I’m a little perplexed by the overall tone of this article from The Guardian.  By the end, I can’t help but feel patronized to on behalf of all those teen authors out there.

Do I think they all deserve to get published?  No.  I do think that writing, 99% of the time, improves with age because you gain perspective and experience, something most teens just don’t have.  And those aren’t skills you can learn through classes or online.  You have to actually live to get them and in order to live, you have to continually wake up alive for more than 18 years in a row.

Of course teens go through drama and hardships.  They all do.  But high school life is nothing compared to the real world and the heaping pile of feces you learn there.  But even in the middle of all of that, there are a few teens that can write with just as much panache as any adult writer and can, in my opinion, put them to shame.  You know, people say who better to write for teens than teens themselves?  I agree, to an extent.  While teens can get the voice and drama down pat, most just don’t have the skills to put it all to publishing standard words, not to mention the age to distance themselves from their own work.  Because the work is so derivative, how can you separate yourself from it to give it the editing eye is so sorely needs?

But my issue with this article is that it kind of patronizes young writers.  As anyone that’s been around kids and teens know, they want to be taken seriously.  There’s nothing worse than an adult pandering to them.  And that’s what the author of this article was doing.  He was talking about just how funny and “snort-worthy” a book by a nine-year-old was.  You know, I’m sure we’d all find a humor in it that the younger generations may not but I can almost guarantee that when that girl was writing it, she wasn’t writing a comedy.  It’s someone laughing at your work when it’s not funny and then patting you on the head and saying, “Good try, darling.  Very cute.”  No one likes to be patronized to and kids aren’t stupid.

I do think that reading something from a kid as young as 9 can have it’s charm and offer a voice and a sight into something that most adults couldn’t write.  But if we’re only publishing it because “it’s so cute to read,” wouldn’t it just fare better on a blog post or something?  I think giving the kid the god-honest truth before it reaches print is much better than being patronized to when it’s published.  The latter is far more detrimental to maintaining a love of reading and writing in a child than telling them what they need to hear.

If all you’re doing it humoring them, then don’t publish them.  Please.  But if they have something to offer the publishing world and write just as good as all those adults twice their age, why deny them that opportunity because of their age?  I mean, the publishing world unleased Stephenie Meyer on us (thanks, by the way O_o) and she’s a mother of three.  So let’s not pinpoint quality on age alone, ok?  I know 6 year olds that have better quality than her.