I wonder, will our children grow up to be responsible adults? Will they carry on the traditions we treasure? Will they care about the small town where they were raised?
Watching, I wonder. Surely, at some point in their adult lives, they will come to understand the importance of family, community, and tradition. Perhaps. Right now, they seem to care about so little. (It's difficult to tell what they really care about, since they hide under layers of rudeness and spite.)
Somehow, they will surely have a teacher or parent or mentor who will get through to them. Crack their shells. Open their eyes. But that person isn't me -- at least today.
I'm trying to be optimistic. I'm trying to believe in the teenagers. But it's hard. I know, I need to read books that are a bit more optimistic, perhaps that show the positive side of teens. Perhaps that show that there is light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. I've recently finished three teen novels, all of which should make me feel hopeful. After all, they all take teens in crisis and show how they pulled through.
Two of them, however, just didn't get positive enough. Those two were This Full House by Virginia Euwer Wolff
and Stay With Me by Paul Griffin.
I would certainly recommend both of these books for teen readers. They were realistic fiction, and dealt well with the problems typical teens may face. The characters were believable, and the writing styles of each author made the books hard to put down. However, the endings of both books lacked the sort of optimism I really needed.
I will highly recommend the third book, though! It ended extremely well, considering the wacky, extreme situations faced by the main characters (teens) in the story. Trumpet fanfare: the book is How to Save a Life by Sara Zarr. (Please, not to be confused with the song by The Fray!) This novel's positive spin on teen problems make me want to reread it. I could use some positive inspiration about now.
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