Making Sense of Protest: A Reading List for Kids

Suffragist rally, undated.

On the morning after Occupy LA's eviction, LARB Young Adult Fiction Editor Cecil Castellucci provides a reading list for the kids.

Out of town on my book tour I’ve been watching as much Ustream of the Occupy movement as I can. In recent days, my absence from home heightened my anxiety about the rumored booting of the LA occupiers. Now it’s done. They’re gone.

Isn’t it funny, this strange new world in which we live? We can watch it all and yet still be so far away. The Occupy movement is not something that can be swept under the table or ignored because it is unseen. I saw it. You saw it. People of all ages probably saw it. It went comparatively peacefully. Which, as we all know, has not always been the case lately.

Is witnessing actually also participating?

I think yes. I was heartened by something that Ben Ehrenreich said to me when I went to a reading for his new novel, Ether. I told him how much I enjoyed his essay about the Occupy movement that we published here in LARB at the beginning of Occupy LA. I had shown up a few times to City Hall to sit and to donate food and books to the library.

“I am trying to show up, but I feel like I’m doing nothing,” I said.

“Cecil," Ben said, "Remember there are many ways to march."

Anyone who has read any of my novels knows that many of them have manifestations of resistance in them. Egg, in Boy Proof, marches on L.A. City Hall against Genetically Modified Food. The Janes in The Plain Janes do art as action against terrorism. Rose and her friends in Rose Sees Red go to the biggest No Nukes rally in American history, which took place in Central Park in 1982. In my books the characters are young people. They are at the cusp of waking up and figuring out their way in the world; along with the active role, if any, they may wish to play in it. And in my books, one option that is there for them is to go somewhere and show up and make a case for their point of view.

With the Occupy movement suddenly a ubiquitous topic for various cities across the country and the world, I can’t help but wonder: what are the kids thinking? How can they make any sense of it? On one side, there are the occupiers — many of them not much older than the kids watching from their homes — people willing to sit and camp in public spaces across America because something may be terribly wrong. On the other side, there are those who are sworn to protect us and our right to peaceably assemble, suddenly and without apparent reason pepper spraying non-violent student protesters.

So often we hear that witnessing violence on TV and in films and videogames (or even reading about it in books) desensitizes teens. But what does it mean for teenagers now to witness a more direct and real kind of violence in the real world and for real reasons? They know about movements of the past, such as the civil rights movement, the suffragist movement, and the anti-war movement. But with that historical distance it is easy to see who was fighting the good fight. History, literally, has already been written. But in the present day, with so much access to information, decisions about what we believe are harder to make than ever. How do kids decide for themselves where they stand? Where do they go, beyond the news and social media sites, to make sense of it?

I know that I always go to books.

In this context, I thought that it might be helpful to compile a list of YA fiction that we can share with our teens. I put the word out that I was searching for books that show action and protest in the 20th and 21st Century; books with which to begin conversations. These books are not about the Occupy movement. They are about characters who go to rallies and assemble and speak up for what they think is right or who are profoundly changed by the historical circumstances around them. If you are a teen, read them. If you are an adult with a teen who is waking up to politics, maybe one of these books is for them.

And please, add your own suggestion to the comments below. This list is by no means complete. It is just a starter list.

Crossing Stones by Helen Frost

Destroy All Cars by Blake Nelson

The Fragile Flag by Jane Langton

Hoot by Carl Hiassen

Little Brother by Cory Doctrow

My Life with the Lincolns by Gayle Bradeis

My Mother the Cheerleader by Robert Sharenow

One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia

Peace is a 4 Letter Word by Janet Nichols Lynch

Rose Sees Red by Cecil Castellucci

Rock and the River by Kekla Magoon

Too Big a Storm by M Qualey

Wide Awake by David Levithan

The Gospel According to Larry by Janet Tashjian


Ghetto Cowboy by G. Neri