[Janica Dai]

Parents in Gordon Korman books are often either:

-Nonexistent (SuperTeacher Project, I Want To Go Home)

-Divorced (Unplugged, War Stories, Notorious)

-Impliticly/Explicitly bad at parenting (That one kid's parents in The Fort and CJ's stepdad, Slacker, Unplugged, a lot of the 'parents' in Masterminds)

I think there are only a handful of parents that both show up regularly, are with their spouse, and do a decent job of parenting. I get why they're written like this, because every great writer knows parents are a roadblock to adventure

Hi, Janica,

Ouch. Thanks for the observations. I hope in 106 books that there are some regular parents too!      --Gordon Korman--

[MilkyAndTwiz]

From what I read (which is only 7 of your books)

Linked, has the “daddy issues” syndrome like in Restart and Unplugged but both parents do love Lincoln (Well I mean Frank too but he’s pretty bad at parenting)

WhatsHisFace, Cooper has both of his parents loving him and are still married

and lastly, Old School, where yes Dexter’s parents are not with him but Dexter does state that both his parents do love him so

Hi again, M&T,

I can see you're into psychology and parenting. Only 7? That makes it 7 down and 99 to go!                         ---GK---

[Aly]

Very late to the party (my timing is impeccable, I know) but we actually talk quite a lot about this in the fan server!

I've only read 25 books, but I am also currently reading 7 other books of yours (I have a tendency to randomly stop reading a book half way through even though I really like it).

Anyways, out of all the books I've read or am reading, I believe only two of the books I've read have present married parents with no problems! Don't Care High and Whatshisface (although I'm not really sure about Don't Care High. It was the third book I bookmarked for some reason).

Although, I wouldn't put divorce as a bad thing really. My parents got separated when I was six (courts are extremely slow because I'm 17 and they're still trying to legally divorce) and I can honestly say the separation made them much happier, and in my biological dad's case, healthier! 

But if we were to take that into account, I would say the happy healthy parents with no problems would still be low, only really rising to 4, with Snoop and Maxx Comedy being added into the mix. I tend to catch more details on the second read and I've only read it once, but Carter honestly disn't seems that torn up about the divorce. Unlike Max, who was very upset about the divorce, but unlike many, many, MANY characters, he has not one but TWO supportive fathers! He just finds it hard to come to terms with Mario being his stepdad, which any kid struggling with divorce would. But it's clear things would be much worse if his parents were still married if that car ride was anything to go off of.

There are some characters parents who COULD be good parents but they're either not there at all (The Superteacher Project & The 6th Grade Nickname Game) or rarely there and they just tend to show their bad sides when they do come up (Ungifted series & A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag & Operation Do-Over & The Unteachables). Which isn't really a bad thing if the focus isn't on the family which most of these books are not, so don't worry about that.

But when I talk about this, I mean that there's at least ONE parent or parents that are bad, neglectful, absent, or dead. Like how I didn’t count Notorious in this, solely because of Ronnie Lindahl's honestly HORRIBLE father, despite Keenan's and Zeebee's healthy relationship with their parents.

I am counting the Tice family as healthy and not the Delanceys from A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag, because Zeebee's claims of her dog being murdered and an illegal treasure chest are well, frivolous, and her eccentric personality doesn't make it easy. Sean's parents were warned by both of their children AND Gramps and see the problem in their face many times but shift the blame on anyone other than themselves or the products. 

I'm very passionate about this subject if you can't tell, I love talking about the family of characters (by that I mean I love talking about how much they annoy or anger me). I even make my own family dynamics for characters who don't even need them! (I made entire families and dynamics for the kids in Ungifted & Supergifted.)

Okie dokes, peace out.

And hello to anyone who reads this 6 month old post.