I owe the late, great Helen Thomas a debt of gratitude. My entire generation does.
Ever wonder how the mind of a book banner works?
Librarian Kelly Jensen wrote an excellent blog post at BOOKRIOT today, “What Are Grown-Ups Afraid Of In YA Books?” It is a great post and you should read it.
And now I will say something that I have never said before.
You should read the comments, too.
Dr. Richard Sweir, the guy who called SPEAK “child pornography” earlier this month, has been responding to most of the blog’s comments. His arguments are enlightening.
If you are honestly puzzled about how SPEAK could be called pornography, Sweir’s comments offer insight. Among other things, he said: “The book is about rape. By being about rape it promotes rape to our most vulnerable.”
One of my favorite exchanges –
Dr. Sweir: “The book is about the rape of a child. If you made a movie about the rape of a 13 year old would it be rated PG-13? It is all about rape, rape, rape and more rape.”
ernstludwig: “The answer to your question is yes, it would. The movie based on this book, also titled Speak, is rated PG-13.”
That is sort of amusing. Other exchanges are not.
The biggest lesson for me was that Richard Sweir comes perilously close to admitting that he hasn’t read the book. It seems that his information about the novel comes from the parents who want it removed from the school district. And while in his own writings, he calls bullying “peer pressure” that is healthy when it targets LGBT kids, any time a commenter calls him out for describing the book as porn, his response is to whine that people are bullying him.
If you are looking for material that can be a great discussion starter about censorship issues, you will love both the blog post and comments.
I salute the commenters who tried to get Sweir to cite his objections and move beyond muddy rhetoric.
What do you think?
Thank you Librarians of New York State!!
The kind librarians of New York State are honoring me with the Empire State Award!
(I was going to add videos of Frank Sinatra, Billy Joel, and Alicia Keys and Jay-Z singing about New York, but I can’t get them to embed. Any ideas way it won’t work? Maybe a New York Superhero Librarian knows why!)
Breakfast companion
I got up early to enjoy the sunrise, a cup of coffee, and the Annotated Newspapers of Harbottle Dorr.
And then an unexpected visitor showed up.
Really? Again? SPEAK labelled pornography
Oh, for heavens sakes.
A guy named Richard Swier in Florida thinks that SPEAK is “child pornography.”
I wish I were making that up.
SPEAK is cautionary tale about the emotional aftermath of rape. It tackles bullying, depression, rape, sexual harassment, and family dysfunction. It teaches children that when bad things happen, they need to speak up, even when it’s hard. It has given hope to tens of thousands of readers since 1999. It is a standard in curriculum across the country.
Swier’s quest would be laughable except that there are a couple of uninformed people who think that he knows what he’s talking about. Since he has picked apart my work, let me return the favor.
In this “article” (and I use that term loosely), Dick tries the fan the flames of horror.
(Note to people who want to burn my book but can’t be bothered to read it in order to track down the swear words. Swier has done your job for you, complete with page references. Great job, Dick!)
Dick is a Tea Party activist. He has a lot of fascinating opinions. Writing for the Tea Party Nation in 2011, he said “The White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) population in America is headed for extinction and with it our economy, well-being and survival as a uniquely America culture.”
Dick says the bullying of LGBT kids is not bullying, “It is peer pressure and is healthy. There are many bad behaviors such as smoking, under age drinking and drug abuse that are behaviors that cannot be condoned. Homosexuality falls into this category. Homosexuality is simply bad behavior that youth see as such and rightly pressure their peers to stop it.”
He also thinks that the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the White House.
A round of applause, please, for the review committee at Laurel Nokomis School in Sarasota County, Florida, who, according to their policy, reviewed the book and decided to keep it.
The challenge now moves to the district level.
