While I was out of town last week, I received word of three attempts to remove two of my books from high school classrooms, TWISTED and SPEAK.
The challenge I have the least information on is apparently taking place at Downingtown West High School in Downingtown, PA. TWISTED is on the 9th grade summer reading list there. Some parents object to the book because of the description of sexual behavior in it. UPDATE: I just received a note saying the parents in Downingtown and the teacher were able to work through the issues. Yay for the good and reasonable people of Downingtown!
The second TWISTED challenge is taking place this week at Montgomery High School in Mt. Sterling, KY. A parent there feels the book is inappropriate.
Here is a quote from the draft of the letter I am sending to the Mt. Sterling superintendent:
"I suspect the roots of the parental concern about TWISTED are the scenes in which teenagers make stupid, dangerous, and occasionally horrifying decisions.
Because readers who can experience those decisions – by reading about them – and appreciate the consequences of those actions - by seeing those consequences affect the lives of a book’s characters - are less likely to do the stupid, dangerous and occasionally horrifying things themselves.
Jesus knew this. He did not simply reiterate the Ten Commandments, or tell us to love one another and walk back into the desert. He told stories that made His listeners think. They make us think two thousand years later.
Storytelling is the traditional vehicle mankind uses to pass wisdom from one generation to the next. TWISTED contains a lot of bad decisions, hard consequences, and wisdom.
In an addendum to this letter, you will find a listing of the state and national awards TWISTED has received. They were all very flattering, but none of them mean nearly as much to me as the email I get from readers. Here are a few quotes from them.
“I just wanted to say thank you for writing this book. I have been considering killing myself for many years and now i am entering my junior year of high school and about 10 minutes ago finished this book. It has given me a new perspective on life and that death isn’t the easy way out. I can relate to Tyler in many ways… I greatly appreciate this book because now I know that there is hope in my life and that death is not the answer. And one more thing this is the only book I have been able to pick up and not put down from start to finish. I finished it in one day.”
“… I read "Twisted" today. I started around 4, and I couldn't stop, I finished at 9:40. This book, was so eerily similar to my life, not completely, because I haven't done any "Foul Deeds" (haha), and I don't have the same "Bethany" situation, but my father is so much like Tyler's, it sounded like he was based off him. He yells about grades constantly, to the point of making my house unhappy. I've considered suicide before and told no one, just buried it. I know this sounds strange, but I connected to this book in a very strange way. I can't explain it, I just did. I've never sat down and read a book cover to cover, but for some reason, I couldn't stop… But, I mean, this sounds silly, but I just want to thank you for writing that book. I feel different now, I know it may not make perfect sense, but this book changed part of me. So, thank you.”
"...Twisted really got to me. I've had 3 suicide attempts and the way you wrote the way he was feeling, and the hopelessness and complete unhappiness he had to deal with really hit home with me. You really nailed it... After finishing twisted I realized how much of a miracle life is, and how problems are only temporary. I could honestly bore you with a 3 page email explaining to you all I've learned and connected with from your writing. Basically I really appreciate and look up to you and your work."
Those emails, sir, are the reason I write hard, true, literary books for teenagers."
If you are looking to get a head start on observing Banned Books Week, feel free to write to the schools involoved with these challenges. PLEASE, I BEG YOU: be civilized and polite!! Our country is suffering an influenza of rudeness. Calling names and heaping scorn does not further discussions or change attitudes. It just builds the barricades higher.
If you have personal experience with TWISTED, as a reader, a parent, an educator, or a librarian, please share those experiences (in a positive, constructive way) with these people
MONTGOMERY HIGH SCHOOL, MT. STERLING, KY
Tammy Haydon
Review Committee chair
tammy.haydon@montgomery.kyschools.us
Dr. Daniel Freeman
Superintendent of Montgomery County Schools
daniel.freeman@montgomery.kyschool.us
Please also remember to send prayers and support to the teachers forced to deal with these challenges. Being a teacher is one of the most important, and one of the hardest jobs in the world. Having your professional integrity called out by an attempt to ban books in your classroom is a devastating attack. My heart goes out to all of the students, teachers, staff, and community members who are standing up to the attempts of a vocal minority to impose their will and their taste in literature upon an entire school.
In the Good News column, SPEAK has survived a book banning attempt in Temecula, CA. The complaining parent in Temecula said SPEAK was "smutty" and "pornographic." The LA Times newspaper did a great job covering the controversy; it published an article about the background of the challenge, and another one after the school board voted to keep the book in curriculum.
The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression and the National Coalition against Censorship have joined forces to create the Kids' Right to Read Project (KRRP). It is a brilliant, powerful, and much-appreciated collaboration. KRRP wrote to the Temecula Valley Unified School District to protest the attempt to ban SPEAK.
I love the KRRP letter.
I used to get really angry at these things because I felt they were a personal attack on me. Then I grew up.
Now I get angry because book banning is bad for my country. It is an attack on the Constitution and about the core ideals of America. It is the tool of people who want to control and manipulate our children.
Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas wrote in 1953 that the “Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.”
What do you think? What are you doing to prevent book banning?
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Comments
I definitely don't agree with book banning because, as you said so well, we're able to learn from what we read. Whether or not we agree with a character's decisions is beside the point.
I'm a huge fan of your work, and I can honestly say it's affected me a lot as a writer and as a human being. I've learned a lot by reading your books, and I hope that other young teens will have the opportunity to continue to do so.
A couple of weeks ago I spoke to my friend about discussing my previous self-harm with her 14 year old son after he had asked about a scar. When voicing my concerns she replied - "Sometimes there are storms that shake the boat. Is it better to hide in the cabin, wrapped in blankets, or to put on a life-jacket and be told about nautical safety?"
Teenagers are smart enough to deal with these these topics and they are also smart enough to not just blindly emulate the choices made by fictional characters. Books should not be banned, if they are then how are we supposed to begin to experience those things outside of ourselves.
Regarding fighting the book banning, treated those who wish to ban books with respect and asking them to consider the damage banning it would do. Also encouraging kids like this http://boingboing.net/2009/05/24/kid-kee
Scott
"Sometimes there are storms that shake the boat. Is it better to hide in the cabin, wrapped in blankets, or to put on a life-jacket and be told about nautical safety?"
That's brilliant, and I'm sure you were able to speak to your friend's son in a way that made him far more informed and compassionate about the subject than many of his classmates.
About the boingboing post with the kid with a locker full of banned books, though, the replies to it are quite funny and worth checking out, but by posts #125, #144, and #147 it's obvious that the story is just that - a story by a writer.
Response to banning.
Ever.
Go, Laurie!!!
(And, of course, I agree with your comment to Laurie 1000%)
Any form of censorship is a dangerous tightrope to walk. I'm not satisfied with the "everything is ok to say or nothing is" rule, because I think some people abuse it to say disgusting, cruel things while jauntily proclaiming their part in the free speech movement. And I know there will be novelists who abuse that too. I personally wouldn't want to see Wintergirls on the required reading list for any high school. It was amazing (I recently lent it out to my best friend in the hopes that she can connect to one of her friends struggling with bulimia), but it was also bleak and probably the closest thing to horror that you've written so far. So where does that line get drawn? I think the issue is not with your books, but with the whole "slippery slope" argument that allowing a book with rape/suicidal kids will lead to more and more graphic things. But I don't know, didn't a whole group of grade-school kids murder their friend by rolling a huge rock onto his head in Lord of the Flies? Yeah. Good luck.
Was bleak really the only thing you got from Wintergirls? I find it amazing that a story of a girl so lost in her disease and so self-loathing can find hope at the end. Like Melinda in Speak helped me realize that I was strong enough to get through my struggles when I was a teen, I imagine that the heroine in Wintergirls could do the same for many teens, and not just those with eating disorders.
I'm not sure if I would choose Wintergirls for required school reading, but I wouldn't object if I saw it there, and it would absolutely be on my list of recommended school reading. Could Wintergirls lead to girls actually emulating the behavior in the book to further their EDs? Sure, and there have already been articles written about that danger. But those girls would have sought out that information elsewhere, and maybe by reading something like Wintergirls, they can find a way out.
We're just gonna have to agree to disagree on this one.
Aside from To Kill A Mockingbird (also banned some places!) SPEAK is my all time favorite. 8th grade WAS the year I got really, really, depressed. The book was on the shelf in my 8th grade classroom, maybe 12 of them. We never read them as a class officially, but they were there to read all the same. It breaks my heart when this happens. For you, for all the kids like I was (and, am). Like those letters, some havent even read a whole book willingly before until yours came along. Now that I'm in college, I have to say that I relate to WINTERGIRLS. But it also horrified me so much, so wonderfully much, that I just want to eat healthfully. There are benefits and downfalls to every book and lesson, but I think it should be the choice of the reader to determine that. Flip through, read a page or five, read the back.
As for what I do, I wear my Banned Book bracelet, send in my old high school paper or banned books to my local paper, and read.
Jo
It's a shame that a good bulk of your time this week will be spent on this instead of working on your next book. A book that will no doubt enlighten and entertain a majority of your fans (and no doubt anger a few parents)
I imagine that this constant fight has always been going on.
There were probably a few angry parents, back when the only form of entertainment was when the town gathered in front of a big campfire on weekends, who went up to the town elders demanding that one of the storytellers be banned from future campfires, because THEY didn't like his or her story !
Frank Zubek
I disagree with your statement here, Laurie. People who ban books from schools are often well-intentioned people who sincerely want to protect children, not control them. They ban books out of fear, mostly. They need the education and reassurance that information like your letter can provide.
I have found a number of folks who try to ban books are indeed well-intentioned people who love their children and are afraid of the world we live in. I completely sympathize with that position because I share it.
Sadly, I have found that many of these folks have been manipulated by organizations who seek to use the real concern of these parents to further their own political agenda. The people who run these organizations scare me.
Some people who request to have books removed from schools do so for exactly the reason you cite - they are afraid. I have never argued with anyone's right and responsibility as a parent to oversee the kind of material their children are exposed to. I applaud parents who care enough about their children to stay on top of things.
But they lose me when they try to dictate what books should be read by other people's children. Do they get to decide which math problems my child can do? Which wars to focus on in Social Studies? What about the science curriculum?
Public education in American communities is steered by professional educators with oversight by local politicians. Public education has a mandate to reach out to all students, from all kinds of families and diverse backgrounds, needs, and abilities. If one parent in a school district, or a small group of parents is allowed to drive curriculum, that mandate is violated.
Thanks for posting your disagreement. I completely agree with you that what is needed - for all of us, including me - is more education and discussion.
I proudly offer all of your books in my classroom as extracurricular reading. Do my kids take advantage of it?-- no, not generally. We're raising a generation of plugged in and totally tuned out kids (at least at the high school where I teach) but they're available for any kid who wants them. I recommend your books to anyone having trouble adjusting, especially the freshmen.
Keep fihting the good fight, Laurie. And keep writing. "Speak" is powerful and "Wintergirls" is stunning beyond belief. Of all of your books, these are the ones that most resonate with me and I'll continue to re-read them with enjoyment.
My argument for why cussing doesn't particularly phase me is "I went to public school."
I sent the following email to the KY contacts (I only sign off with "Dr." when I'm writing to people I'm mad at):
Dear Ms. Haydon and Mr. Freeman,
With teen depression and suicide a huge societal problem, how can we keep books like Twisted out of the hands of teenagers who might be helped out of their isolation by reading such a book?
Has your life ever been changed by reading a book?
Laurie Halse Anderson is writing life-changing books for teenagers.
You are living in a dream world if you think denying books with real world problems in them are going to help students avoid those real world problems. It's quite the opposite. You deny them tools that would help them find healing.
Sincerely,
Dr. Florence Gardner
Greenville, SC
This was my favorite paragraph out of the KRRP letter and should be repeated at every opportunity:
"The task of selecting school materials properly belongs to professional librarians and educators. Parents may be equipped to make choices for their own children, but, no matter how well-intentioned, they simply are not equipped to make decisions for others. Without questioning the sincerity of the parent who objects to the book, her views are not shared by all, and she has no right to impose those views on others or to demand that the curriculum reflect her personal preferences. Furthermore, the practical effect of acceding to any request to restrict access to materials will be to invite others to demand changes to reflect their beliefs and to leave school officials vulnerable to multiple, possibly conflicting, demands."
"Hank, it doesn't take a deeply critical understanding of literature to understand that Looking For Alaska is arguing against vapid physical interactions, not for them. Now, Hank, some people are going to say that kids don't have the critical sophistication when they're reading to understand that, and I have a message for those people:
Shut up and stop condescending to teenagers. Do you seriously think that teenagers aren't able to think critically? When they read George Orwell's Animal Farm, do they head out to the pig farms to kill all the pigs because they're about to become communist autocrats? When they read Huck Finn, do they think Huck should turn Jim in because the demented conscience of the community says so?"
I just have to say thank you for writing books with darker, weightier subjects. When I was younger, I appreciated those books a lot more than the ones that were "safe" for me to read. It felt like the author was trusting me with something important, and when kids get that feeling they tend to listen to the message more intently, let it stick. They don't go out and copy the characters' behaviors, because they have seen the consequences. They learn from the lives of others, albeit that those others are fictional constructs.
I read banned books. I discuss banned books. And, because I have younger cousins who look up to me as a role model, I recommend books, banned or not, that I think have something important to say. If they want to read the book and have difficulties getting it, I try to make sure that they have access to a copy.
I hope Twisted survives!
One more thing (always!): I am glad you asked people to be polite. I think the most important thing for people on opposing sides of an issue, whether it be this one, or science and religion, or abortion, is to REALLY LISTEN to what other people have to say. In fact, that's what we teach kids when we let them read whatever they want.
Guess you and I were thinking along the same lines. This is a piece I did for School Library Journal's Extra Helpings TODAY. I didn't reach out to you for the piece because I knew you were on vacay last week. I asked the news editor to add a link to your blog post.
Good seeing you at the Brooklyn Book Festival
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/arti
Rocco Staino
Contributing Editor
School Library Journal
Joan Kaywell
In the past two years, the copy I have replaced has been checked out twenty-nine times and renewed seven. The cover is literally falling off. Pages are held precariously together by tape. The pages are yellowed where fingers have held them.
A teen saw it on my desk and already claimed it before it went to our book sale. She said that the book changed her life. That it allowed her to finally speak...and to heal.
What would her life be like if someone's parent had challenged the book and sought to remove it from my library's shelf?
(I'm sad that I don't have a "Twisted" story to share along with this one. I know that story exists in my library. I suspect that I will hear that teen's story in time.)
Secondly, a good number of the students will go on to college where there is no banning of books. They will be exposed to more explicit books than what had previously been banned in high school. By being exposed to books with challenging material prepares them for college.
Thirdly, Books can be so many things, simply an entertainment that brings enjoyment, but most importantly they can act as mirrors of society and self. Sometimes what we see in the mirror isn't pretty but it is better to face that, to come to terms with it, to understand that. And as your letters from readers so eloquently point out seeing these reflections can help them heal.
(I found it interesting that one of the board members of Temecula school board thought it could be painful for victims of rape to read Speak. But I have observed from various discussion boards and letters you have shared Speak has helped open a dialogue, allowed victims understand their own reactions, and in some cases been a solace.)
I read Speak when I was in junior high, and it changed the way I felt about fiction for teenagers, as it did for many of its readers. Now I'm older and no longer in the target age range for the books, but it is clear that Twisted is an important book in the genre, perhaps a vital one, just like Speak is.
Anyone who would want to ban books like Speak or Twisted in order to protect their children obviously does not know enough about them, the way that they think, or their experiences. I am going to make sure that my younger sister reads both of the books (along with your others, which I love just as well). One day, I want my children to read them as well. If my junior high school (or high school) had assigned your books as required reading instead of the ones they did, I'm certain they would have had a lot more interested and engaged students.
Speak is one of my favorite books. Thank you for writing it.
Your passion against book banning and censorship inspired me to write my research report on these topics last year. I would walk away from my research everyday angered by the articles I had read. Now, the posters advertising Banned Books Week in my high school's media center make me smile.
On an unrelated note, the letters from readers of TWISTED brought me back to your panel at the International Reading Association Conference in May. I heard your voice in my head as I was reading them. Thank you for unintentionally bringing back this wonderful memory.
Bridgette
Sister of the Book Shirt
And, you writewritewrite because teacher like me need books like yours if I'm ever to do my job in reaching out to disengaged youth!
Last year the Canadian "Freedom to Read" website listed bannings down through the ages. One of the most ludicrous had to be the County of London when it banned the Peter Rabbit books, saying that the books "only depicted middle-class rabbits." I still laugh over that one. But really? Book-banning is never truly funny. I write about it every year in my library column during "Freedom to Read" week. I think I'll bookmark this post and refer back to it in January when it's time to write another column.
I'm posting a link to this on my Banned Books Week Links post!
And if someone finds Speak's description of rape (or ANY description of rape, especially when it so clearly takes the trauma into account) pornographic (= sexual and arousing), then something is wrong with that person, not with the description.
I am so sorry you are having to defend the value of your books. Your writing is exceptional. In the past few months I've read almost everything you have written. I found a MG at the library that I haven't read yet. Your voice truly connects with teens. My 13 years old class had Twisted and Speak on their English reading list. I look forward to your next book to be published. I hope that my YA turns out half as good as yours.