Darkness in young adult novels

 In Sherman Alexie’s “The Best Books are Written in Blood” he discusses how dark and graphic topics are ok to be included in young adult stories. He makes that case that there is no point in hiding dark subject matter, such as rape or murder, from readers who have experienced those topics in their own lives. As Alexie points out, leaving dark topics out of literature does not shield the reader from those topics when they are experiencing them themselves.  Meghan Cox Gurdon has a different viewpoint from Sherman Alexie in her article “Darkness Too Visible”.  She makes the case that young readers do not need to be exposed to dark and graphic subject matter at a young age. One statement that Gurdon made that stuck out to me was, “Entertainment does not merely gratify taste, after all, but creates it.” I find this statement to be very accurate. Teens are very impressionable and develop many of their tastes based on the music, movies, and literature they are exposed to. 

I tend to side more with the viewpoint of Sherman Alexie on this subject. I personally feel that dark and graphic topics occur in real life, so they shouldn’t be hidden from the reader. It should be ok to discuss those topics and point out that they are morally wrong. Literature can be used as a teaching tool to educate readers on the realities of some topics and how to navigate through possible situations. A young reader going through a dark time may be able to resonate with a character in a story and be guided through their real life situation based on how the character handles a similar situation within the story.