Novels Look at Real-Life Issues

“I can’t write about nice, easy topics,” says Jacqueline Woodson, “because that won’t change the world. And I do want to change the world--one reader at a time.”

That’s an ambitious goal, and the jury’s still out on just how successful she’s been. But if she has fallen short, it hasn’t been for a lack of trying. Wooden is one of a precious few authors who believes young adults are sophisticated and intelligent enough to handle challenging subjects, including social issues such as bigotry, homophobia, elitism and racism in her many award-winning novels.

In her latest book, “If You Come Softly” (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 181 pages, $15.99), Woodson explores the divide that interracial couples still face in society. Ellie, a Jewish girl, and Jeremiah, a black boy, are both bright teens from successful middle-class families. And they’re in love. But for family and friends, all their similarities can’t overcome their differences: race and religion.

Ellie and Jeremiah learn love doesn’t always conquer all, something Woodson, the daughter of a black woman who later married a Jewish man, knows all too well. But that doesn’t mean we give up loving--or hoping.

“Each book I write,” Woodson says, “is a shout into the silence and a prayer and a plea for change.”

Only slightly less ambitious is Arvella Whitmore, who makes her debut as a novelist with “Trapped Between the Lash and the Gun” (Dial Books for Young Readers, 188 pages, $15.99). In the book, which is aimed at middle-school students, young Jordan makes a fateful decision to join an urban street gang rather than follow his mother and sister to the suburbs. But to make that happen, he needs a gun. So he steals his grandfather’s old gold watch--the one that has been in the family 150 years--and heads for a pawn shop.

He never gets there, however. Instead, he takes an illuminating journey across time, back to the place where the gold watch joined the family. There, he confronts the reality of slavery and has his eyes opened to harshness, beauty and the ultimate possibilities of life.

Whitmore’s careful research into the personal experience of slaves imbues the story with the bitter pain and injustice of that ugly chapter in American history. But it also led to an unexpected personal discovery. The book concludes with a fascinating author’s note in which Whitmore, a white woman, writes about her discovery that her great-grandmother had been a slave who was given her freedom and, during the Civil War, moved to Kansas, where her light-skinned sons were able to pass as whites, greatly altering the family’s history.

Bonnie Chamberlain is tested in a different way in Michael Cadnum’s well-written young adult novel “Heat” (Viking, 196 pages, $15.99). A champion diver bound for the Olympic trials, Chamberlain sees her world turned upside down when her father is arrested and jailed for fraud. His friends, his community, even his family quickly abandon Harvey Chamberlain, but Bonnie does not. She’s determined to stand by her father, no matter what the price.

Young Jolene isn’t so sure she wants a father in Kimberly Willis Holt’s middle-school novel, “Mister and Me” (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 74 pages, $13.99). Since Jolene’s dad died, her mother has acted as both parents, and the arrangement was working just fine until Leroy Redfield starts taking Momma dancing.

Jolene withholds her approval of the relationship and won’t call Leroy anything other than “Mister.” After all, she knows where this relationship is headed and, afraid she might lose her mother like she lost her father, she’s not sure she wants to go there. But it may come down to a question of whose needs are more important--hers or her mother’s.

Ultimately, the story is one of change and acceptance, and of learning to put your own desires aside to make room for the happiness of others.