In an article at the Wall Street Journal, children’s lit columnist Meghan Cox Gurdon depicts YA fiction of becoming “ever-more-appalling” since the 1960s, transforming into “hall of fun-house mirrors, constantly reflecting back hideously distorted portrayals of what life is.” The article opens with an anecdote about a mother unable to find any titles she deems appropriate for her teenage children at a Barnes and Noble bookstore.

Gurdon accuses publishers and editors as using the shield of censorship as a way to turn a profit from depraved and harmful narratives. Gurdon singles out an editor who wrote that she wished she did not need to remove profanity from YA books to make them palatable to schools.

“I don’t, as a rule, like to do this on young adult books,” the editor grumbled, “I don’t want to compromise on how kids really talk. I don’t want to acknowledge those f—ing gatekeepers.”

By f—ing gatekeepers (the letter-writing editor spelled it out), she meant those who think it’s appropriate to guide what young people read. In the book trade, this is known as “banning.” In the parenting trade, however, we call this “judgment” or “taste.” It is a dereliction of duty not to make distinctions in every other aspect of a young person’s life between more and less desirable options. Yet let a gatekeeper object to a book and the industry pulls up its petticoats and shrieks “censorship!”

The article ends on a strident note:

The book business exists to sell books; parents exist to rear children, and oughtn’t be daunted by cries of censorship. No family is obliged to acquiesce when publishers use the vehicle of fundamental free-expression principles to try to bulldoze coarseness or misery into their children’s lives.