Monday, October 21, 2013
Has Young Adult fiction become too dark? by Mary Elizabeth Williams
In the Article "Has young adult fiction become too dark?" By Mary Elizabeth Williams, Williams responds to Meghan Cox Gurdon's take on young adult fiction these days. Gurdon argues that young adult fiction has become too dark for tweens and teens to be reading. While Williams may agree on a few things, overall Williams finds many flaws with Gurdon's piece and still finds a way to add on to the idea.
Gurdon seems to want to get the idea of how horrible young adult fiction has become and says Parents should censor it. In other words, the book should be banned so kids can't read it. Williams argues this is the direction young adults emotions are heading and they need to learn how to deal with it. These books do that while making the reader feel less alone with her/his problems. Also, while parents may not like it very much, this is going to be the great literature of our generation.
I believe that Williams takes Gurdon's topics and ideas, but puts them in a better light. One idea that was brought up multiple times was this idea that this generation's young adult fiction is much. much worse that "great literature" from the 1900's. While i don't totally agree with this thought because i think that our generation's "great literature" could be just as good, only a little darker, I wonder is the story lines will ever change again. Will the next generation's "great literature" be even darker, will it be sillier, or will it go back to our parent's sense of "normal"?
"Darkness isn't the enemy, but ignorance always is." This quote interested me. It's basically says, Teens may need to read this to understand these issues that they'll face in real life. This is why i disagreed with Gurdon's idea that YA has become too dark. I very much like the way Williams states this. This darkness is the way many teens/tweens cope with things. Like not feeling their the only ones that feel the need to cut themselves. Its the way they need to deal, and isn't that what books are for? To get away from our troubles?
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I liked your blog post Maeve, it really went into depth on the topic. One of the things that interested me was the fact that you said that these dark books would be this generations great literature. I thought this was a very interesting take on the subject, because I'd never thought about what kids in a couple decades from know will be reading as "great literature from the twenty first century". This got me wondering, which books will be included in the list? There are many popular books now, but which will stand the test of time? Will the Hunger Games still be as fascinating twenty years from now? Will Harry Potter and Percy Jackson still spark the imagination of children? Which books do you think will be seen as great literature years from now.
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