childhood = nightmare

I have had a sudden newfound appreciation for children's books.

In particular I think children's dystopian novels are so less often canonised and isolated than adult novels with just as much depressing, disturbing content. Not that I know much about this genre at all, but I think teenagers certainly have a healthy skepticism that adults often lack, and based on some of the books I have chosen for my Year 9 book club('How I Live Now' by Meg Rossoff, 'The Giver' by Lois Lowry, 'Noughts and Crosses' by Malorie Blackman), teenagers never seem to view dystopia as a drastic, nightmare vision of society, but more of an entirely feasible, almost familiar situation. I don't think this is because they believe everything they read, if anything it's the opposite of that. Teenagers have witnessed so much and are told to follow so many rules that it all becomes a hideous nightmare anyway. Maybe dystopia is just a metaphor for adolescence, as I'm pretty sure that 13-18 year olds are currently the most oppressed of all age groups: the most likely to be terrorised and demonised, the group most lacking in democratic representation, and those who are most exposed to the crushing disappointment of society.