“Age Ratings” Argument Essay           

Lulu Tenney 807

Has someone ever told you that you can’t do something that you love? That’s what adults are doing by putting age ratings on books.  Adults are putting age ratings on Young Adult books, but they don’t realize by doing this, that they are taking away teenagers’ freedom, responsibility, and independence. I think that there shouldn’t be age ratings for books because students have the maturity to read what they wish, and their rights as human beings shouldn’t be taken away from them.

 Young Adult, or “YA” books save teens because it shows them that they aren’t alone, and that other people, or characters relate with what they are going through. There was a popular hashtag on twitter called #YAsaves, where teens would tweet heartfelt responses to how YA saved them in their darkest moments. Teen blogger Emma says, “good literature rips open all the private parts of us- the parts that people have deemed too dark, inappropriate, grotesque, or abnormal for teens to be feeling- and then they stitch it back together again before we can realize that they aren’t talking about us.” This shows that these books are portraying what these teens are going through so well, that teens feel like the books are talking about their own situations. In the article, “Has young adult fiction become too dark?” by Mary Elizabeth Williams, she says, “That’s why it matters; why, in the name of protecting teens, we can’t shut them off from the outlet of experiencing difficult events and feelings in the relative safety and profound comfort of literature. Darkness isn’t the enemy. But ignorance always is.”  YA is a comfort for these young readers and without them, they would be completely shut off from the sad truths of life. Adults have the right to read whatever books or movies they want, so why don’t young adults?

Teens read YA because teens need to know about what happens in the real world, and YA teaches them that. Teens don’t mind the darkness of the world or of YA books because as author of dark YA literature, Patrick Ness, says, “teens are dark.” “All you have to do is read what teens write themselves, and I’ve judged competitions for teens writing and its darkness is beyond anything I could come up with.” Teens already know about these dark truths of life, and they need to know about it in the real world and when they are grown up, so why not let YA fiction, something that they enjoy, teach them about it?

On the other hand, parents think that teens shouldn’t have access to YA books, but teens actually have access to many worse things. Patrick Ness says, “teens look at the internet, they look at the news, they look at violent movies on the internet, and they look at pornography on the internet. So if children’s literature is not addressing that, if it’s addressing the world as it should be rather than as it is, then why would a teen read you?” Teens also see and hear about sad things that happen in their day-to-day lives, so hearing about them in books isn’t any different. Teens are smart- they can find something that they want easily, and Patrick Ness says, “if it’s got an 18 certificate for adults, then younger children will look it out when their parents are not around… Children are great self-censors. They know what they can read and they know what they want to read, and if you don’t give it to them, they’ll find it somehow.” They are responsible enough to know for themselves which books are too mature for them, so if teens want a book, why can’t they get it?

Although this is a very controversial topic with good points on each side, I strongly believe that adults should give children the responsibility that they deserve and that there shouldn’t be age ratings for books. I think that adults should stop trying to promote age ratings, and start with age ratings for internet content, because right now I think that that is the bigger issue.