Is Teen Fiction Too Dark?

A few days ago I read the article, Darkness Too Visible, by Wall Street Journal book reviewer Meghan Cox Gurdon and was astounded to learn a few things.

When I read it, I learned that Meghan Cox Gurdon is an alarmist. She reacts to things and responds emotionally rather than logically. Her instinct was to scream OH MY GOD THE BOOKS ARE DESTROYING OUR CHILDRENS MINDS instead of investigating the books she was writing about.

She attacks one particular book, Scars by Cheryl Rainfield, for being a trigger that encourages kids to self harm because they will think it’s “cool”. This is absurd. In response, several authors hit the internet with a cry of defense, #yasaves, to reply with the reality of these books. Authors and fans talked about the lives that these kinds of books can save.

Jackie Morse Kessler pointed out that the scars on the cover of Cheryl Rainfield’s book are the authors. These kinds of books do not glorify self harm but talk about it in real world language that helps kids deal with issues they and their schoolmates deal with.

Meghan Cox Gurdon and WSJ claim her article was to warn parents so they can be aware of what their children are reading. This is an important lesson for parents. You should know what your kids are reading, you should have a book club with them and let them choose the books. You should know what goes on in their lives. She also claims that sometimes parents have to shelter their kids from the scary side of life. This is absurd.

Teens know about life. I’m in my 20’s and when I was a teen, I whole heartedly knew about drugs, sex, self harm, suicide, rape and more. The fact is that teens deal with this on a daily basis in school and instead of protecting children from the scary world, all Meghan Cox Gurdon did was sound the alarm against one of the only friends a child who self harms, has an eating dissorder, was raped or molested or what ever has. It’s tough to deal with this stuff and most parents are clueless. Even the parents who aren’t clueless are hard to talk to. With books, kids don’t have to admit to anybody their own demons and are given a chance to learn from the pain of others, others who have come out on the other side alive.

When I was in highschool I had three friends who killed themselves. I had several friends who did drugs and one who had been raped as a child. Life is hell, for teens. I would have loved to have had a former drug addict, a rape survivor and people who suffered with depression but were able to find a way out of it to talk to. It would have been an amazing help and I would have been a better student because I would have been happier.

Let’s face it folks, we live in a world where people use foul language and face intense problems. Even if your child isn’t self harming I bet you they know someone who does. Even if they’ve never had an eating disorder, they’ve known someone who has and even if they’ve never contemplated suicide they will at some point in their lives.