As the name suggests, clean fiction is characterized by its lack of explicit content, including profanity, violence, and sexual themes.
We've done a couple of previous posts on this topic, including how clean" fiction and "young adult" fiction are defined, plus the benefits to teens of reading clean fiction.
Today, I want to explore more about why clean fiction matters (because, you know, we did build a whole platform around it), and why it's a category that's growing in popularity among teen readers.
So, let's dive in.
Why Clean Fiction Matters
First, clean fiction provides young adult readers with a safe space to explore complex themes and issues without being exposed to explicit content that may not be appropriate for their age group. This is especially important for parents who are looking for books for their children to read that won't expose them to mature themes, but--believe it or not--the teens themselves are often leading the charge on this. One of our motivations for launching PirateCat was that we kept hearing from parents and teens how hard it was to find clean fiction. They wanted it! They just couldn't easily find it.
Second, clean fiction can serve as a tool for parents and educators to encourage reading among young adults, without worrying about explicit or age-inappropriate content. By providing them with books that are engaging, interesting, and appropriate, young readers are more likely to develop a lifelong love of reading.
Third, clean fiction can serve as a way for young adults to explore their own identity and beliefs, and to grow through vicariously experiencing new applications for those beliefs and ideals. Many clean fiction books explore themes of identity, family, and community, and give special attention to thematic messages and even morality and life lessons. All of these can help young readers to make better choices, and to better understand their own place in the world.
What I find truly interesting, though, is the growing demand for more clean fiction among young adults.
Mainstream publishing seems to think that teens want sexual content, profanity, and other edgy material in their books (not to mention agenda-laden messaging), but... from what we're hearing from readers (both among the conservative and homeschooling communities, and outside of them), this isn't always the case.
There are teens who are looking for clean, young adult fiction.
Our mission here at PirateCat is to make it easy to find loads of it, all in one easy to access reading portal. It's why we exist...and why we're committed to growing this platform to include more and more clean YA content for readers.
Want to help support this cause? Grab a monthly or yearly subscription! You'll get immediate access to all the content inside our portal, and all of our interactive features... plus you'll feel good knowing you're helping to support this platform so that we can continue to grow and bring on even more pre-vetted, clean YA authors.