I found Roberta Seelinger Trites take on power in adolescent literature very interesting in Disturbing the Universe; however, I find it difficult to find her point of view through the constant references to other people’s ideas. If this had been something a student had handed me, they would have received it back with a request for more of their own opinions and less of others.

Trites expresses the ideas that around the sixties that the genre changed from a “we define people as a socially constructed subjects rather then as self-contained individuals bound by their identities.” (Disturbing 16) If this is to be true they why almost fifty years later is it so hard to get the new genre into classrooms to teach? The adolescents at that time with the urge to find these new kinds of books are now those in charge of changing the reading for today’s youth. Will we be letting down our students by not teaching them current YA novels who have problems closer to their own? Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations & Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet will always be a classic literature to teach, but I feel with these some what outdated classics cause many timely problems. As teachers we must constantly stop and explain the time period before the student may begin to grasp the true purpose of the situations the characters are in.

I wonder if because it is such a new genre if that is why most authors are surprised when their books become YA novels. (Disturbing 8) Thought I find this kind questionable because Robert Cormier (The Chocolate War) is a great example of my bewilderment toward this genre. Through the first chapter of Disturbing the Universe, Trites offers many different classifications that fit into the YA Novels. Though many differ in rather the protagonist becomes an adult, grows physically, learns power, or becomes emotionally older they all include a few key elements. They are all adolescents with problems they must overcome. My question then becomes how are authors, like Cormier surprised? Cormier has an adolescent boy facing one major problem, power and how much he has or does not have over his life at catholic school.

In addition, though this novel was written after the sixties the noted start of the genre, it truly envelops the ideas of ‘self-contained individuals bound by their identities.’ (Disturbing 16) Cormier even has Father Leon wonder if it was more important for the school’s identity or one person’s identity a common theme in the YA novels. At this point in the book is the first and only time any adult is faced with a problem of growth, however Father Leon doesn’t learn from the problem which keeps the protagonist Jerry and causes me to fall back that Cormier’s book is defiantly not for adults because how many adults need to relearn these lessons of life? Many of them have gone through these same types of struggles? I have heard countless people say they enjoyed their adolescents but they would never want to do it again. If this is a common theme among adults why would they wish to read ‘The Chocolate Wars?

According to Trites, Jerry is ‘defeated by novel’s end because he has chosen to break the contract and so must be oppressed by the power structure.” (Disturbing 4) However, Jerry wasn’t really defeated by the books end. He actually fits the idea of a YA Novel protagonist by learning the boundaries of power within the school, and other students. Also I feel like Trites is hitting on the YA Novel’s answers are usually idealized from reality. I feel like even though Jerry lost the actually fight he was able to give hope to Goober and the few students that put his name down to swing in the raffle.