Crazy Making (with apologies to Jonathan Swift)

‘Tis the season, and I find myself imagining what the holidays will be like for today’s teens when they are, say, my age.

Here’s what I envision: A holiday office party in the not-too-distant future, let’s say 2042. Everyone at the party graduated from high school in 2011. Colleagues mingle, but all have brought spouses/dates, so introductions are also happening. Let’s listen in.

Sally: Dick, I’d like to introduce you to Jane, Tom’s wife. 780, 710, 740.

Dick: Hi, Jane, it’s great to finally meet you! Wow, guess that’s how you connected with an [elite college] guy like Tom. But that 710 … what happened?

Jane: Yeah, that was the writing portion, but I scored 12 on the essay and won a national cross stitching contest, so [elite college] gave me the benefit of the doubt. What about you?

Dick: 650, 690, 680.

Jane: I’m sorry, Dick. How’s it been?

Dick: (chuckles) A few bumps in the road but for the most part, Life’s Been Good. A sports tip, plus that 5 I got on the European History AP got me into [different elite college] Early Decision, where I met my first wife.

Jane: First?

Dick: A trust fund baby and three-generation legacy. Her family built the IMAX theater for the film department, among other things.

Jane: Let me guess … she didn’t break 2100?

Dick: (laughing) Are you kidding? 1980. We lasted three years. Ah well, live and learn.

Jane: For sure. Did you remarry?

Dick: (nodding and gesturing toward a woman across the room) Yes indeed, that’s her standing by the punch bowl. 760, 750, 790. Early Action to [Ivy League University]. National Merit Scholar and captain of her high school sky diving team. I tell you Jane, she’s a keeper.

Jane: Children?

Dick: Three. 740, 730, 770 and 740, 740 … 800. We were pretty damn pleased about that. Our youngest hasn’t taken the SAT yet.

Jane: Good luck with that! But I’m sure #3 is taking a prep course and you’ve lined up a private college counselor?

Dick: Obvi. Plus, we’ve flown all our kids to global hot spots to perform community service and participate in international peace negotiations for a week each summer.

Jane: So we’re talkin’ Ivies?

Dick: Jane. You need to ask?

I guess you can tell by now the “season” I’m referring to has nothing to do with holly, ivy, menorahs or Kwanzaa candles. It’s the season of decisions, and colleges are releasing their first wave of rejections and acceptances to high school seniors who applied for admittance to the Class of 2015.

Isn’t it exciting? Isn’t it thrilling? Okay, so a few kids are probably a little nervous right now, and there will definitely be a modicum of disappointment in the air, but let’s face it: this is by far the most important event in a young life. Where You Go To College determines everything: who you’ll marry, your income level, your future job … hell, your employee-based health care benefits and hence your life expectancy! Young people choosing a college today know they need to ask themselves: “How long do I want to live?”

That’s why those activities, those standardized tests, that class rank and those varsity letters earned during the high school years are so crucial. Kids today understand that happiness and future success depend on an outstanding transcript, while relationships and leisure time can always be deferred. They understand that less important than the type of car one drives is the college sticker on the back window of that car. They understand that the type of work one does simply doesn’t matter if, at any given social gathering for the rest of your life you can mention your SAT scores and the name of your college.

Teens today know that the alma mater is Life’s Trump Card, and even if they wind up behind bars, people will respect and admire them once they learn they graduated from an elite college or university.

It’s all so different from when I was a growing up. Back then, Sally, Dick and Jane played with their dog, Spot, and didn’t do much else since they only had three channels on the television and no X-Box. How boring! A life spent playing outside, building forts, and riding bikes with the neighborhood kids. Sports were “pick up,” and loosely organized by the older kids, so no regional travel teams with spiffy uniforms. No summer math enrichment, no cello camp, no foreign language camp. Kids had to make their own fun, and adults generally weren’t watching, which is a frightening thought because goodness knows what unsupervised children will do. I remember countless hours at a neighbor’s home, jumping on a trampoline that had no safety walls (imagine!!) and talking, talking, talking with all the other kids.

When I think of how much higher my own SAT scores might have been if I’d spent those hours taking practice tests!

There’s a documentary making the rounds right now called “The Road to Nowhere,” and it deals with this phenomenon of getting into college today. I haven’t seen it yet, but friends tell me I must. From what I hear, the teens it portrays will very likely resemble the attendees at the 2042 holiday party I described above. I'd love to know if anyone else out there has seen it?

Happy Holidays! This blog is on vacation until 2011.

Losing it in Holy Places

I want to enjoy the holidays, I really do, but despite my best efforts to avoid commercialism, take extra Vitamin D (there is no light in Maine this time of year) and focus on the spiritual, I still manage to wind up being a completely stressed-out-woman-of-a-certain-age. Which is not attractive.

I know serene women (two) and I want to be one of them. They always greet me with these calm, centered smiles, usually as I’m blasting through the grocery store in a caffeine-fueled frenzy. They seem to float above the fray, yet accomplish all the important things. Their children adore them … I once bumped into the son of a Serene Woman, out buying a single red rose for his mother because he had just driven home from college and wanted to surprise her (take note, Dude) … and their husbands worship at their altars. Thank you, thank you! their actions imply, for being kind and steady and serene!

This is so not me, especially this time of year. And I know it’s my own fault.

Fact: I don’t keep it simple. For example, I string real cranberries and popcorn to decorate the tree every year. Yup. A couple dozen yards worth. It’s our Annual Torture Tradition, and leads to family conflict. “Inept” would be a good word to describe the spouse’s skills with a needle and thread, and the obscenities which fly as he tries to spear popcorn without crumbling it into bits are … not in keeping with the spirit of the season. The Dude has notoriously bad fine motor skills, so he’s only good for a couple feet of cranberries. Luckily, the daughter is a stringing machine, so she helps me get it done.

She’s also a cookie-baking machine, which is good because I bake way too many cookies. We like to give cookies as gifts, and one of my favorite things to do each season is have a pack of women over for wine, high-fat snacks, and platters of cookies, but for some reason I’ve got 10 recipes I love and absolutely have to make every one of them. One year I simply couldn’t face the labor-intensive spritz Christmas wreath cookie recipe I got from Martha Stewart Living (each wreath has its own “ribbon” sliced from candied cherries) and when I put out the nine varieties I’d made the family sniffed, “Where are the wreaths?” I should have hung up my spurs as Santa’s Little Baker right then and there, but instead I anguished, “I know! I know! Something’s missing!”

Here’s my theme melody for Christmas. Sung to the tune of “Jingle Bells.” What you deserve, what you deserve, you get what you deserve …

One year, things got particularly bad. And it wasn’t even Christmas. It was pre-Christmas, the run up to the season and the holiday shopping ads were already airing on television: late October. Halloween, my daughter’s birthday, and All Saint’s Day at our church all coincided that year to create a perfect storm.

My young children each required three costume changes that weekend. They needed Halloween costumes, then they needed pirate’s costumes (for a Halloween event at the Maine Maritime Museum; don’t ask …) then they needed Saint Suits. For All Saint’s Day, each child was to choose a saint and dress like him/her for mass. Our son (yet to become The Dude) chose to be St. Anthony, so I found myself madly stitching together a burlap tunic for him.

When I dropped him off early at church we saw all the other kids arriving in their saint outfits, which looked a lot like hasty riffs on the previous evening’s Halloween costumes. There were a few “Marys” with headdresses and princess gowns. Some “Josephs” in black Ninja suits wielding Sears Craftsmen hammers (you will recall that Joseph was a carpenter) and then … two boys strutting in carrying light sabers. My son’s face fell; my blood pressure rose. An intervention was looming, and I didn’t have time for an intervention because we were hosting a birthday party after mass.

“Luke Skywalker was not a saint,” I remarked. He hung his head.

“I look like a dork,” he said. I kept walking quickly into the building, leading him by the hand.

“You look like a third century hermit,” I replied. “Trust me; St. Anthony wore burlap.” He shook his head.

“I want to go home,” he said. We were in the building at this point. I needed to drop him off and race home to accomplish a few more things before racing back to actually attend the service.

“You have to stay here. You have to be St. Anthony. By the way, steer clear of Tom Riley over there. I don’t like what he’s doing with that hammer ….” He shook his head again and started walking back toward the parking lot.

“My outfit is dumb,” he mumbled. I held him by the shoulders. I bent down and spoke into his face. In retrospect I realize I should’ve just driven him home and abandoned this crazy scene, but instead, I snapped.

“Son,” I said, “Shut the F *** up.” His eyes widened.

Yes, reader, I said it. The “F” word, right there in the narthex of the Catholic Church. Oh, so far from serenity at that moment, I lost it in a holy place with my cute boy. I didn’t raise my voice, but the word, dropped in that moment, made it perfectly clear to Little St. Anthony that he needed to buck up and join the crew in the all-purpose room or his mother would spontaneously combust.

I didn’t want to be that woman, but, there it was. Crazed, over-the-top madness, trying to do the right thing but getting it all so wrong. Granted, we laugh about it now, and it all turned out fine at the time (the kids were pretty cute, filing into church singing “When the Saints Go Marching In”) but as I gear up for yet another happy holiday season, that weekend and that moment remain a cautionary tale.

Serenity, where art thou? Not, I suspect, within the pages of Martha Stewart Living. Nor at the bottom of three bags of cranberries. But I’m looking for you, so I suppose that’s a start … ?

Big Bird

Around this time last year The Dude (see blog post May 3rd for more on The Dude) was waiting to hear from his first choice college and feeling fairly nervous, and among the many random things I said to distract him from the omnipresent nervousness was, “The Fosters are having steak and lobster for Thanksgiving Dinner. They don’t like turkey. Can you imagine that?”

I fully expected The Dude to chuckle politely at the Foster’s expense, but instead he exclaimed, “Cool! Can we do that? I hate turkey.”

Appalled. Dumbfounded. Horrified. And those were just my initial reactions.

“What sort of American are you?” I sputtered. “It’s downright unpatriotic to reject turkey on Thanksgiving. What would Ben Franklin say?”

“He’d say, ‘Dude, you’re right. Save a turkey; eat a bald eagle.’” he replied. The Dude is a bit of a history buff, and he was correct: Ben Franklin fought hard for the turkey to be our national bird, not the eagle.

“Ben Franklin lost that debate,” I continued. “That’s why we eat turkeys on Thanksgiving. It’s practically a requirement for citizenship.

“Madsy hates turkey,” The Dude continued, bringing his little sister into the argument.

“Madsy is a vegetarian and doesn’t count,” I fired back. My militant-non-meat-eating-locavore daughter dines on mashed potatoes and “Squanto Patties,” a.k.a. veggie burgers, on Thanksgiving.

“Dad hates turkey,” The Dude said.

“Dad would eat an armchair if you put enough gravy on it,” I fired back, a point which The Dude conceded.

“I think it would be so cool to come home from college for my first Thanksgiving and have steak and lobster,” The Dude said wistfully, which of course was the kiss of death for me, the turkey lover. I’m a real sucker for The Dude’s wistful tone. So right then and there I promised that for his first home-from-college Thanksgiving Dinner, the Maine State Crustacean would rule.

Even the militant vegetarian locavore, in spite of her job (more on that irony, later) was pleased.

“We need to support local lobstering families,” she said.

“Bugs,” I sniffed, referring to the local slang for lobsters. A.k.a. “slobbers.” A.k.a. prison-feed. Yes, it is a little known fact that back in Maine’s colonial period (when we were probably still part of Massachusetts) lobsters were so plentiful that they washed up on the shores and needed to be regularly swept away. In Thomaston, the site of one of Maine’s earliest prisons, inmates were forced to clean them off the beaches each day, boil and eat them. Apparently they became so sick of lobster they staged a rebellion.

Something which I am contemplating.

Don’t get me wrong: I love a good lobster in drawn butter. Outside, on a sunny Maine summer day. With boiled corn, potato chips and maybe even some steamed clams to start. You cook it all outside, so those smelly shelly fish odors drift overhead, instead of steaming up the house and soaking into the curtains.

Thanksgiving is not supposed to smell like a wharf. It’s supposed to smell like roasted poultry, stuffing (ooooh, stuffing!) and savory … things. Sage. Cranberries. Nuts.

In addition to the wonderful aroma a turkey affords, comes the absolute best part of the holiday: turkey sandwiches. My mother makes the best turkey sandwiches in the world, on white bread, with plenty of salt and full-fat mayo. I know friends who also put leftover stuffing (oooooh, stuffing!) and cranberry on their sandwiches, which I can appreciate but will pass on, thank you. You eat these behemoth sandwiches with ruffled potato chips while watching one of the Thanksgiving specials on television, like The Sound of Music, or The Ten Commandments, with the NRA’s very own Charlton Heston playing Moses.

“What are you going to tell Bob?” I asked The Vegetarian. She blanched. My daughter works for a farmer out of New Sharon, Maine: Bob, the Turkey Guy. Antibiotic-free, walkin’ around, big white turkeys. I am loathe to call them “free range,” because when you drive past the turkey farm in New Sharon, where hundreds of the birds lounge in a packed dirt yard behind a high, wire fence, there doesn’t appear to be much ranging going on, although they could. A bit. Bob’s turkeys appear to mostly sit, peck each other, and gobble grouchily.

“He’ll wonder why we’re not buying a bird from him,” she mused. She is going to be at the local farm the day before Thanksgiving, helping pass out some 250 enormous, freshly “dressed” (the polite term for “slaughtered”) birds to people who ordered them in advance.

Well, we certainly wouldn’t want to hurt Bob’s feelings, so Mom, the Turkey Lover, came up with the perfect solution. I ordered a large turkey breast from Bob, explained that’s all we were cooking for the holiday, and on Wednesday, the day before we carve (or rather, dissect) our Thanksgiving Lobsters, I’m making my favorite dinner. With mashed potatoes. STUFFING. And cranberry sauce.

Not the Big Bird, but it will suffice. And the point of the whole day, anyway, is to welcome home the ones you love. Such as The Dude.

I am so grateful for him, as well as my hard-working vegetarian daughter who reminds us all how important it is to Know Thy Farmer and support local businesses. For my non-picky omnivore husband who would indeed eat an armchair, without complaint, if it were properly seasoned. For all my fabulous memories of my extended family with decades worth of Thanksgiving recipes and traditions and stories (like the year my mother dropped the cooked turkey on the floor and my abuela slipped in the grease and there they both were, sliding, sliding … ) For Ben Franklin, Turkey Bob, Squanto … and stuffing. Above all, stuffing.

My Girl: Barbie

When I was growing up, I loved Barbie.

I know, I know, this is SO not politically correct. Barbie is not anatomically accurate. Her waist is too thin and her boobs are too big and her clothes are too fabulous. She sends a nefarious, subconscious message to our girls and gives them all Cinderella complexes and eating disorders. She corrupts their values so they are hell bent on living materialistic lives and working solely to obtain wonderful wardrobes and fun sports cars.

Barbie is perfectly positioned to ruin a girl’s self image. Barbie is the great destroyer of everything we want our smart, healthy girls to be.

Now, back to why I loved her …

I played for hours with Barbie, and her friend, Midge, who, in retrospect, I believe was of mixed race origins. Midge had coffee-colored skin, freckles, and brown/red hair. I don’t know how I ended up with Midge in my collection, because she quickly became a “discontinued” doll. I suspect my Hispanic mother slipped her into my box of Barbie stuff, no comment required, and I loved her as much as I loved the pale, blond dolls.

I was a girl who heard, daily, that I was smart and going places. I would be the first in my family to go to college. I would have a career, and help make the world a better place. My mother filled my head with these messages as she simultaneously bought me Barbies and filled my case with the tiny, little-bound-feet stiletto Barbie shoes. The impossibly tiny belts. The glittery body sheaths.

Here’s what I never played with: baby dolls. I abhorred those fat, pink, bald plastic babies that you pretended to change and feed. I mean, please. Boring.

Barbie, on the other hand, had a job. She and her girlfriends got up every morning, put on their swell outfits, jumped into their fast car, and zipped off to work in Manhattan. They didn’t have any kitchen supplies: they ate out at exotic restaurants every night. They danced until dawn on the weekends, and their conversations revolved around the fascinating people they met: not burping, teething, or strolling. Barbie was not a mother; she was a professional. And for the record, my Barbie did not date a sugar stick like Ken.

She dated G.I. Joe.

Now, she didn’t live with Joe. Oh, no. The “guys” (owned by my brother) lived in their jeep on the couch, while Barbie and girls set up camp under the coffee table. You see, Barbie liked guys, a lot, but didn’t need a man to complete her. She was perfectly happy picnicking with Joe and the Dudes every once in a while, but please, boys: stay on the couch. Us girls are having way too much fun right now.

What can I say? Long after I put Barbie aside, I went to college, worked at a bunch of interesting jobs, married (someone who is neither a male model nor a Green Beret) , became a mother (and discovered that while changing and burping is NEVER interesting, loving a child is extraordinary) and continue to develop my career. I doubt Barbie had much to do with my life choices, but having a strong mother sure did.

Author Tanya Lee Stone’s new book, The Good, the Bad, and the Barbie, has just been released and I can’t wait to read it. It’s gotten great reviews, and I look forward to seeing what others have to say about my girl, both the good and the bad. For more info, visit the author's website at: http://www.tanyastone.com/index.php?id=51

Finesse Bullying

A friend whose daughter is applying to college this year shares this chilling tale:

As they compiled a list of schools to visit she suggested that her daughter check out an all-women’s college. Her daughter has been attending a co-ed, public school.

“I told her that many women have chosen all-female colleges because they feel they offer an empowering, supportive environment. I mentioned that often, women feel constrained from speaking out in classes where often the boys/men dominate the discussion.”

Her daughter snorted. Contemptuously, I might add.

“Yeah, right. Let me tell you something, Mom. Guys don’t care if girls raise their hands in class. Other girls care. Guys don’t put you down and shut you up. It’s the other girls in the room, who want to keep you in your place.”

According to my friend, her daughter, who is a good student and speaks up in class frequently, has been getting hisses, catcalls and exaggerated “eye rolls” from a cadre of girls who sit behind her. One girl in particular … who, ironically, is a straight-A student who affects the look and language of a character right out of the CW … will often mutter, “Just. Stop. Talking,” whenever my friend’s daughter participates.

The friend’s daughter (let’s call her Jane; not her real name) has gone to the teacher and asked, “Do I speak too much in class?” and been assured she does not. The teacher has been made aware of these behaviors and is on the lookout for them, but it’s a big room and she herself has not heard these comments. Jane doesn’t want her seat changed, because that would require moving someone else and possibly calling attention to the situation. Jane certainly doesn’t want her mother intervening by calling these girls’ parents. She wasn’t even happy that her mother told the teacher what’s been going on. So … the status quo prevails. At this point, Jane still speaks up in class and takes the hits.

But for how long?

If the only result of all this is that Jane doesn’t apply to Smith this year … well, no biggie. There are plenty of colleges out there and at most of them women outnumber men anyway. If another result is that Jane learns to distrust girls … well, that’s unfortunate, especially because as an adult, womens’ friendships with each other can be such a lifeline.

But there’s another part of this that has such far reaching implications for Jane. Because when her mother discusses this situation with her, Jane isn’t angry. Jane isn’t wheeling around and telling these girls to f*$# off. Instead, Jane is ashamed. Jane doesn’t want anyone to know it’s going on. Deep down, Jane is wondering what’s wrong with her, since these girls are criticizing her.

Basically, Jane is being bullied, but with such finesse and subtlety that it’s hard to pinpoint or punish. The bullies themselves would probably be shocked if anyone told them that’s indeed what they’re doing. These are girls who in fact think very highly of themselves. One has actually been known to comment, “I mean, don’t you think we’d be a great subject for a T.V. reality show?”

Meanwhile, every time Jane absorbs a comment and does nothing, it’s like drinking a slow acting poison that you gotta know has a corrosive effect on her self esteem.

Jane will probably never jump off a bridge or hang herself in her dorm room, but she’ll learn to question herself. She’ll eventually learn to shut her mouth. And she’ll learn to turn her pain inward, instead of speaking up for herself. And that’s going to have implications for all her relationships, both male and female.

We think of the bully as the big mean kid on the playground picking on the skinny shy guy. Or the Regina George “Mean Girl,” who is blatant and over-the-top grotesque in her cruelty. Or the college student posting intimate videos of his gay roommate. We can identify and punish and fight back against that “big” stuff.

But there’s a subtler game being played here which only the kids are fully aware of, and it’s no less damaging.

Rhinoceros Hide

“I like criticism, but it must be my way.”
Mark Twain

Yesterday was the first day of moose hunting season in Maine. As our family drove home from the western mountains where we had hiked amid idyllic foliage, we passed pickups from which giant moose racks poked from the back. In one parking lot, a moose hung from a hook, over a giant scale, surrounded by a posse of men and boys splashed in the blaze orange of vests and hats.

In addition to wondering about my own stupidity for hiking during hunting season, I felt a kinship with those moose. In my world, with a new novel set to launch in March, it’s the start of the reviewing season. Only instead of hunters toting guns, I’m in the crosshairs of critics. My publisher has just shipped the ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies, a.k.a. galleys, a.k.a. bound paperbacks still containing typos) of the novel to reviewers, and before long the all-powerful-opinionated horde will take aim at my baby.

Why would a sane person subject herself to this? Better to pin a sign on my back that reads “Kick Me” and walk down a middle school hallway. Or walk into an Irish pub in Boston wearing a Yankees hat. Either would be quicker, and less painful.

The simple answer to this question is: I don’t have a choice. Publishers do this because they believe they publish good books, which will get good reviews, which will result in $$$ for all concerned. This is, after all, a business.

Of course, reviewers don’t see themselves as members of some publishing house’s publicity staff. They see themselves as arbiters of taste and culture. Rendering a “service” to readers. Separating the wheat from the chaff.

Picking winners and losers, more like. Anointing and condemning. Caesar in the coliseum, deciding: “Thumbs up? Or thumbs down?”

Brrrrrr.

Like most writers, I love reading good reviews of my work. I bask in the sunshine of critics' compliments. I take them seriously, and allow myself to believe them.

And like one of my favorite writers, Mark Twain, I have nothing but the utmost contempt for critics who don’t “get” my writing, and publicly display their ignorance by publishing a negative review. Twain said it best when he wrote:

“The critic's symbol should be the tumble-bug: he deposits his egg in somebody else's dung, otherwise he could not hatch it.”

Exactly. Keep your hands off my dung! I want to scream, when someone dares to suggest that my book is less than perfect. I mean, I know it’s less than perfect. I just want them to write that it’s a little less than perfect; not a lot less.

Of course, as a critic himself, Twain was not above eviscerating a fellow author. Granted, James Fenimore Cooper was long dead when Twain wrote "Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses," so one could argue it wasn’t a “review” but rather, “literary criticism.” Whatever. It pretty much ruins the guy. You simply can’t read The Deerslayer or Last of the Mohicans again. Not without laughing until tears roll.

I suppose, as an author, it doesn’t reflect well upon me that I find this essay, which mocks another’s work, hysterically funny, but of course, at the time Twain was redefining the canon. While wearing a humorist’s disguise. “I’m glad the old masters are all dead, and I only wish they had died sooner,” he wrote.

Here’s the thing: I don’t mind being reviewed by smart people who read carefully. Even if they don’t love my book (sob!) they might have criticism which will help me write a better book next time. The problem is when a reviewer gets major things wrong … like characters’ names and basic plot facts. That’s when you tremble, because they wield power, and power in the hands of the poorly informed is … bad.

It’s also out of my control, so: time to dress for the season. For hiking in the woods, it’s blaze orange during the next few months. Otherwise, it’s the Rhinoceros Hide coat. Because if anyone other than my mom, my best friend, or my dog reviews my book, I’m gonna need to be wearing some thick skin.

Our Right to Read

Imagine going into your public library to pick up a copy of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, only to find that it’s not available. Not because another patron has taken it out: because it’s been removed from the shelves. Permanently.

Maybe you’re not the questioning sort, so you figure what the heck, I’ll just find another classic … how about … F. Scott’s Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby? But then you discover that’s missing, too. Disappeared from the collection and struck from the catalogue.

The list goes on: John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Even Harry Potter is gone. Hemingways are missing. Nobel prize winners (I’m thinking of Beloved by Toni Morrison, one of my all-time favorite books) are not to be found. Heck, you can’t even find a decent Jodi Picoult novel (although they’re readily available at most airport bookstores.)

If this scenario seems ridiculous and unlikely let me tell you: there are people in our country who are actively working to make this a reality. Every book, and every author I’ve mentioned here, have been targets, numerous times, of book banning. If you don’t believe me, ask the American Library Association. This is National Banned Books Week, and the nation’s librarians have a lot to say about our national right to read.

Just last week this issue raised its ugly head. A fellow named Wesley Scroggins out in Missouri called upon the powers-that-be in the Republic, Missouri schools to ban Laurie Halse Anderson’s young adult novel, Speak. He described it as “soft pornography.” He objected to the novel’s portrayal of dysfunctional families and insensitive teachers. I don’t know … I guess he thinks authors should only write about happy families and classrooms run by the Teacher of the Year?

Speak is a moving, empowering fictional account of a girl who is raped the summer before her freshman year in high school. She is emotionally scarred by this event, to the point where she can barely speak. It’s a story about how she ultimately deals with her attack and finds her voice again.

It’s not easy to read. But it treats, sensitively, an important topic. The author has received countless letters from girls, thanking her for writing this novel, which helped them cope with their own sexual assault traumas. When I read this book it confirmed my own decision to write for teenagers. It’s possible, through fiction, to touch young readers in ways that help them, and move them. Laurie Halse Anderson is one of our best YA authors out there.

Luckily, there is an army of teachers, writers and librarians out there ready to take on the Wesley Scroggins of the world, and while the citizens of the Republic, Missouri school district still haven’t taken any action regarding Speak, they’ve sure heard from a lot of people who strongly approve of the book. Librarians, especially.

And if there’s one thing I know, Wesley, you don’t want to make a librarian mad.

Every day this week, in honor of Banned Books Week, I’m going to recommend a recently banned Young Adult title. Thanks to Wesley, I’ll start with: Speak.