Friday, May 16, 2008

Something is wrong here...

So today I had a ton of errands to run which also included a stop at the local Barnes and Noble Bookstore. Considering I haven't been there in about - hmmm... six months and I had no kids with me, I took the time to "get lost" and literally stroll thru every aisle!!!
No, that is not what's wrong. That, was actually amazing, and I will not deny that I was there for over two hours - ah!
What's wrong is that when I got to the "Teen" section, I was completely awestruck at some of the books that lined the shelves.
I noticed a little store marker that said "Lakewood Teens love this book" or something to that effect - it's a way for the store to market popular books. Well, this particular book was titled, Tweaked. I grabbed it up and read on to find out what the big hype was. Come to find out, it's a novel about a drug addict, who begins to take drugs because he thinks he will be able to kick the habit at any time, he eventually turns to meth, - and the good part of the book is (I guess) when he's on a blazing high and ends up somewhere in California apparently about to kick his life - he finally straightens out and gets a second chance.
O.K. at first, it doesn't seem that bad right? I'm sure the idea is to give kids a scare tactic story to really let them see how bad drugs can be - read a book and you can see what happens on the dark side - right?
Well, then I looked up at some of the other books...
Let's see, there was Wicked, Glass, Crank, Wasted, lots of books with Goth looking pictures, some seemed to even have satanic looking markings on them, some even had the words "hate" in their titles.
YES... THIS WAS THE TEEN SECTION!!
There was no A Farwell to Arms, no The Old Man and the Sea, no Great Expectations... you get the idea.
So, was it wrong for me to move the "Lakewood Teens love this book" sign and place it under a different book that wasn't about hate or drugs? - which was a challenge in itself that took almost five minutes.

Call me old fashioned, but I personally think that our teens have enough crap (yes I said crap) to worry about without being tainted even more by "garbo books." They should be afforded good reading material - and not just afforded, but encouraged to read good material!!! Teenagers don't need "adult friends that understand them" - they have friends in school, what they need are "Good Role Models!"

1 comment:

Amber Manuel, Author said...

Woo-Hoo! Right on! You said it, girl!!!