Non Fiction- "Why the Best Kids Books are Written in Blood" by Sherman Alexie

          This week, I read and annotated "Why the Best Kids Books are Written in Blood", by Sherman Alexie. The article is a response to Meaghan Cox Gurdon's, "Darkness Too Visible". The whole entire article pretty much is focused on contradicting Gurdon. He also wants to make the readers see how ridiculous Gurdon was being and feel and really know just how hard some young adults lives are.How does he do this? He proves his points by using stories of children hes met throughout his years of being an author, and even using his own personal information. Hes trying to prove that there's no point in trying to stop Young Adults from reading "dark" fiction, when many of them have gone through the things in the stories themselves. And that fiction does not expose teens to profanity but actually helps YA's. In a paragraph talking about Gurdon, he says "Does she [Gurdon] believe that a YA novel about murder and rape will frighten a kid who already lives in hell?" This sentence pretty much sums up the point he is trying to prove. Then in order to show the audience just how "dark" his and hundreds of other kids lives are he discusses his childhood. "They wanted to protect me from sex when i had already been raped. They wanted to protect me form evil though a future serial killer had already abused me. They wanted me to profess my love for god without considering that i was the child and grandchild of men and women who'd been sexually and physically abused by generations of clergy." That detail really spoke to me because it shows me that he went through a whole lot when he was kid, things similar to what children are going through now, and he really knows what he's talking about. However Gurdon does not. She doesnt include a single quote from a YA at all, and definitely not one that is a victim of abuse. He even says that he wishes he could've read Laurie Halse Anderson's "Speak" when he was a young adult. This shows that after being through hell, he thinks YA fiction would actually help him get through. Alexie even puts us in his shoes, and says that if they tried taking YA fiction away when he was a kid hed just say "Wow, you are way, way too late." When he puts us in his perspective like that its pretty much the same as quoting a YA. He did this so we could see how stupid and unbeneficial taking away YA ficiton would be. In the beginning of the article he says hed spoken to students that had "survived depression, attempted suicide, gang warfare, sexual and physical abuse, absentee parents poverty, racism and learning disabilities," He tells us about all these different things that kids have been through to again, point out how horrible things are for some kids. He also includes a story about a 17 old id he met that wanted to be a writer, but his father was forcing to be a soldier. He discussed how "Yes, he was old enough to die and kill for his country. And experience the infinite horros of war. But according to Ms. Gurdon, he was too young to read a YA novel that vividly portrays those very same horrors." This is yet again just another story that proves his point. He completely contradicts Gurdon by using this story. And once again, he puts you into the kids shoes. "I don't want to be like my father, I want to be like myself. Like in your book." That practically just says that YA books help readers. Not only victimized ones (the 17 year old had never been abused) but also ones facing problems like this. After this quote Alexie also talks about other teens. He says, "There are millions of teens who read because they are sad and lonely and enraged. They read because they live in an often terrible world. They read because they belive, despite the callow protestations of certain adults, that books- especially the dark and dangerous- will save them." He included that part of the article because it pretty much sums up the whole entire point of the article. Showing us all these upsetting and "dark" details about some YA's lives, and then leaving us, with his point. Which is that YA saves kids, and taking that away would be completely pointless.