Anna Staniszewski

I’ve started reading The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness, which was just released in the US this week. I was blown away by the first book in the series, The Knife of Never Letting Go, and I’m so excited to see what happens next in the story. Not only are the books imaginative science fiction, they also have a unique voice and compelling characters.

I came across an interesting interview with Patrick Ness where he discusses the series and talks a bit about his writing process. Something that came up in the interview was the age of the main character. The interviewer seemed surprised by Todd’s maturity for a thirteen-year-old. Ness explains that Todd has been raised in an environment which has forced him to mature quickly. This is why he’s able to think of himself as a man, even when many of us would still consider him to be a boy.

It’s interesting to me how much we want to protect children and teenagers in real life, but how in books they often go through very stressful and traumatic situations; in fact, that’s what often makes them interesting characters and makes their stories worth reading. Of course we can’t forget that as much as we want to protect young people from the dangers of the world, many of them are exposed to them nonetheless. While most teens probably don’t have to run from crazed killers and fight aliens as Todd does, that doesn’t mean that at thirteen they are still “innocent children.”