“Gossip Girls” books – too racy for teen readers??
Some parents in Leesburg, Florida are asking the public library to ban certain books in the “Gossip Girls” collection from the Young Adults section at the Leesburg Library.
A couple mothers are especially concerned about 2 of the books in the section frequented by 12 to 18 year olds. “Only in Your Dreams: A Gossip Girl Novel” and “The Bermudez Triangle” are believed to involve racy topics, bad language and drug references. The mothers refer to one chapter entitled “Helmets are almost as important as condoms” to support their argument that the books should not be in the Young Adult section.
The library director believes the books are in the appropriate section and claimed that there is not anything in them that teenagers don’t see on television.
The Library Advisory Board is going to address the issue at the next meeting and make a recommendation.
Do you think teens should be prohibited from reading these books? Is it inappropriate for teens to read a book with references to sex and drugs? Or does this present an opportunity to think about real life issues and start a discussion?
These books are trash! I’m a mother of 4 kids, 3 teens and I don’t even know why someone would write trash like this. These books are NOT literature. We don’t have cable TV and our children do not watch network TV and they are not allowed to “surf” the net unsupervised. Our country has gotten so “watered” down by all this trash and has just decided it’s all acceptable, but’s it not. Do you want to marry someone like these characters and spend your life with them? Do you want your children to get involved or marry someone like there characters? It’s not the teen way of life and our teens don’t live like this. Where have all the morals and values gone? My daughter brought home of these books and said a girl at school gave it to her. My husband did the only approriate thing with the book, he burned it.
Personally, I enjoy these books. I’m still a teen, I think I read them for the first time when I was 15. But the library director said the truth, there is nothing in this book that cannot be found on the television.
In addition to that, now that I am older and I know, half of the things going on in these books the teenagers get up to themselves. I really don’t think that the books have influenced this. It’s now just the teen way of life.