Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging

Since the young adult fiction genre was created, adults have constantly looked to challenge, censor and ban the books that are anything less than entirely wholesome. They believe that these books will ruin the innocence of the young reader. They do not realize that these readers need to read these books, because they need to know that someone understands them and can identify with them.  Adolescence is a challenging, confusing and downright scary time. These readers are fighting with their parents, ruled by their hormones and trying to find a place they feel they belong. These books, which adults try to ban, give adolescents somewhere they feel safe, even if it is between the confines of pages. They give adolescents something to hold onto and ultimately, these books give them hope.  Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging by national bestselling author, Louise Rennison, is one such novel, which has been targeted by parents.

            This novel takes the form of a diary written by Georgia Nicolson. Georgia is a fourteen-year-old girl growing up in the United Kingdom during the late 1990’s when the book was published. She often fights with her parents, has a three-year-old sister who she finds equally annoying and embarrassing, and has a crazy cat who is half wild. Georgia is self-centered and overdramatic, detailing her adventures hilariously for readers. Her story starts tragically when she has just ruined her young life by going to a party dressed as an olive. Though it was her own idea, she blames her best friend, Jas, for not stopping her from dressing as the cocktail fruit. She left the party early after being mocked, ignored, and asked to sit down by the host. She also resents Jas for getting attention from boys, while contemplating turning to lesbianism to solve some of her problems.

Frequently getting mad at her friends, Georgia quickly forgives them as well. When Jas develops a crush on a boy, Tom, who works at a grocery store, Georgia is enlisted to help in “boy-stalking” him. The other girls in Georgia and Jas’s friend group, Ellen and Jools, also come along to help. While Jas goes in to buy onions, the rest of the gang take turns coming in the store and fawning over Jas to make her seem popular in front of Tom. The next time Georgia goes with Jas to help her find out more information about Tom, she comes face-to-face with Tom’s brother, who she dubs Sex God. For once, Georgia is at a loss for words as all she can do is stare at this new, incredible specimen of eye candy. It is love at first sight for Georgia, which quickly turns into a new obsession for the boy crazy teenager.  She finds out from a girl at school that his name his Robbie Jennings, and she begins to always be on the watch for another sighting of this Sex God.

Meanwhile, while Georgia is not day dreaming about Robbie, she is experiencing the challenges of being a teenager. She attempts to pluck her eyebrows, which only ends in disaster. After getting exasperated by the painful plucking, she comes up with the solution to use a razor, but accidently shaves them off. Her father travels to New Zealand for work, and while he is gone, her mother hires a decorator, who Georgia comes to think her mother is having an affair with. Another misadventure includes her cousin, James. The first time he comes over, they start talking and then he reaches out to hold her leg. The next time he comes over, he suggests they play a tickling game and turns off the light. He starts to tickle her, but then a wet thing touches her face. When she turns the light back on, he just picks up a book and starts to read it like nothing has happened.

The boy crazy Georgia also decides to go to a professional kisser, a boy named Peter Dyer, to learn the art of kissing. Peter calls her a natural and when he sees her at a party, he tells her he wants to give her another lesson of things he did not have time to show her before. He takes her outside and they begin to make out behind a tree. They both lose their balance and fall. Robbie, who was not supposed to be at the party, walks up with his girlfriend, Lindsay. He seems annoyed to find the two on the ground together. Georgia is already mortified to be found by Robbie and Lindsey, but it only gets worse when she realizes her skirt has ridden up and exposed her underwear. Humiliated about Robbie, Georgia agrees to go out with Peter, but gets Jas to dump him for her after realizing that all he wants to do is make out.

Georgia gets into more boy drama, when she meets a boy named Mark at Bonfire Night. She agrees to go with him to Robbie’s band’s gig, where he causes a huge riot. She decides to dump him, but he dumps her first. Georgia also convinces Jas to break up with Tom, causing Robbie to give her bad looks. Later, Robbie asks Jas to get a coffee, making both the girls think he likes Jas. Georgia is infuriated with her friend, who told her that she would let her know if anything happened. The two girls fight and quit speaking to each other. Over coffee Robbie tells Jas that Tom still likes her. Jas and Georgia become friends again. Jas tells her that the rumor of Robbie being engaged to Lindsay is false, and Georgia tells Jas to get back together with Tom.

To apologize for choosing a guy over Georgia, Jas agrees to help her spy on Robbie’s girlfriend, Lindsay. They make some interesting observations about Georgia’s rival. Lindsay takes of her “engagement ring” when she is not at school, meaning that her and Robbie really are not engaged. She wears thongs, has no hair on “her womanly parts” (183) and uses rubber things that she puts in her bra to make it look like she has cleavage. Then, after following Lindsay to when she meets up with Robbie and watching them, Georgia decides that Robbie does not really care for Lindsay. Finally, Georgia sees a chance at her true love.

The love triangle gets more complicated when Robbie kisses Georgia and then does not call her. He is still dating Lindsay and told her that Georgia kissed him. Georgie is crushed. When she called him, he acted like it was someone else on the phone and hung up. He eventually talks to Georgia, admitting he has feelings for her, but that they cannot be together. She is too young for him. However, he does dump Lindsay, giving Georgia hope. When her cat, Angus, goes missing it is Robbie who finds him. Knowing that Robbie is coming over, Georgia tries to bleach a streak of her hair blond to make her appear older and more sophisticated. While he is dropping off Angus, the hair breaks off in her hand. He sees it, says “God you’re weird” and kisses her (233). It was actually Georgia’s awkwardness that Robbie liked about her. He tells her they can see each but have to keep it quiet. Georgia is elated until her mother breaks the news that she has bought tickets to visit her father in New Zealand for the summer. The book ends with readers wondering if the trip would thwart the budding romance.

A major theme of the novel is growing up. Georgia is overdramatic, insecure and too worried about what others think of her. She constantly frets about her looks, makeup, and boys. In these regards, Georgia is the stereotypical teenage girl. Readers get to see a character just like themselves, who is going through the same things that they are experiencing. The novel also shows them that the awkwardness, which seems to be their most notable characteristic, is universal and even appreciated. Georgia and her stories are relatable, whether it is her having a crush on an older boy, trying to shave her legs for the first time, or fighting with her parents. It tells adolescents they are not alone.

The book portrays adolescence realistically as an awkward time full of being self-conscious and emotional. Teenagers become preoccupied with appearance, as seen through Georgia’s experimentation with eyebrow tweezing, shaving, face masks, and hair dyeing. She constantly complains about the beret that is part of the outdoor uniform at her school. She and her friends rate each other’s physical appearances. Everything she does, she feels like people are judging her for, whether she asks for it, or not. Adolescents often feel this way. They grow anxious over minor details, when in reality no one cares. Or it at least, blows over and everyone forgets about it. It is also an emotional roller coaster. Hormones are raging and everything feels like the end of the world. Georgia, along with all adolescents, are experiencing things for the first time, so they feel it more strongly. The important thing about this book, is that it shows readers that these are common characteristics of adolescence and they are not alone.

For all of its value, Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging ranked 35^th on the top 100 books banned or challenged between 2000 and 2009, according to the American Library Association. The book has been challenged for age inappropriateness, profanity and sexual content. Georgia does fight with her parents, cuss mildly, make out with boys and talk about lesbianism. However, these are all typical aspects of the adolescent experience. Challenging books because of these topics is denying that it is what teenagers go through. Those that oppose it would like to believe that adolescents are cookie cutter pure and innocent, but this is not the case. Challenging the book, which reflects real life, tells teenagers that something is wrong not just with the book, but with themselves.

            Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging is a whimsical read that highlights the hilarity and awkwardness of adolescence. It gives readers not just someone to identify with, but also a friend in Georgia. Though some have challenged the book based on unrealistic principles, it is a realistic view into the lives of teenagers.

 

Works Cited

Laura. “BBW Booktalk: Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging.” Banned Books Week : The Pageturn. N.p., 28 Sept. 2011. Web. 25 Feb. 2016. <http://www.thepageturn.com/tag/banned-books-week/&gt;.

Rennison, Louise. Angus, Thongs and Full-frontal Snogging: Confessions of Georgia Nicolson. New York: HarperCollinsPublishers, 2000. Print.

The Challenges of The Giver

Sheldon McKinney

Lois Lowery’s “The Giver”, winner of the John Newberry Medal, is a phenomenal book. It is a dystopian, problematic utopian society from the point of view of a young man named Jonas. This is several generations after the society was created and in a sense perfected. Color and emotions that would be a part of our human nature is completely removed from everyone. Desires are repressed; and everything from your job, your spouse, and your children are chosen for you by committees. Rules of how a person was to act towards others in the community were strictly enforced. Everyone who did not follow the rules, or were to old or sick to be a productive member of society were “released”, a concept that was assumed that the individuals were going to leave the community for another. However the young man named Jonas receives a special job called Receiver, where he goes to receive the memories of all the things forbidden and removed from the community.  He carries their pain and joy, he is to eventually replace the present Receiver who he calls the Giver, as he gives them the memories of all the Receivers before them. A Receiver’s job is to offer counsel to the community’s elders when a situation arises that they are unsure of how to handle. Though the Receiver must never die before he has completed the stage of the Giver as all the emotion’s and memories would be given back to the community, pushing them into chaos.

Jonas is facing what all adolescents face, that is the coming to terms with the emotions and desires that comes with the coming of age. Hormones flair up and emotions run high and extreme. It is frustrating and confusing time for each person who lives through it. However “The Giver” adds one more element for people to observe and that is the isolation that Jonas feels from his family and friends, as he now feels the new emotions and sees colors yet he cannot talk to them about it. Lowery takes the feeling of loneliness and magnifies it to the ideal that most adolescents feel that they are experiencing. Every cruel and unkind thing that ever is to happen to us cannot be understood, as we are the only individual who could experience the emotions that overwhelm us. This also shines a light upon the dangers of  disconnecting from our community. It can lead to actions that have disastrous effects upon the community as a whole. When Jonas leaves the community to save Gab the infant from the threat of being “released”, he leaves the entire community with out a successor of a Receiver. And when he and Gab eventually die anyways along with the Giver the memories are going to be returned to the community. Now some would call that a good thing. However as they were unequipped for dealing with simple emotions, let alone complicated ones like love and loss; one can only assume that chaos would erupt in their wake.

Lois Lowry’s “The Giver” has stayed on the high ranking end of the challenged book list since the early 90’s. It is considered controversial due to the fact that some felt the content was to mature for young teens. As the book talks about, “adolescent pill-popping, suicide, and lethal injections given to babies and the elderly.” (Web). Each a topic that most parent cringe to face, yet each hold very strong feelings on each subject matter. While I am a big advocator of this book I think that each parent should judge for their kid, if their child would be emotionally stable enough to handle such content. For the most part I cannot say that I agree with those parents, putting a blanketed ban on a book just because as adults these themes scare us. We should remember that children see such things differently, and that Lowry is not overly gruesome in the details surrounding the deaths within the book. I can understand too that parents do not wish to be seen advocating for such behavior either, as Lowry uses the term “releasing” a word that has a pleasant connotation to it. And she even describes it as a joyous event after a life well lived. Personally I think it to be a wonderful book, and one that most youth could read and appreciate; even if it does end in death.

 

Works Cited

“Banned Books Week: The Giver.” Suvudu RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Feb

Looking for Alaska

Looking for Alaska by John Green is a story that revolves around a group of friends that attend Culver Creek, a boarding school in a small Alabama town. The characters that make up this group are all different and in some ways considered “misfits” at there school compared to the other students that attend. These friends encounter hardship, devistation, fun times, multiple pranks, romance, relationships, and most of all, loss; here is the story of Alaska, Chip, Takumi, and Miles.

Miles, also referred to as Pudge, a new student from Florida, is desperately seeking The Great Perhaps as he calls it; meaning he wants to have an exciting, interesting, memorable, high school experience with friends that truely care about him and have his back. He is longing for everything the Florida and regular schooling does not give him. Miles gets exactly what he is looking for and more than he bargained for at Culver Creek. Miles roommate Chip, or the Colonel as he is reffered to, is an outgoing, push the limits, poverty stricken, genius from Alabama. Upon their arrival at school, Colonel introduces  Pudge to two of his friends, Alaska and Tamiku. Alaska is a very beautiful, intelligent, too smart for her own good, high strung, moody, mysterious girl from Alabama, and Tamiku is a fun loving, smooth talking boy from Japan. Pudge takes an automatic liking to this gorup of people, and at first their friendship is all fun and games. They pull pranks on the rich kids at school, smoke and drink in their rooms and off campus, try to keep up with their grades, and experiement with relationships and the physicality that comes with romance. As time progresses, they all become very close, but Pudge and Alaska begin getting closer on their own. During Thanksiving Break, Alaska refuses to go home on account that her home life is miserable, and she begs Pudge to stay with her. He was so flattered and hopeful of what might happen between them that he decided to stay back with her. The two did grow close during this time, and they opened up to each other and engaged in deep conversation. Pudge thought he knew Alaska better than anyone, especially now, but that all came to a halt when she disclosed a secret she had been carrying around to her friends.

As mentioned earlier, the rich kids and the average kids pulled pranks on each other as a form of payback and fun. Alaska was suspected of ratting out her roommate and her roommate’s boyfriend at the end of the previous school year for being drunk and having sex in their room when she was caught partaking in an expellable offense. Both the students, who happened to be wealthy, were expelled, and even though nobody knew for sure Alaska did it, most of them suspected it. In turn, the rich kids flooded her room and ruined her library during a long rain storm, so her and her friends vowed to get back at them. Alaska and Colonel devised an ellaborate plan that involved all their friends plus Lara, Pudge’s love interest that was set up by Alaska. They all had their own job, Takumi and Pudge would distract the dean of students, Lara would disspense blue hairdye into some of the rich kid’s hair products, and Colonel and Alaska would hack into the computer system inside the school and change the grades on the rich kids’ progress reports and send them to their parents. This prank went off without a hitch, and the friends all went back to celebrate their victory by getting drunk. While intoxicated, they played a game Best Day/Worst Day. This is where Alaska released the bomb the had been holding so tightly to. Everyone told their best and worst days, and when it got to Alaska she said her worst day was when her mother passed away. Her mother had a brain anyruism while she was there, but when Alaska got to her, she paniced. She just sat there with her dead mother until her father got home. Her father blamed her for a minute second, but she blamed herself for the rest of her life. This was the first time she had ever told her friends this story. Alaska liked to remain mysterious, and she was good at it even with her closest friends.

Time goes on, and a few days later, Pudge and Colonel find themselves in Alaska’s room. She and Colenol got extremely drunk, and she decided it was a good idea to play truth or dare. She asked Pudge truth or dare, and when he answer with dare, she replied, hook up with me. They began to kiss, and it became more sexually intense as time went on. She eventually said that this was fun, but she was tired, so she told him “to be continued.” They fell asleep together until Alaska was awaken by the phone ringing. During the phone call, she goes balistic and returns to her room crying and screaming, and making no sense to Pudge and Colonel. She tells them she has to leave, and she needs their help. They are sceptical, but they distract the dean of students long enough for her to get off campus. The next morning, an emergency assembly is called, and everyone is told that Alaska Young had been in a tragic care accident the night before, and she was dead. The story continues with her friends attempting to figure out the mystery of her death. They contimplate suicide, investigate the crash, and decide to love, forgive, and honor her despite all the pain she caused them. Before she passed, she posed a question to Pudge: what is labyrinth, and how do you get out of it. It is a complex question that nobody really understand exept her. It takes her death and their longing for answer before her friends finally grasp the meaning and point to her life altering question.

Looking for Alaska is a widely challenged book due to its racey content filled with “sexual content…that is not suitable for teenagers” (Bertin). The book does “contain a two-page oral sex scene, one of two mildly erotic passages in the book,” but if that is the part of the book that people decide to focus on, they missed the main themes by a mile (Nazaryan). John Green is passionate about “depicting the real lives of teenagers,” and as hard as it is to believe that teenagers deal with this kind of sexual content more often than realized, it is true (Nazaryan). They have access to the Internet and television at all times, and sexual content is much more prevalent in thos mediums than it is in this book. It is easy to agree that “kids at this age are impressionable,” however, just reading these words does not mean that they are going to go out and become sexually active (Nazaryan). Contrary to their belief, it will not “cause immoral tought or actions in children” (Green). Green pleads that the entire point of having the oral sex scene is to make it explicitly clear to the readers the difference between a non-emotional yet physcial sexual interaction versus a passionate and emotional connection made with little contact between two people that really love each other.  Although many parents have objected to their students reading this book, the Kids’ Right to Read Project have sided with John Green because “it deals with issues of friendship, self-discovery, and loss-issues that many teenagers are dealing with themselves” (Bertin).

This book is a perfect example of the fun times and hardships that teenagers go through. Teenagers are going to have fun, push the limits and boundries, experiment with relationships and alcohol, and maintain friendships just as these characters did by pulling pranks, illegally buying cigarettes and booze, and drinking and smoking on campus. Looking for Alaska does a great job of looking at the good and the bad that comes with being a teenager. With all the excitment mentioned above, they are going to get caught, get into trouble, let people down, have pain, be emotional, not know how to cope or understand what is going on, and go through their own personal and horrible situations just as Alaska did with the death of her mother and her friends did when they lost her. However,  this book focuses on dealing with the problems you are  faced with in a healthy manner rather than commiting suicide and giving up. Green is not trying to get teenagers to see that things are not always that bad, people love you no matter, and taking your life will only hurt the people around you. Life is not always sunny, and life is not always going to be easy. Some people are going to be faced with harder obstacles than others, but the fact of the matter is, you have to fight to cope and become okay with the issues that are being experienced. John Green does an incredible job of focusing on the teenage perspective and making the experiences realistic while he is pushing for teenagers to realize that this is a brief time in their life and bad circumstances will not last forever.

 

Bertin, Joan, Charles Brownstien, Millie Davis, Chris Finan, Lin Oliver, Judy Platt, Susanna Reich. “Re: Lookng for Alaska by John Green.” Kids’ Right to Read Project.” Electronic Mail. 18 July 2014. Web. 24 February 2016.

Green, John. “I Am Not a Pornographer.” Online Video Clip. Youtube. Youtube, 30 January 2008. Web. 24 February 2016.

Nazaryan, Alexander. “Tennesse County Bans YA Novel “Looking for Alaska” Because of Oral Sex Scene: This is not Stienbeck School Officials Say.” NY Daily News. 10 May 2012. Web. 24 February 2016.

 

Eleanor and Park

Eleanor and Park is a 2013 critically acclaimed YA novel by Rainbow Rowell. Among other rewards, the novel was named the winner of the 2014 Micheal L. Printz Award by the American Library Association. Named after the two main characters and told in their alternating points-of-view, Eleanor and Park explores the nature of falling in love when life is not easy. The two face challenges from their own families and fellow classmates as well as deeper issues of poverty, domestic abuse, and bullying. For this reason, Eleanor and Park has been challenged most famously in Minnesota by parents that called the book “vile profanity… [the challengers] cited 227 instances of coarse language and sexuality and demanded it be pulled from library shelves” (Prather).

When Eleanor moves back in with her mom and step-father, Richie, after her kicked her out a year ago, she’s plunged back in to a life of poverty. Their house is tiny and seems all the smaller when she has to share a room with her five siblings. When she climbs on the bus for her first day of a new school, like Melinda in Speak, Eleanor is immediately judged and found lacking by her fellow students. When people move over in their seats so she can’t sit with them, Park seems to understand the impulse. She was not just new, “but big and awkward. With crazy hair, bright red on top of curly… She had on a plaid shirt, a man’s shirt, with half a dozen weird necklaces hanging around her neck and scarves wrapped around her wrists” (8). Park eventually pulls her in to a seat with him and their romance is born. An Asian teenager in an all-white neighborhood and school, Park understands what it is like to be different. Bonding over comics and the Smiths, Park and Eleanor find a connection and are drawn to each other. Eleanor can’t even tell her mother or step-father about Park, because Richie would blow up. He already beats up her mom and is mean to all the kids. It is revealed later in the novel, he writes terrible things in Eleanor’s books. All the kids call her Big Red or Bloody Tampon because of her hair and weight and the bullying goes further than name-calling (discussed below). Eleanor eventually escapes to her uncle’s home with Park’s help when her step-father’s violence grows out of hand. Their ending is messy and complicated, but it still lends the reader hope for the two teenagers.

Eleanor and Park deals with complex and troubling issues in regards to two teenagers, which is part of the reason this book has been challenged. Eleanor faces bullying at the hands of her classmates beginning with name-calling. Her bullies see her as completely abject. She has to wash herself with dish soap due to poverty; They attack her with insults about her second/third/fourthhand clothes, because the well-off kids see Goodwill clothes as dirty. The students call her everything from Bozo to Raghead to Bloody Mary, even covering her gym locker with pads marked with red ink insults. Eleanor tries not to let the names get to her, but each one feels a little bit like a knife to her psyche. Her bullies escalate even more in gym class when they take her street-clothes from her locker and leave them soaking in the toilet, “Even though Eleanor knew what she was going to see there, it still felt like a wet slap in the face. Her best pair of jeans and her cowboy shirt were in a dark pile in the bowl and her shoes were crammed under the lid” (241). She worries about everyone knowing that she’s wearing toilet clothes, because she cannot afford to throw them away. To a person with few clothes already this is an especially painful act of violence. These bullies make her even more abject than she already was.

Continuing with her abjection, Eleanor also has to deal with the big issue of poverty. As previously mentioned, she shares a two bedroom house with her mom, stepdad, and five siblings. The house is so small, the bathroom is in the \kitchen and only separated by a flowered shower curtain. She’s afraid to tell Park to much about her life, because he is comfortably middle class, “It was one thing to let him see her crazy life a little bit at a time [and another to tell him the truth]…. So, yeah, I have a terrible stepdad, and I don’t have a phone, and sometimes when we’re out of dish soap, I wash my hair with flea and tick shampoo” (89). Half of a bunk bed, a small garbage bag of clothes, and a single cardboard box make up the entirety of her belongings. Richie, her stepfather, spends most of their money drinking down at the local watering hole. When Eleanor gets a little bit of money from her biological father, she gives it to her mother to buy food.

Not only does Eleanor have to deal with poverty and bullying, but she also has to deal with her stepfather. A few nights after Eleanor arrives, she and the children are woken up by Richie’s screaming and her mother’s crying. The next morning, “Her mother was standing at the stove, standing more still than usual. You couldn’t not notice the bruise on the side of her face. Or the hickey under her chin” (49). . He physically, emotionally, and sexually abuses her mother and the thin walls of their home ensures that the children can hear every word and punch. He mostly stays away from the children, except for Eleanor. He doesn’t physically harm her, but the reader gets subtle hints of something very wrong with their relationship. For example, when she come inside from visiting Park he tells her, “’I know what you’re up to,’ he said, raising his voice, just as the door closed. ‘Nothing but a b*tch in heat’” (67). Obviously, that is not how an adult should talk to a minor in any situation, but coming from a stepfather this seems especially alarming. Throughout the novel, Eleanor discovers dirty terrible things written in her textbooks. She dismisses them as more bullying from her classmates, but later she realizes that they’re coming from Richie which prompts her to leave home yet again with Park’s help.

These issues are part of the reason this book has been challenged, most famously by a small town in Minnesota (Prather). Parents that try and get books banned believe that they are inappropriate for their children. These parents don’t want their children to know the issues that some of their classmates could be facing, because the parents themselves have a skewed vision of adolescence. In the U.S., we like to believe that our children are safe and happy although that is not always true. By dealing with uncomfortable issues, Rowell relates to a vast number of adolescents. Numerous children have to deal with the pressures of a bully or feeling like an outcast in their school and an unfortunate number have to deal with domestic abuse and poverty as well. Teenagers reading Eleanor and Park can realize that they’re not alone and that good things can happen in the midst of an otherwise terrible situation.

-Brandi Tilley

Prather, Shannon. “After Book Challenge at Anoka High, District Revises Policies.” Star Tribune. Star Tribune Media Company LLC. Web. 26 March 2014.

Rowell, Rainbow. Eleanor and Park. New York: Saint Martin’s Press, 2013. Print.

 

 

 

 

Banned: Staying Fat for Sarah Byrne

For centuries, literature has been the ultimate form of entertainment for many people. As a result, literature often evolves with the times. In the first three-quarters of the twentieth century, knowledge was power and books were full of studies and interesting findings, but now literature has taken a recent turn into dramatic subject matter. Today’s literature is regularly about the journey a person has to take to become a better person. Because of the growing interest in these journeys, adolescent literature has become a phenomenon. Many young adult novels are praised for the realistic connections they make between young protagonists and the difficult times they face, but these realistic connections can tend to be dark. It seems the twenty-first century is a much more difficult time for adolescents. Abuse, drug-use, sexuality, and violence are reoccurring stories in the media and a majority of the public are aware that these terrible things are happening all around them. Adolescent literature has evolved to meet the needs of the teenagers and young adults that go through these experiences, but to some, the violent, vulgar, and sexual nature of these books are evidence enough that these works of art shouldn’t be read by teenagers.

Chris Crutcher’s novel Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes was published in 1993 and quickly become a controversial novel. The premise of the story is as interesting as stories come. The story follows Eric Calhoune as he searches for a way to cure his best friend, Sarah Byrnes, of her catatonia. The reader finds out that Sarah may not have been completely honest and discovers a past of abuse that has led Sarah down a depressing road. While this idea isn’t enough to discourage anybody from reading, a few parents felt that the book was pornographic and the language was too vulgar for young readers. The book also includes discussions about abortion, suicide, religion, body image, and social justice, which tend to be delicate subject-matter for many people.

Pornography and vulgar language are a regular argument for banning books, but almost one hundred percent of the time the argument is unjustifiable. Pornography is entertainment media that depends on sexual activities to engage an audience. Most people wouldn’t classify classroom discussions of abortion and sexuality as pornography and this is simply how it appears in Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes. Where is the entertainment value in a serious discussion about an abortion experience? There is no value. Calling abortion or sexual abuse pornography undermines the horrible experiences many adolescents face on a daily basis. In a bit of irony, Mrs. Lemry, a teacher in the novel, states that “adults don’t handle it (abortion) well” (Crutcher 117). Banning a novel on this basis makes teenagers feel like their experiences are worth abandonment. If there were sexual acts in an adolescent novel that were only meant to entertain, then pornography would be a valid argument, but that isn’t the case in this novel.

Lori Bell of Belleville, Wisconsin asked that the novel be removed due to pornography. Students of the class were given the option to read this particular novel or choose another if they ever felt uncomfortable. Lori Bell didn’t want her son reading it at all, nor did she want any other student reading it. She called for a banning, but after consideration the district decided to retain Chris Crutcher’s novel in the curriculum. Crutcher responded to the issue with a letter to the district. In the letter he alluded to the First Amendment (freedom of speech), saying he “could go into the First Amendment arguments we have over and over and put you to sleep without changing any minds one way or the other” (Letter to Belleville). He is obviously disgruntled that a single parent feels that they are above all else when it comes to the Constitution. He also argues against the idea of abortion being pornography stating that “the character in the book who does have an abortion is not satisfied with her decision” and that “she had no help in making it and she is haunted by whether or not she made the right decision” (Letter). The author had put a lot of effort into making the abortion meaningful to readers. There are two sides to every story and he was able to portray one that everyone seems to avoid: the pain of the girl.

Vulgar language is inescapable. Elementary students can even be vulgar in this day and age. If banning a novel with vulgar language is meant to stop its use, then banning school would be the next step. Vulgarity is everywhere, but it hardly appears in Crutcher’s novel. The occasional “shit,” “bitch,” and “bullshit” make appearances, but by today’s standards, it is hard to consider this vulgar language. Preventing one instance of a “dirty” word will not stop the use of it anywhere else. Crutcher takes the same stance by stating, “The language in the story is tame compared to what one hears walking down the halls of any public middle or high school in this country; I know, I visit scores of both each year” (Letter). The reasoning comes down to how it is used in context. Is the language used in a purposeful way? Everybody speaks in a different way. Some prefer the use of unpleasant wording to get a more emotional meaning across. Is the language just thrown in for the sake of being there? Vulgarity used for humor could promote a more prevalent use of it by children. Choice of language is an important aspect of writing, but students and parents should be well-aware that this language will be used in the real world with or without their consent.

Chris Crutcher’s response letter shared an important detail that many people seem to miss. The decision to not use books should be up to the students or teachers and not the parents. He shows harsh feelings towards the woman who wants to replace the book so it doesn’t offend her saying that it “sounds hugely arrogant” (Letter). Crutcher has been a teacher before and places his trust in the teachers and curriculum. He questions her resolve by pondering “if she has any idea how many books a teacher reads just to pick the one he or she thinks will excite the reader” (Letter). He realizes how tough it can be to be a teacher and he realizes the burden these banning dilemmas can cause. Students are the reason for adolescent novels and they are the ones that ultimately decide what works and what doesn’t. If the students decide “this book sucks and we want something different,” Crutcher is okay with that and knows the students are why teachers are at the school (Letter).

Today, the innocence of youth seems to be endangered of extinction and it can’t be too surprising that parents will go through over-the-top measures to preserve their perfect image of a child. The idea of innocence is the very topic adolescent novels tackle. The characters of adolescent novels give real teenagers somebody to connect to, because all too often, they feel alone. Chris Crutcher’s Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes is about teenagers learning who they are and standing up for themselves. It stresses the theme that people are more than just a few characteristics; people can be so much more. Some adolescents can only find these sentiments in a novel. These novels may contain graphic imagery or language, but it may be the only companion some young students have. To ban a novel such as this would be to ban one of the only connections an adolescent has to the real world.

 

Works Cited

Crutcher, Chris. “Chris Crutcher’s Response,” 2010. http://www.chriscrutcher.com/wisconsin- 2010.html 18 Feb 2016.

Crutcher, Chris. Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. Print.

 

Banned Books- The Great Gilly Hopkins

By: Olivia Crabtree

Gilly Hopkins, or rather Galadriel Hopkins as she prefers to be called, is what many would call a “firecracker.” Gilly, the eleven year old main character of Katherine Paterson’s book The Great Gilly Hopkins might be young, but she packs a punch. She prides herself in being a bully, for taking control, and always getting her way. She’s sassy, quick, smart, hot-tempered, sarcastic, and quite proud of it all. While these characteristics appear very unappealing, readers can’t help but fall in love with Gilly’s fiery personality as they begin to learn more about her. Published in 1978 in a world attempting to break free of its conservative mold, The Great Gilly Hopkins brought punchy humor and fresh honesty to the harsh truth of foster care. However, it also made the ALAs “100 most frequently challenged books: 1990–1999” list, for Gilly’s bad language and attitude, eventually becoming a banned book. Despite this, Paterson’s story is very endearing, capturing the meaning of “home” as reader’s watch Gilly’s stone heart become melted by love and belonging.

Gilly is a foster child who has been passed around from family to family for as long as she can remember. However, Gilly doesn’t appear to mind too much; she is waiting on her birth mother to come back for her. She even faithfully carries a  picture of her wherever she goes. Meanwhile, Gilly takes pride in making the families she lives with miserable, almost as if it is a game. She brags: “I am famous across the entire country. Nobody wants to tangle with the great Galadriel Hopkins. I am too clever and too hard to manage. Gruesome Gilly, they call me” (Paterson 4). Gilly acts this way, moving from house to house, family to family until at her case worker’s whits end, she is placed with a woman named Mrs. Trotter and her adopted son William Ernest. Moving into her new home, armed with her typical plan to wreak havoc, Gilly attempts to sassily leave her mark. To her surprise however, Mrs. Trotter is hardly distressed at all by her attitude, only firmly correcting her when necessary, and otherwise ignoring Gilly’s dramatic antics. Over time Gilly finds herself falling in love with her strange new family. For the first time in Gilly’s life she has felt love, and  her world is turned upside down.  Her brilliant plans of making everyone miserable until her mother returns have been ruined. In a brief moment with William Ernest Gilly begins to realize how much she actually enjoys his company: “[Gilly thinks to herself] …smiling, without taking time to calculate which of her smiles to put on” (60). Gilly is free from the closed-off world she had forced herself to live in, now living with an understanding of love, family, and of home. However, before she realizes this she is still determined to be reunited with her mom; Gilly sends her a letter telling her she must be rescued from her weird new family. Before Gilly realizes what she has done, she is once again moved, this time into her real grandma’s home. Though this ending appears tragic, in the end Gilly’s heart has been healed , no longer allowing herself to hide behind a wall of anger and hurt. Gilly has learned what it means to be loved and she will carry it with her wherever she goes. This is an extremely significant point the book communicates children; children must be made aware of the possibility of love and family, and Paterson’s book does an excellent job of doing exactly that.

Throughout the story Gilly deals with several key themes concerning adolescence that make the book much more relatable to child readers. Two of these themes include bullying and a desire to belong. In this case, Gilly is actually the one being the bully; she enjoys making people do what she wants and the rush of power she feels when they do. For example, Gilly makes one friend at school named Agnes. However, she really only tolerates Agnes in case she needs her for something. Gilly tells Agnes: “‘You know, don’t you, Agnes, it makes me sick just looking at you?…It’s nothing personal…In fact, you probably can’t help it. I don’t blame you. I’m just not going to put up with it”’ (54). Then she precedes to tell Agnes she is no longer allowed to talk. Readers find Gilly acting like this quite often throughout the novel. Bullying is something very relevant to adolescent readers. Wether they identify with the bully, or the one being bullied, it is likely that most students have come in contact with some form of bullying.

Gilly’s experience within the foster care system has given her a sort of identity crisis; she clings to the promise that her mother will return, only to find herself feeling that she really belongs nowhere. She pushes everyone else away, determined that her mother will come back for her and everything will change. However, by the end of the novel she realizes it doesn’t necessarily have to be her mother that changes things. Gilly realizes what she is really searching so desperately for: “I just wanted—….To stop being a “foster child,” the quotation marks dragging the phrase down, almost growing it. To be real without any quotation marks. To belong and to possess. To be herself…” (149).  Wether or not the reader is directly involved with the foster care system, everyone can identify with the desire to belong. This is a very relevant idea to adolescents; they are all searching for their place, desiring to be loved and needed. Morgan Walker discusses Gilly’s discovery of belonging in her article “Banned Books Week: The Great Gilly Hopkins:” “…Her [Gilly’s] foster family and her teacher understand her better than she thinks, and almost despite herself, she begins to open up to them…Gilly herself has undergone a transformation…”.  Gilly’s story encourages adolescent readers to open up and allow themselves to be loved, and like Gilly, be determined to find their place.

Adolescence is somewhat of an estranged topic within Paterson’s book, and for many of the same reasons that the book was banned.  Gilly does not live as a typical kid; she is a foster child passed from family to family. Besides her circumstances, Gilly also does not act as a typical child. She is fairly self-sufficient and independent, and walks with all the authority and confidence her eleven year old self will allow. She especially doesn’t speak like a typical child; the novel is full of moments where Gilly curses wildly. This is just the rough part of who Gilly is; even at the end of the novel when her heart is transformed she talks to Mrs. Trotter on the phone: “‘Go to hell, Trotter,’” Gilly said softly. A sigh. ‘Well, I don’t know about that. I had planned on settling permanently somewheres else.’ ‘Trotter’…I love you.’ ‘I know, baby. I love you, too’” (Paterson 178).  Gilly ends the book, still as her rough self, but this time with love. Readers can’t help but appreciate her character, even with her rough edges.  Throughout the novel Gilly is also deviant, always lying, cheating, and scheming to get her way. Walker describes Gilly this way: “[Gilly is]…also a foul-mouthed racist. And she isn’t too happy about her new foster mother, a devout Christian, or her new teacher, a young African American woman.”  Throughout the novel Gilly clearly makes the point that she is very uninterested in Christianity, and she is especially uninterested in mingling with African Americans. Upon discovering her teacher is black, Gilly is horrified: “Gilly shrank back…God , on top of everything else, the teacher was black” (Paterson 24-25).  Many crude and rude comments, racial slurs, and curse words are used by Gilly throughout the book, however that is not the end of her story. Though her language doesn’t change much, Gilly’s overall attitude and view of people changes immensely. Walker describes Gilly as someone who is not “an irredeemable character.” Gilly is no longer hardened to other people, and has discovered not only what it means to be loved, but to love back despite race or religion.

In conclusion, it is clear that Katherine Paterson’s book is one with rough edges. However, these rough edges are what reach out to adolescent readers, grabbing their attention and becoming relevant to their lives. In a letter Paterson wrote addressing the banning of The Great Gilly Hopkins she wrote: “Though Gilly’s mouth is a very mild one compared to that of many lost children, if she had said `fiddlesticks’ when frustrated, readers could not have believed in her and love would give them no hope.” Paterson makes the point that Gilly’s harshness was necessary. Her character told the truth about adolescence, which everyone knows is not always pretty. Though rough, she also scaffolded her story in a way that brought about sensitive and relevant topics for children like bullying and the idea of finding their place. Gilly’s crudeness was not in vain, but rather made her a character that children could look at and find parts of their own reflection. Paterson said it best in an interview with Nicole Deming: “We need to remind ourselves that any book that has power also has the power to offend. Those of us who want children to experience the power of great literature to nourish and inspire need to take that risk.”

Works Cited
Deming, Nicole. “Katherine Paterson: The Risks of Great Literature.” Guernica/ a Magazine of Art and Politics. Guernica. 2 Oct. 2012. Web. 18 Feb. 2016.

Paterson, Katherine. The Great Gilly Hopkins. New York: HarperCollins Publishers,1978. Print.

Walker, Morgan. “Banned Books Week: The Great Gilly Hopkins.” Bookbox Daily—The Scholastic Reading Club. Book Talk. 2015. Web. 18 Feb. 2016.

Thirteen Reasons Why

              Since the American Library Association began keeping track of books that have been challenged or banned, there have been over seventeen thousand books expunged from library shelves and school curriculums. Parents, teachers, religious organizations, and others have challenged books over their content and their intended audience. Suicide, violence, alcohol and drug abuse, sexual activity, and profanity are among the most commonly cited reasons for objection and subsequent censorship. Jay Asher’s Thirteen Reasons Why happens to contain each of those things, but it is also more than the sum of its objectionable parts. Asher tells a heart-wrenching story that explores the reasons behind a teen girl’s suicide while also delving into the effect of social pressures and gender inequalities that exist for high school students. Asher’s novel puts the reader into the shoes Clay Jensen, a high school student hearing Hannah Baker’s self-expressed reasons behind her suicide, and paints a painfully realistic portrait of the emotional turbulence of modern teenage life.

Thirteen Reasons Why came out in 2007, written as a young adult novel and marketed specifically to middle school and high school students. It’s set in the late 2000s and follows a teenage boy as he deals with the suicide of a friend from school. It’s a poignant story that talks about objectification and depression without feeling as though it’s preaching to its audience. It sincerely portrays a young man as he learns about the events and people (including himself) that his classmate claims led to her committing suicide. The novel opens on its protagonist, Clay Jensen, receiving a mysterious package sans return address in the mail as he returns home from school one day. Clay opens the package to find a set of cassette tapes, and upon listening, discovers that they are recordings from Hannah Baker, his classmate and crush from school who committed suicide two weeks prior. As Clay listens, he learns that Hannah has recorded these tapes as a sort of suicide note, detailing her thirteen reasons—which happen to be people—for ending her life. Hannah gives several more pertinent details: first, that those receiving the tapes are on her list for one reason or another; second, that they are to send the tapes to the next person on the list once they finish listening; and third, that if they don’t pass on the tapes, a second set will be publicly released for everyone to know that they somehow contributed to Hannah’s suicide. Hannah goes through her list, and Clay hears one by one about the people who have made Hannah to feel unsafe, devalued, and objectified to the point that she feels it would be easier to die than to keep dealing with the pressure of her much-exaggerated reputation. When she reaches Clay’s name in her accounts, she apologizes for pushing him away when he reached out to her, because he was the only person who didn’t use her in some way. She continues on her list, telling her stories revolving around more people, and ends with her guidance counselor Mr. Porter, the one adult she reached out to who could have helped her but didn’t do enough. Clay finishes the tapes and sends them on to the next person on Hannah’s list, but is forever changed by the Hannah’s story. His new perspective allows him to notice another classmate, Skye, a girl he earlier ignored who shows signs of depression. The novel closes on Clay calling out to Skye, giving the impression that he’s not going to let someone else go down the same road as Hannah Baker.

The reason Thirteen Reasons Why connects so well with its intended audience is that most high school students have felt devalued at some point in their lives. The most disturbingly realistic elements of the novel are found in Asher’s depiction of how Hannah Baker feels objectified, used, and unsafe in every aspect of her life. After her first kiss with Justin, he ruins her reputation by lying to his friends,  and Hannah no longer feels innocent. After her name appears on Alex’s “Who’s Hot/ Who’s Not” list ranking her body, she begins to receive unwanted attention from guys, and multiple guys use it as an excuse to grab her and take advantage. Her friend Jessica gets jealous over Alex’s list and slaps Hannah, leaving a physical scar that reminds her that even her once-close friends believe all the rumors about her. Tyler spies on her from outside her window, removing her feeling of safety within her own home, and popular Courtney uses Hannah to better her image, leaving Hannah’s reputation even worse than before. Hannah goes on a date with Marcus, who tries to force himself on her, and she describes the snowball effect that these rumors have had on her. The list keeps going as she talks about each person who has treated her as an object and further ruined her reputation. Hannah describes that, piece by piece, her safety and security has been stripped away. After Ryan steals a work of her private poetry and publishes it for the school to see and dissect, Hannah says, “school hadn’t been a safe haven of mine for a long time. And after your escapades, Tyler, my home was no longer secure. Now suddenly, even my own thoughts were being offered up for ridicule” (Asher 192). Clay finally hears his own name on the list as Hannah admits to him that he doesn’t “belong in the same way as the others” (Asher 200). Clay discovers that Hannah had a crush on him, too, but she thought Clay was too good to be with a girl as damaged as she perceived herself to be. Later, Justin reappears on Hannah’s list as he moves aside and allows his friend to rape a passed out girl at a party. As Hannah leaves the party with Jenny, Jenny has a wreck that takes out a stop sign, which later causes a fatal car crash. At this point, the snowball of rumors and mistreatment has overtaken Hannah, and she feels like she should just lean into her public perception; she allows Bryce to take advantage, and he rapes her. She finally confides in Mr. Porter, hoping against hope that he might be able to pull her out of her tailspin. Mr. Porter downplays her rape and essentially tells her to move on. The next day, Hannah ends her life. These events and people are familiar to many in the novel’s target audience. Most high school girls (and even some guys) have been objectified, and most teenagers have spoken and acted in ways that have caused damage they couldn’t conceive.

Jay Asher intentionally set out to address common issues high school students face as they go through relationships and learn about reputations. In the novel, Clay acts as a conduit through which the reader can learn. As Clay learns of the effects of everyone’s actions and treatment of Hannah, the readers can learn to be mindful of what they say and be more sensitive to how it can affect those around them. Hannah acts as a gravitational force for all the pain insensitive teenagers can inflict if they aren’t careful. Asher portrays his teenage characters honestly, giving voices to young people who are unaware of the problems they’ve caused as they’ve acted only in their own interest. He speaks to teen readers about the problems they may face, and he presents Hannah’s story as a hopeless one so as to avoid glamorizing her decision. His take on suicide is that it is caused by a culmination of problems, not one insurmountable issue that is impossible for teens to handle. This message gives hope to teens that they can overcome the problem; they just have to take it piece by piece and avoid becoming overwhelmed.

The whole point of this discussion is why this book has been challenged and banned in libraries and schools. In the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom newsletter from July 2013, the reasons for Thirteen Reasons Why’s challenges are laid out: “Readers listed ‘drugs/alcohol/smoking,’ ‘sexually explicit,’ ‘suicide,’ and ‘unsuited for age group’ as reasons to restrict this dark bestseller” (Reichman 135). The idea that this book is unsuited for its age group shows that parents and teachers aren’t all that comfortable with discussing major dilemmas that face teenagers. There’s a fear that discussion will just be exposure that serves as a negative influence. While the fear is likely from a place of caring for young people, a more reasoned approach could serve to protect teens from those challenges. Sheltering students only works as long as students can remain unexposed. The better strategy would be to equip them with tools to handle what may come. Suicide and depression are already uncomfortable and often heated topics for adults to discuss with each other, let alone teenagers. But if adults (like Mr. Porter) were to more thoroughly discuss social pressures and the effects of actions and words with students, students might be more adept at handling their own setbacks and social attacks. Keeping teenagers in the dark about a topic to keep them from experiencing it is like giving them a car but not teaching them how to drive in the hopes that they’ll never encounter a dangerous driver. It just won’t work.

Banned books are a controversial subject for parents who seek to shelter their kids from uncomfortable topics like, sex, drugs, and suicide. Unfortunately, kids go to school, and they live in a world where bad things happen. Sheltering them is rarely a viable strategy for long. Thirteen Reasons Why gives a voice to the effects of irresponsible social actions, and gives the reader a new perspective. Banned or not, this book is heartbreaking and realistic; it faithfully portrays its teenage characters and gives honest outcomes to their actions without glamorizing them or sounding like preaching.

 

 

Works Cited

Asher, Jay. Thirteen Reasons Why. New York: Penguin, 2007. Print.

Reichman, Henry. “No Genre Safe on 2012 ‘Most Challenged’ List.” Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom 62.4 (2013): 135-164). Web. 28 Jan 2016.

Go Ask Alice

One morning you wake up and your body has started changing, your thoughts seem foreign, and your parents seem to be harping on you constantly. You suddenly have an attitude, and you are confused as to why adults keep telling you to grow up when you still feel like a child. Adolescence can mean loneliness, confusion, and change. Adolescence is the in-between; the awkward time between childhood and adulthood when one is not sure exactly where he or she fits in.   Emotions are at an all-time high. Hormones are raging. Nothing seems to make sense. “Adolescents have a very rocky insecure time. Grown-ups treat them like children and yet expect them to act like adults” (Anonymous, 87). The journey to adulthood can be scary and overwhelming.

Throw drugs in the mix. My mind was blown when I read the 1971 novel, “Go Ask Alice.” Several entries in the book narrator’s Alice’s diary almost seemed unreal to me because I cannot imagine dealing with some of that insanity now, let alone when I was only a freshman in high school. Drugs take people into another world full of darkness and despair. Drugs isolate their users and turn them into people they never thought they would be; people they never wanted to be. “A raindrop just splashed on my forehead and it was like a tear from heaven. Am I really alone in the whole wide gray world? Is it possible that even God is crying for me?” (Anonymous, 114). Alice describes her descent into the horrendous and outlandish world of drugs through diary entries, taking readers with her on her journey through the highs and lows.

The 1971 novel, “Go Ask Alice,” effectively illustrates what adolescence can be like for someone actively experiencing it. The thoughts, emotions, trials, changes, and the everyday roller coaster that is a part of teenage life are captured in the pages of this fifteen-year-old’s diary.

Alice’s downward spiral begins when she is given a drink laced with LSD in a party game.   For almost a year before the party, Alice writes about her struggles of fitting in at school, having friends, wanting a boyfriend, and wanting to know who she is. After her acid trip at the party, Alice writes, “I don’t know whether I should be ashamed or elated. I only know that last night I had the most incredible experience of my life. It sounds morbid when I put it into words, but actually it was tremendous and wonderful and miraculous,” (Anonymous, 30). She suddenly feels like she fits in with these kids who are playing dangerous party games with dangerous drugs. She talks about how she feels at home with these friends because they accepted her like she had always been part of their crowd. Soon after the party, Alice starts dating one of the boys in the group who introduces her to speed. She uses a needle to inject the drug for her third experience with narcotics. She starts using frequently and starts having unprotected sex. Her fear of possible pregnancy causes her to suffer from insomnia resulting in her stealing her grandfather’s sleeping pills. She cannot eat for the drugs have stolen her appetite and she starts having to hide things from her family she is close with. She knows that everyone around her is worried about her and she begins to worry about herself. “I keep asking myself how I could have been such an idiot, and there is no answer other than the fact that I am an idiot! A stupid, bungling, senseless, foolish, ignorant idiot!” Alice said (Anonymous, 47). She starts selling drugs to middle-school kids for a guy she believes to be her boyfriend before running away with a friend to San Francisco because she feels her parents simply do not understand her. She goes back and forth between home and running away multiple times. After one of her returns home, Alice admits she is addicted to acid and pot, even though people claim they are not addicting. “All the dumb, idiot kids who think they’re only chipping are in reality just existing from one experience to the other. After you’ve had it, there isn’t even life without drugs. It’s a plodding, colorless, dissonant bare existence,” Alice wrote just six months after her first dance with drugs. The sex and drugs only continue to get worse, with Alice’s only “highs” being when she is using. If not, she writes about being depressed and always wanting to run away and never coming back.

Alice’s story is dark and at times very dramatic. When both of her grandparents die, Alice kind of goes off the deep end and ends up in a state mental hospital after severely injuring herself. She seems to get better and is able to return home. Her entries become more positive and seem to be full of hope for a better future. She appears to get so much better that she no longer feels it is necessary for her to write her thoughts down in a diary anymore. Three weeks after making that decision, Alice’s parents came home from a movie and found her dead. No one knows if it was an accidental or premeditated overdose. “No one knows, and in some ways that question isn’t important. What must be of concern is that she died, and that she was only one of thousands of drugs death that year,” (Anonymous, 214). That was Sparks intentions behind writing this novel. She clearly illustrates the nightmarish lives of teenage drug users and gives readers a glimpse into these kids’ personal hells.

“Go Ask Alice” is one of the most banned books of all time. It sits at number 18 on the American Library Association’s list of “100 Most Frequently Challenged Books from 2000-2009.” The novel has numerous references to sex, heavy drug use, and teen pregnancy causing libraries and schools across the country to ban the novel from their shelves (ALA).

Although the book’s author was published as Anonymous, the actual author Beatrice Sparks was made known as the real author years later in 1978. Sparks, a professional youth counselor, met a girl named Alice at a youth convention. Later, a convention counselor called Sparks after a hysterical Alice insisted she would only speak to her. They became friends, and Alice’s parents encouraged their relationship because they knew their daughter had a drug problem and thought it would help. During one of their visits, Alice gave Sparks two of her diaries so that she could better understand a kid who is on drugs. She also did not want her parents to find them. Six months later, Sparks received a phone call from Alice’s parents that Alice was dead. Alice’s story stood out to Sparks so much that she decided to write a book to tell her story as well as other kids like Alice.

Sparks published the novel anonymously because she wanted it to seem more credible to the readers, kids and adults alike. The story is based on Alice’s diaries but some entries in the diary are based on other teenage drug user’s stories as well. “Oh, there were many reasons for publishing anonymously, but my reason was for the kids,” Sparks said in a School Library Journal interview (House that Alice Built, 109). Her intent was to deter other kids from using drugs after reading Alice’s story. She uses Alice to relate to other kids who are feeling the same way or who have ever felt the same. “I wanted to ask God to help me, but I could utter only words, dark, useless words which fell on the floor beside me and rolled off into the corners and underneath the bed,” (Anonymous, 184). Sparks uses gripping testimony through Alice in an attempt to send a clear message by tugging at readers’ heartstrings. The dark hole of despair that pulls you down after using drugs is not a hole I ever want to experience, and after reading “Go Ask Alice,” my heart was broken for Alice and the thousands of kids caught in the same trap. It is truly heartbreaking that some have to experience such depressing realities. This book illustrated in detail how difficult being an adolescent can be, especially when drugs are added in the mix.

Holes By: Louis Sachar

 

Holes: A Challenged Y.A. Novel

Alexander R. Harvey

Dr. Fritz

Adolescent Literature

Due: 5th Feb. 2016

 

        Holes is a popular novel by Louis Sachar that has won multiple awards for youth literature including the national book award, the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for fiction, and the Newbery Medal (McDaniel). The book has been largely popular since its publication in 1998, with a movie having been made in 2003 with a cast of fairly prominent actors. The book is typically read by young adults in the 5th 6th grade range among these age groups it’s really popular and I know quite a few people who read it in high school or middle school. The book has a sequel that did not do as well as the original entitled Small Steps. Despite the book’s relative popularity has been challenged in some grade schools for being portrayed as too violent or inappropriate for the age group.

        The story revolves around the main character and protagonist Stanley Yelnats who is imprisoned for a crime that he did not commit. It is indicated that Stanley’s family is experiencing the effects of a curse. on his way home from school one day Stanley has a pair of autographed basketball shoes fall from the sky which he picks up and begins to run with. His intention is to give the shoes which smell quite badly to his father who is an inventor of sorts working on a way to rid the world of foot odor. When Stanley stands trial for the crime of stealing the autographed shoes which were part of a charity sale he is sent to the juvenile camp, Camp Green Lake, where residents work in the hot sun under the supervision of the warden digging holes that are five feet deep by five feet wide to, as the Warden says, “build character”.  While at the camp Stanley encounters several characters with colorful names such as X-Ray, Armpit who is the main character in the second book in the series, and Zero. The boys bond over their shared labor and the poor treatment they received at the juvenile camp at first Stanley is largely hated by the other characters but as time goes on things change.   the campus played by yellow spotted lizards which are poisonous to humans. One day Zero or Hector as he is also called attempts to escape and Stanley follows his friend into the desert that was once a lake. Upon their fleeing the camp the boys spend many days in the desert living off of wish that they found under an old boat there later climb a mountain that they called God’s thumb. Stanley carries Hector up the mountain when Hector is sick and see some onions that he finds there and give him water from the ground, unknowingly breaking the curse that is played his family for hundreds of years. after their rough time in the desert the boys go back to try to find the treasure that the warden is looking for. The boys successfully find a suitcase which the warden tries taken from them when she finds them trapped in the hole in the morning.

        The book jumps back and forth between time periods throughout dealing with several different issues. The readers are given the narrative of how Stanley Yelnats his family became cursed by failing to keep a deal with a gypsy.  The reader is also given the story of Green Lake come and how it became to be a desert wasteland.  the switching between time periods makes for a very interesting trio of narratives which are compounded with the individual narrative of a separate characters.

        The book has been accused by some of being too violent in an appropriate for the intended age group. There is a shoes of child labor and child cruelty in the way the children are treated at Camp Green Lake. While this book is not as challenging as some Y.A. Books it is still contested and some argue for it not to be allowed in school.

        The book does touch on some important issues such as bullying, racism, illiteracy, homelessness / poverty, and criminal justice among adolescents. It also focuses on some more positive is areas such as friendship and loyalty. Stanley Hector and the other boys at the camp show a large degree of loyalty towards one another, and it is indicated that upon being released from the camp do to the poor conditions that they remain in contact to some degree. The readers find through a series of flashbacks that Hector, also called Zero, is actually homeless and is the one who originally stole the shoes which Stanley was arrested for. This indicated that Hector did not know what the shoes were for he only needed shoes. Homelessness and poverty are issues that are not frequently addressed in youth literature as the typical individual prefers to ignore or pretend that such things are not commonplace in our “first world country”.

        In the story of how Camp Green Lake became a desert the readers are given a clear narrative of the racism in American history. In the time when Green Lake was actually a lake there was a teacher who began to date a local onion farmer. This created a complication as she was white and he was black. The town held it illegal for interracial couples to exist which was commonplace at the time. When a man from the town who desired the white woman who was a teacher at the school discovered the love affair between the onion farmer and the teacher the town came together, and killed the onion farmer’s donkey and hung the black onion farmer. The legend says that Green Lake never received any rain after that time. The teacher, seeking revenge eventually killed several of the men responsible and became a bandit known as Kissing Kate whose signature is to leave a lipstick mark on each man that she killed. What the background such as is filled with racism and murder it is easy to see what some parents might object to within the book. I however, see this as a construction of a realistic backstory that acknowledges the darker aspects of American history.

        All of the youths and the book have their own problems. Armpit has his name because of his smell, Hector is called Zero because the other campers state that he has nothing in his head. Nicknames such as these indicate adolescent tendencies to focus on one negative aspect of an individual’s character.  These boys come to be defined by what is seen as their shortcomings, however they embrace their new identities, indicating them assimilating into the society that they are in. The book also details the group working together to stand against the abusive rule of the Warden who has previously been shown to physically abuse the “campers”.

 

Works Cited

McDaniel, Kelley. “Defending Holes by Louis Sachar.” MASL IF Blog. Maine Association of School Libraries, 03 Mar. 2009. Web. 04 Feb. 2016.

 

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

You’re a liar, Harry.
You’re a show-off, Harry.
You’re a psycho, Harry.
You’re a fool, Harry Potter.
Please save us, Harry.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was published in 2003. It falls into the fantasy genre and depicts students at a magical school—Hogwarts—of witchcraft and wizardry. Harry Potter is, of course, the main protagonist. As it is the fifth book in the series, it is operating on the premise that Harry’s backstory is already understood. He had learned on his eleventh birthday that he was a wizard and would be going to Hogwarts to train in all sorts of magical areas of study. Now, four and a half years after that happy revelation, Harry is having to deal with a few internal and external issues. Though these issues are not what the average teenager might encounter, the emotions behind them are certainly common enough. Any teenager reading the novel will understand much of what Harry is feeling: depression, anxiety, fear, loss, anger, pain, confusion, defiance, and many other emotions and mental states throughout the book.

When Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix opens, Harry is attempting to cope (and failing) with a fellow student’s death from the end of the previous book. He is, once again, spending the summer at his aunt and uncle’s home in Surrey, where he is not only unwanted but also feared and despised. He receives the wizarding newspaper, the Daily Prophet, and learns that the Ministry for Magic is denying the dark lord Voldemort return. They blatantly call him a liar and speculate on his mental state. They do the same to his mentor, Albus Dumbledore.

Harry’s aunt and uncle blame him for anything that may go wrong. When his cousin Dudley is attacked by a Dementor (soul-sucking depression monster), Harry is blamed because he was there. His uncle thinks he attacked Dudley, and Dudley agrees. Muggles (non-magical people like Dudley and his parents) can’t see Dementors, so Dudley thinks Harry made him feel terrible things. They often lock him in his room when they feel he’s done something “freaky” like that. Their treatment of him borders on outright abuse, though it is mostly just highly neglectful.

At school, everyone has heard what Harry and Dumbledore said at the end of last year: Voldemort is back. Few people believe them. Many think Harry is flat-out lying. Many think Dumbledore has gone senile. No one wants to believe something so terrible could be true. One of Harry’s friends and dormmates, Seamus Finnegan, and his mother believe Harry is dangerous. Seamus actually goes to ask their head of house if he can change rooms because he feels unsafe sharing with Harry. It seems as though Harry has lost at least one friend.

Harry is completely ostracized. Very few people believe him, and to make matters worse, the Ministry is actively working against him and Dumbledore. The new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor is the minister’s undersecretary and reports directly to him. She prevents them from learning practical magic and gives Harry numerous detentions with a special quill. It requires no ink, instead using his own blood. It writes in red across the parchment as it magically etches the words “I must not tell lies” into the back of Harry’s left hand. He tells no one. He does not wish to give her the satisfaction of letting her know he complained. He is advised by his head of house to keep his head down, but he can’t allow himself to do so. It really doesn’t matter either way, though. Umbridge would find a way to punish him no matter what he did or didn’t do.

Then there’s Professor Snape. The potions master has always hated Harry and verbally provokes him often. He projects his hatred of Harry’s father onto Harry, and they often verbally have at each other, ending with Harry in detention and Gryffindor House several points lower. This year, though, Harry is forced after Christmas break to begin Occlumency training with Snape. Dumbledore fears Voldemort will try to use the connection with Harry to trick Harry into leaving the safety of the castle or to spy on the Order. Snape does not wish to teach Harry, and Harry does not wish to learn from Snape. At one point, after Harry crosses a line, Snape launches a jar of cockroaches over his head.

Speaking of people who hate Harry, there’s the fellow who started all this. Voldemort killed Harry’s parents fourteen years ago. He tried to kill Harry again in his first year, second year, and his fourth year. He will try again, sort of, at the end of this fifth year. The man is convinced Harry somehow has the power to destroy him for good and is determined to remove the threat. Basically, Harry’s life has been in danger since he was less than a year old.

To top all of this off, the Occlumency that Harry was supposed to be learning with Snape fails. He doesn’t learn it. Voldemort plants a trick in his mind and convinces him that he has Harry’s godfather, Sirius Black, in the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry for Magic. Harry goes to save Sirius and finds that he was tricked into coming to retrieve an object only he or Voldemort could hold. Sirius and the rest of the Order show up; they battle the Death Eaters. In a slightly warped moment, Sirius takes a curse and falls through a veil of death on a raised dais. Now, Harry has lost both of his parents and his godfather.

By the time everyone comes to realize that Harry was, in fact, telling the truth all along, the book is a few chapters from ending. Harry spends essentially the entire school year as an outcast. The average teenager may not be under attack from a dark wizard out for blood, but these accusations and feelings are all too familiar for most. He is accused of lying, of seeking attention, of being mentally unstable, and yet is still expected at the end to be the person everyone else wants him to be. He spends a year as an outcast just to turn around at the moment everything seems to be at its very worst and see he is expected to keep himself together. He has a moment in Dumbledore’s office where he smashes everything he can reach. He simply cannot handle any more, and all the walls come down. After this, he slowly starts to heal. The explosive climax to his frustration and depression was the spark needed to work through it all, especially his godfather’s and classmate’s deaths. Just as with any adolescent, frustration builds until something has to give. Any teenager can look at this book and see similar emotions if not similar situations and see that Harry, though the savior of the wizarding world, has problems just like anybody else.

This book in particular shows adolescence as a stormy phase. This is the part where nothing goes right. This mid-point is exactly halfway between childhood and adulthood, and no one, including the adults, knows what exactly to make of it. Harry would be a ninth grader if he was at a public school in the United States. He would be one of the little kids that make seniors wonder if they were ever that small. Every ninth grader knows the awe of staring up at one of those seniors and feeling like a little minnow in the pond. Ninth grade is the big transition to high school from junior high, and all of the students are edgy about how they should act and what they should do. This mid-point is the gray area that no one knows what to do with. Harry’s experience with these issues reflects the innate gray zone of adolescence that everyone hits at some point.

As a point of controversy, the Harry Potter series is grouped as a single target. Challengers of Harry Potter do not seem to have much of a problem with the issues of the story, however. Instead, they have oddly focused on fundamental characteristics, the number one being magic. For the most part, extremely strict religious people seem to be the majority of challengers, and their main concern is that the series might teach their children that witchcraft is a good thing or somehow make their children think that the wizarding world is real. Other concerns are that it promotes violence, rebellion, killing, and anti-family sentiment. No real evidence is given to these claims, and many people who made the claims have admitted to not even reading the books at all (Dunne). The challenges made are nearly based completely off of hearsay and assumptions. This speaks somewhat to the pliability of the parents and other opposition. The particular group that opposes the book does so based on a very clear-cut, happy-little-ending story format. They fear for the corruption of their children and do not believe that the children are capable of separating the fiction from their reality (Dunne). Adolescence is a formative stage, and the issue is that the line between fantasy and reality may be blurred by the magic of the series. It would seem as though the opposition gives little credit to the adolescent readers in question and operates on an almost Puritan strictness of ideals. Faith in the adolescents themselves is not in this equation. Harry Potter continues to be challenged on these same issues, and while many libraries and schools have given in to the demands, the series remains a popular escape for teenagers, who see Harry as the ordinary hero that could be anyone.

 

 

Works Cited
Dunne, Diane Weaver. “Look Out Harry Potter! — Book Banning Heats Up.” Education World:. Education World, 4 Oct. 2000. Web. 3 Feb. 2016.
Rowling, JK. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. London: Bloomsbury, 2003. Print.