Violence in teen fiction goes in the dock

Do authors of YA novels glamorise crime, or help readers to avoid it? In the wake of the murder of teacher Ann Maguire, authors answer charges of glamorising violence

• Catherine Bruton - theguardian.com, Thursday 13 November 2014 

Plotting crime … an image from the film version of The Knife that Killed Me. Photograph: Green Screen Productions Ltd

Ten days before 15-year-old schoolboy Will Cornick stabbed his Spanish teacher Ann Maguire to death in front of his classmates, one of her former students, teen novelist Anthony McGowan, celebrated the launch of a film based on his novel The Knife that Killed Me. Cornick, who had planned a murder spree, told psychiatrists afterwards that he “couldn’t give a shit … everything I’ve done is fine and dandy”. And in a chilling case of art anticipating life, McGowan’s novel, which was nominated for numerous awards including the Guardian children’s fiction prize, tells the story of a fatal stabbing in a school based on Corpus Christi College in Leeds where he, too, had once been taught by Ann Maguire.

Meanwhile another teen author, Alan Gibbons, also hit the headlines appearing alongside the mother of Sophie Lancaster, in a launch event at the murdered woman’s Lancashire school. Gibbons’s novel Hate, which is based on Sophie’s murder, offers an unflinching portrait of hate crime amongst young people.

Figures released recently by the charity Citizens Report UK reveal that 163 young people have been lost to violent crime since 2005 in London alone – so can books like these make any difference or are authors just cashing in on headline-grabbing issues? This was one of the topics that was debated in the summer at the inaugural YA Literature Convention, chaired by children’s laureate Malorie Blackman.
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