If you missed it, go now and listen to today's broadcast of Radio Times from WHYY. The debate over Meghan Cox Gurdon's assault on dark YA literature continues and I must give a standing "O" to Maureen Johnson and to Madeleine Kemper for their eloquent, informed, and well articulated response.
Let's just set aside the fact that there is a lot of wonderful YA lit out there this is funny and smart and full of hope. As for round 1 of #YAshowdown, a few points stand out to me as I thumb through the highlights in my brain:
Let's start with an attitude. Not only is Ms. Gurdon's tone condescending to the writing community, but to teenagers as well. Teens get talked down to enough without literature taking the elitist stand that it knows best and will present a carefully prescribed view of their world no matter what the teenager is going through. Her cloying remarks to Cheryl Rainfield were quite telling. "I'm filled with pity...however, your book could be...extremely disturbing to children...who haven't encountered the phenomenon of cutting." I certainly hope what she went through disturbs people. Cheryl wrote the book in hopes of letting kids know they aren't alone, that healing is possible, that their world is real rather than the sugar-coated bubble-gum culture Ms. Gurdon grew up in. Don't condescend to kids. Don't dismiss their experiences. Don't belittle their response.
Let's talk about the "fun-house mirror" aspect of YA lit, as Ms. Gurdon referred to it. Adolescence is one big fun-house mirror where the world is trying to come into focus, but is drawn askew by so many influences. Emotions are bigger, problems are scarier, no matter what the cold reality in relative terms gives you. YA lit recognizes that and doesn't criticize young people or tell them that they are blowing things out of proportion. It gives them a safe place to explore those emotions.
And the last caller who said, "The job of the writer is to teach the reader...." As Paul Acampora tweeted, "NO. NO. NO. NO. The job or the writer is to tell the truth." Good books do have a clear and consistent moral compass, but that does not mean that their primary purpose is to instruct, no matter what Alexander Pope thought. There are truths that ring hard and clear to teenagers even if adults are afraid of them. We want to protect our kids from the truths of this world as long as possible (and believe me, I do). BUT, kids will go looking for those truths and I am glad there are YA writers out there who will offer it. Those kids can see through the Newspeak and the propaganda. Give them more credit and be a part of that journey rather than a bystander. Read with them. Talk to them.
It should not need to be said, but "correlation" does not mean "cause and effect." Don't assume that if a kid reads a book about cutting, she'll go out and cut herself. Ask why she picked up that book in the first place. Something drew her there. Our world isn't perfect. It isn't always funny. It isn't always nice. It doesn't even make sense half the time, especially to a teenager who is still trying to discover who she is and what kind of power she wields in the great big world. Explore it with her.
Showing posts with label Censorship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Censorship. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 06, 2011
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Embracing the Human Condition
Since June 4th, the blogosphere and twitterverse have been teeming with authors and teens in arms against Meghan Cox Gurdon's "review" of YA fiction in the WSJ. Her piece is rife with manipulative little tidbits from concerned mothers who worry that fiction will encourage deviant or self-destructive behavior in their impressionable children. Gurdon takes a paper-thin view and paints it with a broad brush.
A large part of the outcry against her article has responded to Gurdon's argument that "books focusing on pathologies help normalize them and, in the case of self-harm, may even spread their plausibility and likelihood to young people who might otherwise never have imagined such extreme measures." Yes, it's the old the book made me do it ruse. Several authors spoke out about the lunacy of this assertion, none so eloquently as Sherman Alexie. The primary point of his response is the cathartic, re-affirming value of dark YA literature that offers kids in dire situations a sense of salvation. "They read because they live in an often-terrible world. They read because they believe, despite the callow protestations of certain adults, that books-especially the dark and dangerous ones-will save them."
Grace Troxel echoes that sentiment in her blog and defends dark YA literature for its ability to "contextualize" the difficult issues that teens already face and often feel they are fighting alone. She further argues that these novels create a dialogue where for years there has been none. And it's that very lack of dialogue that is most dangerous to our children.
Still others, like Becky Levine, stand up against the ridiculous suggestion that the industry is trying to "bulldoze coarseness and misery" into the lives of our teens while a swarm of tweeters exclaim "#yasaves" and continue to slap back Gurdon's elitist "gatekeeping censorship" disguised as the ever-popular and totally condescending concern for the greater good. I won't get into the question of parental guidance here, but suffice it to say I am an involved parent.
For the most part, much of the conversation I have read so far has focused on the value of YA to change the lives of teenagers who have experienced the worst of this world or the ability YA literature has to contextualize situations and start a dialogue for disenfranchised or marginalized adolescents. All of this is valid and important. But there is an even more crucial idea under attack here: The human condition. Sherman Alexie touches on it:
I think about my own son, a white, middle-class teenager who has faced some upheaval and disappointment along with the typical angst of adolescence, but nothing like addiction, rape, poverty, or mental illness. Does that mean he should never read anything that deals with such harsh subjects? What do books like Speak or The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian or Scars have to offer my son? The same thing that the Harry Potter books or the Percy Jackson series or any number of zombie books that he has read offers. A look at the human condition. We are flawed. We have fears. We make mistakes. We get betrayed and hurt and life gets messy. And some kids have been subjected to as many horrors as adults, perhaps even more. But we pick ourselves up from whatever our circumstance and choose how to respond. The majority of kids (a hopeful estimation) may never know such dire circumstances as those in some of the books they read, but for most kids (even the privileged), adolescence feels like a battleground where the choices they make have far more complex and far-reaching consequences and reinforcements don't always arrive on time. At least they can go through the paces and explore those questions through the pages of a book where the monsters are only ink and shadows and the kids are ultimately heroes.
It is a hard lesson to learn that the world is not a warm lap and tender kisses and sunshine all around, but adolescence is for finding yourself as well as learning how to deal with the realities of this world. My son is not about to go cut himself or smoke crack because he read about it in a book, no matter how devastated he was by recent personal events. But he may understand a classmate's behavior a little more. He may develop a stronger sense of relativity and compassion. He may find a strength he never knew before. He will have an even better sense of what it means to be human. And he will choose what he becomes.
While I would like to protect my children from all the ugliness in the world, I would do them far more harm if I pretended it didn't exist.
A large part of the outcry against her article has responded to Gurdon's argument that "books focusing on pathologies help normalize them and, in the case of self-harm, may even spread their plausibility and likelihood to young people who might otherwise never have imagined such extreme measures." Yes, it's the old the book made me do it ruse. Several authors spoke out about the lunacy of this assertion, none so eloquently as Sherman Alexie. The primary point of his response is the cathartic, re-affirming value of dark YA literature that offers kids in dire situations a sense of salvation. "They read because they live in an often-terrible world. They read because they believe, despite the callow protestations of certain adults, that books-especially the dark and dangerous ones-will save them."
Grace Troxel echoes that sentiment in her blog and defends dark YA literature for its ability to "contextualize" the difficult issues that teens already face and often feel they are fighting alone. She further argues that these novels create a dialogue where for years there has been none. And it's that very lack of dialogue that is most dangerous to our children.
Still others, like Becky Levine, stand up against the ridiculous suggestion that the industry is trying to "bulldoze coarseness and misery" into the lives of our teens while a swarm of tweeters exclaim "#yasaves" and continue to slap back Gurdon's elitist "gatekeeping censorship" disguised as the ever-popular and totally condescending concern for the greater good. I won't get into the question of parental guidance here, but suffice it to say I am an involved parent.
For the most part, much of the conversation I have read so far has focused on the value of YA to change the lives of teenagers who have experienced the worst of this world or the ability YA literature has to contextualize situations and start a dialogue for disenfranchised or marginalized adolescents. All of this is valid and important. But there is an even more crucial idea under attack here: The human condition. Sherman Alexie touches on it:
When some cultural critics fret about the “ever-more-appalling” YA books, they aren’t trying to protect African-American teens forced to walk through metal detectors on their way into school. Or Mexican-American teens enduring the culturally schizophrenic life of being American citizens and the children of illegal immigrants. Or Native American teens growing up on Third World reservations. Or poor white kids trying to survive the meth-hazed trailer parks. They aren’t trying to protect the poor from poverty. Or victims from rapists.
No, they are simply trying to protect their privileged notions of what literature is and should be. They are trying to protect privileged children. Or the seemingly privileged.
I think about my own son, a white, middle-class teenager who has faced some upheaval and disappointment along with the typical angst of adolescence, but nothing like addiction, rape, poverty, or mental illness. Does that mean he should never read anything that deals with such harsh subjects? What do books like Speak or The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian or Scars have to offer my son? The same thing that the Harry Potter books or the Percy Jackson series or any number of zombie books that he has read offers. A look at the human condition. We are flawed. We have fears. We make mistakes. We get betrayed and hurt and life gets messy. And some kids have been subjected to as many horrors as adults, perhaps even more. But we pick ourselves up from whatever our circumstance and choose how to respond. The majority of kids (a hopeful estimation) may never know such dire circumstances as those in some of the books they read, but for most kids (even the privileged), adolescence feels like a battleground where the choices they make have far more complex and far-reaching consequences and reinforcements don't always arrive on time. At least they can go through the paces and explore those questions through the pages of a book where the monsters are only ink and shadows and the kids are ultimately heroes.
It is a hard lesson to learn that the world is not a warm lap and tender kisses and sunshine all around, but adolescence is for finding yourself as well as learning how to deal with the realities of this world. My son is not about to go cut himself or smoke crack because he read about it in a book, no matter how devastated he was by recent personal events. But he may understand a classmate's behavior a little more. He may develop a stronger sense of relativity and compassion. He may find a strength he never knew before. He will have an even better sense of what it means to be human. And he will choose what he becomes.
While I would like to protect my children from all the ugliness in the world, I would do them far more harm if I pretended it didn't exist.
Saturday, January 08, 2011
Huck's Audience
With all the flurry over the recent attempt to sanitize THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN for young audiences, one important element of the question seems to have gotten lost. Who was the intended audience? For that matter, consider the newly released film version of Jonathan Swift's GULLIVER'S TRAVELS. It is being marketed as a fun "family" film, but Swift's work was carefully crafted political satire aimed at adults.
Now look closely at Twain's book. Consider when he wrote it, not only in terms of the historical time period but also in terms of the stage of Twain's own life. Though he may have envisioned a boy's adventure book when he began writing it, his novel became something very different by the end. The end of Reconstruction, the introduction of Jim Crow, and a flood of lynchings as well as personal tragedy led Twain to put the half-finished manuscript on the shelf for seven years before he finally picked it back up. And when he did, he came at the novel from a very different place. There is far more darkness in his tale than today's young people would understand. Does that mean they shouldn't read it? No.
However, it does mean that we should treat it as what it is. This book has been a point of contention on school reading lists for decades primarily because of the language, yet teachers want to share this eloquent indictment of Southern Honor and Post-Reconstruction realities with students of all ages. Why? What abiding truth resonates with the young reader? I think the problem is that many teachers don't really answer that question, if they ask it all all, before they plunge in with a group of unsuspecting 8th-graders. Does a popsicle-stick raft really demonstrate an important theme in the book?
I'm not saying we shouldn't include this in our school reading list or ban people from teaching it. I'm just saying don't be careless with it because you think it was meant for kids to read and learn a lesson about racism and don't let a sanitized version of the text lure you into a complacence that fails to address the true issues in the book. An adolescent main character does not always mean a book was written for kids. Is THE LOVELY BONES a book for young readers?
You can look around and find a host of classics that have been turned into graphic novels or abbreviated versions for young readers and that is not a bad thing. We teach books written for adults all the time. But if you wish to teach a book like HUCK FINN, don't assume that because one offensive word has been extracted or painted a different color that it is somehow more relevant or more acceptable to a young audience.
Kids can learn a lot from HUCK FINN. Don't boil it down to a single word and don't assume that it was written for kids. Think about those abiding truths you want your students to glean and start there. After all, if we want them to learn how to think about the hard questions, we have to be good models and ask them ourselves.
Now look closely at Twain's book. Consider when he wrote it, not only in terms of the historical time period but also in terms of the stage of Twain's own life. Though he may have envisioned a boy's adventure book when he began writing it, his novel became something very different by the end. The end of Reconstruction, the introduction of Jim Crow, and a flood of lynchings as well as personal tragedy led Twain to put the half-finished manuscript on the shelf for seven years before he finally picked it back up. And when he did, he came at the novel from a very different place. There is far more darkness in his tale than today's young people would understand. Does that mean they shouldn't read it? No.
However, it does mean that we should treat it as what it is. This book has been a point of contention on school reading lists for decades primarily because of the language, yet teachers want to share this eloquent indictment of Southern Honor and Post-Reconstruction realities with students of all ages. Why? What abiding truth resonates with the young reader? I think the problem is that many teachers don't really answer that question, if they ask it all all, before they plunge in with a group of unsuspecting 8th-graders. Does a popsicle-stick raft really demonstrate an important theme in the book?
I'm not saying we shouldn't include this in our school reading list or ban people from teaching it. I'm just saying don't be careless with it because you think it was meant for kids to read and learn a lesson about racism and don't let a sanitized version of the text lure you into a complacence that fails to address the true issues in the book. An adolescent main character does not always mean a book was written for kids. Is THE LOVELY BONES a book for young readers?
You can look around and find a host of classics that have been turned into graphic novels or abbreviated versions for young readers and that is not a bad thing. We teach books written for adults all the time. But if you wish to teach a book like HUCK FINN, don't assume that because one offensive word has been extracted or painted a different color that it is somehow more relevant or more acceptable to a young audience.
Kids can learn a lot from HUCK FINN. Don't boil it down to a single word and don't assume that it was written for kids. Think about those abiding truths you want your students to glean and start there. After all, if we want them to learn how to think about the hard questions, we have to be good models and ask them ourselves.
Thursday, January 06, 2011
"Light Out, Huck, They Still Want to Sivilize You"
Yes, it's time for another round of literary sanitation in the name of political correctness. If you haven't heard, an English professor at Auburn University is protecting us from ourselves in order to preserve a classic for generations to come. How does he plan to do that? He has replaced the word nigger with the word slave in THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN. All 243 times it appears. His hope is to make the book more palatable and less taboo to parents, teachers, and young readers alike in order to preserve a classic.
While I understand his aim, I have mixed emotions about the ramifications of such a cleansing. My guts tightened and my brain shuddered when I heard the news. Who would dare? But I'm sure many teachers have grown weary of explaining and testing the cultural climate before attempting to teach the text and have abandoned it altogether in the name of job security. It's a delicate business and believe me, I understand. But there is something more to this issue beside censorship and the political conscience of a modern audience. For me, it's as simple as integrity.
I taught HUCKELBERRY FINN in the 90's and my students truly "got" it. Now, keep in mind, I didn't just fling the book at them and dive into it without any context. That would be ludicrous. But then teaching any classic without context is not only asinine, but borderline criminal. In his New York Times article, Michiko Kakutani sums up a crucial point here:
I was teaching high school juniors at the time, and when I announced our next project, several sighed and said, "We already read that in 8th grade." These were gifted students, mind you, and they had little tolerance for repetition let alone something that has been dubbed a "kid's adventure story." Yes, that is how it was presented to them the first time around.[shudder] Of course I set them straight and then presented the historical and cultural context, complete with disclaimers about language. Also consider that the demographics of this school were 49% caucasian, 48% African American, and 3% other (Indian, Iranian, etc.) Moreover, the socio-economic scale reached from the poorest to the wealthiest (children of pro football players and heart surgeons, etc.) who made their own cliques to often surprising ends. When we had finished, several students remarked that they had read a completely different book. They had no idea that that is what the book was about. They loved it and each one of them took in the truth that they found there.
Prof. Gribben hopes to introduce more young people to Huck by sterilizing part of the very social comment that Twain was addressing. Of course we have seen the term pass through different usages and through its evolution, we have cringed and cursed at the sound of it. But what is really at the heart of good literature? Truth. No matter how ugly, uncomfortable, or embarrassing, if we seek it earnestly, we shall find it. As teachers, isn't that a large part of our job, to help our students discover their understanding of the world and its naked truth?
The primary problem is not the text. The problem is that so many teachers get it wrong. If you think that boiling down a social commentary like HUCKLEBERRY FINN to nothing more than a jaunt on the Mississippi, than you should not be teaching it to anyone. The rich, beautiful, harsh story says so much about Twain's understanding of a country that had just come through a firestorm, not unscathed, not instantly wiser, and certainly not romantically mussed up, but truly, brutally scarred. This isn't a book about friendship and acceptance. This is a book about honor and truth and clarity. Where is the honor and truth and clarity in eviscerating the text and subjugating the context?
In the end, Huck doesn't necessarily see all slaves as equals, but he does see Jim as a man—an honorable, brave man—and a friend. Mark Twain simply asked that we look at him, that we look at ourselves, that we see this country as it was, warts and all and consider the truth. Don't look away now because it makes you uncomfortable. You'll miss the most important parts.
While I understand his aim, I have mixed emotions about the ramifications of such a cleansing. My guts tightened and my brain shuddered when I heard the news. Who would dare? But I'm sure many teachers have grown weary of explaining and testing the cultural climate before attempting to teach the text and have abandoned it altogether in the name of job security. It's a delicate business and believe me, I understand. But there is something more to this issue beside censorship and the political conscience of a modern audience. For me, it's as simple as integrity.
I taught HUCKELBERRY FINN in the 90's and my students truly "got" it. Now, keep in mind, I didn't just fling the book at them and dive into it without any context. That would be ludicrous. But then teaching any classic without context is not only asinine, but borderline criminal. In his New York Times article, Michiko Kakutani sums up a crucial point here:
Never mind that today nigger is used by many rappers, who have reclaimed the word from its ugly past. Never mind that attaching the epithet slave to the character Jim — who has run away in a bid for freedom — effectively labels him as property, as the very thing he is trying to escape.
I was teaching high school juniors at the time, and when I announced our next project, several sighed and said, "We already read that in 8th grade." These were gifted students, mind you, and they had little tolerance for repetition let alone something that has been dubbed a "kid's adventure story." Yes, that is how it was presented to them the first time around.[shudder] Of course I set them straight and then presented the historical and cultural context, complete with disclaimers about language. Also consider that the demographics of this school were 49% caucasian, 48% African American, and 3% other (Indian, Iranian, etc.) Moreover, the socio-economic scale reached from the poorest to the wealthiest (children of pro football players and heart surgeons, etc.) who made their own cliques to often surprising ends. When we had finished, several students remarked that they had read a completely different book. They had no idea that that is what the book was about. They loved it and each one of them took in the truth that they found there.
Prof. Gribben hopes to introduce more young people to Huck by sterilizing part of the very social comment that Twain was addressing. Of course we have seen the term pass through different usages and through its evolution, we have cringed and cursed at the sound of it. But what is really at the heart of good literature? Truth. No matter how ugly, uncomfortable, or embarrassing, if we seek it earnestly, we shall find it. As teachers, isn't that a large part of our job, to help our students discover their understanding of the world and its naked truth?
The primary problem is not the text. The problem is that so many teachers get it wrong. If you think that boiling down a social commentary like HUCKLEBERRY FINN to nothing more than a jaunt on the Mississippi, than you should not be teaching it to anyone. The rich, beautiful, harsh story says so much about Twain's understanding of a country that had just come through a firestorm, not unscathed, not instantly wiser, and certainly not romantically mussed up, but truly, brutally scarred. This isn't a book about friendship and acceptance. This is a book about honor and truth and clarity. Where is the honor and truth and clarity in eviscerating the text and subjugating the context?
In the end, Huck doesn't necessarily see all slaves as equals, but he does see Jim as a man—an honorable, brave man—and a friend. Mark Twain simply asked that we look at him, that we look at ourselves, that we see this country as it was, warts and all and consider the truth. Don't look away now because it makes you uncomfortable. You'll miss the most important parts.
Friday, October 08, 2010
Burn, Baby, Burn...
I've been absent from the blogosphere a bit too long, dealing with the sometimes overwhelming tasks of being a writer/teacher/mom/wife with a newly-minted teenager exploring his angst and a feisty 3rd-grader running all over. But I have been checking in from time to time and read something truly heart-breaking.
Last week was Banned Book Week. Censorship is nothing new and some of you may already be familiar with Risha Mullins' plight, but I am still sickened that such a witch hunt can take place in modern America. I fear for our teachers who care about actually teaching our children and even more, about inspiring our children. I fear for the countless kids who could learn so much and discover a love for reading by participating in innovative programs like hers. I fear for the future of this country when small minds can level such ignorant accusations and cripple our schools and allow a fascist minority to dictate that No Child Left Behind actually means no child goes forward to discover the true meaning of critical thinking and growth because those are dangerous concepts.
Look at what a sharp, insightful, creative teacher can do and think about why our kids are in school. Despite the moral majority's opinion, they are not there to pass a test. They are there to learn and to grow. Education is not about dumping information into kids' heads and hoping they can regurgitate it on an endless bubble sheet. The word itself actually translates "to lead or draw out." It's about meeting them in their own space and helping them to explore their world and actually think about the connection between their own experience and all the world has to offer. YA literature is an excellent place to share common experience and expand it to the uncommon. It challenges kids to think about what they know and what could or could not be.
Do we really serve our kids by hiding the truth of human experience from them unless it fits neatly into our own little bubble of the unreal or chronologically irrelevant? Yes, they read MacBeth and A Tale of Two Cities and Night and see some harsh truths about the human condition, but what about Speak and Soul Enchilada and Twenty Boy Summer and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian? While the classics may be great and important literature that will surely live on in English class, AP reading lists, and college courses, can't we make room for the YA experience as well? If we have nothing to turn our kids on to reading, will they ever even open those so-called classics?
I won't go on and on about this because Risha's case sums it up so well, but I challenge those who would keep books from our students to spend a day or even an hour in the poorest neighborhood in town or walk with a girl on her way to planned parenthood or stand for even a minute in the shoes of a teenager wrestling with the truth of his/her sexual orientation. Tell me what your experience is in that case. I know it's not only the white middle class conservatives lodging complaints. Any closed-minded group can curry oppression. I once had an African American parent complain about the film The Power of One because it showed the abominable treatment of a black South African. Never mind that the film actually abhors the injustice Apartheid perpetuated and celebrates the power of even one small voice to make a difference. This parent couldn't be bothered to actually watch the movie or consider the power of its message for her child. We certainly could not have read the book, because most of the kids in this class could hardly put a subject with a verb because they had skipped through school all these years without reading anything but the inside cover Cliffnotes.
I wonder if all the kids who read The Crucible in their high school English class have any idea that they are bubbling and burning in a crucible of their own...
Check out these links:
The Kids' Right to Read Project
The Book Smugglers
Controversial & Banned Books
Last week was Banned Book Week. Censorship is nothing new and some of you may already be familiar with Risha Mullins' plight, but I am still sickened that such a witch hunt can take place in modern America. I fear for our teachers who care about actually teaching our children and even more, about inspiring our children. I fear for the countless kids who could learn so much and discover a love for reading by participating in innovative programs like hers. I fear for the future of this country when small minds can level such ignorant accusations and cripple our schools and allow a fascist minority to dictate that No Child Left Behind actually means no child goes forward to discover the true meaning of critical thinking and growth because those are dangerous concepts.
Look at what a sharp, insightful, creative teacher can do and think about why our kids are in school. Despite the moral majority's opinion, they are not there to pass a test. They are there to learn and to grow. Education is not about dumping information into kids' heads and hoping they can regurgitate it on an endless bubble sheet. The word itself actually translates "to lead or draw out." It's about meeting them in their own space and helping them to explore their world and actually think about the connection between their own experience and all the world has to offer. YA literature is an excellent place to share common experience and expand it to the uncommon. It challenges kids to think about what they know and what could or could not be.
Do we really serve our kids by hiding the truth of human experience from them unless it fits neatly into our own little bubble of the unreal or chronologically irrelevant? Yes, they read MacBeth and A Tale of Two Cities and Night and see some harsh truths about the human condition, but what about Speak and Soul Enchilada and Twenty Boy Summer and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian? While the classics may be great and important literature that will surely live on in English class, AP reading lists, and college courses, can't we make room for the YA experience as well? If we have nothing to turn our kids on to reading, will they ever even open those so-called classics?
I won't go on and on about this because Risha's case sums it up so well, but I challenge those who would keep books from our students to spend a day or even an hour in the poorest neighborhood in town or walk with a girl on her way to planned parenthood or stand for even a minute in the shoes of a teenager wrestling with the truth of his/her sexual orientation. Tell me what your experience is in that case. I know it's not only the white middle class conservatives lodging complaints. Any closed-minded group can curry oppression. I once had an African American parent complain about the film The Power of One because it showed the abominable treatment of a black South African. Never mind that the film actually abhors the injustice Apartheid perpetuated and celebrates the power of even one small voice to make a difference. This parent couldn't be bothered to actually watch the movie or consider the power of its message for her child. We certainly could not have read the book, because most of the kids in this class could hardly put a subject with a verb because they had skipped through school all these years without reading anything but the inside cover Cliffnotes.
I wonder if all the kids who read The Crucible in their high school English class have any idea that they are bubbling and burning in a crucible of their own...
Check out these links:
The Kids' Right to Read Project
The Book Smugglers
Controversial & Banned Books
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