Nonfiction Reading Response to The Sick-lit Books Aimed at Children

     Tanith Carey's "The Sick-lit Books Aimed at Children," published by Mail Online, discusses young adult fictions best selling books with morbid plots not suitable for children who will soon follow after the dark themes in the books. She mentions many names of popular books read by young people with plots full of death, self-harming, rape, and suicide. She then goes on to kids who have taken on the bad issues in books rather than learning from them. One example, a girl who every time she read Red Tears would reach for a blade after wanting to cut even more. She talks about how young people are when they read these books. She concludes by saying if parents talk to their kids about the issues in books its OK. But they definitely shouldn't read them alone.

     To get her point across Tanith Carey uses a lot of craft moves. She uses the term sick-lit instead of young adult literature to stress how awful the topics in the books are. She includes words like distasteful and morbid. She addresses the counterclaim with a quote for an author Phil Earle saying books help kids feel like their not alone and give them a sense of hope. But Carey quickly shoots that down by saying that their are other ways to teach kids about harsh issues. She also always says 11 year old or 12 year old to show how young the kids really are.

     Personally, I don't agree with the article at all. Having read some of the books she mentioned, I know that they teach teens rather than scaring and encouraging them do then same thing as in the books. The Fault In Our Stars by John Green was one of the books she talked about. This book taught me a lot about accepting death and coping with huge changes in our lives. I know that many other teens love it too. Or it wouldn't be on the teens best-seller list for a half of a year. One line that stood out to me was, "The blurbs for the 'teen sick-lit' trip over themselves to promise their books will drive readers to tear or leave then devastated."She used so many harsh and dramatic terms to get her point across.

Sinking Ships

     Sometimes I feel like I’m the only person in the world going through something rough. But then I realize there are so many people going through the same thing as me. In John Green’s Paper Towns Q, the protagonist, is a senior who has loved Margo his whole life. When she runs away, she leaves clues and as he finds her he realizes she’s not the girl he thought the loved. John Green uses the characters rough times as teens and compares them to sinking ships. This is important because it taught me about being able to understand others through the hardships we face as humans. 

In the beginning of Q and Margo’s friendship, Q doesn’t seem to know the true Margo. Only “ideas” of her like her beauty. It’s like looking at a window shade but never seeing inside. Nothing truly bad or exciting has ever happened to him. He is like a new, watertight ship. As they grow up and Margo runs away, Q begins to see the real Margo. Complicated things start happening in their lives. Q gets bullied and Margo gets cheated on. So like a sinking ships they being to get cracks every time something hurts them.

When Q finally finds Margo they completely understand each other. There’s so many cracks in their ships that they just fall apart. In other words, they’ve made so many mistakes, had so many issues, that they can relate to one another. Because as John Green puts it, “we see out of ourselves through our cracks and into others through theirs.” Even though their problems were different they could still understand how the other person felt.

In second grade my friends hamster died. She was traumatized. Of course I comforted her but in my head I was just thinking, “it’s just a stupid hamster,” and “can’t she just get over it?” But then in sixth grade I had to give my bunny away I felt the same way. Even though it was a completely different situation. Then I began to feel bad for the way I had treated my friend. It was only until something similar happened to me that I could then relate to her. 

What I’m really trying to say is we feel bad for people, as humans, because we have been through the same things as them. Or at least something similar. I think John Green did a great job using the ships as a metaphor for life and the relationships we have during it. As a teen, this book helped me realize it’s important to try and understand why a person is acting a certain way. Because chances are you have or will go through the same things their dealing with.