Reading Over Shoulders
Is is safe to speak yet?
Ellen Hopkins has placed her Manifesto against censorship up on her blog. It even includes a stanza from her poem for Banned Books Week. I love Banned Books week, it’s so…naughty 
In case you didn’t catch it on her blog, Ellen will be speaking this coming Tuesday at Hillsdale Free Will College in Moore – 7:30 p.m. I really enjoy mad authors, they can say the best things when they are mad. Smack us around a bit Ellen!! If you didn’t see my last post, definitely read the comments where fellow librarian and blogger, Kitty Pittman talks about some truly frightening statistics.
Whew, ok moving onward – Bleeding Cool gives you an idea of how much those Deadpool comics are going for since there’s going to be a movie.
Since I can’t get my comic book shop to freaking GET LITTLE FLUFFY GIGALO PELU ALREADY, I may have to just settle for Best Erotic Comics:2009 which features one of Junko Mizuno’s stories. Scott Miller has a review. (link via Journalista)
On Being a Good Reader – and Not Screwing it up for the Rest of Us
I’m forgoing my usual review blog to use this tiny virtual plot of space to give you an Oklahoman’s perspective on the news I received yesterday. I was actually picking out my son’s bedtime books when I hopped online and heard that the awesome Ellen Hopkins had been speaking at a Norman Middle School when a parent complained – do I even need to go on? Sigh. Complaint, Compliance, Censured. Ellen even offered to move to the highschool. A fair compromise but she was denied. Her books (all of them) were removed and this morning you get to hear the rant of one irritated blogger.
I have said before that if you accept books can change a person or leave someone with the inspiration to do good things or be something different, something stronger than they were yesterday – then you have to accept that it works the other way too. After all, Timothy McVeigh was a reader.
I would hope that when a writer sits down he or she recognizes the proverbial power of the pen. Young adult writers have an even bigger responsibility because they are writing for teenagers. By no fault of their own, teenagers are some of the best and worst readers. The young adult writer has to be aware that teenagers literally have half a brain. They can absorb, imagine, and articulate but they aren’t so good with the whole action/consequence concept. So a book written for a young adult must be fine balance. The good ones challenge these young readers.
These writers take that responsibility very seriously but they also know that the teenage experience isn’t an easy one. That dark things happen. Sex happens. Relationships, healthy and dysfunctional, make up the entire life of a teenager. These writers help them manage those relationships. Because, ultimately, any decent young adult writer leaves with the message that you, the hurting teenager, will be ok. You will survive this, you will come out a better person. They don’t necessarily leave this message with their characters (come on! that would be too easy and boring.) When Alaska (Finding Alaska by John Green, check it out) accidentally-on-purpose kills herself the message to teens is not “hey this is a good idea” but rather, “it hurts to lose someone. it will hurt to lose yourself. go ahead and feel that pain here, where it’s safe and hopefully you’ll avoid it in real life.” In Ellen Hopkins brilliant Crank and the sequel Glass, the poet experiences addiction and all the things that go along with it. Readers can experience it too with the added benefit of not actually being addicted and also getting to read some beautiful poetry. Bonus!
Of course, that brings me to the second part and biggest of the equation. The reader. It isn’t just the writer, a writer without a reader is nothing. She’s like a misshelved library book – there but, not really. Timothy McVeigh was a bad reader. If you want to read about what he read visit the memorial. Visit the memorial anyway. I would join you but I have two small children, one who’s sleeping next to me on his blanket, and I can’t take it right now. Because McVeigh was a reader who didn’t understand what he was reading or why it was fiction and why he could never make his world the way he wanted it. The world he envisioned could only ever exist in one very messed up book but he wasn’t a good enough reader to get that the reason the book was written was to fulfill a sick fantasy that the author could never make real.
As a parent of a child or teenager, it falls on your head to be the good reader. Which, incidentally, means actually reading the book you’re about to ban. Just saying.
Anyway, a parent absolutely has the right to step in and decide what their child will read. Because, as I stated before, teenagers aren’t really at the point where they can make the best decisions. So it is up to the parent to help guide them, or if it feels right, not allow the child to read the book. My own mother, an avid reader herself who always encouraged me and let me read Stephen King when I was 11, once took all my V.C. Andrews books away. Ha, I know, no big loss but at the time I was furious. She later explained that the books were changing me, making me depressed and angry and distrustful. I wasn’t a good reader, I couldn’t read those books and see them as guilty pleasures - to me, they were a representation of the world and my life.
So they were banned from my house but not the library. I don’t think it ever even occurred to my mom to try and have them taken out. She did talk to my librarian who made a suggestion. Instead of V.C. Andrews, I was allowed to read Christopher Pike and I was really good at reading Christopher Pike.
The point is, by all means, guide your child’s reading. However, your reading habits do not extend to the children of other people. Other people’s children are their own readers with their own minds and those minds do not belong to you. Reading is a deeply personal experience. That’s what makes it so wonderful and frightening. Leave it that way.
Also, parents are not the only readers looking out for the kids. Any decent school has an actual living breathing reading machine called, the librarian. I’m one. I’m good at my job. When I was a children’s librarian I was great at it. I read reviews, I read the books and I made well informed decisions of what went into my library. I was careful, on my limited budget, to include the most enriching books, with a few Christopher Pike’s thrown in for fun. The librarian is like a teacher. Trust her or him. Because they want the best for their readers (plural, remember, plural).
Censorship is a bomb. It’s a misguided attempt to make the world a singular place and it won’t work. It just messes things up. It’s the desperate action of a bad reader or even worse, a non-reader.
I hope my boys are lucky enough to hear an author of Hopkins quality speak at their school someday. I hope that they aren’t embarrassed when I push past the line of kids to get an autograph. I hope I’m a good enough parent and reader to keep up with them, to read what they read, to watch for the signs that they’ve got a bad book (for them) and act accordingly. In my own home, leaving that book on the library’s shelf to find a reader who’s ready for it.
#amazonfail
Ah, the power of the internet. Or rather, the people behind the internet. I’m in love with how information, rumors, photos, speculations, data and fears move so quickly through so many anonymous lives. Then, when something like this happens how people band together to use the internet not only to react but to change minds.
It all started when author Mark Probst wrote on his blog about a curious incident in which all of his novels (which contain homosexual characters and themes) began disappearing from the sales rank numbers. That’s a problem because those numbers are used to generate lists and in turn those lists are used by consumers to purchase books. So…what’s up?
Here’s the answer he received when inquiring about his numbers:
Uh, no, you don't. -picture from Rocko's Modern Life, Nickelodeon
“In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude “adult” material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.
Hence, if you have further questions, kindly write back to us.
Best regards,
Ashlyn D
Member Services
Amazon.com Advantage”
Uh huh. Let’s be clear. Mark Probst novels are not ’steamy’ enough to be considered erotic and even if they were… In fact, as he points out, his novel The Filly is meant for young adult readers. But this post isn’t about how ridiculous or unfair the whole ordeal is – this is about what people did about it. What you can do about it.
Twitter exploded. Adding the hashtag #amazonfail to the end of their tweets, the public expressed their anger, shared updated news and blogs. The result, Amazon answered with this:
I’ll pause while you laugh. If you really want to continue the Amazon onslaught add #glitchmyass to the end of your tweets.
How does this effect the graphic world? So far, it hasn’t appeared to, which isn’t surprising. The amount of young children carried into Watchmen proves that the general public still thinks books with pictures are for kids. Yaoi and explicit graphic novels still have their sales rank as do Alex Sanchez and Nancy Garden -two young adult writers who focus on gay themes. Though a quick last check reveals that Alex Sanchez’s brilliant Rainbow Boys lost its ranking.
And it looks like it probably won’t ever spread. This censorship was cut off in a matter of hours!
Will there be another movement? One that pushes for Amazon to reinstate the “glitch”? Probably but I don’t see it being that strong. Usually the first outcry is the loudest, the strongest. Having something taken away from you is a powerful motivator and this weekend, we took it back.
On that note, get pumped about the power of the people with The Getbackers! Then read some yaoi – I’ve heard Red Blinds the Foolish is really good. Also, if you want a great overview of the situation plus updates plus blacklisted titles and shocking titles that still stand – check out this Jezebel post. – link via Precocious Curmudgeon.
