: Appropriate for YA? Is it okay to have cussing, sex, drug use, rape, and brutal violence in a young adult novel? Can you give examples of published YA novels that have these things in them?

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The answer is it depends on how they are dealt with. Teenagers will read about all these things quite happily. Parents, librarians and even education authorities will ban them or get very upset about students reading them.

For example, I remember 'The Chocolate War' by Robert Cormier being banned in NSW because it had a boy masturbating. 'Forever' by Judy Blume was banned because of the sex. A poem was removed from the AQA GCSE anthology because of the suggested (not even described) violence. 'The Lesson' a poem about teachers killing children was banned after the Dunblane massacre. However, 'Maggot Moon' won a children's book award. 'Heroes' by Robert Cormier, which deals with sexual abuse of children, is a popular novel in schools.

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