I wasn't planning to post today, since I have actual paying work to do (yay!). But I had to draw your attention to this. Many of you will already know about it, as it was all over the twitterverse and blogosphere yesterday, but some of you may not.
A crazy book-banning types named Wesley Scroggins (yes, really) has written an article in which he talks about SPEAK by Laurie Halse Anderson. Now, I love LHA. LOVE HER. I wrote about that love here. SPEAK is one of my top ten YA books of all time. And this Scroggins chap calls it 'filth'. He thinks that high school students should not be exposed to such books. He even goes to far as to equate rape with pornograpy, which is so twisted I can't even begin to get my head around it. Please read Laurie's blog post about it all here.
People like this man really, really scare me. He's a professor, for crying out loud. A supposedly educated man! I've no idea what he kind of books he'd like to see young people read, but I'm pretty sure I don't want to find out. We can't let this book-banning madness win. We just can't.
So, please go and find out more on the blogosphere. There are some pretty inspiring posts out there. Try this one for starters. If you haven't already, please read SPEAK. And if you happen to be a school librarian, please please please make sure there is a copy of SPEAK on your shelves. A student of yours might need to read it - if only to know that they're not alone.
This guy is clearly an idiot, I don't which book he read, but when I read SPEAK I saw a girl who has been forced into doing something and who would be scarred her entire life, not a girl "letting some boy touch her parts". Lame.
ReplyDeleteCaroline - that's what I read when I read Speak, too. What on earth is in the mind of someone who would see anything pornographic in this story? It's a brilliant portrayal of the acquired muteness of a girl who literally can't speak about the unspeakable thing - rape, I'll say since she can't - that has happened to her. Such things happen to real children and for anyone to try to silence a book that speaks to them (and to anyone with a heart) is to compound the suffering of rape victims and therefore to compound the crime. I am sickened by the immorality of this man's stance (and that of the vocal minority) and stunned that someone of so little intellect is being treated as though his "argument" had any weight at all.
ReplyDelete