My photographed sign comes from the library where my writers group used to gather when we could still meet. It’s appropriate for this month when librarians and other book people discuss banned and challenged books.
Our De Grummond Book Group’s choice for this month was Laurie Halse Anderson’s graphic novel Speak. Most of us had read it in the traditional 1999 format. I added her new memoir Shout to my list because I knew the relationship between the books, and I love her writing. The books are often challenged because of their rape theme. While Speak is fiction, one can see the very real experience in Shout that Laurie drew on for her authenticity.
Our group discussion evolved into an unexpected layer as one participant expressed her concerns. None of us wanted to encourage the blindness of censorship and book-banning, but this mother of a preteen said she would not recommend it for her daughter yet. We concurred and the conversation moved into how to be discerning for those under our care without censoring for the world at large.
I immediately recalled another banned book, Angela’s Ashes, recommended to me by one of my eighth-grade students whose mother had suggested it to her. That excellent book has some hard stuff in it to say the least. I mentioned it to my daughter, who read the book as a young adult, with the comment that I would not have thought she was old enough to read it in eighth grade. She retorted, “Mom, I’m an adult and I’m not old enough.” As I continued to think about it, I could see my student’s parent had made a wise decision with her daughter who was ready for Angela’s Ashes and the mother-daughter discussions that arose from it.
Our group concluded that discernment is a good thing. Censorship is not. We worried about those students who don’t have a parent who reads along with them and discusses ensuing hard topics. I would not choose Speak or Shout as a classroom read-aloud, though I would not quarrel with a teacher who did, but I would certainly choose for them to be on the shelves of the library, at least by high school. The openness of the Me, Too movement has made most of us conscious that sweeping issues under the rug has not been a helpful strategy.
Laurie, in the last pages of Shout describes the difference in the censorship of her books by adults who want to maintain the innocence of young people (and don’t we all? – probably including Laurie) and the teens who catch her on the side with what amounts to a “Me, Too” story. She says in free verse, “Censoring my books/ in the name of ‘innocence’/ will not build the fence you want,/ it’s not a defense/ against danger or stranger,/ the friend or foe/ whose hands want to know/ the feel of your child . . . /the false innocence/ you render for them/ by censoring truth/ protects only you.”