Argument Essay

Argument Essay

“Reading about homicide doesn’t turn a man into a murderer; reading about cheating on exams won’t make a kid break the honor code” (Gurdon 6), says Meghan Cox Gurdon, an anti-young adult fiction woman from “The Wall Street Journal.” Although Gurdon is against young adult fiction, this statement defeats her claim completely, which is young adult fiction is too dark for teens to read because they will negatively influence them. In fact, books with racism, bullying, peer pressure and other social issues that young adults experience should be accessed by teens because they deserve to know what to do and what not to do in their pre-adult ages.

To begin, racism is often seen throughout YA fiction award winning books. For instance, The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, a Bellwether Prize Winner and in the New York Times Bestseller for fiction contains lots of social issues including racism and peer pressure. In this book, Rachel, the main character, is the daughter of a black man and is bullied for looking and “talking” white. One of her peers say, “You think you so cute… I’m fixin' to kick your ass” (Durrow 10). According to Patrick Ness, who represented YA books at BBC Breakfast, teens constantly see these issues and can lose the opportunity to learn to stand up for themselves without the access to YA books (Haq 10). In reality, teens become stressed out when they are threatened because they know there can be worse consequences if they tell a teacher or guardian. With YA fiction, teens can learn what to do and what not to do about this type of issue whether it’s violent or not.

Furthermore, some teens make foolish moves in there lives. In The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, Rachel interacts with friends that do not make the right decisions in life. They influence her to start smoking and drinking alcohol. Teens who read this section of the book will learn what not to do in life. In addition, they will learn the consequences of making foolish decisions in life.  For example, Gurdon uses the book Rage, which has teenager named Missy, is the center of a humiliating sexual prank, to give an example of the violence in YA fiction. Missy could have went calm about the prank but she literally rips herself apart instead. This is an example of what not to do in life that was provided by the author of the book, Matthew Costillo. Young adult fiction is packed with information that can benefit teens in life.

Lastly, there some anti-young adult fiction people that believe that YA fiction needs to be limited to to people of certain ages.  Graham Peter Taylor, for instance, from BBC Breakfast, suggests that books should have age ratings the same way movies do (Haq 5). However, Patrick Ness says, “Teenagers see [darkness] all the time… If it’s got an 18 certificate for adults, then younger children will look it out when their parents are not around… Children are great self censors. They know what they want to read, and if you don’t give it to them, they’ll find it [themselves]” (Haq 12). In fact, this isn't the first time age ratings has been turned down. Haq says Scholastic didn't like violent YA fiction and wanted books to have age limits but almost a thousand authors was against that idea (Haq 8). Anyway, Ness is correct; children can be curious creatures. They will hunt down things that aren’t for them just to see what’s inside and claim it. Although children might not be able to comprehend YA fiction, teens are more capable of hunting down and actually “capturing” YA books and can learn how to deal with social issues that they deal with in life.

              In conclusion, fiction with young adult issues like racism, bullying, peer pressure should not be limited to teenagers because they should know what can happen to them in their pre-adult ages. Instead they should stay the way they are. These books shouldn't be banned just because adults think their kids can't handle them. Teens may rely on books to find the answer to something so they will find their way to a book one way or another. The real question is should young adult fiction be needed by young adults?