By T. Gail Pritchard, Ph.D., University of Arizona
I began this month’s blog during Banned Books Week discussing one of my early encounters with using challenged and banned books. As October comes to a close, I thought it was fitting to visit some recent banned or challenged books and why they have come under fire.
The first book I want to note is Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed; yes, I know it is not children’s literature, but it impacts children — and here in Tucson — in a big, big way. Without going into detail (you can find those yourself), a great controversy burst forth this past year regarding the Mexican-American Studies Program within the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD). The outcome was the ouster of the director, major dismemberment and amputation of the program, and the banning of particular materials.
Besides Pedagogy of the Oppressed, TUSD “in consultation with the Arizona Department of Education” removed from the classrooms: Critical Race Theory by Richard Delgado, Message to Aztlan by Rodolfo Corky Gonzales, Occupied America: A History of Chicanos by Rodolfo Acuña, Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years by Bill Bigelow, 500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures edited by Elizabeth Martinez, and Chicano! The History of the Mexican Civil Rights Movement by Arturo Rosales.
As this bludgeoning took place, two particular thoughts came to mind. First, I could think of no other pertinent example in the U.S. this past year of fear driving decision-making about books. While there are many, many details I do not know, I do know fear was a reckoning force — fear the students would become radical thinkers by reading these books; fear these books would instill an “un-American” nationalism; fear of “the other.” Freire’s work centers on the need for active participation on the part of learners, the need for critical thinking and dialogue. My second thought? I bet the sales of these books skyrocketed in Tucson!
The American Library Association’s Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books: 2000-2009 lists the #10 book as The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky (1999). For those of you who have not read this coming-of-age novel (or seen the movie), Perks follows “Charlie” through a sequence of letters he writes beginning with his freshman year of high school. Through these letters, the reader discovers Charlie has recently lost his only friend to suicide, was molested by a family member, and seems helpless in preventing others from taking advantage of him — until he meets Sam and Patrick, two seniors (Patrick and his stepsister, Sam) who see him through the year.
Chbosky’s novel is full of teenage angst as well as the serious business of growing up in today’s high school environments. There is intense language, there are scenes of violence — and apathy toward some of that violence — but the benefits of reading and discussing this powerful novel far outweigh the negatives.
I have to end with my all-time favorite book, #70 on the Banned/Challenged Books’ list, Gary Paulsen’s Harris and Me (1993). I have read this novel well over 50 times! It has stayed with me from the first time I read it — the year it was published — to virtually every school semester since. I’ve read it to my own sons, to teachers, to my youngest son’s sixth grade class, to my undergraduates and graduates — and now those students are reading it to their students and children.
I used to think Harris and Me should be a made into a movie, and at the time of Home Alone, I thought Macaulay Caulkin would be the perfect Harris. Perhaps, but the beauty of Harris and Me is Paulsen’s incredibly detailed description. The characters can’t help but come alive in the reader’s mind with Paulsen’s earthy descriptions and authentic dialogue. One of my favorite passages occurs at the end of the narrators first day on his cousins’ farm:
I’d been kicked in the testicles, slammed in the head, worked at the separator until my arms seemed about to fall off, narrowly averted disaster with a manic rooster, wrestled commie jap pigs in a sea of pig crap, ridden horses as big as dinosaurs, had a losing relationship with a lynx, eaten eighteen or twenty meals, and helped to capture mice for God-knows-what purposes. And I’d been there one day. (p. 59)
After about my 40th reading (including one when a friend of our sons had come to spend a week — five hour drive home from the airport — said, “Did you bring Harris and Me to read to us?” (Actually, I had), I saw Mr. Paulsen in the sundries store of a hotel at an NCTE convention. I hemmed and hawed a bit, wondering if I should tell him how much I loved Harris, but not wanting to appear as a groupie.
Finally, I worked up enough courage and I approached him. I said, “Mr. Paulsen, I am so sorry to bother you, but I have to tell you… (His eyes began to glaze over with one of those, ‘My God, not another groupie English teacher’ look) …how much I love Harris and Me and I’ve read it at least 40 times to my students.” He was surprised to hear Harris and Me rather than one of his more well-known books, like Hatchet; he got a bit misty-eyed and replied, “You know, it’s all true, except his name was Harlan.”
And so to the naysayer who would like to remove Harris, and other books that make children think, from the shelves, I say, “Well, you can just blow it out your butt, you old cow!” (Harris and Me, p. 7).
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I completely agree with you about Harris and Me!! I read it to almost all my classes (6-7-8), even snuck into geography one year! Rarely could I read the end because I could not help but cry. A student would always take over and finish reading the book to the class. Initially some parents wanted it banned. My highly respected master teacher put together the necessary adults to read and recommend or remove. She chose one particular Mormon mother (that she knew was a very involved parent and a very religious parent who monitored her children closely in all aspects of their life)to be on the committee. Her comment about the book:
EVERYONE SHOULD READ “Harris and Me”, ADULTS AND CHILDREN!
If she approved it, it was beyond reproach! 🙂
Sherry, thank you so much for sharing your experience with Harris and Me. What a great strategy your master teacher employed! In my conversations with those who have favored banning particular books, I have always asked, “Have you read it/them?” It never ceases to amaze me when the reply is, “No, but…”.
I understand the need to protect one’s child and that is always the parent’s right to say, “This book is not for my child,” yet I balk when someone wants to make that decision for all children. You know, in the end, the kids find a way to read those books, so why not have an open dialogue with them and support them in their questions and in their journey as they learn about themselves, their community, and their world?