This month’s “are middle grade and YA books terrible for readers???” article is currently flying around Twitter. This time, it’s not a thinkpiece about the decline of literature, thank god, but a piece in the UK Times about a British headteacher who has banned books like Artemis Fowl, Eragon, Percy Jackson and Alex Rider from the school library, because they are “so simplistic, brutal or banal” that they’re not worth reading.

I hate, hate, hate the idea the idea that kids should only read “q...