Shortly after getting home last night I got a call from my mom. She told me that NBC news was going to do a report on those "dirty" books I read, and she thought I might want to watch it. Color me surprised when it turned out to be a report on YA Fiction (I was expecting a report on Romance Fiction what with Carol's use of the word dirty -- who knew she could joke?). Take a look at the report (New Trend in Teen Fiction: Racy Reads) and then come back here. I'll wait.

Are you back? Okay, say it with me: oh the pain.

It hasn't even been two months since the last time I got upset about the media and their coverage of the YA market, so I guess I'm about due. The report began with the time honored good news/bad news intro by Brian Williams. Good news parents: studies show your children might actually be reading this summer. Bad news though: you wouldn't believe the crap you're letting into your house. Here are some of my favorite quotations from the report:

“It’s either fantasy or smut — and that’s sad,”

“I don’t think they would sell as well if they didn’t have sex in them,”

Experts say books like these are gratuitous — even dangerous — and parents need to know that.

“They buy it, thinking they’re doing something nice for their kid, when, in fact, they have no clue what it is they’re exposing their kid to.”

Can someone explain to me why they never interview a librarian for one of these stories? Is it that the story wouldn't work as well if had a touch of sanity or common sense or possibly the truth? Normally I would try to dismiss stuff like this as alarmist garbage that doesn't have much of an impact on the YA market, but now I have to wonder if reports like this are slowly seeping their way into book buyers (an consequently booksellers) subconscious. Just yesterday I heard that Borders is cutting back on the YA they will carry in their stores. I wondered at the time why when by all appearances YA is a booming market. Could it be that the Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! YA Fiction is smut! people have a stronger voice than I originally anticipated?

If that's the case then I'm really worried, both as a librarian and reader. Granted, I can still by my dirty YA books at other outlets, but what if other booksellers follow suit? How long after that would we see publishers cutting back on the number of YA books the published? More worrisome for me, how long will it be before these people turn their focus from controlling what their kids read to controlling what I read? Because if these kids are anything like me at that age, when they find that next to nothing is being published for them they will do what I did: start reading adult books.

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