Censorship and Mexican-American Studies in Tucson

I generally don’t talk about current events or politics on this blog. I’m pretty content to yak on about books and awards given to books and sometimes information about movies made from books. Narrow but deep, that’s my focus.

But something happening in my immediate vicinity has been making national news. The word has gone out that the largest school district in Tucson has been banning books related to the Mexican-American Studies program, which it's in the process of removing from high schools. Read TUSD's statement in reaction to their sudden notoriety. Bonus: it includes the list of books to be removed.

Banning is actually an inaccurate depiction of the situation. They're being removed from the former MAS classrooms, but they're available at the school libraries and, oddly enough, in other social studies classrooms that were not MAS studies classes. Mind, I'm not saying that's not censorship. It's just not the full-on book-burning that is being portrayed nationally.

This is my hometown, one I love very much, warts and all. This is about censorship, which as a librarian strikes at one of my core values. This is about ethnicity and pride, which as a Latina woman and proud to be so, is also one of my core values. (To those who have met me: yes. I am. We come in all shades, you know.) And finally, this is about our kids and teens and what they’re learning, what they’re permitted to learn, what identity they are forming for themselves and what identity is being formed for them, which as someone who loves kids’ and YA literature, is something I’m thinking about all the time.

This is about more than books, although as always, the books are an easy target. They're physical objects which can be removed from a curriculum, but as in all censorship cases these objects represent ideas. Removing the books is an attempt to control the uncontrollable. Here's what Arizona is trying to control, and why a simple change of venue for a few books is just the tip of a particularly vicious iceberg.

As a result of a state law, the board of the Tucson Unified School District recently voted to end the Mexican-American studies classes at local high schools. This is not just a school district cutting out a class or two. This is a school board surgically excising an entire curriculum that seeks to study the history and culture of Mexico, the United States, Mexican-Americans, and how our countries interact up to the present day.

The state law in question is Arizona House Bill 2281, specifically the following passage.

A. A SCHOOL DISTRICT OR CHARTER SCHOOL IN THIS STATE SHALL NOT INCLUDE IN ITS PROGRAM OF INSTRUCTION ANY COURSES OR CLASSES THAT INCLUDE ANY OF THE FOLLOWING:
1. PROMOTE THE OVERTHROW OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT.
2. PROMOTE RESENTMENT TOWARD A RACE OR CLASS OF PEOPLE.
3. ARE DESIGNED PRIMARILY FOR PUPILS OF A PARTICULAR ETHNIC GROUP.
4. ADVOCATE ETHNIC SOLIDARITY INSTEAD OF THE TREATMENT OF PUPILS AS INDIVIDUALS.

(Sorry for the caps, guys. That's the way it's printed on the bill.) For those more thorough-minded, here's the full text at the Arizona Legislature's website. And read also Janni Lee Simner's much more cogent post, On Tucson's Ethnic Studies program, and a little on Arizona politics. (ETA: Holy crud, even the New York Times has thrown in an editorial.)

Basically, what they're saying is that by choosing to study the culture and history of a country other than America, teachers are creating a seething mass of future revolutionaries instead of educating our young people on a history and culture that's going to have an enormous effect on the world they stand to inherit and ultimately, run. By the way, my understanding is that this program was not limited to those of Mexican-American origin, but rather open to any TUSD student who wanted to sign up. Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong on that.

Understand: I am not placing all the blame onto the TUSD board. They're doing their best to comply with state law, which is, y'know, the law. My ire is aimed more at the lawmakers who wrote HB2281 in the first place.

What lawmakers forget (or want everyone else to forget) is that Arizona wasn’t part of the United States until the Gadsden Purchase. We just barely became a state in 1912. In our 100th year of statehood, we are effectively denying that Mexico and its people ever had any important effect on our town, on our state, and on our country. Which is bullshit.

I’ll say that again.

Bullshit.

We are a border state and have been for generations, the border gliding back and forth across the mountains and the desert. Tucson has existed under no fewer than four flags in our 236 years (yep, that number is correct) of existence as a city.

And yet, we are being forced to deny our very nature as a border town by denying any views of history and literature other than the standardized, mainstream America one.

You know what these kids are hearing? “You (or your friends or your neighbors) are not worth studying.”

“Your (their) background is not as good as our background.”

“You (they) are controversial. We don’t want to talk about you (them). When we talk about you (them), people get resentful. We don’t want that.”

“So stop talking.”

“It’s better for you (them) to lose your heritage, lose pride in your history, then for us to face that this is a border town in a border state and that we’re marbled through with all different colors. We don’t want all those colors. They’re untidy. They make messes.”

This is about more than Mexican-Americans, though. Tucson has refugees from countries all over the world. In my library, I can hear a veritable Tower of Babel in one hour at the desk. If Mexican-American studies are deemed illegal and controversial, then what about kids from Nepal? From Somalia? From Vietnam? Believe me, they're all in my library, all struggling to make sense of themselves, their backgrounds, their old country, and their new. Consider what does it do to your heart when your new country says, basically, "Forget about your old country. It doesn't matter to real Americans."

They hear: You don't matter. If you want to be a real American, you have to forget who you were.

That's not my ideal of America. But today, that's the reality in my Arizona.

Sexism in Children's Books?

I feel the need to weigh in on this, or at least to fling it out there. So apparently there's a new study out that says children's books are inherently sexist because of the disparity between female and male heroes. It was conducted at Florida State University and reported in the Daily Mail. Clippage? Don't mind if I do.

Overall, 31 per cent of the best-sellers featured a female lead character, compared to 57 per cent featuring a male. The remainder gave equal weight to a male and female protagonist, or had a gender-neutral character.

Hmm. Damning numbers, those. And yet, we've been bewailing the dearth of "boy books" for awhile now.

What to think? I think it's too late at night to be reasonably coherent about this, especially on the same day as a major program (head-to-toe pinata paste here, people. Hot tip: pack extra clothes).

Those of you in the trenches with me (hi!), be my brain. What do you think? Is sexism alive and well in the children's section? And here's more: do you think there are differences between different age levels? Are picture books more or less sexist than chapter books? Are different genres more or less sexist?

Banned Book Week Ahoy

Banned Book Week is coming up again (huzzah?), which means that book banning is in the news. Banned Books Week happens one week a year, but that doesn't mean the banners and challengers and nay-sayers and finger-wavers go away for the other 51. Y'all, I puzzled over this deeply last year before realizing that when Banned Book Week is nigh, the reporters notice news of book banning more. Face, meet palm.

This week's book-banning news/reason for crawling under your bed and sobbing gently over the future of America comes to us from Missouri, where a university professor (I know. I know!) has decried the curriculum of his local school district. Under attack: sex ed (natch), and required reading, specifically the high school's, which asks students to read the Vonnegut anti-war classic Slaughterhouse-Five, Sarah Ockler's beautiful and sensitive Twenty-Boy Summer, and Laurie Halse Anderson's yes-yes-yes-it's-really-that-good Speak.

But you know what burns my butter? And that of a lot of other people? This quote:

In high school English classes, children are required to read and view material that should be classified as soft pornography.

One such book is called "Speak." . . . As the main character in the book is alone with a boy who is touching her female parts, she makes the statement that this is what high school is supposed to feel like. The boy then rapes her on the next page. Actually, the book and movie both contain two rape scenes.

Pornography.

Jeebus Christmas.

Some more facts about this prof: his children do not go to the school under attack. So apparently he's prompted by his deep sense of . . . community welfare? Or something? He was also a speaker at a recent seminar called "Reclaiming Missouri for Christ."

I am religious. Some of you know this, some of you don't. (Now you do.) It's very dismaying to see an entire group of people painted with the Crayyyy-zee Brush because some isolated members choose to use religion as a club. Y'know what? Most of us want to live our lives and love our neighbors, not batter them into a fine paste that can then be reshaped in our own image. There's only One who gets to do that, and trust me, Scroggins, you ain't Him.

Something fascinating and new this year is the amount of religious response to this book banning. Like this, from Paul, who writes his post as a dialogue between himself and Christ. This is the final line:

“Paul (I love it when Jesus calls me by my name), I got crucified by a mob. Mobs come from fear. And fear happens when you don’t trust people to think for themselves… For the love of God, give your kids the freaking books.”

Thanks to David Lubar for that link, which almost made me cry at work.

Laurie Halse Anderson's post on the challenge to Speak has some great links by which you can respond to Scroggins, the school board, and the news media in Republic, Missouri.

Author Shannon Hale, blogging from bedrest (the woman is expecting twins any day now and still blogs! Hard-core, Hale. Hard. Core.) had this to say:

"The purpose of literature is not to represent perfect characters, an ideal world, where everyone acts kindly and appropriately. There's no benefit to reading that story, there's no learning, no questioning, no growing for the reader. I want to share just one more thing about the power and importance of great books, and why we need them free and available in libraries."

She then quotes from another blogger, which I will make you click through and read because double-quoting is kinda weird. Shannon Hale, you are awesome.

The blogosphere's afire over this one, naturally, and bless her heart, Reclusive Bibliophile has compiled a list of all the posts. There's also a Twitter hashtag, #SpeakLoudly.

More Cover Controversy

Hey, this feels familiar.

So Magic Under Glass, an upcoming YA fantasy romance by Jaclyn Dolamore, gets this cover:

I think it's a pretty cover, if kinda generic. But the heroine is described in the book as dark-skinned, and while the lighting's somewhat dim on the cover, it's not dim enough to disguise up the lack of melatonin in that young lady. Also check out the trailer below for how the author pictured the heroine, Nimira.


Oh, brother.

I've heard murmurs over the past week or so as people started reading it, but Ari over at Reading in Color really turned the murmurs into shouts.

Didn't we just do this? I'm not being snarky at the bloggers who are--correctly--stirring up a dust about this, but at the publisher. It's the same one. Really, Bloomsbury? Didn't anyone involved in cover decisions take a hint from last summer's bad-publicity storm? And yes, they just announced plans to change the cover, but wouldn't it have been so much better if someone in-house spoke up and said, "Hey, I know cover models don't always match the inside description exactly, but this is a bit much, y'know? Let's go back to the drawing board, mmmkay?"

Dolamore has gotten some flack for not speaking up in the same way as Justine Larbalestier, but honestly I don't blame her for playing it maybe too cautious. She's a debut author, a tricky time for anybody, and most likely she didn't want to rock the boat. Here's what Dolamore had to say about the controversy.

Some people are calling for a boycott on the book. I think that's shooting everyone in the collective foot. This individual book is not the problem--it's a symptom.

I could gather up all the relevant links, but it's late, so I'm going to point you at Bookshelves of Doom, which has a nicer roundup than I could do if I had the whole night.

ETA: I forgot to mention that sharp-eyed cover mavens have now realized that a character described and illustrated as brown-skinned in Little, Brown's Mysterious Benedict Society series has been consistently portrayed in alabaster tones on the covers. It's the same illustrator, even, so I'm at a loss here, folks.

KidLitCon: Overview Part One

What a great weekend this was! I love meeting the people whose blogs and books I've been reading. I hung out and talked books, blogging, general geekery, and all manner of other things.

As to the conference itself, here's what we did.

The Blog Within: This was a solo presentation by MotherReader, about the 5 W's and one H of blogging. It wasn't so much a presentation as a rather Zen reflection on why we blog, who we blog for, etc. She also recommends doing this at specific times during the year to return yourself to your original intentions for your blog, and re-energize yourself.

Building a Better Blog: MotherReader and GalleySmith did this one as a team. They talked about such nitty-gritty, nuts & bolts things as the design of your blog to make it a better experience for your readers and how to comport yourself online knowing that the Internet is forever. While they gave a lot of great tips, it all boiled down to three things to keep in mind: purpose, passion, and professionalism.

At this point, we split into concurrent sessions. I went to It's All About the Book, presented by BookNut, BiblioFile, The Miss Rumphius Effect, and A Year of Reading. We talked about writing reviews, content vs. filler, and ways to participate in the larger blogging community. By the way, what do you guys think about comments? I don't often get the chance to leave comments, but there's a difference between "Cool post, yeah" and "Interesting, here's my thoughts." Greg Pincus of The Happy Accident thinks blogs should have a "Like This" button like Facebook, and I agree. It's a way to participate a little if you don't have time for more. Google Reader did recently add a "Like" option, but it only works for readers, and the blogger doesn't get notified. Hmm. Something to think about.

Then it was back to the big ballroom for Meet the Author. My inner fangirl really comes out to play at these things. I got to talk to Varian Johnson (who gave me one of the two ARCs he'd brought with him, largely because I begged shamelessly), Elizabeth Scott, Joan Holub, Jacqueline Jules, Paula Chase, Pam Bachorz, and too many other authors to count. Between this session and the ARC table in the back, I ended up mailing boxes to myself. It was either that or lug it all in my carryon luggage, and then the plane would never get off the ground.

Then it was time for the last-minute, special surprise treat of the conference: FTC Regulations for the Blogger. Okay, that's not the formal name but it was so last-minute that it didn't even have a formal name. Pam got ahold of the FTC last week and managed to get a representative to come out to us. Mary Engle, Associate Director of Advertising Practices, agreed to visit and hear our concerns, and give the answers that she could. This was probably the most useful session in a whole valuable day. There are excellent, thoughtful recaps from Galleysmith, Jennifer R. Hubbard at WriterJenn, A Chair, a Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy, and any number of others. Here are the main points I got out of it:

• There's a difference between an impartial reviewer and someone who's part of a specific marketing campaign. We're the former; they're looking at the latter.
  
• The FTC is targeting corporations who are advertising unethically, not individuals who are the medium by which the corporations are advertising. They have no ability, or desire, to patrol the entire blogosphere and bring the hammer down on individual bloggers.
  
• That scary $11k figure that was getting thrown around is a miscommunication. That fine is for the hard-and-fast rules, and the recent blogger regulations are more guidelines. Like the pirate code.
  
• It's a smart idea to disclose review copies, but the FTC isn't requiring it. (That being said, the kidlitosphere has pretty well agreed that disclosing ties like free reviewer copies, Amazon Affiliate/Vine membership, etc, is the professional and ethical thing to do.)
• However, if you do disclose, especially things like Amazon Affiliate membership, it needs to be upfront and prominent. In Engle's words, readers should not have to search for it. The best way is probably a short line right in the post. For instance, LizB at A Chair, a Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy has taken to noting her Amazon Affiliate membership at the end of every post.
  
• This is all a work in progress. Engle admitted that they could have set more definitions to clarify the difference between reviewers and marketing programs. The FTC has set up an email address, endorsements@ftc.gov, for concerns. They can't answer individual questions, but it sounded like they were going to use the emails they get to write a FAQ for bloggers.

Awesome work by MotherReader getting that set up, and thanks to Mary Engle and the FTC for taking the time for us.

After that, it was lunchtime. Part Two of the day is coming your way tomorrow! By the way, if you want some more dimension than my brief comments provided, check out other roundups around the blogosphere (here are a few, in the comments of MotherReader's post) or check out the Twitter transcript that Greg Pincus posted at the Happy Accident on the evening after the conference.

Bloggers and the FTC - Again

The big news in the blogosphere today is about the FTC's new regulations on bloggers' endorsements, be they clothes, furniture, or those weird papery things people read before the Internet. There's a PDF file that's something like 81 pages of legalese, so thank god there are smarter people than me to untangle it.

Some commentary from a Chair, a Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy:

In a nutshell, I think it's best for book reviewers to note on the individual post if the book (whether final version or ARC) came from a publisher, publicist, or author for the purposes of reviewing it or posting about it on a blog.

Given that as a community, we pretty much decided that was a good idea awhile back, I don't think this is going to be any skin off our nose.

So much for the general thrust. For all the little details, hop on over to Edward Champion's Reluctant Habits. This blogger actually called up the Bureau of Consumer Protection and had what he describes as a "civil but heated" discussion with one Richard Cleland of that bureau.

Cleland informed me that the FTC’s main criteria is the degree of relationship between the advertiser and the blogger.

“The primary situation is where there’s a link to the sponsoring seller and the blogger,” said Cleland. And if a blogger repeatedly reviewed similar products (say, books or smartphones), then the FTC would raise an eyebrow if the blogger either held onto the product or there was any link to an advertisement.

Did you notice that bit about holding onto books? Hmmm. It gets elaborated on later, with Champion and Cleland debating the regulations' apparent double standard between unpaid bloggers and paid newspaper critics. Thanks to both men for taking the time to do this.

I appreciate what the FTC wants to do here. It's awfully easy for an apparently neutral blog to be not much more than a well-hidden advertising trumpet, with no one the wiser. It's even easy for a blogger to develop such a close relationship with a particular company that they're tempted to review everything positively.

However, whether it's in print or online, a good reviewer reviews what's in front of him or her. I've had relationships with publishers before, getting ARCs in the mail or at conferences, but I like to think that I reviewed the book, not the publisher. Because my policy is to only blog what I love, I don't always write a review either. In fact, I once did the math and realized that I review about 10% of what I read. Between BEA and ALA 08, I amassed eight months' worth of books. I wound up reviewing seventeen titles--the bulk of those during the 2008 48-Hour Book Challenge, which was an anomaly in that I reviewed everything, and not always positively.

Okay, now as to keeping the books. Most of my ARCs have found new homes with the teens at my library, or sometimes get traded to other bloggers. As far as I know, the publishers don't want them back, for a number of reasons. They don't always have cover art or inside art, they can contain mistakes or sections that are edited from the final book, they're of lower quality (paper, binding, etc) than the finished product, and finally, they're not terribly useful after the book is published. Legend holds that publishers have closets full of the things. If we had to start sending them back, there would probably be a lot of bonfires in New York City.

Cleland acknowledged that they're still working out the kinks, so I imagine we'll hear more about this from the FTC and also from bloggers. What do you think?

ETA: All things being Twittered, the hashtag is #HeyFTC. There's some interesting commentary bouncing around Twitter as well.

And It Rages On

About a month back, the New York Times published an article about letting kids pick their own books. Wow! What an astonishing, avant-garde educational philosophy!

In response, Meg Cabot posted about "How to Foster a Hatred of Reading," talking about her own experience with the Great Books and affection for (read: obsessive love) of the novelization of The Fantastic Voyage.

Here's another side of the discussion. Over at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books a few weeks back (yeah, I'm a little late on this one) Smart Bitch Sarah talks about the two camps in literary-land, which might be called the snobs and the slobs.

The slobs think the snobs think everything you read should be a work of literature that will enrich your life forever, and be a statement of art and the human condition. . . . The snobs think the slobs are intellectually lazy, and don’t understand why you’d want to read something poorly-written, or that adhered to a formula. . . . Both sides are really annoying, because they both, by and large, have it wrong, even if they do get a couple of things right.

(There's more; click through for the full, fascinating post.)

Like any really good debate, I find myself nodding at some things all the debaters say, and going, "Ummm . . ." at others. As a public librarian, I'm more firmly in the "Pick Your Own" camp, but some of the things Sarah mentions about the two camps' pre/misconceptions of each other resonate.

Where do you fall?

The Squeaky Wheel

. . . has gotten greased, as they say. (Do they? Aw, now I'm picturing wheels in leather and heels singing "You're the One That I Want" and yes, it has been a long day, how could you tell?)

ANYWAY. Remember how the whole entire internet (or least the portion of it that I frequent) was up in arms over the Liar cover?

Bloomsbury got the hint. Behold!

Before:













After:













I love this new cover--not just because it's much more representative of Micah as Justine has described her, but because it recreates what was right with the first cover while fixing what was wrong. The first cover design was a great thought--the wide, scared eyes, the mouth covered up. What is she lying about? Why is she so freaked? Curious-making!

Both of those have been retained, and now you feel as if it might really show Micah there--with the addition that she is clearly covering up her own mouth, instead of someone possibly covering it for her. (Yes, I do have a nasty little mind.)

Not to mention that where the girl on the first cover looked about thirteen or fourteen, this one looks about sixteen or seventeen. I don't know how old Micah is, but the book is described as a twisty thriller, so I'm thinking it might skew older.

Plus, she's beautiful. Seriously. Really eye-catching.

But this wasn't just about one book. Liar was the tip of this iceberg issue, which was really the perception that people won't buy books with black people (or Asian, or Latino) on the cover. As Justine herself notes:

I also hope we can prove (again) that it’s simply not true that a YA cover with a black face on the cover won’t sell. But let’s also put it to the test with books written by people of color. You don’t have to wait to grab your copy of Coe Booth’s Kendra or any of the many fabulous books recommended by Color Online etc.

Pants on Fire

The latest kerfuffle in the kidlitosphere centers around Justine Larbalestier's novel, Liar. Or more accurately, around the cover. Have a gander at the cover to your right.

Now read the description of the main character that the author herself gives on her blog:

Micah is black with nappy hair which she wears natural and short.

Now look at the cover again. Erm . . . that's what you might call a fundamental disconnect.

There have been kerfuffles before, but this time even PW caught wind of it. They went asking around and got this shriek-worthy quote:

“The entire premise of this book is about a compulsive liar,” said Melanie Cecka, publishing director of Bloomsbury Children’s Books USA and Walker Books for Young Readers, who worked on Liar. “Of all the things you’re going to choose to believe of her, you’re going to choose to believe she was telling the truth about race?”

In a word? YES. There are unreliable narrators and then there's just a big ol' mess where nothing hangs together. What makes unreliable narrators so tricky for readers is that there's truth and lies all mixed together. If you make it all lies, then, well, let Justine tell you:

One of the most upsetting impacts of the cover is that it’s led readers to question everything about Micah: If she doesn’t look anything like the girl on the cover maybe nothing she says is true. At which point the entire book, and all my hard work, crumbles.

She goes on to position this misstep in a long history of white-washing covers and ghettoizing black fiction because "black fiction doesn't sell," and just why that perception doesn't hang together.

If you want to explore this even deeper, check out Jen Robinson's roundup or this post at BoingBoing, more particularly the comments. There's one comment that examines and deconstructs all those prior like a debate captain at a kindergarten roundup.

Bloggers and the FTC

If ever you need to get ahold of MotherReader, just look for her on the ball, cuz that's where she is at all times. Bloggers should check out this post from her regarding the FTC's attention to tactics of "word of mouth" companies, and how this could be stretched to include book bloggers.

Now, none of us in the kidlitosphere are here to make money. But we do get review copies from publishers and authors--some of us more than others. We do pursue relationships with publishers and authors--again, some of us more than others. Certain books have been reviewed all over the kidlitosphere thanks mostly to incredibly energetic publicity.

Of course, we can and do post negative reviews. But as author Shannon Hale recently pointed out, even negative reviews are better than nothing, in terms of publicity.

There's a grey area there, one that we should probably try to define before somebody starts to define it for us. What are your thoughts?

BBYA Goes Bye-Bye?

(I'm going to pre-emptively apologize for any inaccuracies or oversights made in this post. The first thing I did this morning was remove a Bugzilla from the children's area, and the day kinda went from there. But I wanted to post my thoughts on this hot topic.)

Currently, there's a bit of a kerfuffle around the news that YALSA may be moving away from their longtime Best Books for Young Adults list (picked by YALSA members) and toward a more reader's-choice model.

Hmmmmm.

Truly, I fear that the first four books on the list will be the Twilight series. This is not more of my good-natured Twilight bashing. I have nothing against kids reading these books; really, I don't. It's the very point that every-damn-one is reading them that gives me pause.

Surely the purpose of these Best Books lists is to expose librarians and teachers (and through them, the kids) to the really excellent books they might not be aware of. Nobody's unaware of the popular books. That's the whole point of being popular. Alix Flinn posts a wonderful discussion of popularity contests in publishing and the pitfalls of same in today's glutted YA market.

Now, the YALSA memo that Flinn linked to doesn't mention doing away with the current BBYA totally, although it does state that YALSA members aren't satisfied with the list as it is. They cite issues of list currency and workload for the BBYA deciders--both concerns I can get behind. Even I'm a little floored by the amount of work that BBYA folks have to put in. It also doesn't say that the contributors to the readers' choice list will be thrown wide open--only to YALSA members. People who presumably work around a lot of teen books and a lot of teens every day.

Still a lot of folks in the kidlit arena are pretty concerned.

May I suggest? The Cybils works in a readers' choice/judging format and the results for the past three years have been pretty spiffy. Perhaps a combination would work best. What do you think?

What Do You Think About Sex in YA Novels?

Lynn Biederman would like to know. She's a librarian planning a talk at ALA this summer about sex in YA books, and what teens really think about it. Actually, that's a talk I'd love to hear myself.

If you're a teen and you take this survey, or you can point a teen at this survey, Lynn Biederman would be extremely grateful. It's all confidential, too.

Thanks to the Story Siren for the link!

Eating Disorders, Wintergirls, and the New York Times

Today's kidlit brouhaha is brought to you by the New York Times, who ran an article titled, "The Troubling Allure of Eating Disorders." Focusing on Laurie Halse Anderson's latest, Wintergirls, it explores a question asked in the same paper's review of the novel:

Can a novel convey, however inadvertently, an allure to anorexic behavior?

Much like this blog post, the article is mainly a collection of quotes from different sources. For my money, the really interesting part of this comes in the comments, which seesaw wildly between, "How could that ever happen?" and "Yeah, that's the way it works," with some grace notes on the theme of, "We should keep this book away from teenagers vulnerable to eating disorders."

My favorite comment, however, states:

I would rather my daughter reads that and gets a real idea of what can happen than having her see pictures of anorexic models or actresses and aspiring to be like them before understanding the costs. Hiding things doesn’t keep kids from them, it just gives other sources more authority. What’s scarier than that?

If a parent is that concerned for their child's mental health that they believe he or she might see Wintergirls as inspiration, it's time for more than simply revoking their library card.

Amazon Follow-Up

The word on the internets is that Amazon is blaming a "glitch" for yesterday's furor over books with feminist and GLBT content losing their sales ranks. Interestingly, the glitch seems to have been ongoing since February. The other word on the internets, of course, is #glitchmyass.

Anyway, this is my little contribution to letting Amazon know how pissed off I am. I'm canceling my associate's ID and linking to WorldCat.org for book reviews and further info from now on. The extra bonus, besides not having to sign into Amazon all the time, is that WorldCat.org shows you local libraries that own the book you're looking at, and I think I'd rather support libraries than Amazon.

Amazon Epic Fail

Most of you have probably heard about this one already. I woke up to a flurry of Twitters about it.

Amazon.com, in all its wisdom, has decided to strip the sales ranks of books they consider to contain "adult" situations. What does this mean, other than that the authors suddenly have one less thing to obsess over?

Amazon's search results, lists of top sellers, and even suggested books (the "others have bought . . ." thing you get on a particular book's page) are produced using sales ranks. So a book with no sales rank effectively has no power on Amazon, a website that has made seventy-six-squillion dollars (conservative estimate) by spoiling you for choice the minute you express a preference in books, movies, and everything else they sell.

I went poking around and found a list (apparently still being added to) of books that have had their Amazon sales ranks stripped due to containing adult content.

Among those listed are the lesbian-moms classic Heather Has Two Mommies, Alex Sanchez's Rainbow trilogy (Boys, High, and Road) and Linas Alsenas's Gay America (which I happen to know for a fact contains no explicit content). Where's the "adult" in this equation?

This isn't applying across the board yet. Many of Sanchez's other books (most of which have gay characters if not outright romance) still retain their sales ranks. But it's probably only a matter of time.

Some heterotica has made the list (a dubious distinction) but it's overwhelmingly populated by GLBT titles. Which means? "Adult," in this case, is mainly code for "stuff about those nasty gays and lesbians."

You know what happens when a company like Amazon does this? A teen web surfer, trying to find books which reflect his or her experience, hears, "You're alone. You're a freak. Your sexual orientation, or that of your friend/mom/cousin/next door neighbor, is something you should keep behind closed doors, because everybody else is too grossed out by it. Here, have a book about healthy, normal, heterosexual kids who never, ever, ever think about someone of the same sex THAT way. Euuwwwwww. Does your mother know you're making this search?"

I've been an Amazon Associate for awhile now, linking from my reviews and monthly reading roundups. Mainly it's a way to show the covers and give more info about the book because I've made so little in kickbacks that I've never even gotten a check from them. But I know they have made money from me. If you know of a way I can break the huge number of links I've made from my blog to Amazon, let me know in the comments.

For the world's most pervasive book seller to censor in this way, directly targeting the GLBT population, is nothing short of disgusting. Fix this, Amazon.

SF/F Takes on the S-Word

No, not that one. Sex.

Hop on over to read a number of opinions on the place and function of sex within sci-fi and fantasy, and then how the same question applies to YA iterations of the same. Not surprisingly, many of the bloggers who say without hesitation, "Sure, if it moves the story forward" to sex in adult SF/F have a harder time with, "Well, what about the teens?"

This is a question I've been chewing on for a little while myself. Having just finished Kristin Cashore's terrific YA fantasy Graceling, which does happen to feature sex, I wondered about whether to pass it on to a teen I know with a very conservative mom. As I put it to a co-worker, "It's not graphic, but it's hard to mistake for making out."

As you no doubt can tell, a large part of my chickenositude was due to the same feelings as one of the bloggers expresses:

I think that parents are the ultimate filter--they should be reading (or at least reviewing) their child's chosen reading material and giving it the ok. Granted, my parents never did that for me, and I grew up unscathed (for the most part), but it's also about being involved…

The thing about the sex in Graceling is that it was part of an equal and loving relationship, and the main character thinks hard about whether to get that involved from an emotional standpoint before she does it. There are worse examples for our teens out there. Just as another blogger points out,

I think something adults have trouble grasping is that young adults are a lot more intelligent and grown up that we would like to think. True, they don't know everything, even though they think they do, and they're still growing and maturing, but at the same time they're not stupid.

Gah. This is why children's and YA librarianship is not for the faint of heart. Still, maybe this quote sums it up best:

I'm sure that if a teenager wants to read something sexy, I doubt they'll be heading for the fantasy and sci-fi section.

Hee.

Richard Dawkins and Fairy Tales

I've been meaning to write about this one for some time now. The media's been shrieking about Richard Dawkins' supposed vendetta against fairy tales, but after watching this interview, I think that the media's doing what it always does and picking the juiciest headline out of context.



To my own surprise, I'm behind the idea of the children's book he intends to write, although I know it's going to be seen as promoting atheism. (And to be honest, the whole "Judeo-Christian mythology" didn't exactly rub me the right way.) We do need to start teaching 'em critical thinking, instead of answers to the test.

But I wonder if Dawkins fully appreciates the role that fiction plays in teaching critical thinking. Every time a child opens a book, they must answer within themselves some fairly fundamental questions. Who is right? Who is wrong? Who do I support and why? What do their choices mean to me? What would I do in that situation?

Granted, he's really behind scientific critical thinking, but I think literary critical thinking and scientific bleed into each other in a way that he may be too quick to dismiss.

What do you guys think?

Bang Head Here

File this under "Oh for cripes' sake."

South St. Louis County-based Citizens Against Pornography is taking steps to see that parents are informed about sexually explicit material in books targeting young-teen readers — books that can be found throughout the St. Louis County Library system.

And also "O unbiased reporting, where art thou?"

Sci-Fi and YA

Interesting Point/Counterpoint over at Io9, which discusses some of the developments in YA sci-fi lately and two different reactions to it.

The Point article, (which mentions Scott Westerfeld's Uglies series in particular) concludes that

[w]e should especially celebrate the awesome potential of YA SF to revitalize the field, and bring new readers to SF concepts.

Fair enough, though it seems to dismiss YA SF as merely a stepping stone on the way to "real" SF.

The Counterpoint article, as might be expected, takes the other tack. Not only does it argue that YA SF is unneeded, it calls into question the need for YA at all, dismissing it as unneeded niche marketing that will ultimately do more damage to the SF genre than it will do good.

It's especially hard on adults who read YA, comparing them to pedophiles. You think I'm kidding?

In an era where there is so much legal panic around relations between adults and young adults, it's hard to deny your knee-jerk response that there's something slightly distasteful and pedophilic about an adult reading stories aimed at people under the age of 18.

Um, okay. I haven't seen a logic leap like that since . . . I have no snappy metaphor for you guys here, that's just ridiculous.

Granted, this is a small part of the overall article, but it's one that really pushed my buttons. What do you think?

Who Wears the Shining Armor?

Leila at Bookshelves of Doom alerted me to a scintillating conversation over at Guys Lit Wire about the meaning of heroism for boys in YA novels--specifically as heroism applies to gender roles.

That sounds pretty high-falutin', doesn't it? Apparently the spark that set off this particular discussion was a Glenn Beck interview with Ted Bell, author of Nick of Time. In the interview, Beck and Bell both lament the lack of heroic boys these days, asserting that it's been too long since boys acted like boys in a book--which seemed to boil down to rescuing the girl instead of being rescued.

Yep. There's a logic problem there.

Aside from the overgeneralization and the staggering ignorance of current YA lit, since when is heroism dependent on your chromosomes? Since when do you need to be surrounded by weak women to be a strong man--or conversely, weak men to be a strong woman? A theme in much of YA and children's lit is about finding the inner hero--not the hero as compared to someone else, whatever their gender or yours.

The discussion, by the way, is not about the book itself. The book sounds like a lot of fun. It's the points made in the video about boys and girls and who should do the saving and who should wait to be saved. It's only a couple of lines, but the implications are sobering.

In the comments, Colleen herself points out that

waiting for a hero is not a way to survive; it's often a way to get dead. So how helpful is it to present literature where the boy comes in to save the girl as what authors (and readers) should aspire to? It's beyond fantasy - it's something that has never been true or helpful in any regard.

Boys need books with brave characters and so do girls. What a wonderful world we would be in if they could learn to see the value in each gender.

Incidentally, I was watching this video embedded in Guys Lit Wire. Right next to it, on the sidebar, was a blurb for Alan Gratz's marvelous Hamlet/noir mashup Something Rotten: a story about a young man trying to fight the villain, save his (male) friend from insanity, and generally pursuing justice in the best way he knew how. It just sort of underlined the hollowness of their assertions about the emasculating nature of literature for teen boys these days.