Young Adult Non-Fiction Reading Response

Without a doubt, you can tell the articles, "The Banned Books we Loved" by Jen Doll and "Darkness too Visible" by Megan Cox Gurdon are incredibly different. They both are based on young adult fiction. "The Banned Books we Loved" talks about how books shouldn't be banned. Where as, "Darkness too Visible" talks about young adult fiction being "inappropriate" for teens, who can actually relate to the books they read.

I completely agree with, "The Banned Books we Loved" about how young adult books shouldn't be banned. These young adult books teach us lessons. Lessons that may help us figure out our life. They give us ways to be grateful about how lucky we are. It makes us feel like we're not the only ones having an unusual problem. Banned books help us see ourselves, most importantly. In books like The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger we see a teen who struggles with both his school and social life, aswell to find his way in life. Jen Doll has a sort-of caring tone in this article towards the banned books. She is someone who appreciates the brilliant writing of the authors with the banned books. Jen Doll also quotes many authors with banned books, showing that they're just good books and that we should be able to read them.

Now, I've got a lot to say about "Darkness to visible." Mega Cox Gurdon, doesn't know what she's getting into. She thinks young adult books should have ratings. This is not the correct solution. What is she gonna make a book "R" rated, so I can't just go to a book store and buy a great book. She also is very condescending in this article. Making herself seem smarter and us dumb by using loaded words, like "depravity" and "traumatizing," all that crap. She thinks it's evil aswell. She talks about how descriptive books can be. And that it the few words about bleeding in a certain book may "traumatize" us, isn't that right Megan. Let's take Hunger Games for example, the killing in that isn't real, it's a book for pete's sake. I mean books are great, but she obviously doesn't understand. Also there's this whole thing that ALL young adult books teach you by the end of the book, and Hunger Games was, war and killing is bad, so why would she not support the fact that she's basically saying that?

Overall these articles are very descriptive. As you can already tell I don't like "Darkness too Visible" and love "The Banned Books we Loved." This is just my opinion though. Books shouldn't be banned because teens need to explore culture and not be limited to uninteresting books.

Animal Farm

“Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself.” – George Orwell, Animal Farm.

The book "Animal Farm" by George Orwell should be allowed in the MS51 library. The subject of this book has something very intriguing about it. Which is the part, that's incredibly obvious, the animals take over the farm.

Before I read this and a few other books I wasn't a very fascinated reader. Pretty much all the books I read were just dull and boring. I couldn't ever focus on them because they were all about kids facing sports troubles and all the stuff. If you know me, I'm now much of a very sporty person. Though, George Orwell's Animal Farm was one of the first books I'd read to change my reading habits by a lot. Since, my dad's from England he told me about his favorite book, Animal Farm. He told me that it's about English society in the mid 1940's aswell. I had opened this book and was immediately interested. As soon as I had finished the book I had figured out what my dad meant. The "animals" were the poor English people of the mid 1940's and the "farmers" were the rich people, law makers and royalty back then. Soon after I figured this out, I thought that if the "farmers" keep abusing the "animals," then the "animals" will take over. I've never read something so brilliant (besides "The Catcher in the Rye"). George Orwell finally found a perfect way to comment on the way England was back in the mid 1940's.

My personal thought is, "if George Orwell didn't think of the Animal Farm idea that we know of today, yet he still wanted to find a sort-of outlet on English society, what else would he use to represent it?" I don't understand at all why this book is band. It doesn't teach kids anything bad. I mean if anything, I guess it would maybe be kids taking over something, but we're not strong and big enough for that. And that's the only bad thing I could get from it. I mean there's a bit of abuse in it. But that's life, and life isn't perfect, that's just the way it is. And also it's a metaphor, no animals really got harmed in the making of this book. No doubt I would recommend this book for 6th graders nearing 7th grade and up, or just anyone who's fit to the challenge of this book, and is a dedicated reader.