SHOWDOWN IN BARTLESVILLE

Before anything else . . . can I get a big HOWZABOUTIT! for Coe Booth? Her excellent, excellent novel Tyrell just won the Los Angeles Times Book Award in the YA category. Great book, great person. Everyone wins!

I’m sure you remember Coe from the attack on the audience at our group reading in New York in December. No? Read about it here.

This whole book banning thing has pushed aside several things I had lined up to tell you—and don’t worry, I will. Oh, you know me. I can go on and on. Free Monkey has been keeping track of it all. For immediate updates, though, read my news page. I have been adding more signing dates for the upcoming Girl At Sea release. For those of your interested in the details of the publishing process, I have put up a new podcast which features my agent, Daphne Unfeasbile, describing an agent’s job in great detail. (If you aren’t interested in publishing, I don’t recommend this one.) Plus, now that I have a new video camera, I can promise more video blogs. The first is already recorded.

Thanks to the—by this point I think it’s hundreds of you—who have written to express your support. Free Monkey and I have read all of the comments and notes and are trying to respond as quickly as we can. Several of your wrote in from abroad, expressing shock that this sort of thing is going on in the United States. Yes—I am sorry to report that this stuff happens in the United States a lot. So much more than many people realize.

The issue was also covered in the online news show at the Human Rights Campaign, an organization that I happen to adore.

So, let’s get to the update.

First of all, another twist, one that is depressingly familiar. I am told that of all the people in attendance at the meeting that banned Bermudez . . . only the librarian and one parent had read the book. The librarian fought for it. I’m guessing (though I do not know this) that the parent was the same parent who wanted to have it banned.

The other committee members? Nope. They totally pulled a Sandra. They not only pulled the book (bad enough), they pulled it without knowing what was in it. Apparently, they took the word of someone who seems to have massively misread it.



I had to wonder about the person who had reviewed the book.

I’ve written to all of these committee members. In one case, I sent an additional copy of my letter (which was very nice, I assure you) to the secretary of the lead member, requesting that it be printed out and put in her hand.

I haven’t heard a word.

One thing you should know about me, friends . . . I can be tenacious. An explanation is owed, and I’m going to do all I can to get it. Should the e-mail fail . . . I do own one of those fancy telephone apparatuses. That’s the next step.

In case they happen to see this and missed my note, here are the names of the people I am looking for:

Mrs. Janet Vernon, Executive Director of Secondary Instruction
Dr. Richard Rosenberger, Executive Director of Human Resources
Mr. Chuck McCauley, Principal of Bartlesville High School

As none of you have read the book, I am happy to send you a free copy for review. Hopefully, I will be speaking to your soon!

(By the way, those links will bring up their e-mail addresses, just in case you have anything to add! You guys have so many good things to say, it seems a shame to keep you all to myself.)



I am a delight to speak to, both over e-mail and in person.

On the day this happened, my father came up to New York—and we actually spent the day running around to various consultates in the rain in an attempt to get some visas, and then my father lost his passport in a cab. In the middle of all of this, I was telling him what had happened. My dad is a pretty conservative guy, but even he shook his head.

“There’s nothing you can do about things like that,” he said. “It’s a shame.”

I said he was wrong. There is a LOT you can do. I think people only need to know WHY they should do something, and then how to go about it.

First, know that nothing really impacts me directly in this. I’m fine. I’m sitting up here in New York eating a bowl of soup, watching John Green talk to himself over the top of my computer. I don’t lose any money. The book was purchased. That it’s being locked in a closet or used as the Doorstop of Evil or pulped makes no difference to me financially. Even if I lose a handful of sales in that area, it’s not going to make me or break me. I can still get that inflatable palm tree that Free Monkey has been begging me for for weeks.

The people losing out in this are you guys—readers in high school and middle school. And it’s not because my book is just that good. I’m not so convinced of my own powers of thought that I believe that if you are deprived of the experience of reading one of my books, you will never quite ascend to the levels of intellectual magnitude that you could have otherwise reached.

No. The problem is that book banning and its related activities are amazingly easy, and their effect rots our national brain. Book banning in schools and libraries is particularly insidious because it often happens unchecked. The only reason I know about my book is because Ninja Librarian Susan Hunt got in touch with me and told me. A lot of this stuff happens under the radar.

One thing I didn’t mention in the last post about the “Citizen’s Request for Removal of Instructional Materials” form that got the book pulled is that there was a checkbox near the bottom with three options. They are:

Do not assign it to my child
Withdraw it from all students as well as my child
Send it back to the proper department for reevaluation

Did you guys see that one in the middle? That’s the one that was checked. I question the sanity of the first, but the second option is just out of control.

More disturbing: it worked in this case. I still don’t know why the board gave in, and I’m still working to find out. Won’t that be an interesting answer?

Now, the “what to do about it” part.

Here’s a not-so-secret secret: a lot of adults don’t make very good decisions themselves. They can be as needy for attention as the neediest person in your class. Several of your pointed out that the Bermudez banning campaign letter sounded like the work of an attention-seeker, and I think you may have a point there. Some people love to be seen doing things, especially if that thing seems “righteous.” When I worked at a school as a college student, it was all I could do not to throw pencils at the pompous and desperately uninformed members of the local school board, when they made their occasional, regal visits. A few of them were good, but a good half of them were horrible, and boy, did they like to hear themselves talk.

But here’s another important secret: a lot of parents and administrators are scared of you. They have no idea what’s going on in your head. Many think you’re kind of dim and you don’t care about anything.

You have more power than you think. If students fought against banning, you would really rattle a lot of people. If you demanded to know what books had been removed from your library (if any), if you demanded their return, if you showed up at a school board meeting, if you spoke to the local press . . .

People would listen to you. Not all the time, and not everyone . . . but I think you’d be surprised. Your rights are exactly the same as everyone else’s. You are born with them. They are yours to exercise.

As more and more people try to get you what you can’t do or read or know, I’m afraid it is down to you to kick back. Here are some ideas on how YOU can take some control:

1. Go to your school or local librarian and ask if any books have been challenged, removed, or deliberately not ordered because of a potential objection. If books have been banned or removed, ask WHO banned them and how to appeal. Start a petition in your school to have them brought back. (A lot of people in your school might not care about books, so if you can somehow convince the non-readers that this is just another way you’re being kept down in general, they may sign.)

2. Ask your English teachers to include at least one of the 100 most frequently challenged books in your curriculum.

3. Go to a school board meeting. I know this sounds boring, but it can be an eye-opening experience. You won’t believe some of the people who are making decisions for school out there. I have watched school board members fall asleep in the middle of public meetings and snore into microphones, or just walk out when confronted. Those are elected positions—and sometimes easy ones to get. You have as much right to be there, or even more right to be there, than anyone. You can confront these people.

4. You have one important tool: the internet. You are far better at using it than they are. It’s like you have magical powers.



Free Monkey says: don't be afraid to insist on your rights.

Have other ideas? Bring them on!

And I promise, next time . . . along with the updates, more shiny things. More monkey. And some dancing.

UPDATE: I see on reading the comments that it must sound like I am suggesting that teengers should be allowed to run the schools, and maybe the world, and that all adults are dumb, or something along those lines. That's not what I'm suggesting. Adults, or monkeys, or adult monkeys should run the schools and make the rules. That's fair enough. What I was saying, obviously inelegantly, is that students can take an active role in certain parts of the process.

You do have the right to ask if books have been removed, and you also have the right to ask for an appeal to bring them back. Trust me, if you show an interest in books, you are going to make some teachers and librarians very happy.

You also have the right to attend public school board meetings and speak when the floor is open. You gain the right to vote at age 18--this can only help you prepare for the process and see who is running in your area.

But I am not so insane as to think that 15 year-olds should be determing what goes on, as excellent as I think all of you are. And I do think you are excellent. I wouldn't be writing YA if I didn't. I would be writing knockoff novels with titles like The DaSquinchy Code.

Now I kind of want to write The DaSquinchy Code.

Also: please see award-winning novelist John Green's sample e-mail. Not that I am suggesting anything.