When I was younger, I took a trip to my local public library's young adult section to find my next interesting read. I picked up a book titled “Meant to Be,” written by Julie Halpern. It was a more underground novel I had never heard of before, but it was actually quite a good read. The one thing that stood out to me the most about this novel was the extremity of mature topics involved. There was everything from alcohol to sex. The topics weren't just talked about in this book, but rather they went into very vivid detail for a young adult novel.

That was really my first time experiencing an inappropriate book in my library's young adult section. Maybe I was just getting old enough to understand that they were bad, but after reading that book, I started finding more and more young adult novels dealing with these dark topics. Back in June of 2011, Wall Street Journal critic, Meghan Cox Gurdon wrote an editorial piece titled “Darkness Too Visible.” This piece discussed her views on the topic of whether or notcertain books are appropriate to be in the young adult section. She expresses things like, “Profanity that would get a song or movie branded with a parental warning is, in young-adult novels, so commonplace that most reviewers do not even remark upon it.” After reading her editorial, I agreed with most of the things she said. I feel like most of the books that are marked as young adult are far too mature to be in that category. Gurdon talked about who she believes is at fault for this, my opinion on the matter is that it is ultimately up to the parents. I think that these books should be marked as adult rather than young adult, that way if parents are okay with their child reading them, they can simply find them in the adult section.

One of the reasons I personally believe younger children shouldn’t be able to have easy access to these books is because parents don’t always monitor reading. Most kids aren't the most enthusiastic about reading, so parents will take whatever they can get and not look into what the specific book is about. They're just focused on the fact that their child is reading a book. The other side of this is that parents a lot of times automatically assume that what their child is reading is appropriate, because why would the child have easy access to lurid novels not meant for their age level?

These types of books tend to have graphic details of violence at times. Books like “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins are world renowned, and everyone should give it a read at some point in their life simply because it's an outstanding novel. In her piece titled “What we Hunger for,” Roxane Gay speaks about how her love of The Hunger Games, and the strength of the character Katniss helped “save” her from her own life struggles. The problem is that The Hunger Games is very graphically violent with killing, hunting, and high suspense. Young children's minds aren't mature enough yet to handle reading something of that level. After reading the book, the kids get scared. They fear that the fictionality of this book is true, because they aren't old enough yet to fully grasp that it is merely fiction. Once they're scared, it starts to affect their sleep every night. They have trouble falling and staying asleep from nightmares. This isn't just a problem for The Hunger Games, but rather for lots of violent young adult novels out there. The child simply sees an interesting looking book in their section, so they decide to read it having no clue the impact it could have on them.

After Gurdon came out with her original piece on young adult novels, many other authors wrote in response to her. One of them being by the New York Times best-selling author, Sherman Alexie. Alexie wrote an op-ed in response to Gurdon, 5 days after the original piece in 2011. Titled “Why the Best Kids Books are Written in Blood” he flat out disagreed with her in nearly every way. One of the main things he discussed, was that these books are purposely written this way to give kids a “guide.” He goes on about why we are trying to censor these things from kids when they already experience such terrible things in their life. He says “... I wonder why those saviors tried to warn me about the crimes that were already being committed against me.” He tells his readers that kids these days deal with such heavy things like drugs, rape, alcohol, and abuse. He infers that there is no point in trying to hide books with these topics because kids already deal with it. Instead, they should be writing these books so kids can read that there's other people going through similar things as them.

The problem with Alexies's concept is that not every kid in the world is going through such trauma. Even though Alexie went through it as a kid, it doesn’t mean that every other kid in the world is too. There is a reason the adult section exists in the book world, it's to hold the books with more mature and adult content. Books like Meant to Be, as I mentioned in the beginning, are more mature than normal books for young adults. Ultimately, I believe that it is up to the parent to decide what their child can and can't read. The only problem is that, as I mentioned before, parents don’t always monitor their kids like they should. So, kids end up reading books that corrupt their mind and strip them of their childhood. There's a reason different sections were made for different ages. If not, then kids would have a free for all of whatever book they want to read. If that were the case, children would purposely choose the most inappropriate book because naturally kids gravitate towards adult things. Kids want more than anything to be older than they are.

Often, immature books tend to glamorize some of the content. The show “Euphoria” started airing on HBO Max in 2019. Since the show's first season came out, teenagers everywhere started watching it and quickly came to love this drama series. The show deals with lots of nudity, drugs, addiction, alcohol, and abuse. Pretty much any topic you could think of that is deemed inappropriate is in this show. It centers around high school kids doing these corrupt things and at some point, in the show, even kids as young as twelve are dealing with this. The show glamorizes the positive effects of drugs and sex, leaving out some of the bad parts. If a younger child watched this show, they would be under the impression that this is all normal high school behavior. Though it's not a book, Euphoria demonstrates how bad things can be glamorized in novels when kids read them at too young of an age. Just like watching it on the television, reading about adult topics can do just as much damage. Why is it perfectly normal for young teenagers to read about sex, yet it would be an abomination, and far too inappropriate for them to watch it? Even Gurdon spoke on the matter in her first editorial, “...books focusing on pathologies help normalize them.” In simpler terms, she is saying that by reading more inappropriate things, the more normal it will become.

According to Dr. Sandra Aamodt in an NPR interview titled “Brain Maturity Extends Well Beyond Teen Years” from 2011, “…brain scans show clearly that the brain is not fully finished developing until about age 25.” With this being said, if you are under the age of 25, your brain is still physically developing and morphing into what it's been “raised” on. The younger you are, the more malleable your brain is. Though a 24-year old's brain is still able to change, it won't change as easily as a young teenager's brain will. Kids' brains easily take new information in and morph their morals into what they learn at a young age. If we are feeding their brains with crass, inappropriate, and adult behavior; that is exactly what they are going to believe is morally right. Rather than giving children easy access to reading about bad behavior, why don’t we feed their minds with wholesome content? When they read about these mature topics before they're ready, they get stripped of their childhood. The best part about being a child is having no worries and living a care-free life. By giving kids the ability to read lurid things, they start to develop anxiety and trust issues. In their minds, if these people in the books they read are going through so much trauma, what's to stop them from going through trauma in their future? It gives them a bad view on the gift of life.

In the end, I do believe that it is the parents' decision. The parent is the only one who truly knows their own child. Though, I do fear the parents that don’t care enough to protect their children, and there are certain actions that can be taken by others to help prevent corruption in the minds of our newest generation. Giving young teens easy access to these dark and lurid novels is simply just not good for their growth, development, and mental health.