Read 50 books, it's going to have a different effect.
This is hard to articulate, so I'm hoping that our shared experiences as readers helps you guys understand me. But when you're reading something, even if it's a trashy romance or a Boxcar Children book, you think about things more.
I agree with all of the above, which is partly why I'm a little more worried about it than I would be worried about a movie/video game. I'm not at all for banning books, no matter what, but I am ok with making sure parents can have help censoring what each child reads. Why should movies have age restrictions, and not something that makes you think? Especially if that something focuses on the darkness and hopelessness of what it is presenting as the "human condition?"
Basically, I'd be a bit wary of a kid who spent all of his time watching movies with nothing but murder. But a kid who loved reading murder mysteries? The kid who watched 50 murder-movies in two months, and the kid who read 50 mysteries over the course of about a year? No way is the reader going to become a slavering psychopath.
I'm not worried about creating slavering psychopaths. I'm worried about getting kids through what some think is the worst time of their lives, and to the point where they can become confident young adults. Some restrictions are necessary, and if parents are missing it, I don't mind if someone else makes it a little harder for a struggling teen to read about cutting.
Finally, people read what interests them. It's not like with movies, where you're bored during the summer, there are only a dozen new movies out, 10 of them look awful, and the other 2 are just Micheal Bay-type stuff. There are tons and tons and tons of books, and the special effects for a 19th century novel are the same as today's.
By which I mean, if you have a kid who is really into murder mysteries, or gothic horror, or chick-lit, or whatever, and they're readers, they're going to read about it. And frankly, it's an absurd, parent-panic, that-town-from-Footloose style idea to even think of trying to stop them.
I am not a parent. I am not panicked. I agree that people will try to find what they like, but that is entirely different than being able to pick up an unpleasant book w/o any warning at all. I'm not saying it should go away, but I am saying I wouldn't mind a more obvious rating system.
This WSJ article has kicked up a huge fuss on the internet - YA is "too dark".
- 05/06/2011 03:46:50 PM
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There's only one thing about this literature that disturbs me
- 05/06/2011 05:39:35 PM
1051 Views
This is a thought out, finely articulated response.
- 05/06/2011 06:47:13 PM
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If it were just vampires that would be just fine
- 05/06/2011 08:03:02 PM
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People have been complaining about this since the novel was invented
- 05/06/2011 11:02:58 PM
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Apparently the article did paint far too bleak a picture,
- 06/06/2011 12:39:46 PM
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Why waste time with "YA literature" at all?
- 06/06/2011 02:14:03 PM
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Re: Why waste time with "YA literature" at all?
- 06/06/2011 02:28:42 PM
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I think that's a post factum justification, not a reason.
- 06/06/2011 05:08:09 PM
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Maybe. It's hard to separate, I think.
- 07/06/2011 01:06:29 PM
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One certainly has to choose the real literature to present, certainly.
- 07/06/2011 02:27:00 PM
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Very good post.
- 06/06/2011 08:52:22 PM
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You seem to be the only one who thinks so. 
*NM*
- 07/06/2011 01:17:18 AM
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*NM*
- 07/06/2011 01:17:18 AM
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I don't think it's a bad post... I just think that the "despair" is a teen fad, and not as bad as
- 07/06/2011 03:19:03 AM
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Suicide rates have gone up significantly
- 07/06/2011 02:42:55 PM
737 Views
Heh.
- 08/06/2011 07:24:44 PM
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you are having trouble finding cultural ideas that turned bad?
- 08/06/2011 11:56:23 PM
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The classic problem of the overprotective parent- underestimating your kids
- 09/06/2011 05:33:54 AM
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the classic problem of people who have no idea what they are talking about
- 09/06/2011 04:16:25 PM
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Are you really equating reading about trauma with trauma? They are not the same. *NM*
- 09/06/2011 07:10:34 PM
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I'm sure the percentage of good books must be higher than they make it sound,
- 05/06/2011 05:53:21 PM
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I'd say books offer a fundamentally different experience than movies
- 05/06/2011 06:53:55 PM
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I'm not sure that makes a difference here.
- 06/06/2011 04:47:05 AM
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Because thinking makes you LESS susceptible to these things you're afraid of
- 06/06/2011 05:27:26 PM
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I don't completely agree with that.
- 06/06/2011 07:26:21 PM
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I feel like I just can't relate to parents determined to shelter their kids from everything
- 06/06/2011 10:21:44 PM
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To think the content described is acceptable, when they ban "Huck Finn" for using 'nigger'. 
*NM*
- 05/06/2011 09:45:15 PM
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*NM*
- 05/06/2011 09:45:15 PM
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CNN: "On a website, a person named 'Macharius' used the 'N-word'".
- 06/06/2011 01:58:35 AM
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Parents have the right and resonsibility to know what their children are reading
- 06/06/2011 03:41:22 AM
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Re: Parents have the right and resonsibility to know what their children are reading
- 06/06/2011 12:40:24 PM
946 Views
I'd argue if you're old enough to be interested in the subject matter, you're old enough to read it
- 06/06/2011 05:32:33 PM
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Depends on the subject matter.
- 07/06/2011 01:07:57 PM
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Basically? Yes.
- 07/06/2011 06:42:04 PM
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why do think there is value in letting them read whatever they want?
- 07/06/2011 06:52:20 PM
739 Views
Don't be an idiot.
- 09/06/2011 05:25:26 AM
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Well, I wrote a long piece related to this
- 06/06/2011 05:21:06 AM
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Great post. She really tries to muddy the waters relating to censorship and parenting.
- 06/06/2011 08:05:21 AM
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She kind of conflates some issues that are quite different, if you ask me.
- 06/06/2011 08:47:33 PM
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Wait wait wait wait wait... NYT reviewed Game of Thrones? I must read this
- 07/06/2011 03:20:08 AM
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Having now read one of the books mentioned, Cheryl Rainfield's Scars...
- 08/06/2011 02:18:23 AM
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