Ms. Berner

Essay Dear Ms.Berner, A question is being asked in schools everywhere. Should young adult books be banned in the sixth grade library? Banning books take away a young adult’s connection to something that relates to their problems that they suffer through and may not have anyone to talk to. Young adult books are needed to teach young adults about real life situations because many parents don’t like to talk about “darker” subjects with their children. Since many parents don’t like to talk about uncomfortable subjects with their children, they push back “the talk” and their kids have already been exposed to this through, television, online activities, or personal experience. Going through something on your own, without any prior knowledge can end up really badly, if parents aren’t going to discuss these topics with their kid’s they’re going to learn it somewhere. Whether they learn about real life situations from a friend or video, it might not be correct information, so why not let them learn from a book which are always written with prior research and based off facts. If you’re not going to talk about it with your kids, let them learn it from a young adult book, good and factual enough to get published. Young adult books are needed to teach young adults about real life situations because parents don’t feel comfortable doing that. Young adult books are needed to teach young adults about real life situations because young adult books are written to portray the time period it was written in, whether it be now or 40 years ago. Many writers, including Meghan Cox Gurdon bring up “Judy Blume” and “Lauren Myracle,” two different young adult books about similar topics. “Judy Blume” was written in the 1970’s and talks about teenagers losing their virginities, an event that took place in teenager’s lives in the 70’s, people lost their virginities, so there was a young adult book about it. Now there’s the book “Shine” a book about a 16 year old girl trying to recover from a sexual assault, because that’s more common now-a-days, whereas in the 70’s, it wasn’t as likely to happen. We need young adult books to teach us about real life situations in the time period we’re in or grew up in or else they’re not young adult books, they’re young adult books for our parents. They wouldn’t teach us about our current life. Young adult books are needed to teach young adults about real life situations because if the “gatekeepers” of young adult books are adults, they don’t know what your life is like, and what you need to know. Article writers like Meghan Cox Gurdon write about how the “gatekeepers” of young adult fiction should be adults. But Meghan Cox Gurdon isn’t a teenager nor a parents, so who is she too decide who can read young adult fiction? Parents know what they want their kids to know. Journalists and librarians don’t come into the equation. Young adult books teach us about real life situations we can be in, but if we can’t decide which books we read, it doesn’t help us with our situations, it leaves us trapped in the dark. Young adult books are needed to teach us about real life situations. As you can see, Banning books take away a young adult’s connection to something that relates to their problems that they suffer through and may not have anyone to talk to. So Ms. Berner, you decide. Do you want to take away a young adults right to be knowledgeful of the real world and all it’s problems and prepare them for the rest of their lives, or block them from that knowledge and let them grow up as immature adults?