Read on the web

I read a lot but I don’t just read books. I read a lot of great stuff from my fellow bloggers, tweeps, and my fabulous Facebook friends. I’m going to pass it along to you in digest form. Here’s what you need to know this week from the interwebs:

• I’ve talked about NaNoWriMo, but have you heard of PiBoIdMo? It stands for Picture Book Idea Month. Nine-year-old Erik, from This Kid Reviews Books, wrote a guest post for PiBoIdMo describing what he learned from the challenge about the work that goes into creating a picture book. I highly suggest you check out his guest post AND his blog. That kid has a bright future ahead of him!
• Any avid reader would appreciate the Bookfessions tumblr page.
• Not library related, but this post on The Single’s Guide to Happiness was interesting. She’s inspired me to start going to the movies by myself.
• I’m always interested in banned books. This awesome infographic shows the top ten challenged books of 2010 and the reasons why they were challenged.
• Some of my favorite YA authors have been passing around a pair a pajama jeans, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants-style. They call it the Twitterhood of the Butt-Lifting Pajants. You can follow them on Facebook.
• A school board member took one of the standardized tests given to students in his district and didn’t do well. I’ve always said someone should do this. The discussion of what this means was fascinating and looked at it from a different angle than I would have thought, and I was impressed.
• If you are a Harry Potter fan, you should read this list of 50 things we learned from Harry Potter.
• The guys at Unshelved (a library web comic) took on Beauty Queens by Libba Bray for their Unshelved Book Club (in comic form)

So that’s what I’ve found this week around the internets. Happy Sunday!

Quotetastic Friday

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume

 

Happy Banned Books Week, everyone!

It’s Banned Books Week!

Celebrate by going out and reading something scandalous. Feed your mind with knowledge, no matter how controversial. The celebration runs from September 24- October 1, but I hope you all celebrate year round!

I believe many of the books in my 52 book challenge would be challenged or banned based on the content, especially in a school library. But every book added something to my life that I’m glad to have experienced. I want the same for the my students: the ability to read what they want to read, regardless of whether not the material makes someone else uncomfortable.

This year, I’m proud to say that I have read six of the ten most challenged books of last year. How many have you read? Which banned books are your favorite? Which banned book will you read to celebrate this week?

The Most Challenged Books of 2010

(from http://www.bannedbooksweek.org):

And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
Reasons: homosexuality, religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
Reasons: offensive language, racism, religious viewpoint, sex education, sexually explicit, violence, unsuited to age group

Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
Reasons: insensitivity, offensive language, racism, sexually explicit

Crank, by Ellen Hopkins
Reasons: drugs, offensive language, racism, sexually explicit

The Hunger Games (series), by Suzanne Collins
Reasons: sexaully explicit, violence, unsuited to age group

Lush, by Natasha Friend
Reasons: drugs, sexually explicit, offensive language, unsuited to age group

What My Mother Doesn’t Know, by Sonya Sones
Reasons: sexism, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich
Reasons: drugs, inaccurate, offensive language, political viewpoint, religious viewpoint

Revolutionary Voices edited by Amy Sonnie
Reasons: homosexuality, sexually explicit

Twilight (series), by Stephanie Meyer
Reasons: sexually explicit, religious viewpoint, violence, unsuited to age group

More Book-Banning Buzz

It's like Diary of a Wimpy Kid for high schoolers.

The most recent book in the news for banning is The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (#7 in my 2010 50 Book Challenge). Apparently public schools in the state of Washington have pulled the book from the ninth-grade reading list because of gratuitous language and descriptions of sex. Meghan Cox Gurdon (whose angry article I discussed in this post) cited The Absolutely True Diary as being a book with a “hideous distorted portrayal of what life is.” To all of them I say: Bull. Shit.

First of all, none of the members for the Richland school district that banned the book had even read it. Yes, this is a book that paints a pretty grim picture of life. But, HELLO, we’re talking about kids living on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Life there is pretty grim. There’s poverty, racism, alcoholism, death, and bad language all over the place. Anyone who doesn’t believe this is reality on many Indian reservations is kidding themselves. Not to mention that the story is semi-autobiographical. Let’s ask Alexie what life really is, hmm Ms. Gurdon?

The only thing that would make this a difficult book for me to read with ninth grade students would be the one or two mentions of masturbation. But I think I would get over that and teach the book anyway because of the message in the story and the way that it’s told. Alexie has captured the voice of a fourteen-year-old boy incredibly well (thus the mentions of masturbation and profanity — any of us that have met fourteen-year-old boys know this is realistic!). Alexie’s main character, Junior, is funny. He draws pictures, Wimpy Kid-style, in his journal. Kids are pulled in with the humor of the story in order to see the bigger messages in the novel. It is a great story for introducing a study of Native American Reservations, poverty, racism, and trying to overcome all of these.

Unfortunately, we cannot censor reality as easily as we can censor books. And the painful parts of reality cannot be changed unless people are aware that there is even a problem. Banning The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian only sends us backward into believing that the issues on our Native American Reservations don’t exist. So I offer up another virtual fist-bump to Sherman Alexie for telling his story and to all the teachers, librarians, parents, and students who not only read the story but pass it along and/or share it with others. I leave you with a drawing from the book, where Junior describes the difference between his two alter-egos:

Is YA Lit Too Dark?

Mrs. Gurdon would demand these books be removed from my shelves.

The issue of book banning is one that infuriates me. Let’s hope I make that very clear in everything that I ever write or say. I passionately advocate for intellectual freedom every day of my life. In my recent evaluation with my principal, I pulled our most objectionable books off the shelf and explained to her why I selected them and why they circulate. I’m lucky that I have a very supportive principal, because she understood that I selected those books carefully and that I am prepared to defend all of my books if I am ever challenged (yay for my MTA Committee!).

I’m bringing this up because I recently read an opinion piece from the Wall Street Journal, Darkness Too Visible, that has upset the blogging and YA community by claiming that YA lit is too dark. I was offended on many levels. For one thing, who says YA lit has become too dark lately? YA lit has always been dark. Hell, literature in general has always been dark. The trend today may be bullying, drug use, and sexual abuse, but literature has seen countless terrible murders, suicides, vampires, monsters, and other dark subjects for years. Even the bullying, drug use, and sexual abuse aren’t really new. One just has to look at The Outsiders  and The Chocolate War  to see that these themes are a constant in YA lit — probably because they are a constant in real life!

For every dark book, we have a lighter book. Kids love these ones, too!

However, I think the author of the article, Meghan Cox Gurdon, was also focused on a very small section of YA lit. It’s not all dark. For every dark book on my shelf there are probably two or three light, fluffy books. Look above Twilight and you’ll find The Babysitters Club. Look next to the Ellen Hopkins books and you’ll find The Clique. The point here is that people have choices. Teenagers have choices. Let’s give them some credit for knowing what they want to read and what they can handle. I think people that don’t spend a lot of time around this age group forget how mature they actually can be.

What I think made me the maddest of all (is maddest even a word? I’m that mad!) is that Mrs. Gurdon attacked the literary and library world’s stance on book banning:

“In the book trade, this is known as “banning.” In the parenting trade, however, we call this “judgment” or “taste.” It is a dereliction of duty not to make distinctions in every other aspect of a young person’s life between more and less desirable options. Yet let a gatekeeper object to a book and the industry pulls up its petticoats and shrieks “censorship!” “

Oh snap! No she didn’t! What she is forgetting is that an institution banning a book is very, very different from a parent teaching their child good judgement and taste. When an institution bans a book, no one gets to read it. Even if they want to. If you don’t want to read a book and you don’t want your child to read it…don’t. Period. No one is forcing you to read every book in the bookstore or library. Put the book back on the shelf (gently, please) and look for something else. Personal judgement is your business, but demanding words be removed from a text or a text removed from a shelf is censorship.

As a librarian, I fully support a parent’s decision to have their child not read a book. Kids need boundaries. If a parent questions a book in my library, I have been taught to say, “I’m glad to see that you are taking an active interest in what your child is reading!” Parental involvement is a good thing. I wish more parents even paid attention to what their kids are reading, studying, browsing, learning, and doing. I just don’t like the misguided assumption that all people feel and believe what any one single person believes. Because we don’t.

If you are interested in what teens, authors, and other lit folks have to say about this topic, you can check out #yasaves, the hashtag created in response to Mrs. Gurdon’s article on Twitter (it’s created a big buzz across the YA lit universe). I am going to celebrate my angst with this article by going back to my latest read, Hate List by Jennifer Brown. So there.