WARNING II: You were warned.

When I’m on panels with other YA writers one of the common complaints from teenagers in the audience usually goes something like this: they won’t put your book in my school library because my librarian thinks there’s too much adult language in it.

And then, because it’s a great line given the situation, the writer will sometimes say this:

I think that’s bullshit.

I’ve actually used that line. In public.

Writers have a long history of being outraged when school libraries won’t carry our books. The nerve of these prudes! Who do they think they are?

Lately though, my question is….is it really BS?

Isn’t it true that a lot of YA books should come with a warning label? Why should everyone else get called out but not YA?

Violent video games = warning label on the cover
Movies with sex, violence, and adult language = R rating
Music with explicit content = warning label on the cover
YA book with similar content = tiny print of age range on back cover that all to often runs too young.

Why is it deemed okay for a fourteen year old to read the f word, read people violently killing each other, and read people having sex if the movie industry puts an R rating on the same material? It’s not a matter of whether or not 14 year old’s are sneaking into those movies or 12 year old boys are playing Gears of War – at least there’s a very clear, front of package warning that parents and educators can’t miss if it’s a movie, a video game, or music.

So when I sit on these panels and some of us, as writers, want school libraries to carry books for teens with sex, taking drugs, using adult language, and killing each other, by that same logic we should be screaming our heads off in support of abolishing all warning stickers and rating systems in place for other entertainment media. If I write a YA book that I know would get a warning label if it was made – as written – into a video game, a movie, or a song – should I be playing by the same rules as everyone else?

If Thirteen Days to Midnight (my book) was made into a movie and they filmed it exactly as I wrote it, it gets an R rating. No doubt about it. Teens are experimenting with death and dying in that book in ways that teachers, parents, and librarians need to know: this is for a mature teen reader.

How is it that YA has avoided warning labels, and in the current climate we’re living in, is there any space in the creative community that’s less regulated than YA? YA is chalk full of violence. Choose your poison – Hunger Games, Divergent, Gone, many, many more – we’re finding all sorts of violent ways for teens to kill each other in YA these days. And while I’m as enamored of John Green’s gargantuan talent as anyone I know, if you filmed Leaving for Alaska as written, I don’t see a PG-13 movie being even remotely possible.

How come we get a free pass, but no one else does? Where’s our warning label?

I just think it’s bullshit.

I guess I just wanted to get wherever I was going in style.

The future is innately imaginative, and imagination is something that brings out the kid in all of us. I still picture a future with cool stuff the nine year old me wanted – like daily flights to Mars and superpowers – but I have to accept a reality that technology drives human ingenuity and radical social change.

I didn’t imagine the Internet until it was staring me in the face. And I never imagined a device in my pocket that would allow me to watch thousands of movies and TV shows, contact my friends in eight different ways, and show me how to get anywhere in the world with the touch of a button (among many other features). For some reason, when my imagination kicks in, that stuff sounds kind of boring.

And so I made a bargain with the future when I wrote PULSE: I agreed to think like an adult and a kid at the same time, because a future without both is only half as interesting as I’d like it to be. In PULSE I’ve re-imagined the phone in my pocket (it’s even better!) and built super cities. But I’ve also imagined a future where a select few can move things with their minds.

Like buses and buildings!

My version of the near future, in a book near you: www.patrickcarman.com/pulse

Buy PULSE wherever books are sold – it’s out!

Watch the trailer, listen to an audio interview about the project, and read reviews:

www.patrickcarman.com/pulse

If you liked Thirteen Days to Midnight, you’re going to love PULSE – here’s a brief description:

Everyone has a heartbeat. Few have the pulse.

With the help of her mysterious classmate Dylan Gilmore, Faith Daniels discovers she can move objects with her mind. This telekinesis ability is called a “pulse,” and Dylan has the talent, too.

Faith demonstrates her ability to use her pulse against a group of telekinesis masters who are so powerful they can flatten their enemies by uprooting streetlights, throwing cars, and changing the course of a hurtling hammer. But even with her unusual talent, the mind – and the heart – can be difficult to control. If Faith wants to join forces with Dylan and save the world, she’ll have to harness the power of both.

An action-filled saga about the power of the mind – and the power of love.

It’s safe to say that YA author Michael Grant is opinionated. On this edition of the Intersect Podcast we talk with Michael about, among other things, his thoughts on social media and whether or not higher education is important. And of course we dig into his bestselling YA series, GONE.

CLICK TO LISTEN

Also on Intersect:

Producer Albie Hecht has been nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe. While running Nickelodeon Albie helped create such iconic shows as SpongeBob SquarePants, Dora the Explorer, and Blues Clues. On the Intersect Podcast we talk with Albie about why he’s always looking for what’s next in traditional and multimedia.

CLICK TO LISTEN

Also keep tabs in the ON DECK section to see who’s coming up in future podcasts.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

Best-selling author Carman launches a new series in a dystopian civilization that has its roots in today’s United States.

It’s 2051, and global warming has wreaked havoc around the world. Most of America’s remaining population has moved into one of the two remaining States, where life is stringently controlled and people are kept amused by whatever latest entertainment is available on their ever-present Tablets. Outside the States, life is freer, but even there, kids like Faith Daniels still have to go to school, despite shrinking student populations. On her own, she clings to her friendship with Liz while wondering what it would be like to have a boyfriend like Wade Quinn. She soon finds out that both Wade and his sister Clara are dangerous. When Liz and her family move into the Western State, Faith is even more alone, except for Hawk, a genius hacker, and Dylan, who can not only move things with his mind, but ward off almost all threats to his body. Faith has this extra “pulse” as well…if only Dylan can train her to use it in time. The third-person narration shifts from one character’s perspective to another in short, colloquial chapters, keeping the pace swift from the beginning. Carman’s grounding of his dystopia in this recognizable near-future makes it highly believable.

The successful mix of suspense and romance combines with unexpected twists to keep readers engrossed from the start and begging for more. (Dystopian romance. 13 & up)

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Check out PULSE on Goodreads

 
We had a fantastic time talking all about where animation has been and where it’s going, and what it’s like to direct animation.
 
I hope you give this episode a listen and subscribe!

 CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

 
-Pat

Once in a while a day shows up in which a brand new journey begins. Like the day when we start writing that new book. Or the day we started work on a brand new everlasting Gobstopper. Or the day we start, from the first show, watching all 121 episodes of LOST.

Beginnings are exciting, and today marks the start of the Intersect Podcast, something my friend Jeremy Gonzalez and I have been cooking up for about a year. We LOVE every aspect of storytelling and every kind of story, and we’re especially interested in how stories evolve. The show points a wide angle lens at how stories are made, who makes them, and the formats people find them in.

Our guests are novelists, screenplay writers, teleplay writers, directors, producers, editors, agents, and managers who create or help create novels, picture books, comic books, animation, television, and movies.

And we don’t just scratch the surface. We’re curious guys having in depth, entertaining conversations with the people who make stories happen.

If you’re a creator of stories in any format, or a fan of books, TV and movies, this is where your tribe meets!

We start at the beginning – with the beloved picture book – and the extraordinary David Shannon.

Visit www.intersectpodcast.com to listen, or search for Intersect Podcast in the iTunes store and download to your phone for free.

For the upcoming schedule of guests, click here.

Come on, let’s go!

Patrick

P.S. If you like what you hear, pass it on – we dig that.

SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL – OCTOBER 2012

Gr 4-6–Fans who enjoyed Floors (Scholastic, 2011) and want more of the same should be pleased with Leo and Remi’s latest excursion. The fate of the wild and wacky Whippet Hotel is once again in the hands of 10-year-old Leo Fillmore. Merganzer Whippet, the eccentric owner of New York City’s most unusual hotel, has just discovered that the building is dangerously in debt. The brilliant inventor has recruited Leo and his friend, Remi, and has given them a quest to recover the items necessary to avert disaster. The two boys must venture deep into uncharted territory in the subbasements of the hotel to retrieve what Merganzer needs. This lightweight fantasy adventure provides puzzles to solve, fabulous rooms and inventions to explore, and large dollops of humor meant to tickle the funny bones of reluctant readers. This second installment doesn’t deviate from the tried-and-true formula: one-dimensional villains get thwarted, children are given free rein for thrilling adventures without too much danger, and the designer of the drama is conveniently pulling the strings so that everything comes out right in the end.–Stephanie Whelan, New York Public Library