Reading Response to "Darkness Too Visible" by Megan Cox Gurdon

The article, “Darkness Too Visible” by Megan Cox Gurdon informs readers about the conflict of book censorship. The author claims that the themes in young adult literature have evolved to be “dark” and “immersed in ugliness” since the genre was created. Therefore, Gurdon explains the horrors of young adult books.

Firstly, the author used narratives and imagery to make the reader feel a negative bias toward young adult literature. For example, Gurdon summarizes a young adult book by using imagery so as, “The boy has been savagely beaten and left tied up.” The author manipulates the text by picking out the harsh content in attempt to get readers to imagine the book a whole, just on that snippet of information. Gurdon also includes a narrative of Amy Freeman, a mother choosing a young adult book for her daughter stating, “Nothing, not a thing that I could imagine giving my daughter.” However, the voice of the thirteen-year-old daughter, or anyone in that young adult age group was excluded from the article.

Overall, I was on the verge of taking sides with the author’s very convincing article, until I came upon the very last line. “No family is obliged to acquiesce when publishers use the vehicle of fundamental free-expression principles to try and bulldoze coarseness or misery into their children’s lives.” To me, this line offends so many people on different levels. It offends the Constitution, by saying that publishers are using the right of freedom of speech as an excuse to terrorize children’s lives. It offends publishers and writers by saying their intentions are to cause harm to children. I think that if that were true, many people wouldn’t be reading young adult literature right now. Lastly, the line offends children by saying by forcing an opinion that young adult books are bad for us, even though the author didn’t actually have proof of this from children, who are the targeted age group for the books, and are the ones reading them.