Non-Fiction Critical Analysis on Sherman Alexie's "Why the best children's books are written in blood."

The article, “Why the best kid’s books are written in blood,” by Sherman Alexie, is about how YA books enormously help young readers to get through troubling times in their lives. To prove this point, Alexie includes aspects from multiple other writers and students, such as Meghan Cox Gurdon and students from High Schools that Alexie spoke as a guest at. Gurdon says in her article how modern YA novels are corrupting our youth and are giving them “bad ideas.” She says that the novels just put bad ideas in kid’s heads and give them dark and menacing thoughts.

Sherman Alexie wants readers to understand him. He wants them to know why he writes what he writes, and why others do it too. To show readers this, Alexie describes how, in his youth, he was constantly fighting his “monsters” – the problems and issues that faced him in life. He recalls that the only place that he felt “safe,” was in his books, and that the books gave him weapons – “in the form of words and phrases – to fight his monsters. He says that the reasons he writes now is to pass those weapons on to today’s youth.

Alexie’s article made me feel inspired – inspired to write or to help others. Sherman Alexie’s writing and explanations left me wondering why anyone could ever think modern YA to be bad. Even though on the outside they appear dark, sinister novels, their only goal is to make sure other kids don’t make the same mistakes that the authors made in their childhood. “I write in blood because I remember what it felt like to bleed.” – Sherman Alexie