Young Adult Fiction Book Banning Argument Essay

There are many people who would argue that young adult fiction should be banned. But why should these books be banned if they can give kids a chance to reflect off of similar issues that they many be reading in the book? If you think about it, how much damage can these books do to the minds of children? The books that will be banned consists of classics, favorites, and other well known books like the Hunger Games, Catcher in the Rye, and Harry Potter. These books shouldn’t be banned based on the minuscule amounts of profanity and crude images. The books also may be banned if it has subliminal message that may be too horrendous and terrifying for a child to read

When the children read young adult books some parents believe that they will disturb the child's mind, but when they get a chance to read a wide variety they can be introspective.  One example is an article written by an author of one of the banned books "The Diary of a Part-Time Indian" Sherman Alexie. He writes his article against criticism recently written in "Darkness too visible" by Meghan Cox Gurdon which says that his book “Hideously distorted portrayals.”  He disagrees with the statement by saying “I can’t speak for other writers, but I think I wrote my YA novel as a way of speaking to my younger, irredeemable self.” From this we can realize that when he was younger he had a hard time, and if he was able to have (as a child) something that could help him, or make him see that someone else was going through the same exact issues, then he would have been more confident. Another example is an article that is against Meghan Cox Gurdon’s main idea that young adult books should be banned because the content has grotesque images. But Mary Elizabeth Williams (who wrote the article "Has Young Adult Fiction Become too Dark?") doesn’t agree with this when she says "We can't shut them off from the outlet of experiencing difficult events and feelings." She’s telling us that if we take these books off the shelves, children will lose the experience of being able to read about reality, even though authors may manipulate the view of reality in some books.  If children only read the “age appropriate and happy” books then how will they be able to express their feelings and issues, if they can’t read about how other people manage their feelings.  Reading is an important way that a child gets the chance to read about the reality of our gory world and can reflect on their own personal problems.  Reading can help make sure their mind will not be congested and confused.

It is believed that when children read books it can manipulate a child’s life. But how badly can it actually affect the child? In the article by Sherman Alexie he disagrees with a statement made by Meghan Cox Gurdon that children can change their morals just from reading a book. “Does Ms. Gurdon honestly believe that a sexually explicit YA novel might somehow traumatize a teen mother? Does she believe that a YA novel about murder and rape will somehow shock a teenager whose life has been damaged by murder and rape? Does she believe a dystopian novel will frighten a kid who already lives in hell?” He's making an important point that just from reading one book, or a few, no matter how many, it can’t hurt a child. Someone can't get scared just from reading a book, the only negative thing that can actually hurt them are actual life events.  There are some children that don’t go through the same problems as the children that get raped, beaten, or bullied, but if they read the books about these situations then they can get a sense of what happens to that kid on a daily basis, and they can try their hardest to prevent these things from happening those. Another example is from "Has Young Adult Fiction Become too Dark?" by Mary Elizabeth Williams she writes to counter all of the points made by Ms.Gurdon. "She fails to acknowledge the coarseness and misery already inherent in adolescents." Williams is telling us that children already have problems, irrelevant if they are big or small, children already know that this world isn't perfect and that it had flaws. When Meghan Cox Gurdon writes she makes it seem as though initially children or anyone don’t have problems and then when reading young adult fiction they can get rid all of their problems. We can learn that reading young adult fiction can't hurt a child and it also can't change the way a child will think.

There are some books that do have very grotesque content, but that doesn't mean they should be banned. There could be a level of agreement in which there's an age rating. The article “The 'sick-lit' books aimed at children: It's a disturbing phenomenon. Tales of teenage cancer, self-harm and suicide…” by Tanith Carey, is about kids most favorite books are actually all the same and cliche, and also that kids of younger ages shouldn’t be reading the books. “It's not just the fact that these books feature terminally ill teenagers that makes them so questionable - they're also aimed at children as young as 12.” They want us to know that the content in these books are too much for a 12 year old, but if they gave an age limit that would say “Don’t read until 14 years of age, may contain: very little profanity, sexual scenes, and depressing topics.” If there was a warning like this and the child couldn’t buy it without the consent of the parent. Another example in the same article is when Children’s Book expert Amanda Craig shares her thought on the reading and writing of young adult fiction. “‘When you write for children, you have a moral and social responsibility,' says Amanda. 'I think there is a cavalier attitude towards this in the publishing industry, especially as children as young as 11 are likely  to be reading these books.’” She’s telling us that when people write books they should realize that they have to be aware of who’s going to be reading. If they stick a label that tells what age group should be reading the book the author won’t have any moral limitations because they are writing for the age group that they specified to. Having this label could eliminate the need to ban books because people will realize that the amount of horrific detail is pertained to that age group that would be written on the label.

Banning books isn’t right, they can’t harm children. When you think about banning books you should remember a few things. How much harm can books do to a child, versus how much it could actually help a child. Also consider the book’s content, could a restricted label somewhere in the book help solve the issue? These questions don’t only apply when reading young adult fiction, but in real life as well. For example if you have an argument try to think about both sides. You should also think, is there a simple solution? If these controversial YA books get banned then what will our lives be like without all the exciting, action packed ideas that might be gained from reading? If books get banned then we are handing children an excuse to go and watch television, and that’s a whole other argument.

"How Does it Feel to be a Problem" Critical Analysis

“How Does it Feel to be a Problem” by Moustafa Bayoumi tells various stories of Arab and Muslim men and women around the time of the World Trade Center was destroyed, and the people around them that are being rude and racist. One of the women is named Yasmin, she was a student of Fort Hamilton for high school. Her story is about how she couldn’t stay on the student council because it was a requirement to go to all school events, but based on her religion she couldn’t attend any of the dances so the school kicked her off, all four years of her time at Fort Hamilton she always tried to run for a spot in student council but always got rejected. So she got a lawyer made a governmental case that made it so the school changed it’s policy of having to go to dances for religious purposes, it subliminally stated the school was being racist. Yasmin went through the process knowing how to deal with racism because it happened in her everyday life, she shares a story with us about how she was sitting in the B63 bus and there was an Arab woman with a hijab on and she was holding a baby. There was a white couple on the bus and they were whispering, asking each other whether the woman actually had a baby of if it was a bomb. Yasmin heard their conversation and thought that it was a stupid question because if a white woman got on the bus with a baby they wouldn’t have thought any different. But the white couple requested the bus driver to stop the bus and check that the woman actually had a baby, which she did. This an example of a ridiculous situation that she was in where she stood up saying that it really was just a baby, but now she is defending herself where the school is being racist.

Moustafa Bayoumi probably received many stories with children that faced different types of racism, but when writing this story she made sure that this was the third story because at that point the people who are reading are getting the gist of what she’s doing, but she wants us to know that a fourteen year old girl used all of her socializing and homework time to do do research about something she believes. She wants us to know that having a lot of commitment and belief in something is a good recipe for success and achieving things that you want to get complete. For example Yasmin had a conversation with her father about how she’s investing too much time in the background research in making a case. “Yasmin’ he would say sighing ‘what are you doing?’... ‘Stop wasting time.’” Her father tells her directly that what she is doing is hopeless, but she still continues to do the research and in the end she gets what she wants, but Bayoumi wants us to know that you would really do anything for something you believe in.

Bayoumi is absolutely correct to state that you have to stand up for things that you believe in and she is able to beautifully display that through Yasmin’s story. Also racism is everywhere and when taken care of properly it can lead to successful ending.

Critical Analysis of YA fiction Article

In “Has Young Adult Fiction Become too Dark? By Mary Elizabeth Williams she wants to share that the main idea of  Meghan Cox Gurdon recent article “Darkness too Visible” that stated that young fiction was too grotesque for children to read and that it will harm that child’s mind because of the imagery it will cause, is incorrect and children can actually learn from these books and it can be beneficial for children growth.

In the article she wants us to know that the ideas stated by Meghan Cox Gurdon is incorrect, and doesn’t have much strong and supportive evidence to prove her point because Williams is able to find loopholes that counterclaims Gurdon's work. Williams does this through using sarcastic comments that makes her side of the argument feel like the answer to the main question should some young adult books be banned? One example of this sarcasm in her article is when she uses the imagery of someone pushing up their sleeves because the problem at hand is getting too much pressure while the answer is so obvious. Another example is when Williams uses the expression “ Oh jeez” making us think about when we use that expression in our world and when we use it we aren’t usually happy, we sound kind of exasperated and annoyed tone after you have to describe something more than once for someone to explain. This is how Mary Elizabeth Williams proves her point that people may actually over exaggerating an issue that has such an easy solution in Williams eyes that state: just don’t ban the book.

Although Mary Elizabeth William does create a very strong case for us to believe that banning books is should be frowned upon and not the main thing that the public feels like they need to do when they see a book that portrays a bad image, what she fails to show us a strong opinion that may be shown by someone who works officially in the act of book banning. She has a very strong built main idea and evidence, but if she was able to show what the banners opinion is after reading these articles, and they conclude that they have no control over what happens to a book once it’s placed on the list it would be an interesting perspective to show that could make her argument stronger.