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There have been some excellent discussions online lately about student choice in school reading programs and how schools and parents should work together to provide those choices.  I keep a huge variety of books -- both MG and YA titles -- in my 7th grade classroom library.  I give book talks, and every day, I make the teachers' version of hand sales to my student customers, recommending new titles based on the last thing a student read and loved.  Our school library, which has seen a huge increase in circulation in the past few years, operates on much the same philosophy.

Occasionally, the broad range of book choices leads a parent to question a particular title that's in our school library or in my classroom library.  Last year, I decided I'd try to be more proactive about book challenges and choices, so at Open House, I spent some time talking with parents about how we can all work together to make sure the kids have great book choices that meet all of their needs.  I shared this talk on my blog during Banned Books Week, but with school starting again, I thought it might be worth an encore. Here's the book-talk I'll be giving on for parents on Back-to-School night:

Our school librarian does a phenomenal job making sure that there are books of interest to every student in our building.  That’s a lot of students.  A lot of different students.

This middle school serves sixth graders as young as ten years old and eighth graders as old as fifteen.  Five years is a big gap, and those are no ordinary five years.  The difference between ten and fifteen is the difference between Legos and iPods, the difference between trick-or-treating and Homecoming Dances. The difference between child and young adult.

Our kids are not only different ages; they arrive at school with different reading levels, different backgrounds, and different experiences that have shaped their lives in both positive and negative ways. They have different needs when it comes to reading.

The book that is perfect for your wide-eyed sixth grade girl isn’t likely to be a good fit for a fifteen-year-old boy repeating eighth grade.   The book that eighth grader will read and love is probably not one that would be right for your sixth grader right now.  But as teachers and librarians, we have a responsibility to serve all of the kids who come to us. We have a responsibility to offer literature choices that speak to all of them and meet all of their diverse needs.

Kids, in general, do a fantastic job self-selecting books, and when they find they’ve picked up something they’re not ready for, they’re usually quick to put it down and ask for help choosing something else. As teachers and librarians, we’ll offer recommendations and steer kids toward books that are age-appropriate, and we encourage you to talk about books with your kids. We have multiple copies of many titles in our library.  Let us know if you’d like to check out two copies of a book so you can read together.  And if you find that your student has chosen a book that you think might not be the right book for him or her right now, talk about that, too. 

We respect your right to help your own child choose reading material, and we ask that you respect the rights of other parents to do the same.  If you object to your child reading a particular book, send it back to the library, and we’ll help your student find another selection.  We’ll put the first book back on the shelf because even though you don’t feel it’s the right book for your child right now, it may be the perfect book for someone else’s.

Our library will continue to have a wide range of choices for kids – to meet all of their varied needs and help them all develop a love of reading.  If we can ever be of help to you in recommending titles for your family, please don’t hesitate to ask.

There’s been yet another attempt to ban Maureen Johnson’s The Bermudez Triangle. They claim the book is salacious, racy, rude, and saucy. This is flat out not true. Banning Bermudez for sexual content is utterly absurd because there is no sexual content in The Bermudez Triangle.

These banners either have a) the worst comprehension skills on the planet or b) they’re lying about why they want to ban the book.

I suspect b) though it could be both. I think the reason they really want to ban Bermudez is that in it two girls fall in love. The most these two girls do is hold hands and kiss. If they were a boy and a girl no book banner would go after The Bermudez Triangle. It would not be a blip on their radar. The same is true of many YA books with gay or lesbian protags. It doesn’t matter how clean those books are. Homophobic bookbanners still go after them.

More insidious though is the fact that many libraries in more conservative parts of the country don’t order books like The Bermudez Triangle or David Levithan’s Boy Meets Boy in the first place. They’re not banned because they never make it into the library. Given the shrinking budgets libraries are facing all over the country I get why librarians would want to spend the little money they have on books that won’t set off the local bookbanners.

But it’s a huge shame. I’ve seen some of the letters Maureen and David get from teen readers of their books. Readers thanking them for showing them that they’re not alone, giving them the courage to come out, for making their lives more tolerable.

Those letters are moving and beautiful and explain why our jobs as YA writers can be so much more than writing entertaining stories.

There’s a wonderful article over at School Library Journal by Debra Lau Whelan, which says in public what many YA writers talk about amongst themselves all the time. Namely how pervasive censorship is in our field and not just in the obvious book-challenge way:

Self-censorship. It’s a dirty secret that no one in the profession wants to talk about or admit practicing. Yet everyone knows some librarians bypass good books—those with literary merit or that fill a need in their collections. The reasons range from a book’s sexual content and gay themes to its language and violence—and it happens in more public and K–12 libraries than you think.

Self-censorship happens all along the way as a YA book wends its way into print. It starts with the author thinking long and hard about content that might set of censors. The article quotes David Levithan who

says he intentionally wrote Boy Meets Boy as clean as possible so that if the book were ever challenged, the only logical reason would be because it features “happy gay characters in love.”

Then there’s our editors asking us to change content for various reasons such as the hope that the book will then be picked up by the Scholastic book club. I was asked not to use any swear words in Magic or Madness, which I did, not realising that “shit” is considered by some in the US to be a very bad swear word. To this Australian it’s pretty much invisible. I was asked to take it out, which I did, but crankily.¹ Scholastic did not pick up the book and after that my editors were less fussed about the occasional use of the word “shit”.²

I have heard of writers being asked by editors whether certain characters really need to be gay/black/foul-mouthed/religious. As well as many other editorial changes I consider to be outside an editor’s remit. The good news is that in all those cases the writer stood by what they thought was right for their books and their editors were fine with it. Ah, the power of STET.

Then there’s national chains deciding to not take on a book. Mostly they do this for purely commercial considerations: because previous books by that author have not sold well. But I have heard of instances where books are not ordered by the chains because of “content”.³ Books can be killed stone-cold dead that way.

Then there’s the librarians not ordering the books for fear of parental complaints. As Lau Whelan points out that fear is real:

There have been enough cases of librarians losing their jobs or facing the threat of losing employment while defending the freedom to read that ALA has created the LeRoy C. Merritt Humanitarian Fund to help pay for fees and expenses associated with these First Amendment clashes, says Deborah Caldwell-Stone, deputy director of ALA’s Office of Intellectual Freedom. Although information about these grants is confidential, dozens have been awarded since the fund was created in 1970.

During this time of severe budget cuts and job losses, media specialists are choosing their battles carefully. “Each librarian has had to reflect on his or her own situation to determine if they can afford to speak up for their beliefs,” says Vicki Palmquist, cofounder of the Children’s Literature Network, an organization that connects authors, educators, publishers, and others in the world of kid lit. “They may be sole income earners, parents, [or someone] dependent on medical insurance.”

Several friends have had their books banned. In none of those cases did it lead to increased sales of the books. As they helped the local librarians to battle the challenge to their books they dealt with a tonne of hate mail and in one case death threats. It’s stressful and awful and goes on and on and on. And it’s even worse for the librarian who’s fighting the good fight because they live in that community. They are seeing the people who want to ban that particular book almost every day. Talk about stress. Not to mention that, yes, sometimes they lose their jobs over it.

I have said many times that you can write about whatever you want to write about in YA. That’s absolutely true. But there are consequences. Writing a book where teenagers really talk the way so many of them talk, where they have sex, take drugs, fall in love with someone who’s the same sex as them etc. etc. means that it will be labelled as a 14+ book. I’ve even seen 15+ used as a label in the US. That label means that several of the big discount/supermarket chains probably won’t stock it. Not unless it gets made into a movie. It also means there are many school libraries that won’t order it. You’re reducing your books chances of success by including “content”.

The shame of it is that most teenagers and children are really good at deciding what to read. If a book is too much for them the vast majority simply put it down. Also, like John Green, I believe that many teenagers can totally cope with content their parents may think is too much for them. I’ve seen it again and again. That kids who attend a school whose library will not shelve Looking for Alaska or Tyrell because of “content” are happily letting their kids read King Lear.

I met many teens on tour last year who loved Octavian Nothing. I met two rabid Margo Lanagan fans. Both are writers adults routinely dismiss as being too much for teens. I think something that gets frequently lost in all these debates about what YA books should or shouldn’t be about is that teens aren’t all exactly the same. Just like adults, really. No YA book works for every single teen. Nor should it.

I have had many teens write and thank me for the very content that adults have objected to. I’m sorry that I’ve offended those adults but I’m thrilled that my books have been important to those teens. They’re who I write for.

1. And not very successfully: the word appears four times in Magic or Madness. Three times in reference to the actual substance. As in bat shit and dog shit. And then Jay Tee says that Reason doesn’t know “jack about shit”.
2. And despite one negative review of the trilogy by an adult which claimed the books are full of swearing, “shit” remains the strongest swear word in the series. It’s used three times in Magic Lessons and ten times in Magic’s Child. Not exactly a swear fest. Especially as many of those occurrences are referring to the actual substance as produced by bats.
3. Don’t you find that hilarious? “Content” being used to mean stuff that might shock some people? It leads to bizarre sentences where people praise books for having no content. Er, excuse me?

Really? We have to go through this again? And in my own state, my own Northern Virginia even. I’m so disappointed. Yes, And Tango Makes Three is in the center of another challenge, as reported in the Washington Post. Man, let’s give those poor penguins some peace. I love this book, and I’ll contend now and forever that it’s not harmful to children. It’s. Not. Harmful. Even if you’re worried

Just wanted to add my voice to the zillions declaring that John Green is not a pornographer. Well, at least, not the John Green who wrote Looking for Alaska. There may be another one somewhere who is. I can not speak for all John Greens.

Maureen says it best:

In case you have never read Looking for Alaska, I’ll tell you what happens in the scene that likely caused the drama. Pudge, the main character, has one of his first sexual experiences in the book—and it does not go well, largely because neither he nor the girl he has with really have any idea what they are doing. It is a funny scene which shows just how awkward some of these moments in life can be. But it does have some sexual interaction in it, albeit of a very poor quality. It has human body parts.

Having discussed this scene many times with John, I know he finds these complaints to be ridiculous. Because that scene in Looking for Alaska? It’s pretty much the opposite of pornographic. It’s fumbling and embarrassing and hilarious. It’s not cool. It’s not slick. You don’t read it and think, “I want to do something JUST LIKE THAT.”

John Green tells the whole story—the book is being taught to eleventh graders who need a signed permission letter from their parents and it’s the parent of a ninth graders who’s trying to stop John’s book being taught at all—and defends himself most excellently and wittily here. If you want to help here’s what you can do:

There are many supporters of the book among teachers, administrators, librarians, and the school board in Depew.¹ To help them, I’m asking people to email letters of support for the book at sparksflyup–at–gmail.com.

Also, if you live in Depew, the book will be discussed at the Depew Board of Education meeting on February 5th at the Depew High School Auditorium at 7 PM.

I’m writing one right now.

1. Where the book is being challenged.

I don't usually weigh in on the various kidlit book challenges that crop up around the country, if only because I feel that Leila Roy at bookshelves of doom has that subject covered. But sometimes a challenge of a particularly silly stripe will catch my eye. Now we've always known that if Maurice Sendak was put on God's green earth to fulfill one purpose and one purpose alone, it was to drive finicky adults bezerk. So perhaps it is not too too odd that someone would go about attempting a ban on 1992's I Saw Esau. Is it merely offensive? No, my darling, it is downright "porn". So sayeth a parent who, as Ms. Roy points out, "It sounds like the parent didn't go to the school with her complaint, but straight to the press." What a sweetheart. I'm especially amused that the woman's daughter had a great time with it before her mother intervened.

And look!
Pictures with post-it notes! Joy!