Darkness Too Visible Response

   Megan Cox Gurdon, author of the article, "Darkness Too Visible," published on The Wall Street Journal, states her opinion on youngadult books and their content, and how terrifying they can be.  The author claims that young adult literature these days have dark themes, problems too grotesque or vulgar for teens to read, and topics that can be triggering to some.  Also, according to Gurdon, literature is much darker than they used to be years ago.

  In the article, the author states that fiction is getting extremely dark.  For example, she writes, "How dark is contemporary fiction for teens? Darker than when you were a child, my dear: So dark that kidnapping and pederasty and incest and brutal beatings are now just part of the run of things in novels directed, broadly speaking, at children from the ages of 12 to 18."  She is comparing books from modern times to books from a while ago, when the times were different.  She seems to be talking to adults because she wrote, "Darker when you were a child, my dear:…"  Next, the author writes, "The novel "Scars," a dreadfully clunky 2010 exercise by Cheryl Rainfield that School Library Journal inexplicably called "one heck of a good book," ran into difficulties earlier this year at the Boone County Library in Kentucky, but not because of its contents. A patron complained that the book's depiction of cutting—the cover shows a horribly scarred forearm—might trigger a sufferer's relapse."  The author makes a good point by discussing how this book cover may trigger the person that used to self-harm, or was self-harming at the moment.  She didn't want any more suffering because of these book covers.  The author does add the perspective of an editor who seems to disagree with her claim.  ""I don't, as a rule, like to do this on young adult books," the editor grumbled, "I don't want to compromise on how kids really talk. I don't want to acknowledge those f—ing gatekeepers."" The editor of Horn Book, does not believe that people should put restrictions on the content in young adult books.  The author, of course, quickly changes the perspective and continues to add details that support her claim.

  In the end, I don't agree with Gurdon.  There shouldn't be any banned books, unless it really has stuff that is unacceptable.  Books should include subjects that are a bit touchy so teens or young adults can learn more about these situations.  They might want to learn how to cope with a certain issue, or what to do if something terrible has happened to them.  They can learn from books, but only if they look at them from the right light/perspective.  But then again, if they misinterpret the information from books, they can still learn some good lessons.  Also, not all young adult books include subjects like these!  Of course, now more books do include this, but it's only to add some light to the subject.  I believe that anyone can read whatever they want, wherever they are, and whenever they are.