On Fantasy High Schools

[sadlikeknives]

...and I don't mean high schools in a fantasy setting. I don't even mean fandomhigh. I mean schools you read about in books and go, "God, the author wishes." One of these you may be familiar with is in David Levithan's Boy Meets Boy, where the main character lives in a fantasy town where everybody's super-liberal (the local McDonald's was taken over by a vegan collective) and pretty much everyone in the school gets along and no one makes fun of anyone else's differences.

The most recent example I've come across, and the one I'm trying to get through right now, is Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. I've read rave reviews of this book, and while books set in small towns in the South have burned me before, I was willing to give it a shot. I'm a couple of chapters in, and it does actually get a lot of things about life in a small Southern town pretty close to right. Here is the problem: the high school's curriculum is set by the school board of We Want This To Happen For the Plot.

We are talking about a public school that only offers American history. That's right. Four years of American history. Two years of that are on the Civil War. No public school in the country could pull this off and keep their certification. "Sure, we'll let you graduate students completely ignorant of anything that happened outside of the United States. Sounds great!" The school apparently does not have a football team (every public school in the South has a football team, no matter how small or crappy), as it is never mentioned. However, the basketball team, which includes Our Hero, begins practicing on the first day of school--without tryouts or anything. They practice every day, no matter what, for a sports season that won't start for months.

Conversely, this school also has a music program large enough and well-funded enough to include multiple cellists and viola players. Electives offered include American Sign Language and ceramics. This school that apparently can't even afford to hire a World History teacher or more than one English teacher has pottery wheels and a kiln and is paying a ceramics teacher because one of the authors thought it would be really cool to have a handprint mysteriously appear in clay. What the hell is that?

I know, I know. It's a book. Don't let it bother me so much. But I'm a writer, too, and--okay, for example, in the book I've been working on for a while now, one of the characters refuses to wear shoes for plot-related reasons. I spent ages and ages trying to find a school dress code that used some wording other than 'shoes must be worn at all times' that I could have her be bending to her own purposes (I finally found something about 'appropriate footwear.')

I mean, YA books are written for teenagers, right? They know what high school is like, and I feel like I, as a teenager, would have gone, "ASL and ceramics and a great music program? God, I wish, or at least the author does," on Beautiful Creatures' fantasy curriculum. So I'm just kind of wondering how they get away with it.

I don't know. It bugs me. Is that weird?

Comments

[keenai.livejournal.com]

No. Except I would argue that the Levithan thing is completely different and he's aware of the fantasy element! As for the book you're currently reading? That would bug me, too. It's very OTH that way.

[vampychick.livejournal.com]

I brought up the Levithan because we discussed it in my YA Resources class, and several people--including our professor, a gay man--agreed that while it is done intentionally, a GLBTQ teen, or even just one who wishes people would stop picking on their glasses or clothes or freckles or weight or whatever, could quite conceivably read the book and go, "WHERE IS THIS PLACE? NOWHERE, THAT IS WHERE. THIS BOOK SUCKS, GOD," and that that was something we needed to think about in offering it as a recommendation.

[keenai.livejournal.com]

...that is a good point. One I have never considered. Huh. It's the first time I've heard it framed as a negative, too.

[vampychick.livejournal.com]

Possibly we were a roomful of cynics? IDK.

[keenai.livejournal.com]

Possibly! But I was reading it with grad students not future librarians. It makes a difference!

[darklightluna.livejournal.com]

I'm right there with you. I went to a weird, weird school so you know that when a book manages to make me go "Um...no" it's got to be insane. It's like authors don't remember what school was like and are just putting in bits they think are cool and plot relevant.

[vampychick.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think a lot of authors suffer from, "Well my school had that. Doesn't everybody's?" But then they start throwing things in just for the plot and at some point you have to stop and think about reality.

[darklightluna.livejournal.com]

And a touch of "Hey, you know what would be cool in a modern school?" added in somewhere there just for fun. Except modern schools are still much like non-modern schools, sorry to say.

[mysteena.livejournal.com]

It bugs me too. This is one of the reasons that I love MT Anderson. He is pretty realistic when it comes to teen life/conversation/high school life.

[sheep-of-death.livejournal.com]

Random drop-in commenter here ;)-
As someone who grew up in a fairly small town in the mid-west, this actually sounds almost exactly like the high school I attended. The only history class they offered that wasn't about the U.S. was International Relations (AKA how the U.S. deals with other countries), and that wasn't even required.

I had to drive down to the junior high to take German, but they had Latin at the high school. WTF? We also had ceramics and an enormous music program. I would totally have found the concept of this legit.

Just goes to show, what seems off base to some people isn't to others. Random thought of the day. :)