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.