Of course, parents, you will make your own decisions about what children read at home. However at A-S we are very mindful that YA or Young Adult is a publishing term that refers to books targeted at ages 12 and up. These books usually contain mature themes that boys need a certain amount of life experience to comprehend fully. They also tend to feature violence or sexuality that would be inappropriate, occasionally even disturbing, for younger boys. For this these reasons we restrict access to YA materials to the Upper School and, starting in the winter semester, the Sixth Grade. If you choose to buy YA books for your son, we ask that he read them at home and not bring them to school. We work very hard to be a community of readers at A-S and we frequently talk about what we are reading. Naturally boys want to read what their friends are reading and when a few boys bring in books with mature content that their friends are not allowed to borrow, it seriously weakens our reading community and our ability to help each other find great books.