Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson October 1, 2009

In observance of Banned Books Week, I picked up Laurie Halse Anderson’s Twisted to read.  It’s been challenged in a high school in Kentucky – Anderson’s blog has been tracking the details of the challenge – and earlier this week it looked like it was going to return to the AP English classes in which it was offered.  But, now the superintendent is holding the book back.  He wants “evidence” that this book is relevant, that it’s worthy of being classified as “college level” material. Well, here’s my best defense.

Twisted is a book about what it means to be a son, what it means to be a man, what it means to be a family.  It’s a book about what it’s like to stand on the cliff’s edge overlooking hell, feeling burned, tortured, seared, blistered by the heat, and then, instead of running, instead of submitting and throwing yourself into the inferno, choosing to face it, to fight back against it, to stand tall, to do what’s right and to fight for the light.

Like Anderson’s first novel, Speak, and her latest, Wintergirls, this is a book about a teen’s descent (in this case, a boy named Tyler) into isolation, humiliation, self-loathing, and pain, and the events that brought him there.  It’s about the high school (and corporate) cultures that harm, shut out, falsely accuse, mock, punish and fear the person who struggles, who acts out of conscience.  These are the systems, so easy to disappear into, that easily believe the worst about a person, that worsen or animate his fall with a leg stuck out to trip him, a fist in his face, and a pint of milk poured anonymously down his back.

This is a book about the cruelty of the suburban economic ladder, how its rungs deform people, and the false belief that final entry into the upper class – the outward appearance and acquisition of American wealth – will save your soul and your family’s soul.  It’s a book about the invasive pathogen of that mistaken belief, the invasive pathogen that can eat a family up, almost kill it dead.

But, Twisted is also about love, humor, and hope.  It’s about the few nourishing souls – a friend, a sister, a teacher, a mother – who try to get through to Tyler, who stick with him even when he’s at his worst, who care enough to believe the best about him, who are unimpressed by postures, but who understand the need to let the rage out.

Anderson skewers those false creeds of masculinity that subtly or overtly beset boys everywhere – that you must be unfeeling, that you must “bag” a girl no matter what the circumstance, that respect for the opposite sex is optional (even disposable), that you must be physically strong to have worth, and that the drive for power above all else is the worthiest pursuit.  “The only thing on was commercials. Buy our razors and be a man. Buy our pit sticks and be a man. Spray this junk down your shorts and women will crawl all over you. Get a second mortgage. Buy a second car. Buy our razors.”

A “real man,” Anderson’s book argues, admits he’s weak, does the dirty work of standing up for what’s right, challenges loved ones when they’re hurting you, and doesn’t take advantage of others.

And it says all this with a funny, wry, fast-moving plot led by a really likable, believable character. Like in Speak, Anderson knows how to make us laugh, how to point up the absurdity in, well, life, even in the midst of a serious downward spiral.  See how the family, after a visit from the police and Tyler is tacitly accused by them of sexual misconduct, stalking, being generally a pervert and a freak, and after he’s pounded and snatched at and mocked and beaten in school for what he didn’t do to the most popular, beautiful girl around, just see how the family still dons reindeer antlers and bright red sweaters that Friday and forces themselves to pose happily for a Christmas photo.

The end of Twisted is full of hope.  Tyler, baseball bat in hand (because that’s the sort of weapon it takes to smash through the anger, cruelty, lies, and false fronts of angry detachment and criticism constructed by his father), descends into the basement to save his family’s life.  He’s a boy owning up to his weaknesses and fighting off his demons (real and imagined) and his story is told in the language of real, young adult life.

I don’t know what it means that a book is “college level” material. Did the book make me take a hard look at myself and past choices I’ve made in my life? Check. Did it make me think hard about the choices I will make in the future as a parent, a husband, a brother, and a son? Check. Did it make me wrestle with questions of family and the responsibilities of parents and teachers and each of us to be decent and assume the best of each other? Check. Did it make me resolve to face tough emotional conflicts instead of shrinking from them? Check. Did the book make me cast a harshly critical eye at the pursuits of money and sex and image that distract us and alienate us from one another? Check.

I don’t know if these are “college level” issues. But, I know that they’re deeply human issues and they’re evoked here with layered, engaging, and enjoyable writing. I don’t ask for much more in a book.

The sad irony in banning Twisted would be in the fact that those who would seek to censor it only prove the ultimate point of its story – that the more we hide from who we are and what the world is really like, the more small, rigid and twisted we become.

(Jarrett, The Loft)

Banned Books Week: Celebrate the Power of the Written Word September 30, 2009

One way you can celebrate Banned Books Week is by reading one of the many books that were challenged in various parts of the country in 2008-2009. But, then I got to thinking, another way you can ring in this event would be to pick up one of the many top-notch books out there that haven’t necessarily been challenged recently, but really resonate with the spirit of the week. I’m talking about daring, inspiring (and inspired) books that celebrate the power of literature and depict the struggle to protect the written word against the people and forces that would censor it. These are books that wrestle engagingly with the big questions, questions about the potential of the human mind, the human heart, the human everything, and the deep, powerful fears that drive many book challenges (and burnings) in the first place.  Here are a few outstanding titles that come to mind:

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The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.

It’s just a small story, really, about: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery… Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak’s emotionally wrenching novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Brave, tough Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist – books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in the cellar. This is an unforgettable story about the ability of books to feed the soul and the unlikely, beautiful relationships you find when your heart is as big as a zeppelin. Oh, and it’s narrated by Death.

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The Sledding Hill by Chris Crutcher.

Do you think you know where you go when you die? What if you could stick around, hover above the people you love and try to get inside their heads? Would you choose to do it?

The two main characters in Chris Crutcher’s book, The Sledding Hill, have an unconventional relationship. One of them, Billy, is dead. He was killed by a sheet rock wall when it fell on him and crushed the base of his skull. The other one, Eddie, has gone mute since the accident and keeps seeing his dead friend peering in at him through his windows, hears him rustling around in his closet late at night, and speaks to him in his dreams. What does his dead friend want? Is Eddie going stark, raving nuts? When a feared local preacher moves to ban from school the one book that gives Eddie comfort during this traumatic time, Eddie makes peace with Billy’s spirit and goes undercover in his community to defend his right to read, think, and be whatever he wants to be. Together the dead and the undead discover that freedom is an ideal more important than life and death and that real friendship lasts beyond the grave.

(Ironically, despite the intentional lack of profanity in Crutcher’s book – and a plot that revolves around a book challenge! – The Sledding Hill was challenged at a middle school in Delaware in 2008 for its representations of religion and authority figures. According to Crutcher’s site, the book only partially survived the challenge: it remains at the school, but interested students must get parental permission before they can read it).

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Libyrinth by Pearl North.

In a distant future where Libyrarians preserve and protect the ancient books that are housed in the fortress-like Libyrinth, Haly is imprisoned by Eradicants, who believe that the written word is evil, and she must try to mend the rift between the two groups before their war for knowledge destroys them all.  On June 15th, 2009, Kirkus published a review of the book that concluded, “The page-turner plot and themes of the abuses of authority, the nature of prejudice and the power of the written word provide the primary focus. The main characters, all strong, individualized young women, are convincingly drawn…  The dramatic, satisfying climax and deftly handled resolution of the many plot threads will convince and exhilarate readers.”

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Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.

In Ray Bradbury’s classic book, you’ll experience a frightening vision of the future where firemen don’t put out fires – they start them in order to burn books. Bradbury’s vividly painted society holds up the appearance of happiness as the highest goal – a place where trivial information is good, and knowledge and ideas are bad. Published in 1953, Bradbury’s book endures as one of the greatest works of art detailing just how impoverished our minds become when our access to ideas is restricted.

(Don’t) Watch Your Tongue: It’s BANNED BOOKS WEEK 2009 September 28, 2009

September 26th – October 3rd, 2009 is Banned Books Week.  This annual event was founded to celebrate the freedom to read and to raise awareness about the book challenges and bans that threaten that freedom.  Banned Books Week serves as a reminder that we must protect the availability of unpopular, even radical, viewpoints to all who wish to read them if we are to preserve our basic rights to speak, to pursue knowledge and to express ourselves – whatever the content.  So, celebrate with us – pick out a title from this list of banned and challenged books, check out this national map showing the locations of book bans and challenges that occurred in 2007-2009, read about the Laurie Halse Anderson and Ellen Hopkins book challenges going on right now, stop by the Loft to pick up a free “I Read Banned Books” button or to hear an impromptu “banned book reading” by one of our staff, and, above all else, speak your mind.

 

 

“The truth screams to be told in its native tongue.”

-Chris Crutcher

(one of the most censored writers of all time).

 

 

Twisted & Speak Challenged September 24, 2009

Just last week YA author Laurie Halse Anderson received notice of 3 attempts to remove 2 of her books: TWISTED & SPEAK.

 

Speak was called “smutty” and “pornographic” by a complaining parent in California, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times. (Warning: if you haven’t read Speak, the article includes some spoilers) The school board, however, found great merit in the book and voted 4-1 to keep the book in the core list of books taught  in high school English classes.  The school district’s Director of Curriculum read the book twice and loved it, affirmed its literary value and believes it is a story that teens can relate to.  Read this letter that KRRP (Kids Right to Read Project) sent to the Board of Trustees at Temecula Valley Unified School District in California in response to the possible censoring of Speak.

 

 

Twisted will remain on the Downington High School reading list. Twisted has also been challenged at Montgomery High School in Kentucky because one parent thinks the book is inappropriate, and the committee discussing that challenge is meeting tonight.

Banned Books Week officially begins this Saturday (September 26-October 3). Defend your freedom to read!

 

UPDATE: Laurie Halse Anderson reports a cautious victory with Twisted in Montgomery High School in Mt. Sterling, Kentucky. The challenge committee voted to keep the book in literature circles, but none of the 7 books on the list has yet been returned to the classroom. The other titles that were officially challenged are Unwind, by Neal Shusterman, and Lessons From a Dead Girl, by Jo Knowles. The others that were pulled from the teacher’s classroom are: Deadline by Chris Crutcher, What My Mother Doesn’t Know by Sonya Sones, What My Girlfriend Doesn’t Know by Sonya Sones, and The Rapture of Canaan by Sheri Reynolds.  Read more on Laurie Halse Anderson’s blog.