Francesca Lia Block's novel I Was a Teenage Fairy is a story about a girl (Barbie) and her fairy (Mab) growing up. Barbie is forced to be a model by her wanna-be mom (Yes, she named her daughter after the doll) at the age of eleven. Big surprise, she and several other children are molested. The parents involved all turn a blind eye and the children are too scared to talk. Barbie finally comes into her own, speaks up, saves other kids from the same fate and reinvents herself as Selena Moon.
This novel carries a pretty good message for a young adult book. But it has the same issue I've come across in other YA fiction. There is not a single decent adult in the story. Self-sufficiency is good, to a point. But I'm already seeing a generation of kids who think that adults are oblivious at best, and downright evil at worst.
I desperately hope that we're not all that bad.
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