If you missed Maureen Johnson on NPR today with Meghan Cox Gurdon…

you can still

listen in through the podcast! I LOVED how articulate, clear, strong, and intelligent YA author Maureen Johnson was!

I also called in (since Gurdon slammed Scars in her WSJ essay). I was glad to be able to say a short bit–and so grateful, as always, for all the lovely YAlit people's support through Twitter! It really makes a huge difference.

I found it…hard…to have Meghan Cox Gurdon tell me that she pities me. Pity feels…far away from compassion, and can be condescending. I think it usually makes the person pitied feel awful. And I found it hard that again, Meghan thinks that most teens can't relate to dark books because it's not their experience (she thinks). I SO wish I'd been able to get in that 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 8 boys are sexually abused before the age of 18. That alone shows how many teens need "dark" fiction, and that's just one issue. Never mind teens who haven't been through such things but have friends who have.

But Maureen Johnson was so articulate and smart (I knew she would be), and so was the teen reader! And the Twitter support–you all are wonderful!

Check out the podcast if you want to hear it for yourself.

http://www.whyy.org/podcast/070611_110630.mp3