Concerned for my children? Don’t be.
“I congratulate them for doing what’s right and removing the two books,” said Scroggins, who didn’t attend the board meeting. “It’s unfortunate they chose to keep the other book.”
The other book Scroggins is referring too is Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. If you remember a few months ago we were all a’flutter with the news that a man wanted to remove three books from the local school. Speak, Twenty Boy Summer (Sarah Ockler), and Slaughterhouse Five. Today it was revealed that Scroggins indeed won the battle and the latter two books were removed from curriculum and school libraries.
There seems to be an explosion of people who are concerned about the welfare of my children; and yours. Megan Cox Gourdon doesn’t feel children should read too darkly, Safe Libraries feels the ALA is too lax and Scroggins thinks date rape is too pornographic and sexual for kids to read. While I can appreciate your views, and your concerns I would just like to say: they are incredibly displaced worries and you don’t have to be concerned for what anyone reads outside your own family.
See we all have different morals, and 90% of the time my views are way more lax than even the average person. The only thing I expect from my children is that no matter what it is they consume they learn something from it, and if they have questions they ask them. My daughter is almost 8 and even though she has free reign to read/watch what she wants she is an excellent example of self censoring. She reads and watches only things she can handle. If it’s too scary or she can’t understand it she quickly moves on.
The question I have is simply this: why can you not trust your children? Do you deem them so immature or so sneaky that you have to ban everything that you deem inappropriate? Do your children have to be mini versions of you, why can they not have their own agenda and ideals?
Children are inquisitive by nature, that which you take away will become interesting if only for gaining the knowledge of what you deemed so incredibly startling and morally wrong that they be protected from it.
Review: Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
After reading Wintergirls(my review), by Laurie Halse Anderson I absolutely had to read more of her work. I chose Speak next because of its message. If it is one thing I learned from reading Wintergirls, it’s that Anderson can make you cringe at the same moment you hungrily page turn for more. Speak wasn’t as disturbing to me as the previous work I read by this author, but it definitely had its own sinister plot that is relevant to what our teenagers go through today. I know some teachers are using this work in their curriculum and I have to commend those who do, especially in middle grades.
The story follows Melinda Sordino through her transition from middle to high school. The summer in between Melinda is at a party, has a drink or two like everyone else and is taken advantage of. She calls the police in a panic, and when her peers find this out they completely ostracize her and haze her daily. Melinda never found a time to tell everyone what really happened to her and over time loses her ability to speak about that night, and to speak a lot in general.
This story takes us through the horror that is teen date rape, especially in the very young scenario. We learn how Melinda tortures herself and learns to feel through art, and begins to heal. The emotions in this store ring true and you feel as if you are reading and actual memoir more than a fiction story. Anderson has the ability to create a world that is so disturbingly delicious that you can’t turn away from the issue she is writing about even though you may want to. I recommend this book to young adults, and adults alike. If we learn to understand the issues that plague society then ignorance cannot prevail and some of these girls can be saved.
