Warning: This post may come off as a little kumbaya at times, jaded at others, but I always try to stay positive. Here, I tried to keep it real. You have been warned.
My favorite books are the ones where the hero wins in the end.
I mean, seriously, does that surprise you? I wrote a book called ADORKABLE for crying out loud!
The girl gets her guy. Good triumphs over evil. The world is going to crap, crashing down all around us, but somehow…the dog lives in the end.
That is what I think makes a great story.
The difference between the younger books I read versus the adult books is that in YA and children’s books there is an innocence but, within that, a definitive sense of right and wrong.
Young adults read books like Harry Potter. They grow up on these books. They devour the pages and breathe the words in like oxygen. Some may call it naive, but young people read books like Harry Potter, and they just know Voldemort will lose in the end. They see someone who stands for hate and racism, a man who surrounds himself with deatheaters who want to get rid of all the “mudbloods” to keep the magical race “pure,” and they know, without a shadow of a doubt, that that.is.wrong.
They believe in the wisdom found inside HP’s magical pages like, “If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals,” and “We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.” Whether they remember the quote or not, young people absorb the meaning and truth of these words.
They see good people like Harry, Ron, and Hermione fighting back, doing all they can to keep us from returning to the dark ages, and they cheer them on. They want the good guys to win. They want the bad guys to lose. It’s that simple.
Because really, how could we get to the end of book 7 of this best-series-in-the-entire-world only to find out that…Voldemort wins???
No. Young people would never stand for it, readers would revolt, and a great author like J.K. Rowling would never let that happen.
This is one of the reasons I love YA and children’s books. The worlds in these books, however bleak, are often full of hope. Things may sometimes seem hopeless…but then you realize that you still have about 100 more pages left to read, and you know, you just know, that things will turn around. The promise of a happy ending drives us to keep reading, keep hoping, to never give up.
I wish the world was more like the books I love so much. (Although not The Hunger Games. That would be pretty messed up.)
I think the world needs more hope and less hate. More happy endings and less tragedies. More heroines and less bad guys.
I’ve got to be honest with you. Right now, I don’t see a whole lot of light. There is darkness everywhere. I’m not giving up, and I don’t think anyone who feels like I do should either. But my faith in people has been shaken. I do not know how people could dismiss a man’s despicable actions, hateful words and beliefs and support him anyway. I just…don’t.
So that’s where I am. To try and end on a positive, I’ll leave you with some words said by a smart man, created by the mind of an even smarter woman:
“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”–J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
The next blog post will be lighter, I promise. Hope everyone has a great week.
Happy reading,
Cookie O’Gorman
That is beautiful and well said.
Thank you, Colleen.