A Critical Analysis To "Why the Best Kids Books Are Written In Blood" By: Sherman Alexie

           I just recently finished reading “Why the Best Kid Books Are Written in Blood” by Sherman Alexie. This article is a response to Meaghan Cox Gurdon’s critical piece “Darkness Too Visable”. In Gurdon’s piece, she explains how young adult books these days are very dark and scary. She explains how Sherman Alexie’s young adult novel “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian” is so dark. Alexie then wrote a piece going against her article. Alexie believes his piece isn’t un-suitable to young adults. I think Sherman Alexie's purpose to writing this article was to show viewers that authors are not writing their books to terrorize readers and disturb them, but in Alexie's case to write about past experiences. I think that Alexie was upset that Gurdon made the assumption that dark fiction is bad and has no meaning, it is just about authors writing on subjects like rape, sex, assault, suicide, etc. Alexie states: "I can't speak for other writers, but I think that I wrote my YA novel as a way of speaking to my younger, irredeemable self." This shows that Alexie wrote this because of his thoughts and beliefs.

            Gurdon argues that “it was all vampires and suicide and self mutilation”. She is very against how dark young adult books can be. Alexie disagrees. Two years ago, Alexie went to “one of the most elite private high schools in the country”. He met a young man that was attending the school, he was telling Alexie of his agony. Alexie thought, “what kind of pain could a millionaire’s child be suffering?” But sure enough, the young man wasn’t agonizing about sexual harassment, suicidal thoughts, but his future. He told Alexie that he wanted to become a writer, but his dad wanted him to be a soldier, just like him. Alexie then thought, “he was seventeen and destined to join the military. Yes, he was old enough to die and kill for his country. And old enough to experience the infinite horrors of war. But according to Meaghan Cox Gurdon, he might be too young to read a YA novel that vividly portrays those very same horrors.” This was very smart of him. If seventeen year olds, in Gurdon’s perspective, shouldn’t be reading books like Alexie’s, then why is it ok for seventeen year olds to put their life on the line and watch people die and suffer from serious injury?

            Another point Gurdon gets across is that these books are bad for children. These young adults will not like these books. According to Sherman Alexie, “I have yet to receive a letter from a child somehow debilitated by the domestic violence, drug abuse, racism, poverty, sexuality, and murder contained in my book.” In other words, while Gurdon is complaining how children do not like these books and they are bad for children, he gets letters and drawings from parents and children that were very impressed and that loved his book. 

           Some people think that somehow these kids will stay away from these books, but actually by banning these books will make them more curious. Kids have to read certain dark books for school or they simply read them because they are in their class or school library. Alexie states "teenagers read millions of books every year. They read for entertainment and education. They read because of school assignments and pop culture fads." Some books may be dark but what are you going to do about it? Kids will get at them anyway. 

           I think what I have consumed from this text is how wrong Gurdon was. I can see how people agree with her. At first, I agreed with what she had to say. Lately, there has been some dark teen fiction that is taking up most of the shelf. But then this article made me say, why are these authors writing such dark novels, why are they spending their time going into detail about certain things? It must be for a reason.