Thirteen Reasons Why

If it's September,  Books and Beer Club is reading a banned book. This year's selection was Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher, a book I read for the first time in early 2010. It is a very banned book.

Hannah, a girl in Clay's class, has committed suicide. Weeks later, a box of 6 7 cassette tapes arrives at Clay's house. He's curious enough to find a cassette player, not an easy task, because who was listening to audiotapes back then. He's shocked when he hears Hannah's voice. 

He's compelled to keep listening. He wants to hear Hannah's reasons for why she took her own life. And he believes that he might be responsible in part. I'm not going to go into too many details of the story. It's told in an interesting manner. We hear a little Hannah on the audiotapes interspersed with Clay's reactions and thoughts about what he's just heard.

Let's go back to my first reading. Each year while I was teaching, I had each student select a book that we'd read at the same time and discuss, one-on-one. I got lots of the popular fifth grade books, sometimes I'd even get duplicates so I had less reading to do and more time for discussing. I hadn't heard of this young adult novel in 2009 when a fifth grade student of mine suggested that we read Thirteen Reasons Why. I looked it up and immediately contacted the student's mom to make sure that she was okay with us reading this novel that had pretty mature content. After all, it had been banned all over the place. The mom was fine with us reading the book and was glad that her daughter would have the opportunity to discuss this mature content with me, an adult. I barely remember the girl's name, but I do remember some of the really deep conversations that we were able to have. Even thinking about it now, wow. Just wow.

It also gave me an interesting context in which to approach my Books and Beer Club discussion. I really loved this month's meeting. Maybe because everything around this very difficult book brought back good memories of one of the favorite things I did with students while teaching.
 

Love in the Library

 

Until I went to grab a copy of the cover of the book online, I'd forgotten why I'd requested Love in the Library by Maggie Tokuda-Hall from the library. Love in the Library is based on the true story of the author's grandparents meeting and falling in love while in a Japanese internment camp where her grandmother was the librarian. This is a very short picture book and there's not much meat to it. I will always view picture books within the context of a fifth grade classroom. I taught about Japanese internment when I taught fifth grade and this is not a book that I would have shared with my class. There was nothing to it. The only substance was in the author's note at the end. I also wondered why the illustrations didn't have the characters, Tama and George, looking Japanese. (And hey, would I even be allowed to teach about Japanese internment these days? And how disturbing is that!)

Here's the author's blog that will fill you in on the situation much better than I can. But in a nutshell, Tokuda-Hall wrote the author's note that I read in my library copy. Remember, thta's the only bit of the book that I felt had any substance. Scholastic had offered to license her book. BUT... they wanted the author's note edited - to remove all the substanitative writing from it - to ... to what? Make it less offensive? Offensive to whom? Make it less likely to be banned? Are publishers thinking that way? This is why I read this simple picture book and why I think you should, too.

Why shouldn't young children learn about Japanese internment camps? Why shouldn't young children learn about the crisis at our southern border? We're not talking kindergartners here. We're talking about older elementary school children who have a right to learn the true history of our country. A good teacher knows how to frame such a book. A racist parent does not. Which is why the racist parent takes offense. 

The more I think about this, the angrier I become. I guess I'm glad that I read this book, if only to be more familiar with the conflict with Scholastic. Book banning terrifies me. It should bother you, too.

Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself

 

I love Judy Blume so I'm still amazed that I lived so long without reading her semi-autobiographical novel, Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself. It wasn't until I came across the title on a banned book list - and why it was being banned - that I knew that I had to read it. (It took me until a year ago to read probably her most frequently banned book, Forever.)

Sally is a young girl living in New Jersey in the 1940s when her brother gets sick and the family needs to move to Miami Beach for the winter, for the sake of her brother's health. Her dad needs to stay back in New Jersey to work so Sally moves to Florida with her mother, brother Douglas and their grandmother, Ma Fanny.

My earliest memories of Miami Beach were in the mid-1960s but there was a lot more similar about Miami Beach in the late 1940s that I'd chuckle over. There was one scene about having to wear a bathing cap into the pool that could have easily been written 20 years later about my cousin sitting by her grandmother Fanny's pool on Miami Beach.

Sally is hesitant about the move but between the new friends she makes, both in her apartment building and at school, and her wild imagine, Florida turns out to not be so bad after all.

Why is this book being banned? Because Sally imagines that Hitler is living undercover as a Jewish old man in her apartment building? And because she imagines him captured - or dead? That is so objectionable - how? Or by whom? I just don't get it.

Anyway, I loved the book and I'd recommend it. Especially to little girls with wonderful imaginations.

All Boys Aren't Blue

All Boys Aren't Blue: A Memoir Manifesto by George M. Johnson is about a boy who felt he didn't fit in who become a young man trying to figure out who he really is. I picked it up as part of the Velshi Banned Book Club, not really sure what to expect. 

It's not a book written for me, but I could certainly appreciate the heart and soul he puts into to creating a... hmm... not sure what the word would be. It's not a guide book. But it is a book to offer guidance and comfort to others going through a similar crisis of self that Johnson went through. His story is about a queer Black boy, but it would work for anyone questioning his or her sexuality.

Which I suppose is the reason why this book has been banned. Why this very much needed book has been banned. People, it's not a "how to" book. But I can imagine reading George's story might make a kid questioning where they fit in realize that others have gone through what they've gone through. They are not alone.

Johnson was truly blessed to come from such a loving, accepting family. I was pleased that he knew that. And I wish that for everyone.

I have my DVR set to record Velshi tomorrow morning. I really want to hear what the author has to say.
 

Dear Martin

 

Now I'm on a "banned book" roll. (Even before my husband heard on MSNBC that Ali Velshi was starting a "banned book club." #velshibannedbookclub First book they'll be reading is All Boys Aren't Blue, a memoir by George M. Johnson. Johnson will be a guest on Velshi's show next Saturday morning in the 8 o'clock hour.)

Dear Martin by Nic Stone is another young adult novel that shows up on a lot of banned book lists. The fact that this novel is about what it's  like to be a smart, well-educated, motivated teen with the wrong colored skin should not make it in any way objectionable. How would I have a glimmer of an idea of what it must be like to be a teen of color? If it wasn't for reading, how would I have any real idea? And isn't that why reading novels like Dear Martin is important? So I can learn about the world and life experiences of people outside my little bubble? Isn't this a perfect example of why book banning is stupid?

In Dear Martin, 17-year old Justyce undertakes a project to closely examine the life and writings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a way to better understand how he fits in to what is still a white world. He calls it his Be Like Martin experiment. As he deals with things, being handcuffed and taken in after trying to help his drunk girlfriend get home, extremely racist remarks from the kids he goes to school with, violence on the streets, he journals about them in his Dear Martin journal, wondering What would Martin do?

Justyce is a senior at an elite private school in Atlanta, on his way to Yale. He's one of three people of color in his high school class of 82. He doesn't really fit in at school. Throughout the book, I was so grateful for the character of "Doc," his debate team advisor and teacher of his Societal Evolution class. "Doc" is half black, has a PhD and is a real mentor and role model to Justyce. Everyone needs a trusted adult in his or her life. "Doc" is Justyce's trusted adult at school.

Justyce also doesn't fit in where he comes from. He feels like the white kids at school at trying to knock him down while the kids in his old neighborhood are trying to hold him down by his feet. His mother fears Justyce's interactions in the white world so while she wants the best for him, only sent him to this fancy prep school so that he could get ahead, she cautions him all the time and is totally against his friendship with his debate partner, Sarah-Jane.

Sarah-Jane and her family are interesting characters. I was able to really relate to Sarah-Jane. She is part of a Jewish family. Her great-grandparents immigrated to the United States after narrowly escaping death in a Nazi death camp during the Holocaust. When Justyce tries to explain to his best friend, Manny, or to his mother why SJ "gets him," She's Jewish. It's different... She's not white white. She's Jewish. It's different... he is reminded that she is white. She looks white and You can't see Jewish in her skin color... If it looks white, it's white in this world. This is a conversation that I have with my husband with far too much frequency lately. That he and I would be considered "other" by white supremists, but we look white, we ARE white, so we can slip by. This being "other" while looking like everyone else has afforded us the opportunity to develop a certain kind of empathy that we might not have otherwise developed. We are very privileged, but we know what it's like to be hated or discriminated against because we're part of a group, just because of the luck of who we were born to or where we were born.The same is true with Sarah-Jane and her family. 

Yes, this book contains violence and it contains some "language." But it covers such important material and allows the reader to get a hint of what it might be like to be a young man like Justyce. The kids and who most need to read a novel like Dear Martin are the children of those attempting to ban the book. What are those parents afraid of their children learning?

Forever

 

Over the course of my life, I have read many Judy Blume novels. I was a little too old for her kids' chapter books, but I read many of those as a fifth grade teacher or with my own kids. I read Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret along with one of my fifth graders. What a marvelous  book. (I had a question about the novel and wrote to Judy Blume. She was on a book tour so I heard back from her secretary with a really great email in return. Why didn't I think to print it out and save it?)

But I'd never read Forever. It popped up on a few banned books lists lately. (I still can't believe we are once again dealing with the potential of widespread banning of books. But more on that in another post.) I was able to take it out of the library and read it in a few sittings over the course of 24 hours.

Why is Forever considered objectionable? It's a fairly explicit story of the first sexual experience of a high school senior and her boyfriend who have decided they are in love and that love is forever. 

This novel was first published in 1975 when I would have been a freshman in college. Again, just a little too old to read this kind of story. It might have made sense to me about 3 or 4 years earlier. And perhaps it would have been useful to me 3 or 4 years earlier. Not to encourage me to have sex - one of the supposed reasons this novel is on many banned book lists - but to encourage me to have sex responsibly. Perhaps in the 1970s and 1980s, this might have been considered titillating. I'm not sure. It might have hit close to home to my teenage brain. But titillating? I don't think so.

This novel isn't for everyone. The characters are pretty flat. The dialogue between the teens is extremely stilted. But the storyline is real. Teenage girls being in love after five minutes of casually knowing a guy. Teenage boys  wanting to have sex. Teenage girls not sure if they want to have sex. Teenagers proclaiming they are going to love each other forever. 

Forever is descriptive. But it is not pornographic. It's not a bodice ripper. It's not fantasy. It presents teenage sex in a realistic way. It would definitely be a novel for a youngish girl to read as she's first becoming aware of sex, before she's ready. Just so she has some idea. 

For me, the real richness of the novel are the conversations that Katherine has with her mother and with her grandmother about the possibility of a sexual relationship with her boyfriend, Michael. Those were conversations I never had with my mother - or with anyone. But they were also realistic. In fact, this would be the perfect novel to give to your teenager when the time comes for that conversation, although beats the heck out of me what age that would be now.

Just because a parent doesn't want their child to read a particular book doesn't mean that ONE parent gets to make that decision for ALL families. The idiocy of book banning.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Books & Beer Club reads a banned book each September for Banned Book Week. A few of the classics were selected, but I threw out The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie because that was the banned book that several in my little book club were planning to read for our October meeting observing Banned Book Week. I wanted to read True Diary, but I'd already read and selected The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison as my banned book for October. Figured I could do double duty... True Diary has such awesome reviews.

Then why is it banned? There's profanity, alcoholism, sexuality and violence. I still don't understand what makes those things ban-worthy. This novel is autobiographical, using most characters who are composites of people the author grew up with, and I'll bet it comes very close to reflecting the life of a Native American, an Indian, coming of age in the 1990s on a reservation in Washington State. The author is an Indian and was raised on the reservation.

Junior - or Arnold - comes from a loving family. He lives with his alcoholic father, his mother, his grandmother and his older sister, Mary. If they have nothing else, they have love. And they have each other. Junior was born with health problems and as such, he's the target of many of the bullies on the reservation. The kid bullies - and some adult bullies. Junior is also smarter and more curious than probably all the people on the reservation. He's a reader. A real book lover. Junior's best friend is Rowdy whose home life is not nearly as loving or peaceful. Rowdy is one angry kid, but he's Junior's devoted protector.

The Diary covers Arnold's first year in high school. He starts at the school on the reservation, but after an incident happens on the first day, he transfers to the white high school 22 miles away from where Arnold lives. He works to be accepted at his new school and to still feel a part of the reservation. It's not as easy as one might imagine.

The book is engaging from the start. It's a novel about some pretty heavy, serious stuff but written in a lighthearted humorous manner that makes it easier to read, although that doesn't diminish the seriousness of what Alexie is sharing. Big themes in the novel are bullying, racism, alcoholism, grief, and the meaning of friendships and family. There's also a far share of teenage angst. After all, Arnold is 14-years old.

Junior is also a cartoonist. That's how he handles much of what churns through his mind. Junior's cartoon creations are excellently brought to the pages of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Ellen Forney who somehow gets into Junior's brain as she puts marker to paper. Markers are not her usual medium but they were most probably Junior's. The cartoons come off as being very authentic.

I hope the Books & Beer folks enjoy the book as much as I did. There's certainly a lot to talk about.

George

One of my book clubs decided to select a banned book to read for our October meeting which falls right after Banned Book Week. George by Alex Gino showed up on so many of the lists of most banned books. We decided to go with this novel, a middle grade reader, so that we can really delve into why books are banned, why was this particular book was banned, and how we feel about all of it.

George is the story of a transgender fourth-grade girl who is getting ready to let those in her life who are important to her know that she is a girl. Reading this novel really made me think about parts of the coming out process for transgender youth that I hadn't thought about before. As I read, I kept wondering about how I would have discussed this novel as a teacher with one of my students. There is so much to discuss here, for both adults and children. `