For those out there who take the stance that since the book is available somewhere in the world, then it can not possibly be banned, let me say hogwash! Banning has historically been done by location, hence the phrase Banned in Boston. Banning is the restriction to an item, whether it be music, books, art, or anything else for that matter, within a locale. The decision as to whether or not I should read a particular book or not should not be decided by anyone other than me or (when I was young) my parents. The decision should be made from a position of knowledge and looking at the context of the work rather than simply an overview of the words which may be objectionable. A current example of the absurdity of banning is what has happened to Ellen Hopkins because of her bestselling novels Crank and Glass which are loosely based on her daughter’s struggle with methamphetamine abuse. Ellen was scheduled to give a talk at a middle school in Norman, OK and because a child’s parents objected to the books and they were being reviewed, the superintendent also cancelled the talk. This is outrageous. Even though the books were going through a review process, what possible harm did they think Ellen would do in a few hours chat with school children, keeping in mind she has given talks across the nation with no adverse incidents. This is a woman who wrote about something intensely personal to her, and would be the last person on earth to glamourize addiction. The books were written with the aim of potentially stopping a child from going down that path, if possible. Again, context seems to be the issue. Do the child’s parents who objected to the books have every right to object to their child reading them? Absolutely. Do they have the right to keep them from being read by other children? Absolutely not!

Several of the groups who seem to speak out against books and want them to be removed, tend to do so from the high ground of morality, or so they think. While not all calls for banning stem from religious zealots, quite a number do, which to me becomes ironic. Most religions have suffered over the years of having been banned or have been the focus of persecution at some point in their history, even in to current day. You would think somewhere along the line we would learn from history and develop some tolerance. But tolerance of the right for others to hold beliefs different to ours still seems to be a long way off.

Let’s continue the fight against intolerance and celebrate Banned Book Week by reading a banned or challenged book. I’m going to support Ellen Hopkins by reading one of her books. Ellen is also the writer of the Manifesto adopted for Banned Book Week. Banned Books Week is September 26–October 3, 2009.

Posted for the LL Book Review

The post Let Freedom Ring appeared first on Be the Cat.

So, of course, on my way to work, what do I think about? The young adult genre and the opinions and perceptions from the outside. Having long been a fan of young adult literature, as well as writing it, I am sometimes taken aback by some of the statements of people who consider the genre to be less than. My thoughts immediately flew back in time to reading Little Women and being completely immersed in the March family triumphs and tragedies. Louisa May Alcott inspired me, through her characterization of Jo March, to want to write my own stories. I know that I am not alone in this. While Little Women is a heartwarming tale, does heartwarming automatically make it less than? Would we have missed out on some of the best writers of today had there been no Little Women to inspire? I could go into example after example of young adult books which are considered classics and a must read. Some of my favorites are Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I understand that Tom Sawyer is a much more light-weight story than Huckleberry Finn, but I happen to enjoy Tom Sawyer more because I identified with Tom a little more, and I like mischief makers in my stories. Another favorite is Dickens’s Oliver Twist.

While I have focused on the early classics of young adult literature, the list doesn’t stop there (and I am very tempted to keep naming titles, but will stop – otherwise I’ll never be done with this post). There is an important gap between children’s books and adult literature, and young adult books fill that gap. Children’s books are highly colorful, with few words and lots of illustrations. This helps capture the attention of the child and assists them in imagining the action, thoughts, and feelings of the characters in the story. The next step is to have stories without all of the colorful illustrations and more words to describe the action, thoughts and feelings of the characters in the story to allow the reader to initiate the imaginative process.

Children usually love books, and smart parents encourage this love as it gives them a basis upon which to build for their education. However, as the pictures start falling away, so do the readers. Young adult books serve the purpose of keeping the young reader hooked and growing their love of reading. Without young adult books to provide characters and story lines with which the reader can identify, will the reader search out books as an adult? Without readers, is any written work important?

There are two reasons people read:

1. To obtain information.
2. To be entertained

As far as point one is concerned, it contains all of the manuals, how to books, news articles, internet blogs on a topic, and so forth. The reading to obtain information is primarily non-fiction in nature. For point two, in addition to some non-fiction, such as memoirs, the bulk of the reading activity is in the fiction realm. Young adult books are simply stories which have a protagonist in the young adult age group. Some of the stories are fairly straightforward, however, some story lines become very complex, the same as you will find in adult fiction.

Since I read to be entertained in my leisure hours (few and far between) and read to help my mind focus at night to help me fall asleep, I will continue to read young adult fiction. I think some very exciting work is coming out of the young adult genre, and enjoy this genre along with many others. I write young adult fiction because those are the characters that keep coming to me with their stories. While not entirely true, I like to say that I don’t think I’ll ever be old enough to write adult fiction. My claim is not that I write great literature (sounds a little stuffy to me), but that I write an entertaining tale, which is something I value pretty highly.

If you’ve made it down this far, listen to what Jackson Pearce has to say. She’s quite entertaining. Enjoy.

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LK Griffie
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The post Thoughts From the Morning Commute – The Young Adult Genre appeared first on Be the Cat.