Sensitive Issues in Stories

One of the things people who don’t read a lot of children’s books think, is that material written for children is by definition, light in nature. This is in fact, not at all true. While like a movie rated “G”, children’s books are generally free from sex, nudity, violence, strong language, and substance abuse, good children’s books walk straight down paths that include the dark and difficult arenas that present themselves in real life. There are all kinds of sensitive issues in stories.

In my book, The Curse of the Neverland, each of the 8 girls at Fitch’s Last Ditch Foster Home has her own story full of secret pain and difficult memories.

My book had the honor of being used in a local 4^th grade after-school book club for girls, sponsored by the Soroptomists International of Sequim. I was especially moved to learn that reading my story invited the girls in the book club to share difficulties of their own.

 This is a very important role books can play—normalizing difficult experiences, offering characters dealing with similar struggles, dramatizing not just the difficulties, but attempts at solutions as well.

The book I’m spotlighting today, Friends for Life by Andrew Norriss, does this brilliantly. Of all difficult subjects, Norriss takes on one of most difficult: suicide in young teens, as well the precursor depression and suicidal thoughts. I would share the summary, but I think it doesn’t do the book justice. It makes it appear as though it’s only about bullying—which it is, in part—but it’s so much more.

In the first scene, Francis, a boy interested in fashion and clothing design, meets Jessica: a girl no one else can see because she’s a ghost. Just as for “Pan’s Merry Band,” their friendship is life-changing. While it’s a bit of a spoiler, I’ll go ahead and say that Jessica is the catalyst bringing together a number of young people, all kids outside of the “norm,” each of who has been considering suicide. When they discover that in fact Jessica killed herself, they are able to share their experiences in a way that immediately drops it from shameful and extraordinary, to normal, and surmountable.

Here’s a passage I loved—referring to content on a website for teens. Bear with the long quote—it’s worth reading:

“[…]pages of letters from people describing what it had been like for them, and what they had done to get themselves out of The Pit.[…] It was one of these letters that described something Jessica remembered and the others instantly recognized as well. It talked about the extraordinary speed with which the feeling that life had no meaning could disappear on certain occasions and everything become normal again—for a while, at least. How one day you could be in the depths of despair, and the next you could wake up feeling…okay. How little things like something someone said, or a scene from a film, or even a piece of music could change your mood in the blink of an eye. And how, when you were in one mood, the other seemed so silly. When the sun was out you could hardly remember the clouds, and when you were in The Pit, it was difficult to believe that sunshine had ever existed.”

Just imagine the lifesaving potential of even one reader finding this who has been feeling like that!

My hat is off to Andrew Norriss. Thank you, Andrew for weaving this sensitive issue into such a beautiful story!