Are YA Novelists Morally Obligated to Offer Their Readers Hope?

ALAN Review, Spring 2003 by Ritter, John H

Dear Mr. John H. Ritter,

Hi, my name is Riley W. and I am in the sixth grade. I want to tell you that my teacher read your book Choosing Up Sides in class. Why did you call it Choosing Up Sides? My best part was when Luke strikes out Skinny Latmann. It was all cool except for at the end, it was sad.

At first I didn't know why the dad had to die. I wish that after his son saved him, his father and him would get close and spend time together and do things together like baseball. My teacher told me to look at the story again and try to think why you did that. It took me two days to think about it. Then I remembered how my dad used to hit my mom. But he never hit me. They always would fight then we moved away. I did not want us to go. That was the worst time in my life. But now I know why my mom had to leave.

I can relate to the book because I feel like the mom. My dad used to hit my mom so hard that I would sit in my room and cry all night. I never knew why he never hit me, but the book helped me figure it out a little. My mom would stand up to him, but I couldn't. When I started writing this letter, I started to cry.

I also want to thank you for writing this book 'cause it taught me a lot about life and told me without saying it. For instance, when "Pa" broke Luke's arm it told me what could have happened if we would have stayed. Now I know why my mom left. I mean I knew but now I understand. When you write your next book I would like for you to remember this letter.

Your friend,

Riley W.

Dear Riley,

Thank you for your letter. You have a great gift for making connections and understanding how stories can relate to real life.

You asked me why I called the book, Choosing Up Sides. One reason was the fact that life is full of choices. Often difficult ones, with many sides to the issue. I think your mother made the right choice, though I'm sure it was difficult.

So I hope you can use your gift of understanding to see why I made the tough choices I had to make in this story.

I know it's hard to feel much sympathy for a man who hits his son-or his wife. But it was something I had to do in order to write truthfully about "Pa" Bledsoe. The toughest part was the fact that I had to go back into my own childhood to do it.

When I was four years old, my mother died from breast cancer. And my father, who deeply loved her, fell into a depression and began to drink heavily. After being left with four young children, my dad feared he would not be able to handle it. I learned quite early what fear and alcohol can do to a man's brain. When a man drinks, he morphs into someone else.

I didn't like that drinking man. And I hated that he was so scared. I hated the late night arguments that filled our house, the screaming, the breaking of furniture, and the many sleepless nights I would lie in bed praying for peace, praying that my father could see the pain he was causing, how he was harming his children with his tirades, and driving the housekeepers away.

In the morning, sober again, my dad would return to being the gentle, loving soul I knew him to be. And sometimes it would last all day. But never all week. Before long, I'd see his car roll up the driveway, see him climb out drunk and belligerent, and I would disappear into my room.

I never went through what Luke did. My dad never hit me or anyone. And like Luke, deep down I knew he loved us all. As your father loves you.

But we had no mother to swoop us away. And no place to go.

Besides, I always held out hope that my dad would change.

That on every day, not just some days, we could, as you write, "get close and spend time together and do things together like baseball."

But the fact was, in one way or another, he'd "broken the arm"-or weakened the spirit-of all his children.

As time went on, my dad did coach our ball teams, and we did have some great times. He even remarried. But he never stopped drinking. And on the days when he came drunk to my high school games, I shuddered as the other players laughed at "the crazy man down the foul line" yelling and whistling at the opposing team. Eventually, his second wife divorced him. His children grew up and moved away. And my dad retired into a dark and lonely house.

Then one day, my older brother called to say Dad was in the hospital, near death. He had given up. Deeply depressed, my dad had stopped eating, stopped taking his heart medication, and merely waited to die.

After a week in the hospital, he had stabilized some. But we knew that if he was discharged and returned home, he'd fall into the same old pattern again.

It was Thanksgiving Day. But instead of gathering together for a big family dinner, my older brother and I sat in a bare, green hospital room while I wrote out a note to the doctor.

And when I started writing, I started to cry.

I told the doctor that our father had been depressed for as long as we could remember. I told him that unless he was treated for depression, he would be right back here in no time. Or worse. We walked to the doctor's office in the next building and left the note on his desk.