Scotsman.com News - News Archive - Blaming the brain is no teenage fiction
Nicola Morgan explains why teenagers need teenage fiction... It's a brain thang...
I believe the nature of the teenage brain helps explain their reading preferences: teenage brains react differently to risk, often needing more to satisfy its reward system, and teenage novels are often extra risky or frightening. Teenage brains can be emotionally dramatic, and their books often explore emotional extremes. Teenage brains are newly able to construct ethical judgments: their novels, therefore, may explore Big Questions, such as war, death, addiction, sex, racism, religion...
Nicola Morgan's book on the teenage brain, Blame My Brain, is published September 5th:
Excellent! It's about time something was published on this topic for lay audiences. I know a lot of things became clear to me when I learned that our temporal lobes don't finish growing in until our early 20s.