Adult vs. Young Adult

I've always had this very liberal sense of reading, in the sense that my parent's could care less what book I picked up, they had much more important things to worry. I started reading my first adult book at the age of twelve when I first picked up Dan Brown. All the adults were reading him and I couldn't figure out why, so I went out and got The Da Vinci Code and afterwards pretty much read every single one of Dan Brown's books that year. When I was thirteen I picked up Jodi Picoult and fell in love with her writing as well and I couldn't have enough.


Basically, the entire world was my bookshelf since my parent's never monitored anything I read. All I had to do was ask for a specific title and I would get it for Christmas or my birthday or if they were feeling generous. So, when I started to discover people who's parents actually didn't let them read certain books because of language, graphics, or whatever I was a little confused. I mean, didn't parent's want their child to read? Why would they let them read this book but not that? What was wrong with that book?

In the simplest term, I didn't know that there was a difference between Young Adult literature and Adult literature. Before entering high school I was reading Jennifer Weiner, Christine Feehan, Heather Graham, and Jean M. Auel.

So, my question is why is there a difference? I get that some adult books make references to sex and have the whole graphic scene, but eventually kids would read about it.

I don't know, maybe it's because I'm not a mother myself. I am only eighteen, so I'm just naive, but I do know that if my kids would ever start to read I probably would give them free access to read about just whatever they wanted. And it's not because I care, but because while there should be limitations on certain things, limiting access to books is something I don't personally feel should be happening.

I was just wondering, especially for those parent's out there, what your opinion is on adult vs. young adult books? Do you think that parent's should put a censor on certain novels to their kids or let them read whatever they can? And if you believe in the censor, why? Don't you think that better connections would be made with your child if you didn't censor novels?

I want to know opinions on all sides of the case.