. The most they do is ride their bikes in a loop in our neighborhood that’s 1.25 miles around. They don’t go over to adults’ houses during the day like these book characters do and chat it up. And they certainly don’t hang out with “diviners” and bootleggers.
And yet-the most powerful lessons in these books emerge from the kids’ interactions with these adults. I love it that the kids grow to love these adults like Gloria Dump and Shady Howard-adults who have been largely dismissed by other adults. These kids learn powerful lessons about not judging people according to the way they look, what their house/apartment looks like, how they talk, or what they wear. All good lessons.
My kids have virtually no interactions like these with adults. They interact with teachers at school and at church. But those are very supervised, formalized interactions. I generally take great pains to shield them from the kinds of unsupervised interactions with adults that they (and I) read about in young adult fiction.
Are my kids (ages 8, 11, and 14) missing out? Or am I just keeping them safe? Are we right to constrain kids’ movement and social interactions as much as we do? Is it even possible in 2011 to give kids as much free rein as these adolescent book characters have, or is that kind of autonomy a thing of the past?
When I was a kid in Safford, Arizona–I was the oldest of seven. We walked clear across town dressed in our bathing suits carrying our towels to the city swimming pool. In Nacogdoches, Texas in the early 60’s we slept with only our screen door latched with our windows open. Times have change. I NEVER allowed my children the freedom I had to roam the neighborhood with other kids. I even slept at a elderly lady’s home when her husband was out of town. Our neighbor across the street was affectionately called “Aunt Pat”. I really feel there is more wickedness in the world with perverts who have evil desires in this day and time. It is ashame the we cannot allow our kiddos the same freedom I once enjoyed and have such good memories of. I really enjoyed this book. I was disappointed that I missed Book Club this past month.
Marsha, I missed it as well. I was coming down with the crud and was just too tired/grumpy to venture out.
Do you really think there is more evil and wickedness in the world now, or do we just know about it more because of the media? I remember one summer 5-7 years ago, there was a rash (or what seemed like a rash) of kidnappings of little girls. I felt scared and alarmed and surprised by what seemed like a new trend! And I had two daughters.
But then I read an article that said that the number of kidnappings had actually gone DOWN over the last couple decades; it’s just that today, we hear about every single one. We see the pictures of the little girls, we read about all the details of the kidnapping, we hear about the investigations, etc., so they loom larger to us.
??
Maybe you are right with the media thing–but when I was a kid I was not afraid. My parents were good parents and yet they let us walk to the movies with apples (which was very embarrassing to me) all by oursleves. We lived move than a mile from the pool and theaters. I never heard of break-ins or kidnappings back then. Life seemed simpler. Of course this was after I was adopted by my LDS step-mom. My first 10 years with an alcoholic mother were terrifying. We do know that in the latter days evil will abound more and more as we strive to raise our children and grandchildren–and in our homes will be their refuge and safety.
Heather- I too was “friends” with many neighborhood adults as a child. I remember eating many cookies at the tables of the elderly people on our block. I don’t think my parents had a clue where I was or what I was doing. I just had to be home by a certain time. My children don’t have this freedom, but I think that part of the reason why, is that I don’t want my kids “bugging” other people. I have this idea that everyone is busy…. and the last thing they need is one of my kids yacking away at them.
I also was uncomfortable with Abilene moving in with Shady — an unrelated older man. Kids these days certainly live much more sheltered lives. But, unfortunately, it does seem more necessary. Communities are not nearly as connected and well-acquainted as in the “good ole days.” Knowing each other’s families for generation after generation (“that’s just like a Cunningham to do that”, “I knew [the prissy girl] came from good stock and there was hope for her yet”) made everyone aware of each other, and probably potential predators didn’t feel as anonymous and safe to commit crimes against kids, though undoubtedly crimes did sometimes happen. When I lived in Finland, I was 9 years old, hopping buses and trains by myself to visit my best friend in another town. Kidnapping was just unheard of. Somehow, some societies are able to not invite it in. It might be different now in Finland, I don’t know.
I think our kids will think back to their childhoods with nostalgia, just like we do. “I remember when you had to actually go to a building called a theater to see movies.” they will say to their children who aren’t listening.
You can be too protective with children, but you can’t be too careful.
I like this.
I remember doing a lot of roaming around from about age 10 onwards, but none of it with adults. I don’t think there are a lot of adults out there who would have wanted to spend time with us! We were just enjoying the summers, making dens, exploring the fields and lanes. I think the world is pretty safe where we are… and things like mobile phones (mine has gps tracking online, if I choose to enable it) should be useful tools to allow us to be even more confident that we can know where kids are and they can contact us if they need, at any time.