Why the Best Kids Books Are Written in Blood – Article Review
In the article, “Why the Best Kids Books are Written in Blood,” the author Sherman Alexie makes the point that even though certain adults protest against books especially related the dark and dangerous ones as bad for young readers, he believes that teenagers identify their cases in those books related to darkness. Like he said, “I think I wrote my YA novel as a way of speaking to my younger, irredeemable self.” There are three main reasons why and those are, kids identify themselves in “inappropriate” books, a book reflects todays society and last, is a way for him to speak to his younger self.
The writer first started his writing with his career and how he goes to schools to deliver speeches. He said that every day he received tons of mails from teen and pre-teens that had read his YA book and loved it. He then states Megan Gurdons point and expresses his thoughts laughing at her condescension and sarcastically questions if her YA novel might somehow affect a teen mother. “Does she believe that a YA novel about murder and rape will somehow shock a teenager whose life has been damaged by murder and rape?”
Furthermore, I on one side believe that if you are not interested in reading a book your style, then you should stop reading it. Anyways, Gurdon stated about that 40 years ago books were more reserved and nowadays, they are spelled out in stomach-clenching detail. In my understanding, although it is good to be informed about the past and its culture, we cannot live in it all the time. At any rate, reading contemporary books showing how the world revolves around us is the best way to do so. It might be about fiction, nonfiction, or science fiction; books reflect current cultures and society in a more of an open way just like it has been over generations.
Despite that, in the article, the author clearly proposes his harsh lifestyle and how he survived. For example, when he was growing