#teens

Once upon a time there was a young lady who lived in a marsh, and her name was Poison. ↗

— Chris Wooding

#fiction #teens #fantasy-fiction

The more I write stories for young people, and the more young readers I meet, the more I'm struck by how much kids long to see themselves in stories. To see their identities and perspectives—their avatars—on the page. Not as issues to be addressed or as icons for social commentary, but simply as people who get to do cool things in amazing worlds. Yes, all the “issue” books are great and have a place in literature, but it's a different and wildly joyous gift to find yourself on the pages of an entertainment, experiencing the thrills and chills of a world more adventurous than our own. And when you see that as a writer, you quickly realize that you don't want to be the jerk who says to a young reader, “Sorry, kid. You don't get to exist in story; you're too different.” You don't want to be part of our present dystopia that tells kids that if they just stopped being who they are they could have a story written about them, too. That's the role of the bad guy in the dystopian stories, right? Given a choice, I'd rather be the storyteller who says every kid can have a chance to star. - posted at Kirkus Review in post "Straight-Laced Dystopias ↗

— Paolo Bacigalupi

#lgbtq #minorities #representation #teens #writing

I began as a boy with artistic talent... as a visual artist... I thought that was what I'd become and in my late teens drifted into reading serious literature. ↗

— Russell Banks

#artistic #become #began #boy #drifted

I had never really pictured myself working in children's ministries. I always figured I would be more comfortable with maybe teens or adult ministries. ↗

— Willie Aames

#always #children #comfortable #figured #had

To my surprise, my 70s are nicer than my 60s and my 60s than my 50s, and I wouldn't wish my teens and 20s on my enemies. ↗

— Lionel Blue

#i #nicer #surprise #teens #than

In my teens, I joined the Parachute Regiment. I jumped out of lots of airplanes, as much as the Government budget would allow us to. I did two active tours of duty: Northern Ireland, and then the Falklands war. ↗

— Mark Burnett

#allow #budget #did #duty #falklands

I love the Beatles. I haven't named any kids after them but I still really love them. They were the first group that I was ever properly aware of. In my early teens I would sometimes stay in and listen to the radio all day in the hope that I would catch a song by them that I'd never heard before and be able to tape it on my radio-cassette player. ↗

— Jarvis Cocker

#after #all day #any #aware #beatles

Normal kids in their teens want to go and date girls and do mischievous things, your hormones are jumping around, but I stayed in my bedroom in search of something. ↗

— Grandmaster Flash

#bedroom #date #go #hormones #i

Looking back, video game design seems a natural fit, although there was no such thing when I was growing up. I built a Tic-Tac-Toe playing machine in my teens which went up in smoke on the night it was scheduled to go to a science fair. ↗

— David Crane

#back #built #design #fair #fit

Children born to teens have less supportive and stimulating environments, poorer health, lower cognitive development, and worse educational outcomes. Children of teen mothers are at increased risk of being in foster care and becoming teen parents themselves, thereby repeating the cycle. ↗

— Jane Fonda

#being #born #care #children #cognitive