YA dystopias and politics

I just spotted a couple of articles about the political modelling going on in YA dystopias: What Occupy can Learn from the Hunger Games and a comment on that article that asks Are YA dystopias secretly conservative? Reading them in that order is probably your better bet.

It seems like there’s some connection there in wondering about the ramifications of political messages for these impressionable readers, and discounting their agency. Rosenberg says the message of opting out is “worrying, given the age of the target audience” which isn’t a full on “These kids today’ll believe anything,” but I was sensitive to it after this week’s readings.

Also, this review of Z for Zachariah had a bit calling a character’s decision “very pacifistic, almost dangerously so” which struck me as interesting for its use of non-politically correct ideas.

Anyway, what do you think? I’d be interested to hear more stories about large scale political reform for YA, myself.