| “Literature is not safe. Nor should it be. It is what unsettles us, what allows us to explore things we are afraid to talk about, and it allows us to share dangerous ideas in a safe way." Joan Bertin, Director of the National Coalition Against Censorship |
This thoughtful post is produced by Jeffrey Kaplan, an Associate Professor Emeritus at the College of Education & Human Performance at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida.
Recently, as Joan Bertin noted in her keynote, Scholastic recalled Ramin Ganeshram’s A Birthday Cake for George Washington (Scholastic, 2016) (illustrated by Vanessa Brantley-Newton), a children’s picture book with a seemingly innocuous title because it featured illustrations of Hercules, a chef and slave owned by America’s first president, smiling as he prepares a desert for Washington; backlash ensued, though, for portraying slaves as subservient, docile, and complacent.
Incensed at this recall, Bertin remarked,
“No one is saying you should teach a book that isn’t…very good…The problem is once [it’s been published]…pulling it is an extreme act. I’m hesitant to use the word the burning word, but it disappears a book. How do you confront all the issues that people have in their life without feeling a little unsafe?”
So true. Controversial reads have figured a long as the printed work has existed. I had a professor who once remarked that the two single most important inventions were 1) the printing press and 2) indoor plumbing. Safe to say, the world is a far better place for the invention of both.
Incensed at this recall, Bertin remarked,
“No one is saying you should teach a book that isn’t…very good…The problem is once [it’s been published]…pulling it is an extreme act. I’m hesitant to use the word the burning word, but it disappears a book. How do you confront all the issues that people have in their life without feeling a little unsafe?”
So true. Controversial reads have figured a long as the printed work has existed. I had a professor who once remarked that the two single most important inventions were 1) the printing press and 2) indoor plumbing. Safe to say, the world is a far better place for the invention of both.
Joan Bertin On April 16, 2016, Bank Street College of Education, New York City, sponsored a seminar entitled “Who Are You to Say? Children’s Literature and the Censorship Conversation,” a dialogue with experts on today’s controversial and challenged books for children and young adults. Featured was Joan Bertin, Director of the National Coalition Against Censorship and a fierce advocate for bringing good books – controversial or otherwise – into the hands of young people.
The Bank Street College seminar on censorship featured a number of controversial reads for children and young adults that I would like to bring to your attention. Of particular note were the following books –
It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies: Growing Up, Sex and Sexual Health_ (Candlewick, 2014) by Robie H. Harris and illustrated by Michael Emberley, a children’s illustrated picture book which not surprisingly has become one of most banned books of the past two decades. Acclaimed for its frank and honest explanations of bodies, families and sexuality; this cleverly designed, densely packed read is meant to teach children 10 and older about sexual health, emotional health and relationships.
Complete with full-color comically drawn pictures of naked people, this frank and informative read comes fact-checked by medical experts and remains updated. With millions sold, this eye-opening read provides current information about puberty, pregnancy, AIDS, birth control laws, sexual orientation, internet safety, and sexting.
Yet, even in this day and age of changing morays and everything you can imagine on cable and the Internet, this good work brings significant challenges for both teachers and librarians.
"I was warned by several people not to do this book - that it would ruin my career," author Harris said in her remarks at Bank Street. "But I really didn't care. To me it wasn't controversial. It's what every child has a right to know."
It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies: Growing Up, Sex and Sexual Health_ (Candlewick, 2014) by Robie H. Harris and illustrated by Michael Emberley, a children’s illustrated picture book which not surprisingly has become one of most banned books of the past two decades. Acclaimed for its frank and honest explanations of bodies, families and sexuality; this cleverly designed, densely packed read is meant to teach children 10 and older about sexual health, emotional health and relationships.
Complete with full-color comically drawn pictures of naked people, this frank and informative read comes fact-checked by medical experts and remains updated. With millions sold, this eye-opening read provides current information about puberty, pregnancy, AIDS, birth control laws, sexual orientation, internet safety, and sexting.
Yet, even in this day and age of changing morays and everything you can imagine on cable and the Internet, this good work brings significant challenges for both teachers and librarians.
"I was warned by several people not to do this book - that it would ruin my career," author Harris said in her remarks at Bank Street. "But I really didn't care. To me it wasn't controversial. It's what every child has a right to know."
Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out by Susan Kuklin (Candlewick, 2015) is a moving journalistic account of the struggles of six transgender or gender-neutral teens. Photographs and candid comments augment the compelling narratives of each these adolescent awakenings.
No stranger to controversial topics – Kuklin’s two previous reads included No Choirboy (Henry Holt, 2008), about adolescents on death row, and What I Do Now (iUniverse, 2001) about teenage pregnancy – this latest journalistic endeavor has found displeasure from those who feel the topic is unsuitable for classroom discussion and unsupervised reads.
Naturally, Kuklin disagrees. Her motivation for writing Beyond Magenta stems from her awareness that “kids are getting hurt, some getting murdered, and no one has a voice.” For her publisher, Candlewick, as they mentioned at the Bank Street conference, the book proposal was a no-brainer; a groundbreaking concept that has proven its worth in sales and distinction.
No stranger to controversial topics – Kuklin’s two previous reads included No Choirboy (Henry Holt, 2008), about adolescents on death row, and What I Do Now (iUniverse, 2001) about teenage pregnancy – this latest journalistic endeavor has found displeasure from those who feel the topic is unsuitable for classroom discussion and unsupervised reads.
Naturally, Kuklin disagrees. Her motivation for writing Beyond Magenta stems from her awareness that “kids are getting hurt, some getting murdered, and no one has a voice.” For her publisher, Candlewick, as they mentioned at the Bank Street conference, the book proposal was a no-brainer; a groundbreaking concept that has proven its worth in sales and distinction.
Tyrell (Scholastic, 2006), Kendra (Push, 2008) and Bronxwood (Push 2011), all by Coe Booth, are three complementary reads about being young, Black, poor and living in the Bronx. Combining the raw rhythms of street lingo with the harsh realities of inner city urban life, Booth’s protagonists struggle to escape the circles of poverty, the lure of sexual temptations, and the easy money of drug dealing. Fast-paced plots, strong language – (most notably, the n-word is used frequently) – and well-developed characters take readers on a journey through a life all too-familiar for many inner city kids.
Booth says, though, that her books are frequently – what is often called – soft censored. Often, she finds her novels not on the young adult literature shelf, but in the back of the library, reserved for adults seeking ‘street’ or ‘urban’ literature.
“Sometimes,” Booth remarks, “my book is displayed in a glass case during Black History Month….where it can’t be removed.”
Booth says, though, that her books are frequently – what is often called – soft censored. Often, she finds her novels not on the young adult literature shelf, but in the back of the library, reserved for adults seeking ‘street’ or ‘urban’ literature.
“Sometimes,” Booth remarks, “my book is displayed in a glass case during Black History Month….where it can’t be removed.”
Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass by Meg Medina (Candlewick, 2013) tells of a Latina teen who is targeted by a bully at her new school. A sensitive read about a young girl facing both puberty and bulling issues all at once, this compelling narrative deals honestly with how one poor and abused Hispanic adolescent defies stereotype and succeeds in spite of herself and the world itself.
Using frank language and portraits of human frailties, Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass, though, has seen more than its share of unamused parents and school administrators. In fact, Medina recalls how she was once disinvited from a public school presentation because of the title of her book alone.
Angered and appalled, Medina fired back a poignant response –
“For me to come to your school and distance myself from my work feels disrespectful of me as an author, but worse, it feels dishonest in dealing with the students, most especially those who are on the receiving end of harassment that already makes them feel ashamed.”
Using frank language and portraits of human frailties, Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass, though, has seen more than its share of unamused parents and school administrators. In fact, Medina recalls how she was once disinvited from a public school presentation because of the title of her book alone.
Angered and appalled, Medina fired back a poignant response –
“For me to come to your school and distance myself from my work feels disrespectful of me as an author, but worse, it feels dishonest in dealing with the students, most especially those who are on the receiving end of harassment that already makes them feel ashamed.”
The Hired Girl by Laura Amy Schlitz (Candlewick Press, 2015), a book of historical fiction, tells of a young teen who in 1911, runs from her abusive family who live on rural farm in Pennsylvania to find work as a household maid with a rich Jewish family living in Baltimore, Maryland. Funny, poignant, and in diary form, this multi-layered read looks back at an America that once was, but, like the young girl herself, has slowly evolved into a more secular and enlightened twenty-first century.
What makes this work controversial, though, is the narrator’s expressed racist attitude toward blacks, Native Americans, and Jews. Much like Huckleberry Finn raises the hackles of those who object to use of the name ‘Nigger Jim’, The Hired Girl is often criticized for its prejudicial content. Yet, as any casual reader can easily recognize, the narrator – an adolescent coming of age at the turn of the century – is not the author, but the voice of a young girl who reflects the prejudices of her time.
What makes this work controversial, though, is the narrator’s expressed racist attitude toward blacks, Native Americans, and Jews. Much like Huckleberry Finn raises the hackles of those who object to use of the name ‘Nigger Jim’, The Hired Girl is often criticized for its prejudicial content. Yet, as any casual reader can easily recognize, the narrator – an adolescent coming of age at the turn of the century – is not the author, but the voice of a young girl who reflects the prejudices of her time.
The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth (Balzer + Bray, 2012) is the heartbreaking rendering of a twelve-year-old girl, living in rural Montana, whose parents die in a car accident before finding out she is gay. Now alone and truly an only child, she moves in with her old-fashioned grandmother and ultraconservative aunt. Trouble ensues, though, when she falls in love with her new best friend, a girl. Shocked, her aunt sends young Cameron to a summer camp that practices Christian ‘conversion therapy,’ in the vain hope that that she can be taught to ‘live the right way.’
Naturally, this book is controversial on several levels – one, illustrating gay teens, and two, portraying Christian righteous behavior. What makes this book unique though is that the author asks readers not to judge its antagonists – the young girls’ aunt and the leaders of the conversion camp – too harshly.
Her objective, as she says, is to provide a full-bodied portrait of how difficult an issue – sexual orientation – is for those who have only known male-female relationships. Thus, Danforth’s intriguing narrative – the coming of out of lesbian teens in the face of a conservative community – has been praised and attacked by both sides of the censorship issue – by those who feel the portrayal of both victim and abusers is too even-handed. And by some, for the topic itself.
Naturally, this book is controversial on several levels – one, illustrating gay teens, and two, portraying Christian righteous behavior. What makes this book unique though is that the author asks readers not to judge its antagonists – the young girls’ aunt and the leaders of the conversion camp – too harshly.
Her objective, as she says, is to provide a full-bodied portrait of how difficult an issue – sexual orientation – is for those who have only known male-female relationships. Thus, Danforth’s intriguing narrative – the coming of out of lesbian teens in the face of a conservative community – has been praised and attacked by both sides of the censorship issue – by those who feel the portrayal of both victim and abusers is too even-handed. And by some, for the topic itself.
What all these books demonstrate, though, and what the Bank Street Conference on Censorship in Children’s Literature proves – is that the topic of censorship itself – the banning of controversial books geared for adolescents – even in this age of enlightened thinking, changing social morays, and every conceivable website – is still very much a challenge for educators in our nation’s schools and libraries.
That makes our job as advocates – as those who love to read and believe that reading saves lives – even more vigilant and significant.
Our job is to recognize that the printed word is sacred and that we should to do everything possible to make good books available to young people who deserve to learn hard and often, discomforting truths.
Making Joan Bertin’s remarks at Bank Street ever more important - “how do you confront all the issues that people have in their life without feeling a little unsafe?”
That makes our job as advocates – as those who love to read and believe that reading saves lives – even more vigilant and significant.
Our job is to recognize that the printed word is sacred and that we should to do everything possible to make good books available to young people who deserve to learn hard and often, discomforting truths.
Making Joan Bertin’s remarks at Bank Street ever more important - “how do you confront all the issues that people have in their life without feeling a little unsafe?”
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