Wild Things!

by Betsy Bird

  For forty years, Go Ask Alice has been deemed objectionable by book banners. They object to its language. They object to its sex scenes. And most of all, they object to its depictions of drug abuse. In another example of “the more things change, the more they stay the same,” these same charges were leveled, decades later, at the 2010 book Crank by Ellen Hopkins. This novel-in-verse was based on the experiences of the author’s daughter as she struggled with methamphetamine addiction. Shortly after the book’s publication, the author found herself “dis-invited” from several speaking engagements.

  The irony of Go Ask Alice, Crank, or most other youth novels censored for drug content is that none of these books endorse, promote, or glamorize illegal substances. When kids read these cautionary tales, they’re horrified by Hopkins’s protagonist being raped by her drug dealer or the well-remembered scene in Alice when the tripping narrator imagines “tapeworms, larva, grubs, disintegrating my flesh, crawling on me, consuming me” and don’t wish to emulate them. Ellen Hopkins has written of meeting a former addict at an autographing session:

  She saw herself in those pages, and suddenly knew she didn’t want to be there. That book turned her around. Today she’s been sober two years, is graduating high school, and has embarked on a modeling career. This wasn’t a rare encounter. After almost every talk, one or more people wait until the room clears and tell me their story. And I have received tens of thousands of messages from readers, thanking me for turning them around, giving much-needed insight, and even literally saving their lives. So I am more than a little saddened when my books are pulled from shelves.

  Sexuality has always been a part of childhood, but it hasn’t always been a part of children’s books. Yet upon careful study of the field, one can find references to sex in books for young people much earlier than expected. Way back in 1939, Marie Hall Ets published The Story of a Baby. Mary Stolz subtly addressed sexual themes in her romance novels of the 1950s and 1960s. And teenage pregnancy was a problem in Zoa Sherburne’s 1967 book Too Bad About the Haines Girl. But it was Judy Blume who broke from the pack in the early seventies — publishing books for kids that dealt honestly and unflinchingly with sexual issues, despite the censors yapping at her heels.

  Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret featured a young girl dealing with moving to a new neighborhood, questioning her religious beliefs, and being concerned about issues such as breast development and menstruation. Blume first realized there was a problem when she donated copies of her book to her children’s elementary school and the principal refused to allow them on the library shelves. Shortly after that, she received a phone call asking if she was the author of that new book Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret. When Blume answered in the affirmative, the woman called her a “communist” and hung up on her.

  Blume continued to break barriers with her subsequent books, such as Then Again, Maybe I Won’t (sort of a male version of Margaret, with wet dreams substituting for menstrual periods), Deenie (masturbation!), and Forever (teenage sex!). That last book was published and publicized as “Judy Blume’s first novel for adults,” a ploy that still irks the author, who insists that Forever was always intended for a young adult audience. Actually, the real audience may have been much younger. Because they knew the Blume name from Freckle Juice and other books she’d written for much younger children, grade-school kids soon regarded Forever as their favorite “pass around” book. Just do a sample search on Google to see what we mean:

  • “Forever was passed around my 6th grade classroom — one brave soul took it out of the library, and then we all read it, one by one.”

  • “Ah, fourth grade — does anyone else remember the dog-eared copy of Judy Blume’s Forever that was passed around under the tables during fourth-grade reading class?”

  • “The clandestine copy of Forever passed around my grammar school, eagerly highlighted, was the best instructor of sex education we had (we have it so easy now, seriously) and when it was confiscated by a puritanical teacher the sense of shame and then rebellion that resulted was a defining moment.”

  • “One of my friends had the book and the book was passed around our little group of friends, from one friend to the next. None of us were bold enough to purchase the book on our own.”

  Aha, think the censors, this is exactly why we tried to suppress Forever! Look at all the young whippersnappers who were secretly reading this book only to find the “good parts.” But such self-proclaimed book banners might be surprised to see how that last quote continued:

  I think that Judy Blume did a great job of portraying teenaged sex as an important decision that has serious consequences if you’re not informed and protected. She did not glamorize sex. The message I got from Forever is that the decision to have sex is an important decision to make. The girl should not give in to the boy and shouldn’t be pressured to do so. The consequences of unprotected sex can change your life forever. And having sex with your boyfriend doesn’t guarantee that the relationship will work and last forever.

  It’s also interesting to hear Judy Blume’s take on the matter:

  I believe that censorship grows out of fear, and because fear is contagious, some parents are easily swayed. Book banning satisfies their need to feel in control of their children’s lives. This fear is often disguised as moral outrage. They want to believe that if their children don’t read about it, their children won’t know about it. And if they don’t know about it, it won’t happen. Today, it’s not only language and sexuality. . . that will land a book on the censors’ hit list. . . . Books that don’t hit the reader over the head with moral lessons are considered dangerous.

  In 1996, Judy Blume received the Margaret A. Edwards Award for this novel. The presentation read, “In presenting this award to Judy Blume for Forever, the Young Adult Library Services Association recognizes that she broke new ground in her frank portrayal of Michael and Katherine, high-school seniors who are in love for the first time. Their love and sexuality are described in an open, realistic manner and with great compassion. The emotions experienced by Michael and Katherine are as true today as they were when the book was written in 1975. The appeal of the book is fresh and continuous because every day someone, somewhere, finds a first love.”

  The Edwards Award is usually given for an author’s body of work, with up to nine individual books recognized at a time. Blume is one of the rare authors recognized for a single one — in this case, her “first adult book” . . . at long last recognized as the young adult novel it had always been.

  To complete the “sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll” triumvirate, we have The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll, edited by Jim Miller, which was challenged in Kentucky on the grounds that it “will cause our children to become immoral and indecent.”

  Those same children should probably be advised not to listen to the radio, either — to avoid hearing any of those nasty songs.

  Maybe that’s the whole point.

  Kids, close your eyes. We don’t want you reading those dirty books.

  Kids, close your ears. We don’t want you listening to those dirty songs.

  Kids, close your mouths. We don’t want to hear what you think or feel.

  Margaret Drops Her Napkin

  The censors never convinced Judy Blume to change the content of her books, though she did later change feminine hygiene products in Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret to be more contemporary. Later editions of the novel went from belted sanitary napkins to tampons. Blume says, “No one uses belts anymore. Half the mothers haven’t used them. [Contemporary readers] have to go to their grandmothers. . . . And some people said, ‘Oh, no, it’s a classic. You can’t mess around with a classic.’ And I said, ‘Look, we’re not messing around with the character or anything else. We’re just messing around with the equipment.’”

  ON HOLY GROUNDS: CENSORING RELIGION

  The reference volume Banned Books: Literature Suppressed on Religious Grounds profiles se
veral dozen books, ranging from Francis Bacon’s 1605 scientific treatise, The Advancement of Learning, to Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses. Nearly hidden among historical works by Kant, Descartes, and John Stuart Mill is one fairly contemporary children’s book — Dragonwings by Laurence Yep. Published in 1975, this Newbery Honor Book introduced a stunning new talent who would continue to chronicle the Chinese-American experience in many more novels over the next few decades. Yep’s first published book, Dragonwings tells the story of a boy who immigrates from China to San Francisco at the turn of the twentieth century and, in this exciting new world, helps his father build a glider.

  Considering its critical acclaim and inspiring, generally inoffensive narrative, Dragonwings seems an odd choice for a book challenge — especially a challenge based on religious content. Yet in 1992, a Pentecostal minister tried to get the novel banned in Pennsylvania because of the young narrator’s frequent use of the word demon; she was also concerned about the book’s occasional references to the tenets of Eastern religions — such as reincarnation — and suggested that the book could cause some children to commit suicide “because they think they can be reincarnated as something or someone else.” Both the school board and the county court refused to ban the book.

  As we have seen with the number of Newbery winners that have been challenged, visibility and popularity are often key components in getting a book censored. In other words, the more famous a children’s book is, the louder the clamor for getting it banned. So it’s not surprising that the mega-popular Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling ranked number one on the “Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books: 2000–2009” list issued by American Library Association’s Office of Intellectual Freedom.

  The books have been blamed for promoting magic, the occult, witchcraft, and the Wiccan religion. (Never mind that Harry and his pals appear to be Christmas-celebrating Christians in the books.) The author responded to the charges by stating that her intention was most certainly not to steer any readers into witchcraft, adding that she finds the very idea laughable and unreasonable. In her role as author of this best-selling series, she noted, she’s met countless child readers, not one of whom approached her to declare that she would like to become a witch.

  Themes of magic and fantasy have been staples of children’s literature from the earliest fairy tales to the present day. Every year scores of new books featuring wizards and witches hit the children’s shelves at libraries and bookstores, yet almost none of them are singled out by censors. However, if any of these books experience a Harry Potter–style burst of popularity, you won’t need a fortune-teller or crystal ball to discern that it, too, will soon turn up on a future banned-books list.

  His Protagonist Drank Wine. . . Oh, and He Knocked Off God, Too

  Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy is one of the most honored fantasy series of modern times. The books have been targeted by censors for a number of reasons — from an overall charge of being “anti-Christian” to a more specific complaint about Pullman’s young protagonist consuming poppies and drinking wine. Obviously, none of the censors read far enough into this challenging series to reach the part where the author, you know, totally kills off God. Very few mention this as a concern.

  The author took the complaints against his book lightly, responding: “When I heard that my novel The Golden Compass appeared in the top five of the American Library Association’s list of 2007’s most challenged books, my immediate and ignoble response was glee. Firstly, I had obviously annoyed a lot of censorious people, and secondly, any ban would provoke interested readers to move from the library, where they couldn’t get hold of my novel, to the bookshops, where they could. That, after all, was exactly what happened when a group called the Catholic League decided to object to the film of The Golden Compass when it was released at the end of last year. The box office suffered, but the book sales went up — a long way up, to my gratification.”

  EDITING OURSELVES: CENSORING RACE

  Although the United States may pride itself on its “melting pot” culture, the issue of race has always been one of the country’s most troubling and explosive social concerns. The history of American race relations can be also be traced in the pages of children’s books — and sometimes that history is quite ugly. It’s not surprising that censors would like to ban or suppress books that present racist imagery in pictures and text. What may be surprising is the response to these demands. Historically, censors have been seen as foes of free speech and artistic expression, and those on the front lines — writers, publishers, librarians, and children’s advocates — have fought hard to protect books from being banned, emended, or suppressed. But because charges of racism are so damning, people of goodwill often find themselves, usually for the first time, agreeing with the demands of censors. Through the years we have seen a number of children’s classics removed (not banned. . . just quietly “removed”) from classrooms and libraries. We have seen the content of some of these volumes changed (not censored. . . just quietly “changed”) in new editions. We have also seen controversial books reclaimed by minority creators. That is the case with one of the most racially divisive children’s books of all time, Little Black Sambo.

  Helen Bannerman, the wife of a Scottish doctor in the military medical service in British India, wrote Little Black Sambo at the tail end of the nineteenth century. A book that faced charges of racism from generations of readers, but primarily for the illustrations alone, and is still frequently challenged, it follows the adventures of a well-dressed boy named Sambo, who outwits several tigers wanting to devour him by offering up items of his own clothing. In the end, he not only gets his fancy pants back, but he also gets a stack of pancakes. Bonus.

  Not long after the was book written, Grant Richards, a London publisher, purchased its copyright. Bannerman, who had also illustrated the book, relinquished any control over her creation, including its new life in the United States, when publishing firm Frederick A. Stokes Company published the book in New York in 1900. But, because of its popularity, pirated versions popped up all over the country from the likes of mass-market publishers and reprint firms, who had hired a host of new illustrators. Most were published “with gross, degrading caricatures that set Sambo down on the old plantation or, with equal distortiveness, deposited him in Darkest Africa,” wrote Barbara Bader. “Libraries and schools generally stocked the Stokes edition, and a few others selectively. But overall, the bootleg Sambos were much cheaper, more widely distributed, and vastly more numerous.” To make matters worse, by the time the book made “Sambo” a familiar name across the country, the term itself was recognized as a racial slur against black people, the stereotype of a subservient, submissive entertainer to the white folks, a buffoon who was inherently lazy and ignorantly happy.

  As early as 1932, poet Langston Hughes referred to the book as “amusing undoubtedly to the white child, but like an unkind word to one who has known too many hurts to enjoy the additional pain of being laughed at.” Over the next several decades, Little Black Sambo faced book challenges in schools and libraries across the country, but it wasn’t until the close of the twentieth century that various creators made efforts to save the story’s original, mostly inoffensive text by publishing new editions that emphasized its Indian setting. In 1996, The Story of Little Babaji was released, Bannerman’s story as illustrated by Fred Marcellino, who set the story in India (though many other adaptations had done the same, including the Golden Books version in 1948).

  That same year, a reinvention of Little Black Sambo by author Julius Lester and illustrated by Jerry Pinkney, both African Americans, was published under the name Sam and the Tigers. This retelling strayed from Bannerman’s original text yet managed to capture the book’s joie de vivre and the spirit of the story’s hero. Recalling the original art with a stereotyped black character, all white eyes and red lips, Lester said of it, “I did not feel good about myself as a black child looking at those pictures.”

  Sam and
the Tigers’ lead character is just “Sam” and lives in the imaginary land of Sam-sam-sa-mara. The tigers are still there and Sam does indeed trick them into turning themselves into butter, but the tone is entirely different. Lester’s text takes on a southern black storytelling style that is a significant departure from Bannerman’s original story. Few will miss the changes. The illustrations are humorous without ever succumbing to stereotyping. By reclaiming this once-offensive book, the two African-American creators crafted a retelling fit for the twenty-first century.

  In 2003, Christopher Bing left Bannerman’s text intact, including the title itself, and reimagined the story with a newly illustrated young black protagonist. However, Dr. David Pilgrim, curator of the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia in Big Rapids, Michigan, was not happy with Bing’s choice, noting that he “probably selected the most controversial, painful single children’s book in terms of African American portrayal that he could have chosen.” Sure, Bing had rid his artwork of any racial stereotypes, but Pilgrim would prefer the hurtful story be left behind altogether. In 2004, a Little Golden Book was released titled The Boy and the Tigers, once again Bannerman’s text sans the offensive names, set in India by illustrator Valeria Petrone.