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Novel Prejudice
Come with me on a walk around the library. What are you seein’? A big row of Twilight books, Anne Rice, Catcher in the Rye, The Scarlet Letter, and other socially relevant “classics”. There’s a problem with this though. The Twilight series, judging by maturity level, should not be in a high school library. According to bookwizard.scholastic.com, Twilight is written at a fourth grade reading level. Those classics? How is it that most of them really, and I mean really… Aren’t good?
Let’s take The Great Gatsby for example. Fitzgerald, I almost died reading “the masterpiece of your life”. I think part of the writer in me curled up and died as I suffered through the overly dramatized dialog and fumbling character relationships. Nothing in that book came off as strong, as having any real meaning, except for Tom’s hatred of Gatsby and Gatsby’s love for Daisy. Oh, and maybe Daisy’s love for money, the ultimate love triangle. And the Catcher in the Rye? The best part of that book was when Holden paid a hooker to come up to his room and he, being the scared little runaway he is, just sat and talked to her. In fact, very frantically backpedaled to get her off him. Then he got beat up by her pimp for more money. That was hilarious, and I’m lucky to remember that, since I mostly skimmed through the book around the middle.
It’s sad when someone like me just wants to get a book done and over with.
I digress. It’s time to change the subject from what the library has to what it is sorely lacking.
If you ask me, a high school library should offer some more mature books. I’m not talking sex books, those cheesy wisps of trash passed off as “romance”. I’m talking more about… Allowing in maybe, yes, slightly stronger sex references, not the actual act, and stronger language. After all, to be honest with ourselves, we kids hear worse in the classrooms and lunchrooms on a day to day basis. There’s a space between fantasy and reality, and high schoolers can see the gap. In fact, maybe more kids would read if the stories available to them were better at holding their interests.
Here. I’ll site some examples. The Cal Leandros series by Rob Thurman: Nightlife, Moonshine, Madhouse, Deathwish, Roadkill, and the others to come. They’re about two monster fighting brothers, heavy on adventure, mystery, plot turns, vivid description, and killing, but also a bit heavy on the language and some (obscure and not so obscure, but never overt) sexual references. The relationships between characters are startlingly real and jump off the page and wrap around your heart. Same goes for her Trickster series. They are really good books, and we’re depriving readers by keeping them out of school libraries, because, let’s face it, some people will never actually get to a bookstore to read them. These books don’t get the recognition they deserve.
Those that find those above factors offensive, well, they always have an option to never pick up the book or to put it back down once it crosses the line, don’t they?
School newspaper, again.
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