Thank you for inviting me here today and for featuring my YA novel Return the Heart
on the blog tour. It’s nice to meet you and your readers.
on the blog tour. It’s nice to meet you and your readers. I enjoyed writing about the topic you chose and I hope it addresses, in some small way, the absence of parental involvement in some young adult literature. While I don’t claim to be an expert on the subject, I’ve touched on one theory about this.
A possible reason for the lack of parental involvement in books is that most novels begin with, or are centered around the extraordinary. Fabulous stories often set the main character in extraordinary circumstances without the family support or help from which they’re used to. The main character is thrust into a new situation –this can be a family displacement – causing the conflict or adding to the plot. The teen reader can easily identify with the conflict, or be drawn in by the unique circumstance.
In Return the Heart, Lilly’s adventure begins when she moves in with her aunt and uncle. They are caring and nurturing, so there are parental figures in her life. It is with this move however, that the story begins.
, Lilly’s adventure begins when she moves in with her aunt and uncle. They are caring and nurturing, so there are parental figures in her life. It is with this move however, that the story begins. When I wrote Return the Heart, I had the desire to create a captivating story that would delight teens. What followed is a story filled with action, secret gifts, a seedy underworld, and more twists and revelations than the reader expects. Toss in a Russian element and Return the Heart is like an action movie about teens and for teens.
As one reviewer wrote of Return the Heart, “Their parents exist, but are largely incidental, the five friends enjoying the freedom and self-direction that teenagers only dream about.”
I think it is wonderful when novels allow the reader to dream, explore, and experience self-direction all within the covers of a book. After all isn’t that part of what reading fiction is about?
I think so.
T.K. Richardson is the author of Return the Heart, a new young adult novel. She has recently joined the ranks of Christian Talk Radio as the facilitator and co-host of an on air book club with listeners. She is a co-founder of A Heart for Books And Kids, a program encouraging people in the publishing industry to donate books to children in the foster care system. T.K. Richardson is also the Director of Children’s Ministries at her local church, and helps sponsor a Christian based orphanage in India. You can visit her at http://tkrichardson.com
Guest post done as a tour stop for YA Book Blog Tours
