YA Lit as a Place of Rest During Unsettling Times

Meet the Contributors:

​Laurel Taylor and Beth Ebenstein Mulch are librarians at Alexandria City High School's King Street campus. Both authors are adjuncts at local universities, teaching young adult literature.

​Laurel Taylor is a high school librarian and adjunct professor at George Mason University. She began her career in education as a high school English teacher before deciding she wanted to spend even more time with books. She earned her MLIS from Old Dominion University in 2020 and has been working in the Alexandria City High School library ever since. When she is not advocating for young adult readers, you can find her throwing a ball for her dog in one hand with a book in the other. 

Beth Ebenstein Mulch is a high school librarian and adjunct professor at The Catholic University of America. She began her career in publishing before earning her MLIS degree from Catholic University. She has been an instrumental leader in keeping the Alexandria City High School library current and accessible to students while also maintaining resources to support all academic programs throughout the school. Beth is a determined advocate for her library making sure to always center access and equity in the decision-making about her library.

YA Lit as a Place of Rest During Unsettling Times by Laurel Taylor and Beth Mulch

Books are often described as an escape. Even under normal circumstances, reading is a way to pause whatever is going on in life and live in another world for a while. But in times like these, when everything seems to be unsteady and every day seems to have a new report of something unprecedented happening, young adult readers can benefit from reading as a way to rest from the chaos going on around them. Below are several ways that young adult literature can be a place of rest for young adult readers of all ages. 

We are librarians in a large, diverse high school outside of Washington, DC, so you can imagine what the last year has been like. As we work to support our students, we realize that teaching them about news literacy and research skills is a vital part of our jobs, but we also realize that helping them find books that meet their needs is equally important. While we often are helping our students find books for a history project or their English class’s independent reading project, we also take seriously the task of helping students become lifelong readers who find reading a comfort. When a student comes in looking for a book, common questions we ask are, “What are you in the mood for?” and “Do you want a happy book, an intense book, something that has twists?”

As the outside world around our school has become more unsettling and confusing and unpredictable, we have embraced our role in helping students find books that allow them to take a break from the current events around them and rest. While that might seem like we are just checking out sweet love stories to every student who walks in the door, that’s not what rest and comfort and escape looks like to every young adult reader. Below we will discuss several of the ways young adult literature can function as rest in these unsettling times. 

A Place that Feels Familiar

We recently came back from six snow days. I (Laurel) saw two of our frequent library visitors, and asked if they had gotten some good reading in while away. One of them lit up saying she had re-read the first Percy Jackson book and it had been such a comfort read. Then she said she started reading the second book in the series and loved it. From the look on her face, I could tell that re-reading a favorite from middle school had been just what she needed. Sometimes when readers find themselves in unfamiliar territory in the real world, going back to a book world they know and love can be comforting. Going back to a story that they are familiar with and that doesn’t hold surprises can be the rest their minds need. Books like Percy Jackson and Diary of a Wimpy Kid or Raina Telgemeier’s Guts and Sisters can be a gift. 

A Genre That Feels Predictable

As much as young adult readers might love a twist they didn’t see coming, when the daily news has become a thriller, turning to genres with predictable outcomes can be comforting and restful. Years ago I (Laurel) was discussing my love of Jane Austen with a colleague. He said that he didn’t really like reading her books because the ending was predictable. I told him that was exactly what I loved about her books. In a world where sometimes the bad guys get away with their evil deeds and the good guy doesn’t always win, I loved a book in which I knew at the end that the noble characters would end up happy and the schemers would get what they had coming.

​The same is true for certain genres of young adult literature. Knowing that a YA romance book will have a happy ending or that the end of a dystopian novel will lead to the hero overthrowing a corrupt system can be just what is needed in these moments of uncertainty. While the path to the resolution can be intense, nerve-racking and suspenseful, knowing that everything will work out in the end can make reading an important escape from the uncertainty young adult readers are facing around them. Reading a book like Better Than the Movies not only provides some levity and joy, but since it follows the classic rom-com requirements of a happy ending, readers can feel safe knowing that things will work out in the end no matter how messy the relationship gets in the third act. 

A Place That Feels Like Home

For young adult readers whose life experiences can feel unique and isolating, reading can be a way to feel at home. Books like Other Words for Home and House on Mango Street can allow YA readers who see their communities being attacked in the news and on the streets to find a place that feels familiar and reminds them that they are not alone. Even in the university course I (Laurel) teach about YA literature, my college readers mention how comforting it is to see their own experiences reflected in the novels we read and to have a character who is going through what they have experienced. There is something so important about knowing it’s not just you. And there is something so validating about seeing your experiences in print.

​Sometimes the comfort comes from young adult literature characters that are able to express something you’ve thought but couldn’t put into words. Sometimes it’s healing to see a character go through your experience and have others, either in the book or in discussions about the book, empathize with what you have experienced. If nothing else, for readers who live in communities in which the majority of people do not share their culture or experiences, seeing a character discuss food your family eats or traditions your family observes is a comfort and a reassurance.    

An escape into another world

It can seem like a curiosity that young adult readers would be drawn to intense, scary, or thrilling books at times when everything around them feels intense and scary, but even these books can be a place of rest.  Why do our students come in looking for dystopian books like Scythe or fantasy books like The Children of Blood and Bone when they are already living in such unsettling times? We’ve decided that maybe escaping into another world, even if it is scary, is helpful when this world is too much. Fantasy and dystopia are genres that allow the reader to become fully immersed in another world and someone else’s struggle. They allow the reader to channel their energy and feelings into some other place outside of their reality. Maybe it’s a place to expend that anxiety or energy when it feels like you’ve done everything you can in the world you actually live in. Or maybe it’s because experiencing a character overcoming challenges and danger gives hope in a time that can feel hopeless.
 
Maybe you can’t find a way to stop the cruelty you see on the streets of a major US city, but after doing what you can, maybe seeing a hero in a fantasy novel save their community from cruelty is the comfort needed in these days.
 
Maybe as a teen, readers feel like their voices don’t have much weight, but reading Hunger Games empowers them and makes them believe that they are strong and capable of affecting change. 

Conclusion

While reading is always a good idea, and as librarians we will always encourage young adult readers to take time to read, in moments like we find ourselves in, reading can be a rest, an escape and a comfort, and the typical arc of young adult literature makes it a particularly restful place. Young adult characters typically learn lessons, overcome their struggles, and grow into better versions of themselves. Even when the situations and circumstances around them don’t resolve, they often end the book with a better sense of how to navigate their world and relationships. And they often find an inner peace and/or strength that we all need to be reminded of. All things all of us are looking for as we find ourselves weary from our current historical moment.