45 pages • 1 hour read
Silent To The Bone
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Background
Authorial Context: E. L. Konigsburg
Elaine Lobl (E. L.) Konigsburg was born in 1930, and her writing career spanned several decades until her death in 2013. She was born in New York and spent much of her childhood in small mill towns in Western Pennsylvania. After pursuing a degree in chemistry, she became a science teacher until she had children. After her children started school, Konigsburg revisited two passions from her childhood—painting and writing—and her writing career was born, with many of her books incorporating her drawings as well.
Konigsburg’s career did not experience a single peak and was instead celebrated and awarded throughout her lifetime. Konigsburg continued producing profound and deeply affecting work with each new title she wrote. Her stories draw on real-world inspiration and her own life to shed light on the difficult issues facing adolescents. She aspired to write about ordinary children growing up, and the realism of her books grew out of her imagining “what if” scenarios with her children and grandchildren. This realism has helped her books remain a relevant voice for adolescents and children decades after their publication.
Since adolescence can be a time of isolation and confusion, stories that are not afraid to broach painful and often traumatic subjects like child abuse and neglect can help those experiencing it feel less alone. As portrayed in Silent to the Bone, experiences of abuse can lead to feelings of shame and guilt, which propel young people into silence. By exploring this process and the emotions that accompany it, Konigsburg provides clarity and understanding. Her novel From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler features a child protagonist who runs away from home when she believes that her parents neglect her. This title was Konigsburg’s first Newbery Medal Honor. Her later novel The View From Saturday features a teacher whose physical disability inspires her students to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves. This was her second Newbery Medal Honor, and the two novels were published 29 years apart, setting the record for the longest amount of time between Newbery awards.
Literary Context: Realistic Young Adult Novels
The realism in young adult novels of the 1990s and early 2000s is a reflection of a genre that first emerged in the mid-1960s. Authors like Konigsburg, Judy Blume, Robert Cormier, and S. E. Hinton were among the first to develop stories with adolescent protagonists and narrators dealing with subjects that were previously considered taboo, such as body image, sexual awakening, income disparity, gang violence, abuse, and illness. Over the decades, the sales of realistic young adult novels have steadily increased, and the books have found an audience among not just teens but also adults, especially with the rise of book recommendations being shared on social media and the large number of stories being adapted for the screen.
Authors like Konigsburg sought to tear down the walls between adolescents and their adult counterparts and to extend empathy and understanding to those who need it most. Silent to the Bone shares similarities with some other realistic books of the late 1990s and early 2000s. For example, The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold features similar themes of Friendship, Family, and Their Unspoken Understandings and also explores the detrimental effects of child sexual abuse. Similarly, like Silent to the Bone, it is told through the lens of a mystery to be solved. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky was also a popular title during this era and sees its adolescent protagonist navigating his first experiences of true friendship, struggles with mental health, and confusion about the prospect of growing up. Like Konigsburg, Chbosky explores how the teen years are replete with strong emotions and desires that complicate situations and can lead to unintended consequences. Finally, stories like Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick bring issues of disability, bullying, and the fierce bonds of friendship that can form around these experiences to light. What all these novels and others like them have in common is their daringness and their emotionally charged, but still sensitively portrayed, stories of adolescence.
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By E. L. Konigsburg
