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Chris Crutcher, a best-selling author for young adults, writes about troubled teenager issues in his latest book “Deadline.” Crutcher has been a teacher and director of an alternative school for troubled teenagers located in Oakland, California for 10 years, and he has also been a family and child therapist for 20 years. His experience with these troubled teens inspired his latest literary work.
"It made me want to tell the stories of those kids. The intricacies of their struggles gave me a pretty good kind of viewpoint. It affected the stories I told," said Crutcher.
One may think that the ending of such a book with this subject matter would be sad but, his books have a reputation for positive endings. Here an isolated adolescent finds the company he needs, a bullied teen defends himself, and a teen struggling with a voice, speaks up.
When asked about his optimistic endings, Crutcher responded that they weren’t just for those teens readings his books but “to give a sense of hope to myself and the rest of the universe. It’s also a way to encourage adults not to give up on teens or diminish their struggles.”
Crutcher said "The reality is when those kids did do well, when they were able to get past some of their struggles, it was because an adult stepped in, some purveyor of hope." He believed that this would happen more often if adults would let go of their apprehensions regarding teens.
What he points out is that it seems that adults have forgotten how being a teen is a developmental stage. A lot has changed in this day and age with technological and societal development but the developmental stages of teens do not vary a great deal.
"Evolution just doesn't work that fast. The reality is the 17-year-old Chris Crutcher is far more like a 17-year-old today than not like him," he said.
Crutcher, now 61, still pays visits to schools frequently to keep in touch with troubled teens. "There's a huge management thing going on. One of the big problems with education is they still haven't figured out what they need to do is smaller schools and smaller classrooms. It's more important to test kids into a coma than to let them make connections, express themselves and do higher forms of thinking," he remarks.
When comparing himself to the fictional characters he writes, Crutcher comments, "I think I was more afraid to speak my concerns and my questions than a lot of the characters I write. I was taught to keep my mouth shut and do what I was told. I would do that to a point and then get irritated with it."
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