Racy reading Gossip Girl series is latest installment in provocative teen fiction, and it's as popular as it is controversial By LINDA SHRIEVES, The Orlando Sentinel
Launched in 2002 and described as " 'Sex and the City' for the younger set," the Gossip Girl book series detail the adventures of a clique of rich kids with easy access to money, drugs and alcohol.
When her daughters were younger, Liz Tucker was the "ogre" mom. She vetoed trips to the movies if she thought the film was inappropriate. Despite the kids' tears and protests, Tucker stood her ground.
So when her 13-year-old daughter, Natalie, wanted to read some of her older sister's Gossip Girl books, Tucker hesitated. She hadn't read the books, so Tucker turned to her 18-year-old daughter, Kate, for guidance. Kate began reading the series last summer, and many of her friends have read all seven.
"Kate is very responsible," says Tucker, who lives in Winter Park, Fla. "I count on her to tell me about teenage culture, as it exists. As a 49-year-old mother, I don't see it on the same level she does."
For more than a month this spring, Natalie begged Kate to let her read the books. Kate finally relented and decided that her sister, who's entering ninth grade, could handle the exploits of a handful of rich, prep-school kids -- who drink, occasionally smoke pot and would sleep with a well-connected guy if it could guarantee admission to Yale.
Liz Tucker still isn't entirely comfortable with the Gossip Girl series, but she's noticed a change in Natalie. The once reluctant reader is now curling up with books -- not just the Gossip Girl series but a wide variety of fare.
Although "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" has grabbed the headlines, parents who wander through the young-adult section of some bookstores may be in for a shock. Once past the stacks of Harry Potter books, they're likely to find shelves full of paperbacks with Cosmo-like covers and titles such as "Skinny-dipping," "Summer Boys 2," "The Clique" and "The A-List."
Though most of the books are unlikely to win writing awards, today's teen literary scene also includes acclaimed books with edgy, gritty themes. They include "Claiming Georgia Tate," the tale of a 12-year-old girl who is sexually abused by her father, and the award-winning "Weetzie Bat" novels, about an unwed mother who lives with her gay best friend and his lover.
But this wave of provocative teen fiction isn't anything new.
From S.E. Hinton's "The Outsiders," which roiled the literary world in 1967 with its tale of young men in gangs, to 1971's "Go Ask Alice," the anonymous diary of a teenage drug user, and Judy Blume's "Forever," which 30 years ago explored a teen losing her virginity, books aimed at teenagers always have ignited parents' fears.
The latest book to fan the flames is Paul Ruditis' "Rainbow Party," about an oral-sex party that never happens, in part because the teens who've been invited have major reservations. The book, published by Simon Pulse, the youth division of Simon & Schuster, highlights the dangers of oral sex and sexually transmitted diseases, but has been criticized by some parents and conservative commentators.
"Rainbow Party" isn't exactly flying off the shelves -- because it isn't on most bookstore shelves. Barnes & Noble and Borders are selling the book on their Web sites only. And many libraries are passing on the book -- not for censorship reasons, but because it lacks literary merit, they say.
Although "Rainbow Party" may not sell more than the 30,000 books that were printed, teenage girls are snapping up the Gossip Girl series, which has sold more than 2 million copies.
Launched in 2002 and described as " 'Sex and the City' for the younger set," the books detail the adventures of a clique of rich kids with easy access to money, drugs and alcohol.
"When I first heard about them, I made fun of my friends who were reading them," says Maddy Zollo, 18, of Winter Park. "I thought it was lame, like for preteens. But I bought one, read it and got really hooked. They're really addictive because the girls are all my age. I read ... five books in three or four days."
Zollo, who's about to start her freshman year at the University of Notre Dame, loves John Steinbeck novels, the Harry Potter books and anything by Chuck Palahniuk, the author of "Fight Club." But she devoured the Gossip Girl books -- despite ribbing from her father.
"My dad laughed at me about reading these," says Zollo. "But my parents don't care if I read this. I read everything. Besides, they don't think it's anything I haven't heard before, so they're not too concerned."
Zollo, however, isn't sure the books are right for girls under 15. "The characters treat everything so casually. Sex is no big deal. Going out and spending all your parents' money is no big deal. Sitting around in a park getting wasted is no big deal," she says.
And Zollo doesn't see any moral in the tales, though she says the characters are so "over the top" that it's hard to take their exploits seriously.
"I think the author just wrote them for entertainment," she says. "Sometimes they get themselves out of trouble by doing something more scandalous. Or sometimes what they've done will be swept under the rug."
For book publishers, there's money in all genres of junior-league chick lit -- because boys don't show much interest in reading. Publishers had hoped the Harry Potter books would lead boys into reading other books, but the best-selling novels haven't had any coattail effect, says Fordham University professor Albert Greco.
Girls, however, are another story. "There's this constantly growing number of young girls who love to read, and that's keeping the business afloat," says Greco. "If young girls became interested in video games and the Internet, then that category (young adults) would be in serious trouble."
At Commonsense Media, a nonpartisan San Francisco organization that reviews books, films and other media for parents, editor-in-chief Liz Perle says parents often hold books to a higher standard than television or movies.
"While they're perfectly used to letting kids sit in front of a TV set and watch whatever's on there, literature has a special place because it's such an intimate and thoughtful experience," Perle says. "There are always going to be objections from parents about what kids are reading."
Parents initially may want to banish such books, but Perle warns against that. "My daughter, at 15, can handle things I had not heard of until college," she says. "We make a mistake as parents when we look at today's 15-year-olds with our 15-year-old eyes. The whole culture has moved."
Still, Susan Linn, a psychiatry instructor at Harvard Medical School, worries that racy teen books are one more place where teens will be exposed to casual attitudes toward sex.
"They're not just reading books; they're looking at videos, watching 'Sex and the City' or 'The O.C.' or these programs that are very popular with teens and preteens." The overriding message kids get, Linn says, is that "precocious and irresponsible sex" is the norm.
But books can provoke discussions, says Pam Spencer Holley of the American Library Association. Although she wouldn't hand a child a copy of "Rainbow Party" without comment, she thinks that book -- and others -- can provoke family discussions.
"I think I'd say, 'This is something we need to sit and talk about,' " says Holley. "It's a way for kids to experience something at a safe distance -- and a way for them to make up their minds about how they would respond in that kind of situation."
She's happy to see teen girls reading. Eventually, girls who are reading Gossip Girls will move on to better books, she says.
"Unless you read stuff that's perhaps not the most literary, you'll never understand what good works are," says Holley. "But when you get them hooked on reading, then you can lead them so many other places, as far as books go."
Besides, she says, what's the worst thing that can happen? "Nobody complains about the adult women who read Harlequin romances."
This story appeared on Page B1 of The Standard-Times on August 6, 2005.
When her daughters were younger, Liz Tucker was the "ogre" mom. She vetoed trips to the movies if she thought the film was inappropriate. Despite the kids' tears and protests, Tucker stood her ground.
