Just a Very Good Essay

First, there was a very bad essay written in the Wall Street Journal about Young Adult Lit being "too dark" these days, which proves that the Wall Street Journal should probably just steer clear of writing about literature.

In response, Sherman Alexie wrote a defense of exactly this type of literature that the writer for WSJ so loathes and Alexie himself writes very well. It is one of the best essays in defense of a genre of literature I have ever read. Here's a taste:

"So when I read Meghan Cox Gurdon’s complaints about the “depravity” and “hideously distorted portrayals” of contemporary young adult literature, I laughed at her condescension.

"Does Ms. Gurdon honestly believe that a sexually explicit YA novel might somehow traumatize 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? Does she believe a dystopian novel will frighten a kid who already lives in hell?"

"When some cultural critics fret about the “ever-more-appalling” YA books, they aren’t trying to protect African-American teens forced to walk through metal detectors on their way into school. Or Mexican-American teens enduring the culturally schizophrenic life of being American citizens and the children of illegal immigrants. Or Native American teens growing up on Third World reservations. Or poor white kids trying to survive the meth-hazed trailer parks. They aren’t trying to protect the poor from poverty. Or victims from rapists.

No, they are simply trying to protect their privileged notions of what literature is and should be. They are trying to protect privileged children."

In other words: Go back to eating cake and leave the rest of us alone.