Young adult readers have strong feelings about the books they choose and the authors they admire. They'll quickly close a book that doesn't please them and they develop a reading relationship with the authors they count on. They expect some kind of consistency and excellence. In return, they offer a special brand of loyalty. Three writers young adults depend on have published new books that live up to their reputations and the expectations of their fans.
For years, Mildred Taylor has attracted readers with stories about the Logans, based on her own family history. In seven previous novels, readers have watched this black family struggle to hold on to their small Mississippi farm and fight against bigoted whites who want to take it from them. Her newest novel, The Land (Dial, $17.99; ages 12 and up), is a prequel which takes place in the 1880's and tells about the acquisition of this land by Paul-Edward Logan, the family's biracial forbearer. The prequel slips into place like a fictional puzzle piece, giving depth, strength and unity to all Taylor's previous stories, explaining in a new way why the land is so very precious.
Paul, the son of a white Georgian landowner and his black mistress, has a strange position in life. He thinks of his three white half-siblings as brothers and has been raised and educated alongside them. He's loved by his father and hated by the blacks who live on the former plantation.
As Paul grows, his idyllic life turns ugly when his father prepares him for the harshness of life in the outside world. Taylor is skillful at portraying the situation through Paul's eyes, while letting readers see the binds his father faces. Paul notices that when there's company, he and his mother and sister eat in the kitchen. Then Paul's father sends his intelligent son, not to schools where he's sent the other boys, but to a furniture apprenticeship. Later, he beats and shames Paul in front of two despicable white boys who are in the wrong. Yet, the apprenticeship, Paul's early education, and the memory of those beatings build his strength and aid his survival.
Feeling displaced from land he'll never own, Paul leaves his home, his mother, and his privileged background and soon learns first hand how a white man's word means nothing and how banks care more about color than collateral. His hard work, honesty, and determination are undone by whites whose contemptible acts are supported by a social structure which jeopardizes his rights and dreams. In this story, as in Taylor's others, the pain and suffering of her characters are bearable because of the family love surrounding them and triumph is measured in how well they live and maintain the land.
Chris Crutcher's immediate appeal to young adults is his biting humor. They are also drawn into his novels by the sports themes and troubled heroes who use sports to work out their problems. Psychological and sports underpinnings are again present in his ninth novel, Whale Talk (Greenwillow, $15.95; ages 12 and up) The hero, T.J. Jones, is an anomaly in the small Washington town where he lives. Most of the residents are white and narrow-minded and T.J. is of Asian-black heritage and his mother, a drug-dependent young woman, named him The Tao. Fortunately she gave him up to a wonderful couple and T.J. is sure of himself because his adoptive parents have let him work out early traumas and have challenged him to be all that he can be.
To fight the prejudice around him, TJ builds an impossible swim team made up of misfit boys; among the five are a geek, a retarded boy and an angry young man who stuns competitors when he sheds his false leg before racing. All of these team members have suffered and their stories unite them as strongly as the team itself. T.J. also takes on prejudice by becoming the protector of a young biracial girl who would do anything to win the love of her racist stepfather. At one point, she even scrubs her skin raw with Brillo. T.J. triumphs when he faces his hardest loss, the death of his stepfather.
Julius Lester is respected by reviewers and children of all ages as a risk taker. Whatever he writes, he gives new perspective and an involving story which pushes the artistic envelope, and his own talents. This is certainly true in his latest book and first contemporary young adult novel,When Dad Killed Mom (Harcourt, $17.00; ages 11 and up)
Grief at a mother's death is hard enough, but when the father is her murderer, sadness and confusion for the children are almost unbearable. Lester lets the horror of the murder sink in only briefly before uses flashbacks to tease out the story of a troubled family, told from the different vantage points of a brother and sister. Jenna, the elder, is close to her father and alienated from her mother who cares more about painting than shopping for expensive clothes.
Soon Lester reveals deeper upsets. Jenna has used her adolescent beauty to manipulate her father and Jeremy has felt helpless and confused by his mother's recent distress. Adult readers may see the Electra and Oedipal complexes in full swing, but Lester cares more about his characters than their psychological labels. The near-incestuous relationship between father and daughter- delicately and appropriately handled by the author- eventually leads to the mother's murder, the father's incarceration, and the dissolution of the family. Bit by bit, Lester shows how Jenna and Jeremy untangle the chaos, bridge the separations created by the adults, and make peace with the truths they uncover.
Young adult readers are the most loyal fans in the world. They admire authors like Taylor, Crutcher, and Lester who speak for and to them. How could they not make a reading relationship with writers who understand the struggles young people face, the resilience needed to endure and succeed, and the hope that keeps them dreaming?