Calling a book 'Young Adult' is just a fancy way of saying the book is censored. People used to say they like to read books about romance, true crime, comedy, horror or science fiction. But these days people simply say they like to read 'Young Adult' books. As if that were a topic. But that's the thing: Young Adult is not a topic, it's a level of censorship. Saying 'I like Young Adult books' is just another way of saying 'I like books that have been dumbed down for children. I like books with no big words and no difficult abstract concepts. Nothing that will strain my brain.' People like to brag that they used to start reading at an early age, as if that were a badge of honor, a sign of intelligence. Nobody brags about when they started to watch TV. But books are being dumbed down so much these days, it's really not a sign of great intelligence when you're a grown up and you struggle your way through Green Eggs and Ham.

Islam is not dark but very bright indeed. Islam is not depressing but instead, quite uplifting and inspiring. Islam is not about censoring but instead it is about voluntary submission.

You can control the visibility of my name and my popularity, but you cannot control the frequency at which people are quoting me. Truth always rises with time.

And then they started deleting the protest reviews.That was my line. When they started to stamp out dissent, actually to make it disappear with virtually no excuse for doing so...That’s not neglect. That’s not an overwhelmed person or people trying to figure it out. That’s an entity that has decided that they do not care, that they have moved on from the issue, do not see it as an issue, and is trying to avoid bad press. Or they are too far down the line to backtrack on what they’ve been doing and save face. They’re content with their wildly inconsistent policy enough to no longer care what effect it is having on their user base. If you try to silence dissent, then something is very, very wrong.

Too many adults wish to 'protect' teenagers when they should be stimulating them to read of life as it is lived.

Censoring books that deal with difficult, adolescent issues does not protect anybody. Quite the opposite. It leaves kids in the darkness and makes them vulnerable. Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance. Our children cannot afford to have the truth of the world withheld from them.