YA Agony Awards: addendum

[rachelmanija]

While going through old LJ entries, I found this hilarious excerpt from a locked post. I was in Tokyo at the time, and having a lousy time for reasons having nothing to do with Japan:

Yesterday, rather than lurking miserably etc, I went to an English used bookshop in Ebisu on the theory that that would surely cheer me up. I immediately headed for children's/YA, hoping it would have lots of Bristish fantasy like the last time I was there. The first book I picked up was about a teen football player who becomes a quadriplegic. Just what I wanted to read. Nix! Then a book about a boy with a hawk. I flipped to the end. Someone shoots it. Next, race problems. Child labor in a coal mining town. Dead dogs. More race problems. Holocaust. Homeless teens. Holocaust. Homeless teens during the Holocaust. Race problems. Dead otters. Dead aborigines. Dead Jews.

Comments

[veejane.livejournal.com]

Have you read any Sonia Levitin? I made the mistake of picking up one of her novels at one point, only to discover that the climax of the novel was the burning alive of the entire Jewish community of Strasbourg during the Black Death; and the emotional outcome of the novel was that the futuristic witness, who was assigned to watch the whole thing as punishment for his evil tendencies towards individuality, completely recanted said tendencies and firmly promised always to be exactly like his neighbors forevermore.

And then the universe was destroyed.

I am only kidding about that last.