Editorial: There’s a whole world to explore between the pages of a book

Bookshelves are full of new friends who will support your teenager through those tricky years. Photo / Unsplash

When I was 11, one of my best friends was Jewish. Actually, Margaret was half Jewish, half Christian, a mix she struggled to understand at times. Through her, I learned about Jewish festivals and customs and gained an insight into the similarities between her Judaism and my Anglicanism.

Margaret didn’t just teach me about religion, she also talked a lot about puberty - which as 11-year-old girls was certainly on our minds a lot. Along with boys, feeling like our parents didn’t understand us, the trials of school and the politics of the school lunch line were all topics I felt comfy exploring with Margaret.

Only, Margaret wasn’t actually real. Margaret Simon is the main character and narrator of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume, a book that some parents think should be banned from school library bookshelves. Why, well, you know - puberty, boys... clearly not suitable topics right?

Fortunately for me, my school library did have the book, along with The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 ¾ by Sue Townsend, another book that had the book-banning crowd clutching their pearls and decrying the unsuitability of young adults going through puberty and the teenage years reading books about young adults going through puberty and the teenage years.

While these books, along with the other many young adult reads that have come under scrutiny over the years, didn’t contain all the answers to growing up, they certainly helped with the journey. From Margaret’s concern about her non-existent bra size (surely I wasn’t the only teenager in the late 80s and early 90s to faithfully follow Margaret’s “I must, I must I must increase my bust” exercises?) to Adrian’s crush on the ultimate girl next door - Pandora. The storylines resonated with me and other young adult readers in a way that The Secret Seven and such other books deemed more appropriate by the aforementioned pearls-clutching crowd of would-be book banners just couldn’t replicate.

That’s not to say I didn’t love reading about Peter, Janet, Pam, Barbara, Jack, Colin and George’s adventures, I did. They were great stories and still are, but even with all the lashings of ginger beer in the world, they didn’t give me the answers I needed in navigating those tough tween and teenage years.

Margaret and Adrian still exist on bookshelves, but in recent years they have been joined by many more characters who are ready to guide the next generation of tweens and teens through the turbulent years of young adulthood. To the horror of the pearl brigade, the new characters aren’t just grappling with bust size and crushes, but also the black lives matter movement (Starr Carter in Angie Thomas’ The Hate You Give), growing up mixed-race and gay (Michael in Dean Atta’s The Black Flamingo) or teen suicide (Finch and Violet in Jennifer Niven’s All the Bright Places).

Giving our young people a book about Margaret or Adrian, Starr, Michael, Finch or Violet, is about far more than just giving them a book. It’s about giving them the gift of literature - the language by which we are able to explore and truly know ourselves. Just as Peter, Janet and their friends took us off on exciting adventures and picnics by the sea, so Margaret, Adrian and their peers can take our teens on the equally exciting adventure of discovering who they are and what they think about the world around them.

Instead of banning books when they venture into what some consider uncomfortable topics, we should celebrate them. Give thanks to the authors and characters who are giving a voice to and an insight into the world in which our teens are living. For whether they are sharing a picnic with plenty of ginger beer, or practising bust growth exercises in the mirror, they are the friends our teenagers need in this modern world.