From the Trenches

This is my last week as a teacher; after Friday, I will be a full time writer! However, with six years of teaching literature under my belt, as well as lots of time advising the Creative Writing Club, I've been in a good position to see what kids are actually reading in the dystopian field.

Here are my totally unofficial and unscientific findings from my own limited experience on what YAs are actually reading in the YA dystopian field:

Most Popular Dystopian Titles

• The Giver
• This one is required reading in middle school--and is actually one of the titles that most of the kids really read, instead of fake-read to get through the test. It's also one that stays with the kids--they bring it up in discussions years later, in tenth and eleventh grade
• Many kids have read the sequels on their own, outside of class.
• The Uglies Series 
• Very popular in school--many kids have read it, and they've read the entire series.
• Brave New World  & 1984
• The classic dystopian titles are alive and well among the latest teen readers. Brave New World and 1984 are both optional titles to read in 12th grade, and they're considered the "cool" titles to read. They are also among the top stolen books--which is high praise for a book in high school.
• Dystopian Manga
• Manga titles remain popular in a certain subset of teens. Some works, like Ghost in the Shell are very popular across the board.
• Dystopian Movies
• Mainstream dystopia is reaching teens through movies. The Book of Eli was a popular movie among the cool kids recently, and anything zombie related remains high on many kids' radars. One could argue they want the death and destruction, but many dystopian titles, such as The Island of a few years ago, often lead to philosophical discussions among students--sparked at lunch tables and in the halls without the prompting of a classroom. V for Vendetta is reaching cult status.

Most Popular Dystopian Themes

• Dystopia
• Most kids in my school aren't aware of the label "dystopia." They see dystopia in terms of it's subsets: science fiction, zombies, apocalypse, etc.
• Within the subsets, I'd wager that zombies are most popular
• Romance 
•  Most kids--both girls and boys--want at least some element of romance or sexual attraction within the story. Blow something up, sure, but have them kiss at the end.
• Light Philosophy 
• The kids seem to prefer works that don't hit you over the head with philosophy. Children of Men is much less popular than City of Ember for example.
• Paranormal
• Any way you cut it, teens want something beyond the normal. Be it zombies or mutant powers or cool tech or whatever--they want a little magic in the science.

Most Surprising Absence

•  The Hunger Games Trilogy
• Surprisingly, there are rather a lot of teens--even the heavy readers--who've not even heard of this one. Middle schoolers seem much more aware of this series, in part from the heavy advertising they're getting in the Scholastic Book Order Forms. The high schoolers who have read it (often at my or another teacher's rec, not because they find it on their own) are often not aware of how popular it is.
• The ones who do read it, though, almost unanimously love it.
• It's extraordinarily popular among the teachers I know who've read it, too...hmmm....throwing children in an arena of death...maybe I can understand why it's popular with teachers, especially this time of year! :)

And that's what it's like in my area, with the teens at my school. What are you seeing? What popular? What's not? What new trends are developing? What's on the way out?