Just kidding. Mostly. Here, read this. You'll need it to understand a single word I'm talking about.
Alright, Mrs. Gurdon. Argument number one. John Green.
John Green is a YA novelist who has written three books alone and cowrote another book with David Levithan. The book he cowrote is called Will Grayson, Will Grayson and is about coming to terms with accepting who you are. In it, two high schoolers named Will Grayson are affected by the presense of one Tiny Cooper, an enormous gay kid who wants to put on a musical about his life and love. He captures the heart of one Will Grayson romantically and the other in pure friendship. Though profane, this book hardly seems (and I quote), "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". Although profane in some parts, Will Grayson, Will Grayson is wholesome and hopeful and a beautiful story.
However, I just finished (for the second time) one of John Green's first books, Looking for Alaska. Not only is this book pretty profane in some areas, it also deals with (spoilers!!) teen death. I'd say suicide, but it's never confirmed. Not only that, but there is underage drinking and smoking. Good God, Mrs. Gurdon, hide the kids! But in all seriousness, Looking for Alaska not only pictures the troubles in the death of a friend, but the beauty in finding true hope after that friend is gone. So, even a darker, more profane novel by John green is full of that rainbow that always comes after the storm.
Argument two: mostly a rant about sheltering.
In my opinion, YA novels are the best way to portray information that is dark and profane. We need to know this stuff. Teenagers can't live in a world where everything is always rainbows and butterflies. I know there's enough in the news and online about such things as cutting and depression that we're not oblivious to the fact that it exists. Some novels depict these things in guesome detail, but it helps us to understand the why of the news we see everywhere. When an author writes a book about a teen that cuts herself, she's not just describing it in disgusting, gory detail. What Gurdon fails to understand (possibly because, and here's a shocker, kids! she's not a young adult) is that these novels also describe how that teen girl deals with her problem and how she came to have this problem. Adults don't seem to realize that we need to figure this out at some point before we're brutally shoved into the real world. Well, Mrs. Gurdon, are you going to teach your children about why some people are pushed to the brink of self-mutilation? Or are you just going to put your hand over their eyes and monitor every book they read?
Now I come to my third and final argument, which is somewhat like the first. Not all YA novels are dark and depressing.
There are at least forty books in my room. Basically all of them are YA. About six of them are dark. The other 34 or so are about things such as friendship, love, and other sorts of happy things. It appears that when Mrs. Gurdon did her research, she looked solely for the books with the creepy titles and covers and overlooked the books on the other side of the shelf. The ones that have happy, brightly colored covers and titles such as The Truth About Forever and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, neither of which, as you can imagine, have any of the things that Gurdon talks about within their pages.
At some point, we need to recognize that there are going to be controversial and dark books out there. We also need to recognize that teenagers will find these books and read them. However, most people leave it at that and hope for the best. What Mrs. Gurdon needs to realize is that the information is out there, and we're going to find it somewhere. Honestly, wouldn't she rather we read a profane book than go searching for internet porn? Now, I'll admit that's a little extreme, but still. We need to know. I credit most of who I am to reading YA novels. They've taught me about acceptance, love, and friendship through any sort of weather, whether it is dark or light.
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