I don’t think it’s censorship to integrate a more descriptive labeling system for YA books. Of course, this will probably mean the books marked as more “mature” YA will become the instant bestsellers. I remember how in middle school we all passed around the Judy Blumes in class just to share the most “salacious” parts. While I can see both sides of the argument here (one says “you’re protecting,” one says “you’re overly sheltering”) think about the repercussions if we taught world history (including American history) in truly graphic detail to middle schoolers. There’s no denying we sanitize the atrocities of the world wars, of slavery, how sexual abuse was once the sexual norm, etc. History is more sanitized (at all levels of education) than literature is. But people rarely complain about that. Adults are routinely “protected” from the worst elements of human history, the true records of our own darkest doings, but I think it’s by tacit agreement that we sustain the myth that being human is essentially a “safe enterprise,” even though the majority of evidence shows otherwise. It would be interesting (and funny) if novels came with “DISCLAIMERS” in the back to let readers (young or old) know the author’s fantasy reality might not synch up with the brute reality her or she experiences. You’d hope most would consider that a given, but maybe there would have been a few less emulation suicides after Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther came out if the publisher had posted a gnarly disclaimer in the back to ruin the “pretty” picture of Romantic suicide. They could have even included some boilerplate ending with a hotline 800 suicide prevention number…oh wait, this was several centuries ago. In the voice of Emily Litella (a reference probably one out of fifty will get): “Nevermind!”