My Personal Connection
My teenagers are some opinionated people! I love this about them. It means they have strong ideas and that they’re speaking up about what’s important to them. That’s why I was very eager to write this blog post about clichés and stereotypes. As the mom of two teens, my daughter and son waste no time telling me what needs to be fixed in the YA books they read. As an editor and author, my kids like to stick it to me, thinking I have some magical power to correct each and every societal stereotype that exists in books for young people. While I don’t have a magic wand, I do know there is one cliché that annoys the heck out of me and my teens. Hopefully this post will shine some light on it.
Stereotypes/Cliches/Tropes/Errors
I’ll
pose it in the way my kids put it to me ― in a question: “Why, in
contemporary YA novels that feature groups of kids as friends, the black
girl or boy is always a sidekick, secondary character, or nonentity?”
The
way my daughter and son see it, this is the kid with no character
development, no backstory, no emotional growth, no family, and dialogue
one-liners that don’t amount to much.
