Young Adult fiction too dark?

#yasaves http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303657404576357622592697038.html?mod=e2tw

"Contemporary fiction for teens is rife with explicit abuse, violence and depravity."

Contemporary? Oh? In the 4th of Baum's Oz books, Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, the Wizard slices a man in half with a sword, forces others to step into rings of fire that badly burns them (never mind that they're vegetable people -- still people), fires a gun into attackers and hits one in the eye, and possibly burns down an entire civilization.

That was written over a century ago. Just sayin'.  Today's stories are often more about real life -- which isn't a bad thing -- but there's been plenty of darkness in youth literature since the days of Brothers Grimm.

TwisterPalooza final and Storm Chaser short story

Well, the TwisterPalooza voting went right down to the wire -- and I mean that, since the tie-breaking vote didn't come in until after I'd originally planned to end the competition. We didn't get many votes, in part because this isn't a regular contest but maybe in a larger part because (I discovered just yesterday) it seems to be impossible to vote on a LiveJournal poll if you don't have an LJ membership. You can't very well expect someone to sign up just for one poll, so there you go. If I do a poll again, I'll either post it only on LJ, or try to find another place to put it where anyone can vote.

The winner is LJ user randombattlecry's Tin Man fanfiction "She Stares Down the Storm", a vivid description of severe weather that brings a new arrival to the O.Z. Congrats! strangexgirl is going to make you a 1st place banner, as well as a banner for the other participants. Here's the link once again to the stories; over on my blogger account at http://markrhunter.blogspot.com/, I'm going to paste the stories directly for those who weren't able to open the links:

http://randombattlecry.livejournal.com/250828.html#cutid1
http://evil-little-dog.livejournal.com/544122.html
http://evil-little-dog.livejournal.com/545894.html
http://www.rosannedingli.com/rainstorms.php

Now, as promised (and also pasted directly into my Blog, although separately), an original Storm Chaser short story that hasn't been seen anywhere else, and isn't included in the short story collection to be published later by Whiskey Creek Press. It relates the moments at the very beginning of Storm Chaser -- but from a different point of view:

 

 

Very Funny, Mother Nature
by Mark R. Hunter

           

( Allison Craine wrestled her big white RV onto the highway berm and slowed to a stop. When she rolled the window down waves of Indiana heat battered her, but she ignored that and stuck her head out. She stared southwest, squinting at a single white puff of cloud that stood out like another sun in the bright blue afternoon sky. “Huh.” )