My Personal Experience with Speak and Other Challenged Books

Reading everyone's stories about how reading a banned or challenged book changed their lives has inspired me to share my own story.

This is not information I share often or lightly. In fact, not even my little brother has heard this story before, and I can count on one hand the number of friends who know what happened to me that summer. So know that in sharing this with you, I am giving voice to how desperately important it is to give children the freedom to read what they need, when they need it.

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson wasn't published until I was a senior in high school, but I wish I had that book for myself the summer after eighth grade. I had gone on a trip with some friends, and while my experience pales in comparison to what Melinda faced in the book, I was violated by someone I trusted. I felt hurt and alone and afraid--feelings I had never felt before in my life. My parents weren't there, and I found myself not knowing what to do. Luckily, there was another friend on this trip who convinced me to tell an adult what happened. My friend hugged me and told me it would be all right and then held my hand as I told someone who could help. I got counseling, I received love and support, and I was able to face what happened to me.

Not all teenagers have that same support system. And even if they do have that support system, they don't realize it's there or how to access it or what might happen if they try. What they do have are champions like Laurie Halse Anderson and Chris Crutcher and Walter Dean Myers and Ellen Hopkins. They have books they can hold in their hands. Words that are spoken and written for them when they can't do it for themselves. When kids don't feel they have someone they can lean on for support, they can find support in books. They can know they are not alone. They have a hand to hold and a voice of reason when their world feels like it's falling apart. And if they can discover this support system before anything bad ever happens to them? All the better!

By banning books, we are not protecting children. We are removing their support system. We are cutting them off at the knees before they even have a chance to stand. So the next time your child comes home with a book you don't think is appropriate for them, maybe you should ask yourself what information you're missing.

Why is my child reading that book? What does my child need from me? How can I work with that author to teach my child?

 Authors don't write books to subvert a parent's authority. A publisher doesn't spend money to promote books just because they what to shock people with how far they can push the first amendment. Books are written because there is a story to tell and an audience who wants and needs to hear it.

I finally read Speak about five years ago. When I found the courage to pick it up, I cried myself to sleep. I cried for Melinda, and I cried for myself, and I cried for all the girls who go through the same thing we did. But I also felt hope. I felt hope that somewhere out there, a girl was reading that book and realizing she wasn't alone. I felt hope that a boy was reading it and deciding to treat his girlfriend with a little more respect. I felt hope that a parent was reading it and understanding why some things make a child fall silent. I felt hope that a teacher was reading it and finding a way to reach a student who had fallen silent.

I am currently reading ttyl by Lauren Myracle, one of the most frequently challenged books of 2009. In all honesty, I'm not expecting this novel to change me the way Speak did, but I read it in honor of those who cannot read it because it has been taken out of their libraries or classrooms or bookshelves. I read it because some children aren't silenced because of a horrible experience but because a misguided adult has chosen to silence them before they can #SpeakLoudly.

I Read Banned Books

Nothing gets me fired up like talking about censorship. Stifling freedom of speech in this manner is despicable. It thwarts creativity and  prohibits critical thinking. Instead of allowing people--especially young adults--to make their own decisions about what they want to be and who they are becoming, restricting access to books and media decreases cultural understanding and whitewashes history.

"Our teens need us to be honest with them about the harsh realities of life. Knowledge protects them. Truth gives them power."

-Laurie Halse Anderson

I am 100% apposed to forced censorship, but that doesn't mean people of any age should be reading anything. It is a parent's job (and to a lesser extent, a teacher's job) to help children select age appropriate books that challenge their reading level and get them thinking beyond themselves. And if a reader is uncomfortable with the content of a book they're reading (e.g. sex, language, violence), it's okay to put it down. But to comprehensively dismiss a book for an entire community of readers because you don't agree with its message is inexcusable.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

-U.S. Constitution

There are several ways you can speak out against book banning:

1. Join the #speakloudly trend on twitter.
2. Select a frequently challenged book to read.
3. Add a widget or change your profile picture to your favorite banned book.
4. Talk to your kid/parent/teacher/friend about your feelings on banning books.
5. Challenge yourself to speak out about something you believe in.

For more information about Banned Book Week (September 25-October 2) and to find out what more you can do to speak out against censorship, visit the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom banned book website.

This year I'll be reading To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and ttyl by Lauren Myracle. What will you be reading next week?

finding my voice

In my recent writing, I've been thinking a lot about voice. Both narrative voice and writing style. I've been working on a particular manuscript for awhile now, only to realize that I should be working on a different character's story. But in telling the new story, I have had to totally rethink how I write.

The first character is very much me. She is dialogue focused and action driven. The second character is kind of a quiet observer, something that I am not. So how will I be able to write two stories about two totally different characters yet still be me?

Every writer puts more than a little of themselves in what they write, drawing upon their own experiences and desires to build a three-dimensional character and relatable plot. And because people are complex and have multiple personality facets, a writer can create one character who is outspoken and gregarious and yet another who is sullen and introverted.

A great example of this is Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, which provides us with a litany of distinct characters in a single volume. Yet each story keeps to Chaucer's style--the Wife of Bath obviously being penned by the same author who created the Squire.

A more modern example of this same concept is Laurie Halse Anderson, who manages to publish consistently stellar contemporary YA novels, historical fiction and picture books. Twisted is even narrated by an ostracized teenage boy while Chains is told from the perspective of a young slave girl during the American Revolution.

If only I could crawl into the heads of great authors and figure out how they did it (and still do it). These characters in my head so want to be released onto the page. I just hope I am able to do them justice.