Balanced Account Of Christian YA

I'm always amazed when I hear about what should probably be called a genre that I'm not familiar with. For instance, I have a sister living in Montana who's big on reading what she describes as cowboy romance. There's something I missed at the blogs I follow.

Slate has an article up today called Are You There, God?: How Christian YA novels are offering a surprisingly empowering guide to adolescence. I'm not surprised to learn that there's Christian YA because there seems to be Christian everything. Nor am I surpised to learn hear that it sells well. A decade or so ago the big sales of Christian books were under the radar because the mainstream publications that published bestseller lists didn't include information from Christian bookstores. But the books were moving, nonetheless.

The author of the Slate article, Ruth Graham, says at one point, "Make no mistake: Christian novels written for young people are still primarily developmental tools rather than literary efforts. They're often didactic and formulaic..." I think that can be said of many nonChristian novels written for young people, too.