YA Fiction Article Critical Analysis

          In the article "Why the Best Kids Books Are Written in Blood", by Sherman Alexie, he explains how so-called "dark" books help suffering teens, and how he himself suffered when he was a child. Sherman Alexie uses examples of teens he has met that have already suffered the hardships of life, showing they're not as innocent as adults think they are. He speaks of one girl he met who, after becoming pregnant as a teenager, almost dropped out of high school but continued on. He also writes about a 17-year old teen he met, who was in an Ivy League school, but was forced to join the military by his father instead of following his dream to be a writer. Mr. Alexie uses these examples to show that normal teens experience the horrors and hardships of life, even those who would seem to be problem-free and innocent. He implies this to the reader to show that adults shouldn't shield teens from dark books and what the real world is like, since all will find out, and some already have.
          Sherman Alexie hopes to persuade the readers to see that "dark" YA books help suffering teens, or those who have suffered already. He achieves this by citing a ceremony where he was a speaker, and were dozens of teens who had experienced the hardships of life and had been inspired by his book were. This shows that these books help and inspired these suffering teens, instead of, as Meghan Cox Gurdon says in her article, taking away their innocence and hurting them. He also uses the idea that he can relate to suffering teens so readers will be more convinced, since he knows first-hand how suffering feels at a young age, and if books would have helped him. He achieves this by citing the ways that people tried to protect him from horrible things that he was already experiencing when he was just a young boy, a theme his book is focused on. He uses the quote "Wow, you are way, way too late" to show how trying to shield teens from horrible things is useless, since many experience them firsthand. Instead, he says, reading his book would definitely have helped him to relate to somebody else. He is trying to form a connection with the reader, and have the reader feel empathy and sympathy through these points.
          I completely agree with Sherman Alexie that instead of trying to protect teens' usually non-existant so-called "innocence" from the hardships of life, we should offer support in the form of books and characters that can help these suffering teens get through what they're dealing with by being able to relate to characters going through the same things. Using his personal experiences, and those of teens he'd met really convinced me that many teens go through horrible things at a young age, and that trying to protect them is useless. Although I think some very dark YA books may frighten some kids that are more innocent than others, and who have experienced and witnessed less horrible things, in my opinion YA books do more good than harm, and help teens more than they hurt them.