Recently, I read an article that admonished that adults should not read young adult or teen fiction. It was as if to say there was some great sin lurking in the grown up who enjoyed Anne McCaffrey's Dragonrider series or Erin Hunter's Warriors books. Will I go blind? Will it stunt my growth? Will it rot my mind, Uncle Analdus? I like better well-known library science educator Betty Rosenberg's sentiment “Never apologize for your reading tastes.” Like food "de gustibus non disputandum est." I hope I am not blasphemous to suggest that Jesus' logion about what goes into a man's mouth can extend to his eyes.
Why should we not find our lost youth in the pages of a book, as long as we promise to return? I wouldn't recommend staying there, but surely a visit to refresh our memories will do us no harm. I also feel that a steady diet of such material would be harmful, as any excess can be.
So to paraphrase Stephen Hopkins' line from "1776", I've never seen, heard, nor smelled any book so dangerous, it shouldn't be read.
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