Bernie Sanders, King of YA Lit

[Donkees]

OCT. 12 2017 4:31 PM

How did his latest political manifesto become a young adult best-seller?

By Ruth Graham


Excerpts:

As YA best-sellers go, the Bernie Sanders Guide to Political Revolution is an unlikely contender. The author is a 76-year-old man. The cover illustration consists of his balding head. And teens are not known to be passionate about tax reform (the subject of Chapter 2) or health insurance wonkery (Chapter 4). Nonetheless, the book rode near the top of the New York Times best-seller list for Young Adult Hardcovers for weeks after its debut in late August, peaking (so far) at No. 2.

Sanders’ popularity with young people took many journalists and career Washingtonians by surprise in 2015 and 2016. But this book is a deft illustration of why his campaign was so energizing for young progressives. For one, he has a knack for framing policy positions as matters of urgent moral outrage. In a section on paid family leave and medical leave, he writes bluntly, “When it comes to supporting real family values, the United States lags behind every other major country on earth.” Sanders is cranky and impatient, and he makes a convincing case that the left could use more crankiness and impatience if it wants to start winning.

The most refreshing thing about the Bernie Sanders Guide is the most refreshing thing about Bernie Sanders the politician: a seemingly total lack of condescension. Sanders does not strain to convince his young readers that criminal justice reform will be immediately relevant in their own lives. He puts the chapter on tax reform before the chapter on the presumably more applicable chapter on affordable higher education. He doesn’t contort himself to prove that, say, the high cost of prescription drugs matters hugely to healthy teens and twentysomethings. He doesn’t try to use teenage slang or make pop culture references, and he doesn’t waste time flattering his fan base by revisiting the glory days of his youth-driven campaign. He treats young people not like a special interest group to be pandered to but like American citizens capable of maintaining a broad, benevolent interest in the welfare of the country as a whole.

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2017/10/bernie_sanders_guide_to_political_revolution_reviewed.html

[hedda_foil]

1. My grandson's 11th birthday is next month. I think I'll give him a copy.

I think he'll love it!