So last week we were discussing the question of whether or not you would share your secret flying power with the rest of the world if you suddenly got it. I can certainly think of some advantages, but I’d rather hear from you. What would be some of the good parts about the public knowing you could fly?

And…what would be some of the down sides? (Just a hint: how do you feel about strangers calling your phone at any hour of the day?)

Harry Potter didn’t have to deal with this, you see. His kind of magic was able to make any Muggles who were exposed to it forget all about what they might have seen. Jocelyn Burgowski, the heroine of The Flying Burgowski, does not have that option. If someone sees her, well–she is seen, that’s all.

In my next installment, I’ll tell you how Jocelyn made the choice of To Tell or Not To Tell, and why she made it.  But meanwhile, let’s hear from you.

You know what hibernation is, right? Bears and other furry critters in cold climates all do it: eat a lot in the fall to put on fat, then bed down in their cozy dens and sleep through the winter. Their brains fall into something deeper than normal sleep, their heartrates and breathing slow WAY down, and they’re able to conserve energy and survive the harsh winter without a fuss.

There is only one kind of primate that hibernates. Primates–apes, monkeys, and good ol’ us–have much more complex brains, which everyone thought needed too constant a supply of energy to ever be able to shut down for a season like that. But turns out there is one that can: it’s called the Fat-Tailed Lemur and it lives in Madagascar (where all lemurs live).

I am not making this up. I know this because my father is a research zoologist, and he is studying them.

The Flying What??? No, I haven’t gone off the deep end, I’m still on the topic of Young Adult Literature. The Flying Burgowski is the title of my book! Well, Book One. I’m still working on the title of Book Two, and Book Three, well…I haven’t written it yet. But I can’t wait.

Yup, you got it–it’s a trilogy. And yes, it’s about someone named Burgowski who can fly. Jocelyn Burgowski. She just turned 13. No, she’s not magic–or she doesn’t think she is, anyway. She doesn’t suddenly find out she’s part of a whole magical world she never knew existed. She can suddenly just…fly. How weird would that be–everything else in your life changes, except you have this amazing power?

Would that make your life better? What a stupid question–of course it would, right? But think harder. What if you suddenly got the power of flight? How would you deal with it? Would you tell everyone? Would you want to be on TV? Or would you rather keep it a secret? Whom would you share that secret with?

A big question in determining whether a book is “Young Adult” fiction or not is the situations that occur in the book. Too much death or torture is obviously not okay for younger kids to read about. Neither is too much sex. Then there’s “bad” language…but I’ll save that for another post. Let’s talk about the death thing. When is death acceptable to readers of younger ages? Can 16 year-olds handle reading about things that would give 12 year-olds nightmares?

It depends on the reader, of course–duh. But let’s take some general examples. JK Rowling doesn’t kill off a major character until the end of her 4th Harry Potter book, and I think there’s a reason for that. When those books first came out, my older son was about the same age as Harry–11. (He even looked like him! except for the scar.) I used to read those books aloud to him and his brother. Book One had its creepy bits, but we got through ’em…still, no way would I have read something like the graveyard scene at the end of Book IV to them at that age. Nightmare city. By the time they were 13 or 14, though–no problem.

So what about The Hunger Games? That series doesn’t just include death, it FEATURES it–kids killing other kids. Not giving anything away here, it’s the whole basis of the plot! To me that goes beyond simple “death” and into the realm of “violence,” which carries a whole different set of disturbing mental images. Can 11 and 12 year-olds handle those pictures in their brains? Should they be asked to? And is seeing the movie version better or worse than reading about children slaughtered for entertainment?

Don’t get me wrong–I loved The Hunger Games, at least the first book. But I’m interested in your thoughts about if, and where, a line ought to be drawn, saying, “You go ahead and read this book, teenager, but you ten year-olds over there…wait a few years, okay?” Would that be a good idea?

In libraries it’s still called “Juvenile,” but everywhere else in the world of books you see this label: YA. It stands for Young Adult. Problem is, YA Lit seems to include everything from Judy Blume’s finding-out-about-your-adolescent-emotions books to some pretty dark, vampiry stuff, not to mention drugs, sex, and language that sounds like plain old Adult, without the Young. So what, exactly, qualifies a book as YA?

Sometimes publishers will subdivide YA into Middle Grades, meaning “Tweens”–11 and 12, I guess–but there’s still this question: what defines it? Is it a book where the main character is 12? Or one which mostly 12 year-olds read? Under that definition, the first two Harry Potter books both would and would not qualify. When those books first came out, I knew as many grownups in love with young Harry as I did kids. (I was one of ’em!)

Or maybe the definition of YA/Middle Grades is silly, and who cares? Well, I do, but only for this reason: there seem to be certain rules about what you can or can’t publish under these categories. In later posts, I’m going to examine this question, and I’m going to be asking for your input. Whether you are a young reader, a parent, a teacher, a librarian, or all of the above (?!), your opinion is valuable to me as I wend my way through the thickets of YA publication.

Stay tuned.

Bear with me here…No, there’s no actual bear–although I do have a very furry dog. Two, in fact. At some point their pictures will probably be appearing in Wing’s World. But that’s my point: I’m not there yet. I’m still figuring this whole blogging thing out. So if you’ve stumbled into Wing’s World accidentally, please excuse the randomness and mess. I’ve only just moved into my virtual “room” and am still figuring out what to put on the walls and where all the verbal furniture goes.