She says adolescence is the time when a lot of difficult issues are first examined. If you look at what kids write themselves, it's the dark issues they are testing out, trying to make sense of them. We're not vulnerable little people who accept everything we read in books. And it is important to distinguish between books for children and for young adults, says Agnes Nieuwenhuizen of the Australian Centre for Youth Literature at the State Library. Nieuwenhuizen believes there is too much focus on the issues in the books rather than the quality of the writing.
People say, here's a book about suicide or incest, they never say that about adult books.
Some of them get on the long short-list for the CBCA awards and they shouldn't. These are chosen on the basis of literary merit, not theme or subject matter. When you know there are so many kids out there crying out for someone to listen to them, you want to give them a voice. But I don't think we can always present the world as sweetness and light because that's not helpful either. Random House sends out its manuscripts to young readers as well as adults to get feedback.