Blog Archive: January 2008

The latest in censorship news is a challenge to John Green's Looking for Alaska.

As John (sorry for the informality - I've never met him, but I have trouble calling anyone under age 40 "mister") explains in his vlog post "Looking for Alaska" Is Not Pornography, certain parents at a Buffalo, New York, high school are incensed that high school juniors should be asked to read the book in their English class. It should be noted that reading this particular book is optional, and parental permission is required for students who wish to read it for the class.

Book challenges always majorly tick me off. Some people argue that it's great press for a book, and sure, "any publicity is good publicity." But the sentiment behind book challenges is ugly. It's about controlling what other people can think and do. It's about making your personal opinion the law of the land. In other words, it's totally counter to the First Amendment.

Then add in the fact that many (maybe even most) book challengers have not read the book they're seeking to pull off shelves, out of classrooms, etc. They base their opinion on hearsay, or on small passages taken out of context. Then they jump around and scream and get all their hyperactive neighbors (who haven't read the book either) to band together and march on the schools and libraries until they get their way.

Fortunately, often they don't get their way, thanks to stick-to-their-guns librarians and teachers, and school and library boards, that uphold the libraries' selection policies and recognize that (a) the book is more than the allegedly objectionable passage and (b) one outspoken person shouldn't control everyone else's life.

Outspoken authors such as the members of AS IF! (Authors Support Intellectual Freedom) are invaluable as well. If book challengers can get all their pals together to throw a tantrum, IF-supporters can join up to fight back with reason and compassion.

For the record, I've read Looking for Alaska, and while the passage in question isn't appropriate for everyone, it's definitely not pornography and it also isn't anything that a high school junior (with their parents' permission, too!) can't handle.

I also owe John Green and Looking for Alaska a debt of thanks. The book's impending publication was what finally got me serious about writing. I'll be the first to admit the green-eyed monster was involved. "He's my age? He's publishing a book and getting all this press?" That is when I realized that while I might never write a book as awesome as Looking for Alaska, I would never write any book whatsoever unless I started, y'know, WRITING. Just one more reason not to pull Looking for Alaska off the shelf: it inspires readers to greatness.

Reaching waaay back in time (all the way to 2007!), there the YA YA YAs initiated a discussion about social class in young adult literature. Whether/where poverty is depicted in YA lit, whether/how it's tied up with race, etc. Figures that in the month since, I've read several good books that deal with class differences.

1. Mortal Engines, by Philip Reeve.

   I'd tried reading Larklight and just couldn't get into it, so I was intensely surprised and pleased when I discovered I LOVED Mortal Engines!

   It's a steampunk adventure set on a far-future Earth where wheeled cities roam the continents devouring smaller towns. The gentry live on the top tier, slaves operate the engines in the bowels, and everyone else falls somewhere in between.

   Our story’s heroes are Tom, an apprentice historian (middle-class), Katherine, the Head Historian’s daughter (nouveau riche), and Hester, a would-be assassin (outsider/untouchable). All become embroiled in London’s sinister plot to dominate Eurasia. It’s a page-turner with three glorious sequels. Oh, and did I mention the pirates?

   To me, it read most like Kenneth Oppel’s Airborn and Skybreaker, but it will find fans among most literary fantasy/science fiction (Philip Pullman, Garth Nix, Diana Wynne Jones, etc.) lovers, junior high and up.

2. Taken, by Edward Bloor.

   In this near-future suspense, 13-year-old Charity has been kidnapped, presumably for the high ransom her parents will pay. Kidnapping children from wealthy families has become an industry in this America of intense social stratification (yes, even more intense than today). Fully expecting to be returned home safely within the typical 24 hours, Charity is forced to reevaluate everything she knows about her family when the kidnappers stray from protocol.

   In this book, race and class are definitely intertwined. In Charity’s South Florida community, the people living in gated communities seem to be mostly white, while the new servant class is largely Hispanic, African-American, or otherwise “of color.” Taken sort of hits the reader over the head with its social commentary, but it’s still one of the better written and thoughtful suspense novels for the junior high age group available. It should appeal to both boys and girls.

3. Another Kind of Cowboy, by Susan Juby.

   And now for something completely different. This contemporary YA book explores teenagers Alex and Clio’s coming of age. Alex is a reserved, closeted gay teen who lives for horses. Clio is a spoiled and naive debutante at the local equestrienne school. Alex’s lack of money causes problems in his quest to pursue the dressage method of riding, while Clio has more money than she knows what to do with. In spite of their glaring differences, they somehow become good friends.

   I really enjoyed the book’s realism and dry humor. It reaches a very satisfying conclusion, and avoids the obvious solution to Alex’s financial problems by having Clio bail him out.

You devoured their books, staying up way too late to finish them. You hung on every golden word. You wondered how they could see so clearly into your soul when they’ve never even met you.

You learned they’d be signing books at your favorite bookstore, speaking at your local college, appearing at the conference you’re attending next month. You lie awake rehearsing what you’ll say when you shake their hand, striking the perfect balance between humiliatingly gushy and off-puttingly cool.

And then the day arrives, and they’re finally standing in before you. And they open their mouth. And it turns out while they’re genius on paper, in person they’re actually a total jerkwad.

We’ve heard this story too often. It might not be an author. It might be a musician, artist, actor, athlete, politician, spiritual leader* – any hero. Face-to-face, it turns out they’re not only human, they’re not very good humans.

So it’s incredibly gratifying when a hero breaks the mold and turns out to everything you hoped. “So-and-so was so friendly and gracious!” “He offered me advice.” “She offered me encouragement.” This post is dedicated to the heroes who offer their fans the greatest gifts they can in return: genuine appreciation and respect.

A few recent examples:

• Just One More Book interviews Eva Ibbotson, author of The Secret of Platform 13 and other fine novels for young people. It's a long interview, but well worth it for Ms. Ibbotson's gems of wisdom and humor. (I should also mention that Ms. Ibbotson wrote our library a marvelous letter about her childhood library experiences in response to our fan mail last summer!)
• The Oregonian interviews Beverly Cleary. (Thanks to Confessions of a Bibliovore for the link.) Also very worthwhile are Ms. Cleary’s past interviews on NPR: one from 2006, on the eve of her 90th birthday, and one from 1999, when her final book, Ramona's World was published.
• Blogger Miss Erin meets Shannon Hale, her literary hero, and it's everything she hoped for and more. You don't need to know Miss Erin or Shannon Hale to appreciate the sheer joy in those photos.

*Last year, I watched the excellent and illuminating documentary Jesus Camp. In the film, an earnest and spiritual boy named Levi, who aspires to be a preacher, gets to meet his hero: megachurch leader Ted Haggard. Haggard’s response to the boy’s enthusiasm is so despicably soul-crushing it made me wonder why anyone would admire the snake. And that was before the Haggard sex scandal and his oh-so-brilliant response.

**There is no second footnote, technically, but I hate to end on a down note. Let’s cheer once more for heroes worthy of our admiration!

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr., Day...of Service. That's right: "of service." Why does that last part always get left off the calendar? As its motto goes: "Make it a day ON, not a day off!" A Wrung Sponge does a nice job of outlining the idea here.

MLK Day is one of those mysterious holidays when the schools, banks, and post offices are closed, but the library is open. This means entertaining a higher-than-average number of school-age kids during normal school hours. This means extra activities.

In past years, we've generally shown a random kids' movie and/or offered a craft time, but this year I wanted us recognize what MLK Day is for: that whole taking-care-of-your-fellow-humans thing. So today, our movie is the Disney channel's Ruby Bridges, and our craft project is making valentines for veterans and senior citizens. It figures that today I got slammed with a cold and had to leave work after setting up the valentine-making station, so I'm not able to be much help myself.

Next year, who knows? A book-buddies program? A book drive for a kids' organization in need? I'm already looking forward to it.

(Side note: Whenever I'm working on a book that has kids with a day off school for MLK Day, I try and give them something service-oriented to do, without making a big, pedantic fuss about it. If fictional characters can't be model citizens every once in a while, who can?)

Beggar's dog - Hoboken (LOC)
Originally uploaded by The Library of Congress

For someone who went through library school just a couple years ago, I'm feeling very late to the party - or maybe just extremely forgetful. Somehow I missed that for the past 10 or so years the Library of Congress has offered digital images from its collection through its Prints and Photographs Online Catalog, with a collection of over a million images.

And now, through a cooperative effort with Flickr, called The Commons, LOC is improving access to thousands of those images (so far) through Flickr's interface and public tagging capability.

This is very cool stuff. More people will appreciate these visual documents of our nation's history, and the images will get more thorough cataloging through tagging (though possibly also more erroneous, or extraneous - I hope LOC's Flickr moderator will weed out the dumb ones occasionally). Moreover, all the images have "no known copyright restrictions", which means they can be freely shared and remixed - even more freely than a Creative Commons license allows. Just please still remember to attribute the source!

Via The Monkey Speaks