The Wall Street Journal recently published this article in which the reporter bashes Young Adult Fiction as pervasively sinister and destructive to young minds. Meghan Cox Gurdon argues that Contemporary Young Adult Fiction is too dark. "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 says.
My response: What of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye in which Pecola Breedlove is subjected to abject racism and ugliness throughout the entire book only to eventually be brutally raped by her own father? Not only is Pecola a victim of incest, she gets pregnant with her abuser's baby. The Bluest Eye was published in 1970 and its target audience is teens aged 14 and up. I read it in 11th grade. It was assigned reading. I don't think I've ready anything as "dark" as that since Ms. Gurdon, but I don't think I've read anything that moved me as much. I don't think I've ready anything that taught me as much either.
What of Where the Red Fern Grows (published in 1961) where a beautiful dog's (Old Dan) death is described in savage detail and the dog's companion (Little Ann) dies of grief a few days later? Or The Call of the Wild that describes animal abuse in such raw detail that after 15 years I still cannot get the images out of my mind? These books made my stomach turn, made me weep, made me despise humanity. To this day I abhor animal abusers and I volunteer at the local animal shelter--out of the compassion I felt initially for three fictitious dogs.
What of To Kill A Mockingbird, published in 1960, in which a black man is fallaciously accused of raping a white woman and when a white attorney, Atticus Finch, decides to defend him an entire town turns against that attorney and even threatens his life? Told through the eyes of a child this book is aimed at middle grade to young adult readers. I read it as assigned reading in 7th grade when I was 12 years old. We also watched the movie. We were children, but we were horrified by this story and the book instigated lively and thought provoking discussions about racism, crime, and life in general. We were proud that our classroom had brown faces as well as peach ones and we became warriors for truth and justice.
Is that not far enough back for you? Okay. Okay. What about Sophocles' masterpiece Oedipus Rex in which Oedipus unknowingly marries and beds his own mother, who bears him children? I think I first read that play in 8th grade when I was but 13 years old. Did I mention it was written before the time of Jesus?
Don't even get me started on the masterful works of William Shakespeare! His plays cover every taboo you can think of including incest, murder, pedophilia, suicide, politics, and religion. I read most of those in school too...and I loved them. I still do.
"Darker than when you were a child, my dear," says Ms. Gurdon. Are you sure about that, Ms. Gurdon? I beg to differ.
"If books show us the world, teen fiction can be like a hall of fun-house mirrors, constantly reflecting back hideously distorted portrayals of what life is," Ms. Gurdon writes. This sentence makes me shake my head.
What world are you living in Ms. Gurdon? Perhaps you should turn on the 5 o'clock news. Life is not rainbows, sunshine, and unicorns. Life is complex. Life is dark. Teen life is especially dark. In your teen years you are confronted with experiences you believe no one else understands. Teens know death. Teens know rape. Teens know incest. Teens know murder. Teens know suicide. I wish we lived in a world where we could shield them from all of these horrific things, but we don't.
I lost my cousin to suicide when I was but 12 years old. My father was a drug addict and an alcoholic. I experienced things by the age of 16 that many people haven't had to live through by age 80. I knew darkness. I knew darkness intimately, and my darkness did not come to me through the pages of a book. My darkness came to me the way it comes to you, the way it comes to everyone, through living. And those books that you turn your nose up at? Those books were my saving grace, my escape from a world both brutal and beautiful.
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