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Researchers: Books on Difficult, Adult Topics Make Kids Better Readers

Explore how controversial books banned in US schools spark crucial discussions and foster empathy, aiding students' academic and emotional growth.
on Mar 20, 2024

A nonprofit organization has identified over 1,500 books that American schools have banned from their libraries and classrooms in 2022-2023.

PEN America is a free-speech activist organization established in New York City. According to the company, this is a 33% increase over the previous year. The American Library Association (ALA) reports that there were more attempts to prohibit books from schools last year than ever before.

Moms for Liberty is a parental rights organization established in Florida. The organization has backed campaigns to ban specific books from school libraries across the country. Tiffany Justice, the group's co-founder, told the television network NewsNation last year that many books in school libraries are inappropriate and detrimental to children and teenagers.

"Public school children — K through 12 — do not have unfettered access to the internet at school, or movies, or music," the Supreme Court ruled. "But somehow these books with these horribly explicit, graphic content are finding their way onto bookshelves in public schools all over America."

Gay Ivey is a professor of literacy at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. She and her University of Albany study partner, Peter Johnston, investigated pupils' incentive to read. They also investigated how pupils respond to reading young adult fiction. Ivey stated that school boards and policymakers do not agree on the goal of reading in school.

Ivey and Johnston discovered that reading texts deemed "disturbing" by students was good to their academic and emotional development. According to the two, parents saw a growth in their children after reading the scary novels.

One of Ivey and Johnston's research involved their spending a year in an eastern town's middle school. They asked eighth-grade pupils in an English class to select any book they wished to read.

The teenagers read the books during class. They were not under any pressure from their professors to finish the book or complete any assignments related to it. The researchers later interviewed 71 of the students about their experiences reading the novels they chose. They also chatted with their parents and teachers.

Many students choose to read works about difficult topics like melancholy, suicide, illegal drug use, and sexual exploitation. Some of the novels chosen by kids were ones that had been banned in schools across the country. These books included Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why, Ellen Hopkins' Identical, and Patricia McCormick's Sold.

Ivey told VOA that pupils are drawn to literature that address difficult topics. She said that reading about imaginary people made them more compassionate rather than harming them. Ivey stated that they were also more careful about the characters' motivations and behaviors. The researchers discovered that reading made kids happier and helped them recover from melancholy or depression.

The difficulty of the texts encouraged kids to discuss the themes with teachers, parents, and friends.

The study's students read works "that kind of throw you off-kilter and make you want to talk to somebody else," according to Ivey. "The social interaction around it was really important, including talking to parents and teachers."

The topics discussed in the novels may make both children and adults uncomfortable. However, Ivey and Johnston "came to realize that what really matters is the meaning that the children make out of the books, not the meanings that adults make." Which are frequently extremely off base."

According to Ivey, reading literature about tough and problematic topics engages kids as readers and learners. Students can relate to people making difficult decisions and imagine how they might react to a situation depicted in the book.

Ivey and Johnston interviewed one teacher, who stated that literature about drugs, sex, and other issues made it easier to discuss these topics in class. Discussions about literature "made it a safe way to kind of get into these things," the teacher explained.

According to the experts, reading distressing novels increased pupils' likelihood of learning together.

With troublesome readings, it is often "really necessary to grab everybody around you, put all heads around it, and teach each other," Ivey said. "More and different kinds of learning happens in those situations."