Great young adult fiction

I think that calling someone a great writer of Young Adult fiction is often like calling someone a great writer of Science Fiction - a bit of a backhanded compliment that suggests perhaps the writer in question can't quite manage more serious works worthy of adults. Let me be clear, then, in my praise of Ellen Emerson White. She is an outstanding author of fiction - young adult or otherwise - who never allows the fact that she is titularly writing for a younger audience discourage her from confronting difficult topics with realism, intelligence, thoughtfulness and wit.

I first discovered White, writing in The President's Daughter, as part of my ongoing research into the portrayal of female presidents in American pop culture. Meg, the daughter of the title, is the oldest child of Katherine Powers, America's first female president. A young pundit in the making, Meg is a nuanced and deeply realized character, and her observations of her mother - both a deeply ambitious and a deeply scrupulous person - offer a fascinating case study into female political power in this country. Written in 1984, more than likely in response to Geraldine Ferraro's brief foray into national politics, The President's Daughter offers America the fictional realization of the president many thought we would have had by now - one without a Y chromosome. The fact that White is able to do this without flinching from the realities of a woman trying to balance work and family - especially when work involves the defense of the free world - is especially notable.

White has continued to add to the story of Meg and Katherine Powers over the years with the most recent installment, Long May She Reign, published just last year. If White makes any concessions to her younger audience in these later books, it is in the family's continual brushes with death - an assassination attempt against the president and Meg's kidnapping. However, the subjects are always handled with such tact and realism and the threats so easy to imagine in an administration run by someone other than a white male, that I think she can be forgiven. Pick one up if you get the chance.