Comments on: Discussion: Religion in YA Books

By: Jo

Jo — Mon, 18 Dec 2017 00:08:58 +0000

I do agree that there seems to be a distinct lack of religion in YA considering how much a part of daily life it is for many people. Whilst personally, it’s not something that I can relate to or something I would write about, as I am an atheist and it just wouldn’t feel at all authentic coming from me, I definitely think it needs to be seen more. I just recently read a book of which religion does feature, the world has it’s own kind of religion as they have slightly different gods from ours, but it also features representation of Hinduism, which I thought was pretty cool.

By: erinthebooknut

erinthebooknut — Sun, 17 Dec 2017 22:56:49 +0000

In reply to laurathebibliophile. This is one reason I enjoy Blink and Thomas Nelson titles. Since they are under the Harper Christian banner they have more Christian rep than what you see under the standard pub. Sadly other religions don't have that and it is restricted to only one or two pubs.

By: laurathebibliophile

laurathebibliophile — Sun, 17 Dec 2017 22:35:37 +0000

I agree. The thing is, so many publishers and authors agree that representing different cultures is important, but fail to realize that for a lot of people, their religion is a major part of their culture.

By: Christina

Christina — Sun, 17 Dec 2017 21:04:59 +0000

This so much! But I guess some YA authors tend to be unfair to religions and/or are atheist themselves so they just paint it all as evil and domineering, and literary every stereotype out there . I’ve seen literary agents say they want diverse books, but in the same breath say they don’t want manuscripts with religious themes which makes zero sense. You cannot fully appreciate a culture without considering how important religion is to a person from it.

It’s really difficult to find YA that depict teens positively with religion. I had to read adult religious fiction as a teen myself because it was so hard to find them for my age group. Still, mostly, you have to stick religious teen books to even find it–which is still lacking considerably.

I think people, especially adults outside a religious belief, seem to forget that teens across cultures can be genuinely interested and invested in their religions. Certain authors can perpetuate negative stereotypes whether they realize it or not.. Same way with movies.