Darkness Too Visible response Susan Lester 809

              The article, “Darkness Too Visible,” by Megan Cox Gurdan talks about how young adult books these days are extremely dark and can be very disturbing. The author also mention’s that many of the books are extremely inappropriate and not ok for young teens or even older teens. Overall she is trying to get us to realize that we (as in teens) should not be reading those types of disturbing books.

            In this article Megan Cox Gurdon, uses a lot of craft moves and learning techniques. For example she uses a lot of loaded words such as “redneck bigots” and “unusually profane”, to describe the authors and books in this banned book list. She also uses imagery in this article. For example the article says, “The boy has been savagely beaten and left tied up with a gas pump nozzle shoved down his throat, and he may not live.” This quote gives a great deal of imagery talking about some of the risky books that should be banned. Another quote that has a lot of imagery in it is, “Young Jack is drugged, abducted and nearly raped by a male captor. After escaping, he encounters a curious pair of glasses that transport him into an alternate world of almost unimaginable gore and cruelty.” This also shows a lot of imagery. The author supported her opinion with backing up her statements with a bunch of books that are extremely disturbing and makes you feel that teenagers shouldn’t read those books.

            Although the author of this article makes a lot of good points, I feel that anyone should be aloud to read what they want to read. Also some of these books talk about people going through some really difficult situations, and maybe you can relate to that. For example if you are gay and you feel that no one really understands what your going through, there may be a book that can help you get through it because the character in the book is going through the same thing. Even though I feel that you should be able to read what you want to read, Megan Cox Gurdan made a lot of good points. Some of these books like, “The Marbury Lens,” is extremely inappropriate and probably wouldn’t help anybody with their problems, but maybe instead make them even more worried and scared. A lot of books the author mentioned in this article are extremely disturbing, and I have never heard of any of these books. The books really stood out to me because I didn’t know that someone could be going through something so horrible, or be making up a character that goes through that kind of stuff. This article definitely made me realize how disturbing some books are. It changed my perspective on books.