The Light and Dark of Lit

I was totally confused by the outrage I read expressed last week at the Wall Street Journal article on young adult literature. So much anger expressed toward the author. You would think these people were influenced by the all the darkness in teen fiction.

But this is what I took away from the article: "The book business exists to sell books; parents exist to rear children, and oughtn't be daunted by cries of censorship."

I am not a parent. I was one, but I traded my children a long time ago to a witch who lived in the woods for the power to give David Caruso his comeback. I admit it was a stupid thing, but man, I really thought he deserved another chance. Ironically, I've never seen even one episode of CSI Miami. Is it any good?

I am not a parent. That's not my job. But the librarian's job, my job, is to support the freedom to read.

So my job is not to be a parent. My job is to buy quality books. And if not quality books, popular books that may or may not be of any great quality.

Librarians are continually stating that it's the parents' responsibility to monitor what their children read. But how can parents make these judgments if they get criticized for making these critical decisions? Even the recent NPR article criticizes parents who keep kids from reading what they want, "Banning is banning, not guidance, and if the suggestion is that that's the parenting role, it has to be done ... regretfully, I think. Even for parents acting with regard to their own kids, the act of one human being actually preventing another human being from reading a book is a grave decision." Even though the next sentence says, "Obviously, not everything is appropriate for every audience..."

So if something isn't appropriate, how is the parent supposed to direct the teen toward something else without seeming like a monster?

But this isn't my battle. I still feel that this is an area for parents only. I would never criticize a parent for judging a YA book as inappropriate for her child. It is only my job to find books which ARE appropriate for my patrons.

But for these parents who want to keep their kids from reading literature that's too dark, maybe they can find a way to do it while avoiding any of the intellectual freedom "black list" terms:
Don't say you won't let your teen read the book because it has too many vampires, zombies or werewolves; say it's not vegan friendly.

My job is to help people find something to read. And if your library has teen reading lists for "dark" books but can't offer a parent a similar list for books that don't dwell in the darkness, then I'd say you need to work on that part of your job because there's one patron your library isn't helping.