For years now, gritty realism has been the hallmark of young adult literature. It could be argued that YA literature is like this because kids enjoy it. But consider that we’re dealing with an audience that wants to live on chips and Coke and wear nose rings. What young adults think they want may not always be the best idea, or the most original. And the problem with gritty realism is that it’s just so darned gritty. Like sand against wet skin, it has a way of getting between you and a good time – or even a good read.

A reader might expect Don Trembath’s The Tuesday Cafe to sandblast its way through her consciousness, beginning as it does in juvenile court, where 15-year-old Harper Winslow is charged with arson. But from the moment Harper first speaks, the book takes an unexpected direction. Harper is bright, observant, and funny. After the court requires him to write an essay about how he will turn his life around, his mother sends him to what she believes is a writing workshop called “The Tuesday Cafe.” It is a writing workshop, but for the developmentally delayed and those with literacy problems. Harper discovers he feels more at home in this group than among his upper-middle-class, status-conscious peers. The passages set in the Tuesday Cafe are funny, but the disadvantaged characters are never treated with condescension. Harper sees them as older people who can intimidate him, and he seeks their approval.

Only gradually does the author reveal the reasons for Harper’s unhappiness. This is done in a believable way, but without pathos, and the book ends on an upbeat note. Don Trembath will probably get tired of being compared to Brian Doyle, but he shares the same ability to create a character who tells us more about himself than he realizes, with more humour than he knows. Like Doyle as well, Trembath writes with a light, ironic hand. This is a strong new voice in YA literature, and a welcome one.

Takes is Thistledown’s third anthology of short fiction for young adults, and the company is obviously on to something. There is some angst here: a father lost at sea, a mother incapable of looking after her daughter, and even some child abuse. But most of these stories work mainly because of strong writing and surprising plot twists. In “Baby-sitting Helen” by Kathy Stinson, a teenager hired to look after a senile grandmother for a few hours discovers that the older woman still remembers more than those around her. In “Scarecrow” by Ed Yatscoff, a new kid who wants to fit in makes a very unexpected friend. The last two stories, “Flying” by Margo McLoughlin and “On the Road” by Joanne Findon, both have elements of fantasy. Findon’s story, which juxtaposes a smart-mouthed, insensitive teen of the 1990s with an overly romantic but good-hearted girl of the 1850s, is particularly fine.

“Hockey Nights in Canada” by Mansel Robinson and “The Initiation” by Megan K. Williams are flat-out depressing. But Williams writes about being 11 and unloved with a verve that makes you appreciate how poignant gritty realism can be. The technical merit of the writing in this collection, from finely crafted metaphors to skillful character development, is quite remarkable.

Adele Dueck’s Anywhere But Here is a pre-teen mystery set in Saskatchewan. Like pre-teens themselves, the book is cheerfully unburdened by introspection. Eleven-year-old Marjorie Freisen finds life on the family farm dull. Her parents struggle to make ends meet during a drought; she does more chores than her younger siblings; and her best friend has moved away. The theft of farm chemicals in the area gives Marjorie a mystery to ponder, one that suddenly deepens when she and her new neighbour Craig Geller find stolen chemicals in an isolated barn on her own farm. Against her wishes, Marjorie wonders if her father is implicated.

Many mysteries are so plot-driven that the characters are paper-thin, but Anywhere But Here is a cut above. Marjorie’s resentment of chores, her fundamental love for her family, her ambivalence about the farm, concern for her father, and her growing friendship with Craig make her likable and very real. Dueck’s Saskatchewan farm setting is vivid and authentic. The mystery works and the climax is suitably thrilling. This is a good book for readers who are ready for something with more depth than formula mysteries.

Keri, by Jan Andrews, conforms closely to the classic problem novel. Thirteen-year-old Keri lives in a small Newfoundland outport with her mother and 10-year-old brother, Grae. The book is set before the 1992 moratorium on northern cod, but the fishery is already in decline, and Keri’s father has taken a job elsewhere. His absence, and the selling of his fishing boat fill Keri with anger, and she fights with her mother constantly. For escape, Keri fantasizes about an event from her family’s past: a young girl abandoned in a nearby cove survived in the 1700s mainly because a beached whale provided her with food. Keri and Grae visit the cove one morning to discover another whale has beached there. In spite of their efforts, the animal dies. As it does, Keri comes to have a more realistic view of the past and the future, and she is reconciled to her unromantic mother.

Newfoundland’s culture is not easy to dip into, but Andrews acquits herself well. She creates a sense of life in a small outport and the romantic, deeply rooted attachment that young people can have to this place. I was afraid the whale would be miraculously restored to the sea, an impossibility that fortunately does not occur. However, Andrews miscalculates the incredible cold of the North Atlantic. Keri and her brother spend most of a day up to their knees in the ocean in May with only short breaks. Andrews portrays this as a hardship. In fact it would be unendurable, and hypothermia would quickly set in.

This quibble with reality aside, the characters in Keri are well rounded and believable. The plot, however, is quite bleak. When Keri lets go of the past and her bid to save the whale, she seems to accept that there is no future for her in Newfoundland. The novel’s resolution would have been more satisfying had the author found some middle ground between romantic attachment to the past, and a fatalistic surrender to a future far removed from one the protagonist would choose. Gritty realism without such hope is very gritty indeed.