Elissa Gershowitz has written recently in Horn Book about the trashy books teens read, and how sharing that they’re reading them to an adult (like, say, the librarian) makes them “avert their eyes”. I think she’s wrong about that. I’d say most librarians these days have a pretty relaxed attitude towards kids’ reading tastes, and are more likely to capitalize on those tastes than judge them. And, more importantly, kids reading what they LIKE to read aren’t ashamed of their tastes. They just don’t read their preferred texts around people who don’t respect their reading choices or take away what they want to read– they find people who are excited about those books, and will give them what they want. Whether adults include or exclude kids’ favorite books on the basis of  whether those books are “trash” or “quality literature”, those books are everywhere. Gershowitz argues that most trashy books have no staying power (some don’t, some do, just like any other kind of book). Mostly, I don’t think writers write their books with the intention of writing classics, with the exception of those literary types bent on writing the Great American Novel.

Gershowitz asks what makes one trashy book the standout above all the others of its kind. Well, today I would say a lot of it has to do with marketing. I was a newly minted children’s librarian widely read in science fiction, fantasy, and children’s books of all kinds, when I first encountered Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (widely considered trash by authorities in the field of children’s literature). My reaction was that it was a pretty good fantasy novel. It wasn’t an instant takeoff– I returned to school at the end of 1999 and hardly heard boo about it. A year later I walked into a Hallmark store and almost crashed into an overwhelming display of  Harry Potter merchandise. I read both Twilight and The Hunger Games before they became massive hits, too. What makes these books “standouts” of epic proportions is cross-marketing that is completely immersive and overpowering. It’s impossible to include Twilight in the same category as some of these other books Gershowitz mentions.

As someone who grew up during the time in which Forever, Go Ask Alice, and Flowers in the Attic were published, I believe those books are standouts in part because they address taboo topics in a frank way. They’re books my parents and teachers weren’t going to put into your hands.  They’re not especially didactic, and the protagonists speak right to you. Yes, even Cathy Dollanganger, locked in her attic in a horrifying situation as gothic as it gets, reflects back pictures that storm inside our heads. On that, I think Gershowitz and I can agree. And there’s some of that in Twilight as well, although where the book stops and the marketing starts is difficult to measure.

Contemporary YA novels are hard to compare because so much of what was taboo at that time is no big deal today. A series like Gossip Girl is like a soap opera on paper. 25 years ago those were (in theory, anyway) for adults only. The paranormal was a tiny piece of the market. With the popularity of Interview with the Vampire and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, that changed. The world of children’s and YA literature today is not the same as the one I grew up with. That’s okay, but it makes comparisons difficult. The difference between what makes a book quality literature and what makes it trash changes with time.

But here’s the thing that’s different. Teens today don’t feel like they have to hide their reading tastes from the world. In places and with people who don’t respect them or their reading choices, they aren’t going to share them, but what happens is that those places and people become irrelevant to their lives. If adults don’t address those choices in a positive way, they will find themselves locked out. And reading ‘trashy books’ won’t stop with adulthood– but, for many, it will limit whether they choose to read anything else, or choose to read at all.