WARNING: Mature Content

As a YA writer, I spend a lot of time trying to figure out where exactly “the line” is. That is, where does a story’s sexual content or alcohol/drug content cease to be “just a story” and start to be offensive and harmful?

As an avid reader of the YA genre, I’ve yet to find a book that I have had to put down and go “wow, this goes too far”. I’ve read bad books, I’ve read good books, I’ve read horror and contemporary and stories about drug abuse and sexual abuse and light hearted comedic romps and everything in between, and I’d be hard pressed to find a single story that horribly, terribly offends me. Some of its shocked me, some have moved me to near tears (BIG BOYS DON’T CRY!), and some has left me a bit disturbed. But none of it has offended me; that is to say, none of that has bothered and angered me because of it’s supposed “morality” or what it might do to children who read it.

I remember reading “The Bermudez Triangle” when I first began to really read YA fiction, after what seemed likes years of falling out of the genre and not writing for a variety of reasons. That book was part of the reason I begun to write YA; here was a real story with real characters that dealt with a plausible situation. And not only that, I thought it handled the subject of a teenage girls dealing with the sexuality extremely well. In a world where it’s very easy to stereotype people, even unintentionally,  Maureen Johnson writes with heart and makes everything seem real in palpable.

It’s why I get angry when I see that parents, in this case two mothers from the Leesburg, Florida area, while thumbing through a book looking for offensive content, entirely miss the point of that book. I very much doubt that the two women in this article, noble as their intentions may be, have ever seriously, honestly read that book. Like sat down, and read it from cover to cover. Because if they had they would realize that claims they make–namely that “The Bermudez Triangle” and even the book from the “Gossip Girl” series are not vulgar, are particularly offensive. They are stories, like the kind human beings have been telling for centuries.

“The Bermudez Triangle” is a book about friendship, not a book about sex. It’s a book about what happens when, in a group of friends, those two friends begin to date, and someone is the odd person out, while also dealing with the issue of young girls discovering their sexuality. And while yes, I know that parents hate the fact that teenagers have sex drives, and they are uncomfortable with the fact that sometimes those kids may turn out of be gay, there is nothing vulgar and offensive about self discover and friendship. Two girls kissing is not, in fact, a reason for a book to put a label on something.

It is easy to find the vulgarity in anything if you look harder, but sometimes it’s easier to find the vulgarity in something when you’re not looking hard at all. Paging through your daughter’s books to find the naughty bits is a poor substitute to actually sitting down and reading it, or sitting down and discussing things. After all, teenagers aren’t the easily influenced, sex crazed, reeady made alcoholics and/or druggies parents think they are. While those things make for good headlines in newspaper and on TV, they don’t make for good, you know…REALITY. To err is to be human, and it is far better to err when you’re a teenager and can learn from your mistakes than when you’re in your thirties and are too stubborn to change yourself. And it is far better for your teenage daughter or son to read something in a book and say “I would never do that” and then have them not do that than to try mainlining Jack Daniels and realizing that it was a bad idea when they have to jump start your heart. (Sorry, been listening to a lot of Motley Crue lately…)

But the sillier idea I find about the newest thing proposed by the two mothers–who, again, I’m sure have the best of intentions, or at least a strong desire to get featured on Fox News again–is that these books should be labeled. Which, honestly, I’m in favor of. Because in all my years in retail, the one thing I’ve learned is that kids love things with mature content labels. R-rated horror movie? Bag it up, sir! CD with a Parental Advisory Sticker? I’m listening to it the second I get in the car!  M-rated game? I can’t wait to get home and play this! If the publishing industry in in trouble, labels could be a huge economic boon. Mature Content labels are essentially little flashing stickers that shout “BUY ME, I’M NAUGHTY!” at kids everywhere.

In all seriousness though, the simple fact of the matter that no adult seems to want–and maybe this just because I’m 23 and I don’t have kids and I’m still naive–is that teenagers are going to find these things. And when you make them something bad or naughty, you only make the more desirable. But at least if you’re going to make something bad and naughty, have the decency to read it and be ready to explain fully what exactly makes something bad, or harmful, or detrimental to children. Because unfortunately, we do not live in a world where reporters do research and actually read before they write these things. And the one thing I fail to see in this article is a defense. There is no one saying “this book isn’t vulgar and sexual”, only these two women and their attorney and other adults talking about what they think is right for teens.

Teens, whether we like it or we don’t, are a lot smarter than we like to give them credit for. In fact, they’re actually a lot more mature than most adults. And rather than baby them and try and protect them from the made-for-TV harsh realities–or in the case of “The Bermudez Triangle”, the not harsh at all, real-life realites–we should feel free to put a book in their hands, or play a video game, or listen to a song, and not want to do everything that comes flying off the page at them.

KC

Book Banning and Forced Reading

My mother let me read whatever I want, and I will always love her deeply for that.

There was never a time when a book me or my sister wanted to read was kept from us. Oh sure, she was more strict about music (I’m twenty-two and I still get nagged about buying music with a parental advisory sticker), movies (she’s made me return inappropriate things to the store) and games (we she was probably the most strict about). But books? Oh no, my mother would never make me put down a book I didn’t want to read. The reason for this is something that I believe more parents should take into consideration.

Namely, if your child is reading A BOOK, why take it away? Why make book reading a chore an ordeal?

While I’ve always enjoyed reading and loved it (and as a proud graduate of the “Hooked On Phonics School Of Learning”), I always liked reading on my own. I absolutely despised reading in school, hated being force to read books I didn’t like, and hated looking for the “hidden meaning” or subtext of all these people’s books. In school, reading went from being something I loved doing to something that was like pulling teeth.

“No,I don’t know what the subtext behind Hamlet is! Isn’t this a play? Isn’t this just supposed to be a story!? WHY DOES EVERYTHING HAVE TO HAVE A SECRET MEANING!”

It’s always said that teenagers don’t read, but I think the issue is more complex than that. Teenagers do read, and I think they like to read. But when you ake something that’s supposed to be for leisure and entertainment and turn it into dissecting the vast mysterious of the literary universe, it’s no wonder people get frustrated. It’s no surprise that reading books in high school could turn people off of books when you consider that most high school English classes make reading into a big “THING”, something your parents force you to do so you can finish your homework.

Which is more disheartening when you read things like people wanting to ban something as innocuous as The Bermudez Triangle by Maureen Johnson being attacked, or The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie getting banned because it mentions masurbation or Looking for Alaska getting challenged because of “graphic language and sexual content” (and there is no truly explicit sexual content, as someone who read and loved Looking for Alaska can attest to), or even a classic book like To Kill a Mockingbird being threatened be banned for silly reasons.

I understand the need for parents to not want to expose their children tocertain things, but they must also understand that my mother never stopped be from reading a book that I wanted to read. Reading books, more than watching movies/TV or listening to music, is supposed to be about broading your horizons. It’s supposed to be about living vicariously through someone else and hopefully taking the lessons they learn for yourself.

Sheltering kids from things you may find “unsavory” doesn’t really protect them fro those things, at some point and sometime those people will be forced to confront them. Trying to ban the sexually explicit content doesn’t stop the fact that we as humans are bombarded with sex pretty much every we go and with everything we do, somehow, some way. Just go look at a magazine rack and your seemingly innocent grocery store. Nor will hiding dirty language hide the fact that most people fuckin’ curse, they just have the good sense to not curse around people who might be offended by said fucking cursing, nor does hiding books about racism, sexism, ism-isms, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, teenage pregnancy and uterus biting hide kids from the fact that these things occur.

…Okay, not that last thing.

When we treat books like they’re a taboo thing, we hurt their intergrity, and make reading books an inherently bad thing. When we do that on top of forcing children and teens to read books they may or may not like, we send the message that the books that were banned are bad, but the crud we’re forced to read in school is supposed to be the good stuff.

We also teach that reading books is a much more complicated process than it is. How many people have struggled to find out what the subtext is behind a book, what the plot behind the plot is supposed to be? Is there really some meaning behind The Great Gatsby? Why can’t Catcher In The Rye just be a story about adolescene (and not even a really great one at that)? I can’t even understand what’s being said in Their Eyes Were Watching God, now you expecting me to write at length about it?

What ends up happening isn’t so much that people are deeply affected by those books (thought they can be), as they reguritate whatever their teacher’s tell them is important, or the sputter on and on in essays about something that doesn’t make much sense to them or their teachers. I never did really well in school, but one of the good things I always could do is mimic the tone of my teachers, because in general teachers like hearing what they said regurtitated back at them.

The aspect of “reading is done as entertainment” is lost in school–instead it’s “reading is done to make you a more worldly, deeper thinking person”, which isn’t necessarily a terrible idea, until you consider that a lot of these great authors weren’t planning on having teenagers plumb the debts. Most writers will tell you that their intention isn’t to add symbolism and metaphors that you can’t see unless you squint really really hard. Most authors would tell you they were more concerned with writing a story that lots and lots of people liked.

And I could add another thousand words talking about how much summer reading sucks. Just what kids want, to be studying all summer for a test! That’ll get ‘em reading!

The best thing we could do would be not to ban certain books in schools but to allow students to read whatever books they want, as long as their age appropriate. Making kids read something they want to read would go a long way towards encouraging long term readership and a thriving book industry. The people that read today will probably read tomorrow. Well, they will until they realize how silly and pretensious a lot of contemporary adult fiction is, and then they’ll keep on reading YA, which is where the action is out anyway.

But bannings books and then forcing kids to read could very well contribute to decreasing readership and people stop buying books AND THE FALL OF PUBLISHING AS WE KNOW IT! And that’s no good for me, because I hope to have a very long career in writing novels. And even if I don’t, I will instill the same “read whatever you want” thought process in my children that my mother did in me.

KC