And This Book Has Been Challenged/Banned Why?

Book 50: Summer of My German Soldier

Bette Greene

Summer of My German Soldier was on the summer reading list before the start of my sophomore year Honors English class.  Of the four books assigned for summer reading that year, I recall finishing only this one. I loved it.  So when I saw it on the frequently banned and challenged list of books from the American Library Association (ALA), I decided to make it this year's Banned Books Week reading selection.

I wonder if Bette Greene knew, when Summer was published in 1973, that it would still be relevant in 2010? Summer of My German Soldier tells the story of Patty Bergen, a young Jewish girl growing up in rural Arkansas in World War II.  Often the subject of her mother's criticism and her father's violent temper, Patty's only real friend is Ruth, the family's housekeeper. That all changes the summer Patty is twelve, and German POW's are relocated to Patty's hometown. 

Patty befriends on soldier, Anton, and when he escapes, she helps hide him.  This was the gist of what I remembered about the story, all these years later.  And as I started reading the book, I kept thinking to myself 'Why on earth was this book challenged?'  I assumed it was because of the racial slurs, but when I looked it up at the ALA website, that wasn't it.  WARNING:SPOILER ALERT. I'M GIVING AWAY THE ENDING. I'll encapsulate the spoiler by  (* * *) and when it is over, repeat that as well. Scroll past this if you don't want to be spoiled.

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The book has been challenged because Anton dies in the end (off screen, so to speak. Patty hears about it after the fact and there is no description of what happens) and then Patty is sent to reform school for helping an escaped Federal prisoner. 

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The challenge against the book is the age appropriateness of the ending.  I don't get it.  I was much more traumatized by Old Yeller than Summer of My German Soldier.

I loved the book this time as much as the first time I read it.  I even found myself underlining and highlighting passages throughout the book, shocked by the relevance to what is currently going on in the world.

Patty's classmate, Edna Louise, says at one point, "It is too.  God is on America's side and anybody who's against us is on the devil's side, and that's the truth."  Sounds a lot like the rhetoric going on with the war against terror and America's viewpoint that "you're with us or against us."  We still haven't learned that god doesn't pick a side in any war.

Similarly, Ruth recounts talking to the head of the draft board trying to get her son out of the WWII draft so he can finish his education.  The draft board tells Ruth, "...Why this is your boy's country, too, and he's gotta do his share so this country will always belong to us Americans."  The Irony or reading that sentiment in the same week we failed to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was not lost on me. We expect people to serve and possibly die for our country, yet we aren't willing to let them acknowledge who they are.

Patty's world view begins changing. She's growing up, and hears things going on in her community, and wonders "Is it possible that the rich would steal from the poor?"  While maybe not stealing in the literal sense, it certainly seems to be the haves controlling our destiny, and often without regard for the have-nots (and also reminds me of the line from U2's God Part II where Bono sings "The rich stay healthy, the sick stay poor.")

And perhaps to me, the most profound statement from Anton.  "I believe that love is better than hate. And that there is more nobility in building a chicken coop than in destroying a cathedral."  Substitute temple, mosque, and church for cathedral, and I think that's a pretty spot on observation for today as well.

This amazing story, and its relevance to what's going on in the world today, and people want it banned? How sad. Shame on us as a society for even entertaining the idea of banning books.

Banned Books Week

Banned Books week starts today and runs through 2 October.  I have read some bad books. I have read books that offended me on some level.  But I've never read a book I think should be banned.  That is an evil,scary practice to me.


I remember in high school, The Grapes of Wrath was one of the books challenged in our school district. The Junior and Senior Honors/AP English classes at my school invited the challenger in to hear why he felt these books should be banned.


He objected to the use of the word "goddamn" in the book.  The use of racial slurs didn't seem to bother him too much. He said, "that was the vernacular of the time. It is what a lot of people would have said." To which my friend Will replied, "And you think ignorant farmers wouldn't have used 'goddamn'?"  If we banned every book that had an offensive word in it, we'd have nothing to read. Plus, most people I know are smart enough to understand the context in which words are used.


But I look at the American Library Association's list of Banned Books, and I start to get a little ill.  I've read and loved more than half of the books on the Banned Books list (2000-2009 most challenged/banned). And I think how empty my life would be without these books. 


Take the Harry Potter books, the most challenged/banned of 2000-2009. I adore these books. I know that when they were challenged in a district near me, the woman leading the charge had not even read the books. She had read that "other people" said they were bad and led a campaign to get them out of her children's school libraries.  To challenge something you've not even read?  That's such an ignorant thing to do. And to presume that you know better for someone else's children? No.


At Dragon*Con this year, I attended a young adult literature panel called "Freaks and Geeks in Harry Potter."  I was older than a lot of the attendees. But most of the audience grew up with the Harry Potter books. And to hear these young people, who were all geeks or nerds or dorks or artists or in some other way, not quite the popular mainstream in their schools, say how much it meant to them to have the heroes in the Harry Potter books also be freaks and geeks brought me to tears.


Because perhaps in youth, more than any other time, it is important to know that when you aren't quite sure who you are and how you fit into the world, it is important to know you aren't alone. And so many of the banned and challenged books are aimed at this group of people. 


I think most people who challenge books are motivated by fear. They are scared of their children being exposed to new ideas. I was blessed to be raised by readers.  People who felt that reading was one of the best ways to be exposed to new ideas and expand thought. Open one's mind to new possibilities.


Banning books narrows our minds. It reinforces the idea that there's only one way to think, one way to be. It encourages fear and xenophobia. It subjects people to warped understanding of content, like Wesley Scroggins'  description of a rape in Speak  (just one book he is trying to get removed from school shelves in Missouri) as "soft porn."  I don't know what types of porn Mr. Scroggins typically reads or views, but it has always been my belief that non-consensual sex is an act of violence, and not titillating.  I was also surprised by his criticism of the classification of some of the girls in Speak who partied on Saturday night, but appeared as virginal goddesses in Sunday morning services.  Frankly, that describes most people I know.  There's quite a fine line between Saturday night and Sunday morning.  I was also disappointed that, as an associate professor of management, Mr. Scroggins' is so literal and doesn't appear to understand hyperbole.


I find that the most profound ideas, the stories that made me think the most as a student and young adult, are represented in the challenged and banned books.  So read one. Encourage your friends and family to read them, and to think. I live in an area where intellectualism is often treated as a four-letter word.  Well, I'm quite fond of four letter words, so I'm proud to wear that label.


And if reading controversial ideas and thinking for myself makes me somehow subversive, then that's a label I'll proudly adopt as well.

Speak. Speak Loudly. It's Subversive.

Book 49: Speak

Laurie Halse Anderson

Wesley Scroggins is wrong.  I am so glad that I start this post by saying that. Mr. Scroggins should be as well, as it is certainly the kindest thing that I think about him.

I didn't intend to read this book. But then, a post came across my Twitter feed yesterday.  This Wesley Scroggins was trying to get Speak, along with several other books, banned from a school district in Missouri. (Side note, I've since learned he's also trying to get text books with references to evolution banned, as well as anything that disagrees with his personal interpretation of the Constitution. See http://www.boarddocs.com/mo/republic/Board.nsf/ab6bd8d56fbee98a8725731b0060c686/ea8aaefc50a6f9a387257727007d2776/$FILE/School%20Board%20Presentation%20%28Scroggins%29.pdf)

In a recent letter to the editor, Scroggins took his opinions to the newspaper reading public (http://www.news-leader.com/article/20100918/OPINIONS02/9180307/Scroggins-Filthy-books-demeaning-to-Republic-education), alluding to  several works, including Speak, as soft porn.  Now, this captured my interest.  I'm no fan of banning any kind of book and I trusted the opinions of other book bloggers I follow who said this guy was way off the mark.

But I think for myself. And before I decided to run my mouth about Scroggins' gross misstatements about this book, I decided to read it and decide for myself.  I bought Speak after work tonight. I read it in a little over three hours.

Speak is nothing like porn of any type. The sex in Speak, without graphic description, but with emotion, is Rape.  Not sex. Not titillating to anyone but the basest of people.  Mr. Scroggins is utterly and completely wrong.  

Laurie Halse Anderson has written a luminous book.  An odd characterization, luminous, given that so much of the book is centered around the depression of Melinda Sordino after she was raped at a party before the start of her Freshman year of high school.

Anderson hits the nuances of cliques perfectly. How fitting in seems to be so effortless to some and so unachievable to others.  The struggles of living in a less than perfect family.  A family you want to talk to and confide in but you're scared to reach out to.  Boring teachers talking about things you think can't possibly matter in real life.  Figuring out who your friends are.  Literally losing your voice because you're afraid that if you speak, all your dark secrets will come spilling out for the world to see.

In Speak, Anderson creates real characters, relatable even if you don't share their exact experiences. You still know all these people from your own high school days.  The book isn't preachy, it isn't condescending.  It doesn't talk down to the readers or marginalize their experiences.  It doesn't glorify that underbelly of high school where teenagers are really trying out, for the first time, what they think adulthood is about.

I thought Speak was brilliantly done, and I wish more books like this had been around when I was in high school.

As a side note, Banned Books week starts 25 September. As part of that, I'll be re-reading one of my favorite books from high school summer reading.  Summer of my German Soldier for reasons unfathomable to me is on the list of most challenged/banned books from 2000-2009.  I'll be posting on its literary merits, as well as a separate post about my feelings on banning books in general. In that post, I'll also share more of what I find so distressing about Wesley Scroggins' crusade against Speak.