This is Repulsive.
The fact that the Hillsborough County School Board (the county I went to high school in, I might add) could make such a comment, the fact that TBO.COm could then use that word to describe the book, and the fact that all those parents making comments at the end of the article could then parrot it to describe a work they feel is uncomfortable.
You want to know what’s repulsive? This is repulsive. A few statistics from that page:
- Victimization rates for sexual assault are 12.9 per 1,000 women age 16-24
- Young women between the ages of 14 and 17 represent an estimated 38% of those victimized by date rape
- Studies indicate that dating violence affects at least 1 in 10 teen couples. It is one of the major sources of violence in teen life
- Over 50% of high school boys and 42% of high school girls believe that there are times when it is “acceptable for a male to hold a female down and physically force her to engage in intercourse.” (Okay, this last one is from a 19-year old study. I really hope things have changed.)
You want to know what’s repulsive? that considering all of the above, a public school board can still see fit to consider censoring from teenagers a powerful and nuanced book about a teenage woman dealing with the aftermath of an attempted rape.
Why? Because the description of said attempted rape is disturbing. Gee, you think?
Does the Hillsborough County School Board think that this is an issue that teens are not dealing with? Do they, as one commenter said, think that it’s a book that should only be read by a “student that has no behavioral problems, has good grades, and is a certain age permission to have the librarian check the book out to them.” [all sic]
Because students that don’t get good grades and do have behavior problems have never been date raped, or is not in danger of being so.
The woman who challenged the book actually said that she was going to let her daughter read it!
Sarah Dessen is one of the most talented young adult authors around. Her books deal with family issues, with death and abuse and yes, attempted rape. She says in the above-linked blog post:
I want to add something else to this debate, and that is that I have gotten SEVERAL emails from girls who had also been sexually assaulted, read this book and were compelled, partly because of it, to tell the people in their lives about what had happened to them. I’m not saying my book was the only reason, only that it played a part, even if it was a small one. And to think that maybe someone who needed this book couldn’t get their hands on it, because of one passage that someone plucks out of the book and reads aloud for shock value, not seeing how it fits with the rest of the story, and why it is important…it worries me.
I’m appalled by the way books are being challenged in high schools these days. A few months ago, Maureen Johnson’s book was being challenged on the grounds that it contained sexually explicit material (there was no sex in the book). Now, a book dealing with the disturbing aftermath of an all-too common and terrible teen experience is being challenged on the grounds that it… deals with the disturbing aftermath of an all too common and terrible teenage experience?
Look, I could go into a school board meeting and read excerpts from a lot of the books on a high school reading list that, in a paragraph or two, are going to sound super-repulsive. 1984, anyone? Books are supposed to engage our emotions. They are supposed to use powerful imagery that sometimes is disturbing to get their point across.
I don’t think I realized how lucky I was in high school. I don’t think I knew that when we read The Crucible, The Sun Also Rises, The Scarlet Letter, The Magus, and Brave New World, without dispute, that we were the lucky ones. We weren’t being told by some concerned parent who saw fit to read one passage of that novel to a school board that she should get to decide what our reading material contained.
Like many writers, I was a voracious reader as a child. I really wanted to read Clan of the Cave Bear when I was around 12 or 13. My mom had some concerns about it, due to the depictions of rape in the movie (it’s not quite as graphic in the book). She read it first, and then gave it to me and said if I wanted to talk to her about what happened in the book, that I should. And that was when I was in elementary school. In high school, I could read whatever I wanted. My mom gave me Go Ask Alice when I was fourteen. This is how it works. You get to decide for your own child. Not everyone else’s.
How many teenagers who have been sexually assaulted will shy away from the idea of going through a permission/screening process in order to determine if they are worthy of reading Dessen’s book? A book written for them. About a girl just like them.
And keeping your teenage children from information about a dangerous topic is not going to protect them from that danger. Knowledge is power. That’s why Just Listen is on the Florida Teen Reads list — because it speaks to teens about an important issue in a sensitive, non-exploitive, and powerful way.
If you wish to write the school board on this issue (and parents in Hillsborough County, I urge you to do so!) this is the contact information:
http://www.sdhc.k12.fl.us/board/Form_Board.asp
I have no children, but I wonder: do parents have to arm their kids with a letter to the school librarian saying, “Please give my child a skeleton key to all of your “restricted” shelves. I believe he or she should be allowed to read whatever he or she damn well pleases without your interference. Thank you.”
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Thank you to fellow YA author Leigh Brescia for alerting me to this issue!
Please note: all letters to the school board become public record.
December 14th, 2007 at 11:08 am
Right on, Diana!
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December 14th, 2007 at 11:34 am
I find the 42% girls who think there are times when it is “acceptable for a male to hold a female down and physically force her to engage in intercourse.”
Then again, I never once answered a survey that would have that type of question with any type of seriousness when I was in school.
So, I’m not sure how much I believe those stats, though I don’t have a rosy colored view of the situation.
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December 14th, 2007 at 11:40 am
It is extremely repulsive. And I’m saddened by how many parents out there choose to arm their kids with ignorance instead of knowledge.
Thank you for posting this!
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December 14th, 2007 at 11:54 am
Maureen’s book banning really worked me up, but this is ridiculous. Rape is all to common, so let us let them discover that reality when it actually happens to them instead of engaging their minds before the fact.
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December 14th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
I had to read “The Bluest Eye” in High School. Ugh. Boy did I not feel lucky about that, but I imagine there are girls for whom that story would mean a great deal, and I would not withhold it from them because of my own feelings.
Unfortunately I think sometimes kids need saving from their parents more than anything else. My own were great (hi mom!) but I remember in High School some of the most messed up kids had the worst relationships with their parents (or just worst parents, period). If these parents then get to decide whether their kids get to read X or not, that disturbs me too.
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December 14th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
I’m with you, Heather! Maureen’s situation really alerted me to how these types of situations are becoming more common.
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December 14th, 2007 at 2:07 pm
Tell it sister! This article just plain made me mad. I mean, really, these teens are going to be called adults – almost as if by magic – at eighteen. They can go off to college or to work or to war – where many of them will see for themselves or experience through the eyes of their friends terrible “graphic” things – it’s called Life. Books are one way that teens can experience their world in a relatively safe way. Oftentimes through a protagonist who made a poor choice or didn’t tell someone who could help them. What could be more persuasive to the correct way of handling things than to watch a character in a book (who feels like a friend) struggle? I learned so much from Holden Caulfield, Hester Prinn, Ethan Frome and company. So much more than I learned from my mom. But apparently mom gets the credit after all! She LET me read whatever I wanted, and listened to me talk about the characters like I’d just met them on the bus
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December 14th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
I went to school in this district and actually worked at one of the high schools for 7 years.
I hate what the school board is trying to do. The kicker here is they want to censure something yet walk on to any campus and look at what goes on to which they turn a blind eye. It’s more like if they don’t have to see it or hear it then it must not really happen.
The rules are one sided and crazy. Here’s one for you. A girl was given detention because she wore a blouse that came around her neck but did not cover her shoulders. When I say came around her neck I mean completely. You could not see one thing but the top of her shoulder. The rule is it must have a 3 finger covering. Okay fine, it’s the rule. But there is not rule about how low cut something can be and trust me when I say that girls wore things that came very far down.
I really not fussing about the clothing they could wear as much as the crazy rule that was enforced verses the other.
Sorry, that was a bit of a rant but to say the post pissed me off is putting it mildly.
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December 14th, 2007 at 6:34 pm
Great post. I’m not at all surprised by the school board’s reaction. I’ve taught high school for 14 years and in the last three years students have had to prove they were drug free, give up chocolate over 3 ounces and fight for the right to read To Kill a Mockingbird, Harry Potter and Romeo and Juliet. In an attempt to protect their kids, over zealous parents are actually in danger of creating a society of conformists who have no real understanding of the first amendment, the Civil Rights movement or even (evil above all evils) feminism. It’s scary. I teach publications and we ran a teen mom story in the last paper. We received tons of letters telling us our story caused teen pregnancy. (Biology anyone?) Parents really have no clue about the world kids live in. I don’t get it. Rape is very much a part of their lives. It’s why police meet with freshmen on college campuses right away and discuss the buddy system. It’s why they also tell the guys No means No and if a girl is passed out drunk, that doesn’t mean yes. Sarah Dessen’s books are some of the favorites on my campus. So are Laurie Halse Anderson’s, which also deal with these topics.
It just goes to show you that school board members don’t have to have any kind of education experience. Grrrrr.
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December 15th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
The book was not required reading, and it was a high school library. Sure, it’s disturbing. It should be. But when should subjects like rape (especially acquaintance and date rape) be discussed if not in high school? Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
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December 15th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
Here’s my letter:
Regarding Jennifer Faliero’s comments on Sarah Dressen’s book, Just Listen.
I am appalled, Ms. Faliero, that someone in your position could make such an ignorant statement in your representation of the school board as a whole. You have not read this book and as such, you have no right to comment on it. There are passages from the Bible that could be considered “repulsive” if taken out of context and as someone involved in education, you should know that.
As to the matter of the book itself, I am HORRIFIED that one parent thinks that she can dictate the reading material of children other than her own. She admitted herself that she was going to let her child read the book and then talk to her about the content–brava. That’s what a good parent does. But for her to then to go a Board meeting to try and censor this book for other students is appalling and arrogant. As a parent of a Hillsborough County student, I will not stand for this. I decide what my child reads and when she reads it–it is not up to libraries or the school board to decide that a work such as Dressen’s, praised by others far more knowledgable as being age-appropriate and well-written, should be removed from student access.
I would hope that the school board of Hillsborough County would tread carefully in matters of censorship. And don’t listen to the easily offended–listen to the majority, like me, who fully understand our responsibility of parenting and who do not fear words.
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