Young Adult Fiction Argument Essay

       Depression, suicide, self-harm and sex, should your teen be reading about these topics? The genre of young adult fiction has recently been seriously questioned by concerned parents, and even the media, on whether it’s a right fit for the age group it’s aimed for and whether or not the topics are too dark. This genre is aimed for the right age group and shouldn’t be limited.

In the article “Has Young Adult Fiction Become Too Dark” by Mary Elizabeth Williams, it states, “It’s our job as parents to protect our kids… but there’s something almost comical about raising them with tales of big bad wolves and poisoned apples and then deciding that literature is too ‘dark’ for them to handle. Kids are smarter than that.” This statement is completely true. If parents thought these stories were appropriate for young children then why did they cut teenagers off from novels that are appropriate for their age. These books are not only real world topics, but some teens may be going through these issues and these books will help them further understand why they think or feel the way they do. In the same article, Williams asked her teen daughter her opinion on young adult literature being banned. Her daughter said, “Does she get it that they’re not called ‘children’s’ books? They’re ‘young adult.’ Adult.”  So if teens are comfortable with the content in young adult books, why should it be limited to people who want to read it?

Many people believe that it’s the author of these young adult books fault and they should be careful with the content they put in their books. For example Tanith Carey, the author of “The ‘sick-lit’ book aimed at children” article. In the article Carey states, “When you write for children, you have a social and moral responsibility.” Authors should be able to publish what they want. If publishers and editors believed that the content was too mature for the age group, they wouldn’t have listed it under young adult fiction. As well as this, these so called ‘children’, aren't actually children. These books are aimed for ages twelve and up which are teenagers, or in other words young adults. In the end many people may believe that it’s the authors fault for putting these ‘gruesome’ topics in young adult books but it isn’t.

 Maybe these topics seem too scary or inappropriate for teens, in the parent’s and medias mind’s, but they truly aren’t. Even if people think it’s the authors fault for the content of the young adult books but it is not. No book should be held back from anyone, whether you’re a child, teen, or adult. We don't hold young children back from their creepy stories nor adults from their haunting novels, so why target the teens?