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There’s an American organisation called PABBIS: Parents Against Bad Books In School. Sadly, it’s not aimed at getting teachers to dump ragged old tomes in the bin and buy new editions: the aim of their campaign is to root out subject matter they feel is 'sensitive, controversial and inappropriate'.

One of their victims is Junk by Melvin Burgess, an important example of a writer braving the challenging world of drugs, violence, underage sex and even prostitution, and facing their nightmare consequences in the most uncompromising way. 'They got murdered by life,' says Gemma, one of his characters.

Then there’s Judy Blume’s Forever, which describes an unmarried girl’s first sexual experience just before the AIDS crisis erupted. Tut tut. Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights riled the religious establishment for its veiled attacks on their institutions. The list goes on and on: Darren Shan for his Demonata series ('So supernatural! Oh dear!'), and Jacqueline Wilson for exploring family breakdown, mental illness, drugs and death.

Many writers tell stories of the pain and difficulty of young people’s lives, but the books that interest me here are the ones that deal with real historical events: the horrors of war; the issues of imperialism, greed and hatred; and the themes of justice, violence and betrayal. Can we protect our children from knowing about this history of conflict and cruelty? Perhaps it would be better not to: eavesdropping on the past is one way to understand unpalatable events, both then and now. And where better to start introducing some of these subjects than in children’s fiction? Talented authors have worked hard to face unspeakable horror and make their characters confront difficult moral choices, as they try to disentangle the complexities of the world they inhabit.

Perhaps there is a bigger question: at what point do we shield? At what point do we tell? Many children’s writers have tackled the Holocaust, which is represented and interpreted in very different ways. Take John Boyne’s book, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, which is now a film. It tells the moving story of Bruno, a German boy, whose Nazi father is given a high-ranking job by the 'Fury' (Führer), who makes friends with Shmuel, a Jewish boy trapped in 'Out With’ (Auschwitz). This perspective is a clever narrative shield: while showing us how a child would see the period, Boyne gives a fresh glimpse of a death camp’s horrors. Yes, there’s the feeling that everything’s going to end in tears; but in a world where the worst can happen, isn’t it right and realistic to look at how a child might cope with a friend’s death? If we accept that most children are matter-of-fact about deaths that don’t affect them, and will read it as another moving tale, then an adult or parent can sit back: the reader is learning, not being traumatised.

Morris Gleitzman’s beautifully crafted new book about the Holocaust, Then, catapults two children, Felix and Zelda, into a grim and interminable world in which the boundaries of adult behaviour have vanished and chaos holds sway. He doesn’t flinch from writing about the discovery of a death pit in the woods (though this isn’t graphically described) and there’s grim tension in the fact that Felix’s circumcision, if revealed, will lead to his death. There are shocking scenes, but thanks to the elegance and humanity of Gleitzman’s writing, I doubt any children will be hiding under the covers. Instead, the reader will respond as he intended: with interest and growing compassion.

There’s the constant threat of death and disintegration in both these books about the Holocaust, yet the heroes are only nine years old. Does that mean they’re suitable for a nine-year-old? Is it possible for a parent to respond to the questions and emotions that might arise from such stories? The answers have to be ‘yes’ and ‘yes’ again. As Eckhart Tolle says in A New Earth, ‘Children find negative emotions too overwhelming to cope with and tend to try not to feel them.’ But through stories we can help them face difficult emotions; and they will become aware of better solutions to old problems. Then fear, anger and the need to hurt others just might become feelings they recognise and have learnt to deal with by the time they become adults.

Further back in time, Private Peaceful by Michael Morpugo tells the story of the Peaceful brothers from rural England, who are challenged in the worst possible ways during the First World War. It’s a desperately emotional journey reminding the reader that this war invaded the consciousness of the world, destroying not only millions of lives but the innocence of many more. Only stories like this are capable of bringing this back to us with full force. Using history textbooks or dry philosophical questions to examine these horrors would completely miss the point, and deny the child the experience of travelling back in time to learn the lessons most people have chosen to forget.

When such difficult issues and their terrifying consequences are exposed, they alter the way we think. In Beverley Naidoo’s Burn My Heart, we are forced to accept ugly truths about imperialism, racism and greed and the danger that accompanies unjust regimes, in this case, Kenya under British rule in the early 1950s. The beautifully drawn young characters, Mathew and Mugo, have no choice in how their lives work, nor are they offered much chance of surviving intact. Their strength and determination, however, remind the reader not just of the safety they take for granted at home but of the strength and resilience people from other cultures have learnt.
These writers have never lost their appetite for dramatising difficult truths and, yes, they don’t always leave the young reader with a simple happy ending; hopefully, my story, Guantanamo Boy doesn’t either. But if we encourage and allow children to put their trust in the decisions these writers and their publishers make, they won’t be disappointed by the tales they tell.

Two books published this February deal with the difficulties of truth and happy endings in very different ways. Laurie Halse Anderson’s novel Chains follows a pair of sisters who, in searching for a way out of slavery, are embroiled in the American War of Independence. It speaks of individual strength even in the most degrading circumstances. Stylistically Robert Muchamore’s The Escape is miles away, with its gritty Second World War adventuring, but he too emphasises the power of his child protagonists to endure, to keep fighting whatever the insanely unfair world of adults throws at them. What Anderson and Muchamore share is the view that somehow children can get past the horrors of the adult world. These writers do not glamorise or aggrandise events and indulge their characters; they raise awkward questions without easy answers. But they also find the simple truths, and tell them with sensitivity and courage.

For me, the only bad books are the ones that literally come unstuck when opened. I’d happily recommend any of the above books for children and school libraries. In my experience as an ex-teacher, if a child isn’t captivated by a story they will simply put it down, despite gory, sexy, or violent scenes. And as parents know, accessing this stuff is easy on TV and the internet nowadays, whatever the child’s age.

Now I must get on with reading Caught in the Crossfire, Alan Gibbons’ brilliant book about a fascist leader exploiting resentments in a northern town after 9/11. Plus Sally Gardner’s gruesomely titled The Red Necklace, set in and around Paris in the 18th century. They promise to be truly gripping reads.

Further reading...

Guantanamo Boy
by Anna Perera
Puffin
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See Anna Perera's top five historical children's books or see books about children at war