Banned Books Week: Friday

Yeah, we got off track, day-wise. But this is the final post in the series, so here goes.

What is probably the locally best-selling young adult novel of the last few years (and selling like hotcakes nationally as well), Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian has had its fair share of book challenges since its debut.

It was actually pulled out of classrooms and libraries in Missouri and Oregon. Alexie, charming as ever, has given a bunch of great quotes in the various articles about his books being challenged (a quick online search will uncover other challenges and other articles). But instead of linking to him talking about book banning, I'm just going to link to him talking about one of the "controversial" scenes in the book. Here's Bookshelves of Doom's "If you don't have a crush on Sherman Alexie after watching this, well, we've got a problem" post with the video. Don't worry, BoD. We always did and always will. But y'all should watch that video regardless. (The audio may be, as the kids say, mildly NSFW- not safe for work. But it's really not particularly shocking.)

-Anna, Kids Books

P.S. Remember my first banned book post about Speak? That school district is now taking the book challenge under consideration. All three of those books are great, by the way. And we carry each one, because books need readers and readers need books. In the end, the best anti-book-banning thing we can do is keep reading whatever we want to, and keep pointing it out when someone tries to prevent people from reading what they want. (And maybe to do what authors often do: if you hear that a book gets banned somewhere, send their local public library a few copies so they can keep it in circulation. Couldn't hurt!)

Banned Books Week: Thursday

Yeah, I know. We're a little off on the days of the week. And Banned Books Week is technically over. But it takes work to run the store and we don't always have time to blog. It is worth highlighting good books, though, so we're keeping this going until the end.

Today's book is by an author who is not just a funny writer of young adult novels, but a great blogger as well. I mentioned Maureen Johnson and her blog a little while ago, and I was even talking about this specific book. But in celebration of good books getting challenged, I'll do it again.

The Bermudez Triangle is a book about three best friends and how their relationship changes when two of the girls start dating each other. It's a sweet story about Figuring Everything Out, and it's had a Staff Favorites card pretty much since it came out. Also, it gets challenged or banned every once in awhile, mostly because there are gay characters. It's actually pretty dang tame for a young adult novel, especially a young adult novel about first love. But that ends up being beside the point.

When Bermudez was pulled from a library in Bartlesville, Oklahoma in 2007, the whole thing got pretty dramatic (librarians lost & quit jobs over it). If you want to get deep into that story, you can follow it on Maureen's blog here (I grabbed the highlights, there's probably much more):

I Am A Very Dangerous Person (April 27, 2007)
Showdown in Bartlesville (May 1, 2007)
Big Bad Bartlesville Update (June 8, 2007)
News Flash: Victory in Bartlesville (Sorta, Kinda) (June 20, 2007)
Totally Righteous (August 14, 2007)

Then again in 2009 it got challenged in Florida, and you can read Ms. Johnson's interview after that with The Kids' Right to Read Project here.

At the Kids Desk we watched the whole thing with a lot of interest, partially because Maureen Johnson made the whole thing funny and entertaining even when it was clearly hard for her to keep talking about it. But also because we try to keep an eye on book challenges, because it seems like bookish people should know when a book is attacked (we feel a disturbance in the Force). And also because it's a great excuse to highlight good books (like this whole blog series is trying to do). So when Bermudez got challenged, we put it on display, and it sold. And we did it again for Banned Books Week, and it sold. And a short time ago when I blogged about it as a used book, that sold. Because the book is good. And funny, and smart (which are my favorite characteristics in both books and people). Yay.

-Anna, Kids Books

Banned Books Week: We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Program

Just because it's Banned Books Week and we're celebrating the right to read doesn't mean there won't be challenges... like this one. That's a link to one of my favorite book blogs, Bookshelves of Doom, talking about a parent in New Hampshire asking her school to remove The Hunger Games from the curriculum. She says it's too scary and violent for middle schoolers, and that her daughter had nightmares while reading it. She also asks (rhetorically) the question "Where is the moral lesson in this book that’s being shown to our children?" Which I would love to have a conversation about, since it's true that the book is violent and scary and also it is undeniably true that it has a chewy moral lesson in the center of all that action. In fact, I would say the moral lessons in the book are less than subtle.

The Hunger Games is great, and it's one of the most popular books for young people out there right now. I loved it. I think every kid I have ever described its plot to has chosen to bring it home. But I have my own reservations about how young is too young to read a book that intense. And so, as a bookseller, here's what I do: I have a long, careful conversation with the parent who's asking. I say what I think about the violence (that it's pretty low-key compared to lots of other books and movies, but that the author doesn't shy away from it either) and the darkness (that the themes are pretty dark but the tone doesn't drag you down, and it focuses a lot on the protagonist's day-to-day survival in the wilderness), and about the writing and the story (it's great, it's smart, it keeps you turning pages, and it's trying to say something really interesting). And then there's that question: should your kid read this? And that's not my question to answer. That's why we have the conversation. Which brings me to a point I think I would've brought up eventually but this particular book challenge just screams.

I would never presume to know what's best for someone else's kid. I mean, I may think "Boy, I think that one's too young, she's probably not gonna like it," but I'm not going to challenge someone's parenting. And teacher's don't want to do that either. That's why, if a book they pick for their curriculum (after lots of careful consideration—they don't just pick them at random) doesn't work for a particular kid, they are ready with a backup plan. That's why they're teachers. Usually with any book that could be a problem for someone, they'll send a note home for parents to look at and sign before they even crack the spines. And even though I love the idea that anyone should be allowed to read anything anytime, I totally get that kids are growing up and parents are trying their best to fashion for them an environment in which to do that safely. It's okay to say, "My kid isn't ready for this book," or "This book doesn't jibe with my family's values," or any number of things. I can't imagine a teacher having a problem with that, either. But it's when that parent goes to the school or library and says, "Because I don't like this book/think it's too mature/like calling things 'filth'/find it offensive, not only should my kid not read it, but I'd like to make that decision for every other parent as well." That's decidedly not fair. I'll say this directly to book banners/challengers: The fact that you want to be able to decide for your own family what is and isn't appropriate media is exactly the reason you shouldn't ban stuff. Other parents also want to decide what works for them and their kids, and often that includes letting their kids explore ideas that might freak you out but that are foundational values for them. When librarians make additions to their collection, when teachers choose a book for the classroom, those decisions are made for a reason. And if you disagree with that reason for yourself or your family, then you have every right to not open the book. But deciding for other people that they or their family shouldn't be able to open it is just plain strange: you thought the decision that the librarian/teacher made was wrong for you. Why would you impose your decision on someone else?

And now, back to our regularly scheduled Banned Books Week festivities.

-Anna, Kids Books

Banned Books Week: Wednesday

Okay, so the last post was all dramatic and stuff. This one's mostly just fun. John Green, the author who's the focus of our department's longest-running author crush (no offense to Sherman, Markus, Scott, Cory, etc. etc. etc.) is a video blogger as well as a young adult author. This gave him a great forum in January of 2008, when his first novel—the fantastic, beloved, and award-winning Looking for Alaska—was challenged at Depew High School in New York. He made the following video, and as he is articulate, funny, smart, and the author, I really have nothing to add. Enjoy.

Banned Books Week: Tuesday

So, speaking of books that we love, the book I'm talking about today is my favorite young adult novel. I don't say that lightly- I put a lot of thought into this. I'm not even a fan of the idea of "favorite" books. But after reading it a few times, it's just indisputable to me. It resonated with me just out of high school, and resonates with me as a slightly older young adult, and I don't think I'll stop loving it in five or ten or twenty years. I still qualify its' favorite status as favorite YA, not favorite book of all time, but the title stands. I think it's the best.

I'm talking about Speak. Laurie Halse Anderson's debut novel is a total masterpiece. A girl enters ninth grade completely stripped of any sense of community and recovering from a trauma, and spends the book observing high school from a distance. She almost never speaks (which made the movie adaptation, which was very good, a tricky proposition). When I first read it, my reaction was almost to look over my shoulder- was this woman sitting behind me in high school? Did we attend the same school freshman year or something?

Recently, I caught a blog post on popular feminist blog Jezebel talking about Speak. "Yay!" was my first reaction, thinking they were just chatting about or reviewing the novel. Turns out the author of the post was Anderson herself, trying to get the word out about a fellow in Missouri who had written an op-ed in his local newspaper, saying that certain books in their local school's curriculum, including Speak, were offensive and ought to be removed. She was clearly upset and hoping to get some support from folks online.

Now, the ALA has a clear definition for what it means for a book to be "challenged" or "banned," and this doesn't meet it. But because I love the book, and because the author asked for people to blog about it, I'm doing that here.

Two things about this are particularly important to me: first, I said yesterday that all you need to be convinced of the value of young adult fiction (especially when it is about difficult, controversial, or scary things) is to hear from its readers. Well, Anderson has a video at the end of her post, of her reading a poem she put together out of lines from her fan letters. It's potent stuff, and brings me to my second point: that trying to protect teens from the dangers of fiction only stops them from reading about the real-life dangers they may have already suffered. Making sure no teen ever reads about rape (which is at the center of Speak) does not mean no teen ever experiences (or encounters the concept of) rape. Just ask your local middle or high school librarian what it feels like to offer a student a book about a subject they've asked for in a whisper. It's worth whatever fight it takes to keep good books available to young people.

-Anna, Kids Books

Banned Books Week: Monday

So it's Banned Books Week again. It's one of my favorite bookstore holidays by far (second only to Women's History Month, when we always tear it up with awesome displays and blog posts). We have a particular fondness for the fight against censorship here in the Kids Department, because books for kids and teens get banned and challenged with a particularly alarming frequency and fervor.

Not everyone is familiar with the fact that books are removed from libraries all across the country every year due to complaints and challenges. I know this because we try to put books on prominent display when we hear they've been challenged somewhere, and customers are often surprised to hear that book-banning is alive and well.

And this year, there's been a shocking number of really fantastic books getting picked on. It doesn't matter if we like a book: if it gets banned somewhere, it deserves support from people passionate about intellectual freedom. As a bookstore, we want to celebrate people's right to read. And it particularly burns when a book you love, a book that you know is spectacular, gets banned or challenged. Especially when it seems like a particularly important book, a book that you know has had an impact on teenagers all over the country. Winning an award won't save a book from being challenged or banned. Knockout writing won't either. And even when a book confronts a difficult topic with the clear intent to help kids and teens deal with that topic in reality, in their own lives, it still gets attacked for even bringing up the subject.

Rape, drug abuse, teen pregnancy, racism, homosexuality. Writing about these topics can be dangerous for young adult authors, even though teens want desperately to read books about exactly those things. Sometimes just for the thrill of it (which is just fine!), but I would say more often than not because they're touched by all of those things and they want to read about other kids like them. All it takes is listening to the authors of books for teens talk about their fan mail to get a feel for how powerful it can be for teens to read books that reflect their lives. And this week, we're going to shine a spotlight on a few really great books that have been challenged or thrown out of libraries and bookstores. Stay tuned.

-Anna, Kids Books

P.S. Can we all agree that banning Fahrenheit 451 is pretty hilarious? Banning a book about book banning always sounds like a punch line to me.