I Thought Reading was Fundamental
By Lisa Fary
So why was it so freaking hard to pick a book to share with my high school students at the book fair? Recommending books shouldn’t be this nerve wracking.
The book club at my high school is having an online book fair (which isn’t a traditional book fair wherein we go to the library and buy books – online schools don’t have libraries, so the kids organized a sort of show-and-tell of favorite books) this afternoon. They invited students and teachers to do a little Power Point presentation on one of our favorite books with a summary and an excerpt, so long as the content was appropriate.
I love talking about books and am always excited to share so, of course, I jumped at this and started listing possible books for the fair. There were several on the shelf that would have been appropriate, but I’m all about promoting genre literature as “real” literature and wanted to pick a genre book, maybe even a comic book. Besides, the school scrubbed all the awesome genre lit I got to teach in my English class last year.
My selection was The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl, a modern fantasy/ western by Tim Pratt. Its zippy pace would keep a teenager turning pages and the characters are young enough to be relatable and old enough to give a taste of a possible post-high school life outside mom and dad’s house (as a high school student, I never wanted to read about high school kids – it was bad enough in real life). Also, the main character, an indie comic book artist named Marzi, is an empowering character for teenage girls. The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl is all about imagination and art and the importance of art in the world – all things that are important for an isolated high school kid to read about.
It wasn’t until I was putting together the Power Point and looking for an excerpt that I recalled the brief mudslide sex scene.
Yeah. . . that could be a problem. I have to be so careful about what I recommend because so many parents fly off the handle when it comes to books in school.
Parent complaints about books are very common, even for books you wouldn’t expect. Of Mice and Men gets complaints (oddly, rarely regarding the fate of Lennie). Even books as mild as A Separate Peace are challenged (some said it had gay themes and refused to let their kids read it – from what I can tell, it no longer appears on my school’s reading list. I don’t know if that’s related to the complaints).
Even though it wouldn’t be required reading, I could just see a kid picking up The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl, a parent complaining, then my book fair entry making the local news: online high school teacher recommends sex book for children! Egads! (a common bit of advice at the school is don’t say, email, or do anything you wouldn’t want on the front page of the paper. Yes, it’s a real concern.)
Unfortunately, Rangergirl was out. I went through a few which probably would have been OK, but none of which I really loved. Several others were considered and thrown out immediately like Wild Cards: Inside Straight (sex talk, swearing, lesbians) and Pride of Baghdad (suggested animal sex in one panel, a giraffe getting its head blown off in another – I once suggested it for an 8th grader and for days heard about nothing but how inappropriate it was).
I had to pick something that would be genuinely fun to read, that would be engaging, and that would actually get kids thinking should they read it. Kids certainly aren’t doing that with the books they’re assigned to read – anymore it’s all about checking off the correct answers to multiple choice questions and moving on to the next thing. No wonder so many kids hate reading – if uptight parents aren’t taking the fun out of it, school sure as hell is.
Eventually, and after much frustration and ranting, I picked The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. No sex, no swearing. It’s an enriching read about growing up, learning to take care of yourself, and the value of life. Americans want kids’ stuff to be bright and shiny and happy, and The Graveyard Book challenges that.
And I don’t necessarily feel it’s a compromise because The Graveyard Book really is one I love.
There is some content that the most unreasonable parents can take issue with (it starts with a murder, takes place in a graveyard and is best friends with death) but whatever. Honestly, it’s easier to defend a book containing a lot of death than it is to defend one containing even a hint of sex. God, our society’s priorities are really screwed up.
Besides, it won the 2009 Newbery Medal as a distinguished contribution to American literature. So there (insert me sticking my tongue out here. Nanny nanny boo boo. Stick that in your uptight pipe and smoke it).
I wish I didn’t have to censor myself like this at school. I wish I didn’t have to do this family value algebra just to recommend a book. I wish less control was exerted over what kids read, allowing them to gravitate toward what genuinely interests them rather than what’s considered safe. But, I know none of that is going to happen any time soon. The best I can wish for is that a student picks up The Graveyard Book and loves it.
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Lisa Fary’s early exposure to classic Battlestar Galactica in 1979 is largely responsible for her lifelong interest in science fiction and her childhood ambition of being an intergalactic space cowgirl. She thinks diagramming sentences is a fun alternative to Sudoku.
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I'm sorry you had such a rough time finding a non-threatening book, Lisa. I'm not sure when education stopped being about actually teaching kids to deal with life, not just the politically correct, sanitized parts. Hopefully, most of the kids in your school have parents like mine. They encouraged me to read whatever I wanted, unlike my third grade English teacher, Mrs. You-can't-read-that-because-it's-a-fourth-grade-reading-level-even-though-you've-been-reading-the-series-for-two-years. (Ahem. I may have some lingering resentment about my forced breakup with Nancy Drew.)
Anyway, my mom was the one who gave me my first V.C. Andrews book (My Sweet Audrina) at about age 11, and her books are full of sex, torture, incest, what have you. My older brother got me into Stephen King shortly thereafter, but Mom and Dad never said a word of protest. Instead, there was just encouragement to ask them about anything I read, and to stop reading anything I didn't like.
"Even books as mild as A Separate Peace are challenged (some said it had gay themes and refused to let their kids read it – from what I can tell, it no longer appears on my school’s reading list. I don’t know if that’s related to the complaints)."
Oh, how I wish my schools hadn't made us read that book every other year starting in sixth grade. We missed out on a lot of standard junior high / high school books — Gatsby, Tale of Two Cities, and Catcher in the Rye just to name a few — from reading it over and over. Just because it's set in a town near where I grew up.
It can certainly be interpreted as having "gay themes". Or it could be a cautionary tale about hero worship. Or a comparison of how different people handle stressful situations, such as war and high school. Despite my frustration with having to read it so many times, I will admit that it's good book full of interesting discussion topics.
Well, this has come out rather longer than I intended. No surprise, really. Censorship is something that really gets my hackles up. Particularly when that censorship derails important discussions and potentially deters kids from loving reading as much as I do.
Mrs. You-can't-read-that sounds like a poopy-head.
She was actually pretty nice about everything else. She lived down the street from us and always bought several boxes of Girl Scout cookies. But that strict adherence to reading level was particularly frustrating to eight-year-old me, especially since it took a very long time for that naturally shy kid to learn how to assert her own abilities.
Anyway, my mom was the one who gave me my first V.C. Andrews book (My Sweet Audrina) at about age 11, and her books are full of sex, torture, incest, what have you. My older brother got me into Stephen King shortly thereafter, but Mom and Dad never said a word of protest. Instead, there was just encouragement to ask them about anything I read, and to stop reading anything I didn't like.
Stephen King and VC Andrews were all over the place from middle school up through high school – not as school sanctioned reading, but given to us by parents, brothers, sisters, etc. I have to speculate that the loudest complainers aren't readers themselves.
"Even books as mild as A Separate Peace are challenged (some said it had gay themes and refused to let their kids read it – from what I can tell, it no longer appears on my school’s reading list. I don’t know if that’s related to the complaints)."
Oh, how I wish my schools hadn't made us read that book every other year starting in sixth grade. We missed out on a lot of standard junior high / high school books — Gatsby, Tale of Two Cities, and Catcher in the Rye just to name a few — from reading it over and over. Just because it's set in a town near where I grew up.
It can certainly be interpreted as having "gay themes". Or it could be a cautionary tale about hero worship. Or a comparison of how different people handle stressful situations, such as war and high school. Despite my frustration with having to read it so many times, I will admit that it's good book full of interesting discussion topics.
Well, this has come out rather longer than I intended. No surprise, really. Censorship is something that really gets my hackles up. Particularly when that censorship derails important discussions and potentially deters kids from loving reading as much as I do.
I really hated A Separate Peace – thankfully I only had to read it once in 10th grade. What so aggravating about that particular complaint was that the parent freely admitted to having never read the book and cited seeing it on "the gay shelf" at the video store as the entire argument. Naturally, my first thought was if you're so concerned gay themes, why are you looking at "the gay shelf"? Although those themes could certainly be read into the book, they weren't addressed in the context of the class. I may hate that book, but I hate its disappearance from the reading list even more.
(Is it me, or are the comments being wonky this morning?)
Yeah, comments are being weird. Sorry.
You make such an excellent point about how updtight everyone is about reading material…especially for high schools. In some cases, yeah, I can get it. But come on. I was really lucky that my parents never really regulated my reading material. They regulated a lot of OTHER things, but somehow my books flew under the radar. ^_^ As a result, though, I know exactly what I like and don't, and what I will tolerate and won't. Other kids should get that opportunity.
Mine were the same way. Even books that had raised a $h!tstorm, like some of Judy Blume's books, I was allowed to read.
I REALLY want to read The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl now. Sounds awesome.
The nail was hit on the head when someone said that the biggest complainers were not readers. It goes back to a day when a friend and I were discussing a movie about a famous person. I told her that it was usually the ignorant that made the most noise. To illustrate my point, my boss came in and asked us what were talking about and upon hearing the topic, launched into a stream of colorful words about that person. I asked him if he had ever read about that person or read anything by that person. "No" was the answer and thus I turned to my friend and smiled as my point had been made. The ignorant are most afraid of the unknown.
I think you actually ended up with the total right choice, and I agree, I would have loved to read some more genre in High School. I remember being pumped that a teacher let me read Hitchhiker's Guide. Also, schools, in general, can be weird about material they will and won't allow. I wasn't allowed to teach the history of vampires for Halloween, which I really wanted to do.
I used to teach elementary school kids in an after school program. We quickly learned that trying to teach them anything at all right before winter break was useless- so I would show them old Disney movies. I showed them "Robin Hood" the ones with the foxes? Yeah, one parent said it was too violent- that the 'book' ( most definitly an abridged copy, with pictures) was much less violent and more appropriate.
She then proceeded to say I was raised in a 'violent household' since I deemed this kinda material acceptable ( my kids were 2nd grade to sixth)- best part was my mother worked in the program with me and gave the women in question a good talking to
There seems to be no rhyme or reason to what is acceptable or not, it largely deppends on the environment.