Banning books by Aidan Arbona

This week I've read two articles one of which talks about why  people should ban books and the other which is against it. The Darkness is To Visible by Meghan Cox Gurden and Why the best books are written in blood by Sherman Alexi.  Based off of these articles i see no point in banning books as they cannot harm anyone.

A great point that is brought up in Alexi's piece is that how can teens be traumatized if they themselves have already seen worse, while Cox states that images will just harm them more. In my opinion Alexi is correct, In life we try many new things but sometimes you just end up watching some Disney movie. If you watch that movie over and over again then it will no longer excite. It's like that with experiences. After you've gone through something you know what it's like and it won't hurt you anymore. 

Cox also brings up how everything was better before Y.A. books started to hurt everyone. While Alexi says that people like Cox only want to defend the privileged children  from the outside world. I think that What Alexi says is true and what Cox is doing is trying to keep the innocence in teens for longer periods of time. Which is horrible because after the birds leave the nest they'd have no idea how to handle the real world.

Y.A. fiction can't hurt anyone but instead teach them how to survive when they face this wall and if they already have that others have gone through just the same and even if it wasn't a happy ending, at least they know how to cope with the issues. Banned books can't hurt anyone no words, no images, but people. 

People can hurt anyone.

Catch And Release by Aidan Arbona

In the compilation Stories by Neil Gaimon ,Al Sarrantonio, and Others  is a group of creepy, eerie, or downright frightening stories. This one is pretty much all three. Catch and Release is about a man picking up female hitch hikers and then killing and eating them. In the man mind the hitch hiker are fish and some he catches and releases while others ...well you know. So I'm going to tell you what this story does well and does poorly.

Starting off with the pros of this story, a few things I think that the author Lawrence Block performed well on  was the realism. There's  nothing fantasy about this story. The author goes into detail about almost every single aspect of this story. From the car which the protagonist drives to the house an lifestyles of each of the victims. This makes the story just that much scarier. but the thing that makes the detail all too over the top is how the author describes the protagonists heartless feelings while killing his victim. Another thing that makes this story very disgusting is how he compare fishing to murder and cannibalism. Gosh is this story just wrong.

Now the cons. Well to be honest there aren't many being a the story is well executed and very short.  There's one thing that I dislike though about the story. That being why did he have such a generic pattern? I mean that every other person he kill and eats and the lucky one don't get killed or eaten. That for a horror story is a tad bit generic don't you think.

In conclusion this story is seriously screwed up in almost every possible way. The pro obviously outnumber the con making it something to be reckoned with.  So I would rate this story Really, Really, Really, Really, Really good. Of course that rating is for those who are mentally dangerous for the rest of us this would be considered Really, Really,Really messed up.

Little Brother by Aidan Arbona part 1

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow is about a teen named Marcus. Marcus and his friends are hackers and computer wizzes but other than that they are just normal kids. Inevitably in a book some thing must go wrong. This book shows just how democracy really sees teens. This book shows this as none of the adults really take the teen characters seriously, as when they are in peril only a few people fight for their rights and even then it's only a few. This story also shows just how America trusts teens as they try to in prison them and suspect that they are all criminals. Innocent until proven guilty I think not.

In Little Brother adults take teens for granted. In Marcus' school he speaks about how the constitutional rights and his teacher doesn't take much notice of that. Marcus is also treated like a little kid in his school when he's suspended for talking bad about the government. Showing how adults in the story don't care for teen rights.

Also, Little Brother demonstrates how America thinks of its' teens. It doesn't love them in fact it is very suspicious of them. Marcus when he used his train pass to get around the city to give out hardware for their free x-boxes gets searched for no reason other than that. This isn't right as they most likely wouldn't have searched him if he was an adult. Also when there is a concert in a park for teens the government gasses them thinking that they're terrorists. This just shows how America treats its' next generations and how they suspect them of terrorism when they are only trying to enjoy themselves.

In conclusion this book, while taking a very radical look at the subject, shows how tees are suspected of being no good, junkies. Which is completely stereotypical and offensive to them.

A community is democratic only when the humblest and weakest person can enjoy the highest civil, economic, and social rights that the biggest and most powerful possess. This quote (you  can find this quote and many like it on searchquotes.com" by Philip Randall suggests that everyone should have equal rights including teens and children. So please the next time you speak to a teen don't just brush them off, because everyone including teens can strike up a good conversation, and everyone has good ideas to share.