Can you hear me . Hi. How is everyone doing tonight. Im molly quinn, the director of Public Program hearing at the book store. How many have never, ever been here before . A couple of you . Awesome. That gives me the opportunity to tell you a few thing about how this works before we start. Housing works is a Healing Community of People Living with and ticketed by hiv and aids. The mission is to end dual crisis of homelessness and aids, the provision of lifesaving services and entrepreneurial businesses that sustain those efforts. This book store is one of those entrepreneur businesses, as well as automatic of our Thrift Stores in the city. So at means that everything in the store is donated to us. All of the books and lps and movies. That way all of the money we raise here in this store goes directly to our fundraising effort. All of the people most of the people that work in the store are bartenders and book zoehlers and baristas are volunteering their time to help us make all the proceeds go to health care advocacy, job training, housing, and other services for homeless and formerly homeless new yorkers living with hiv and aids, so everything single even is a key part hoff the fundraising for the mission. Were very, very grateful to all people who attend esend. The pushers of the books by the authors sitting behind me donate the books to housing works which means theyre giving us books for free we can send to help be part of our found fundraising, so we encourage you very strongly to purchase coffee or wine or beer or a book or any or many of the books in the store before you head out tonight. And you can help but by donating old stuff, volunteering time, hosting an event just like the is one or renting our our space for a private function. We have weddings and corporate parties and private events here every weekend. So let us know if youre interested. You can also stay in touch with housing works on social media. [inaudible] im just going carry on. You should definitely come back to attend another event here. You can learn more about our programs at housing worths. Org events. We have Public Events in the book store almost every week night so we encourage you to come back. Without by the further adieu i introduce chris who will tell you about our panelist tonight. He is the director for the american booksellers for free expression. Thank you. [applause] thank you, molly. Happy banned books week [cheering] thats a little weird. We are not happy about banned books. What we are celebrating this freedom to read and the power of literature. I want to first of all thank housing works. This is the best place you can be to celebrate banned books week. They pay me. And i want to thank housing works for hosting this vehement. This is great. Hosting this event. Its great. Im the director of the american book zoehlers for preexpression. The booksellers voice in the fight against censorship and also standing up here as a representative of all the sponsors of banned books week and there are many. And youre about to find out who they are. The American Library association. The American Society of journalis and authors. The association of american publishers. The association of American University presses. The comic book Legal Defense fund. The freedom to reed articulation. She National Association of college stores. The National Coalition against censorship. This National Council of teachers of english, people for the american way foundation. Project censor. Collectively known as the good guys. For the last several years, the sponsors have been working hard to expand Public Awareness of banned books week. We hired a coordinator, maggie jacoby, who is keeping us on the same page, and i want to thank her and our corporate contributors, random house [inaudible] since 1982, banned books week has alerted people to the problem of book censorship the United States 3line books were challenged last year and most of the victims have been kids. Books have literally been taken their hand. This year the week features young adult books. To discuss the problem of the censorship we have know fewer than four authors whose books have been challenged. The first our moderator, david shipley. [applause] now im going to read very fast. David was the Pulitzer Prize won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction in 1987 for arabs and jews. Wind spirits in a promised land. The also wrote the book, the working poor, invisible in america, which would challenged in texas for being sexually explicit. Is a former correspondent for the New York Times and his most recent book is freedom of speech, might er than the swore. Theres a great section on book banning. Live than is an author and editor who has written number books featuring gay characters, most notably boy meets boy. Boy meets boy has been challenged and banned many times. David is the founding editor. And most recent book is another day. Ing me is a cuban writer of book, yaqui del gad dewants to kick your ass which has been banned. Won the 2013 civil prize for yaqui delgado. The most recent picture book, mango, is a journalisted Library Guild selection and also included in the 2015 best books for Young Readers catalogue. Also a fiction writer. Her first novel, written fordown at less sents and was inspired by her experiences working with troubled teenagers in new york. He is about a 15yearold bronx boy whose family is homeless. An ala best book for young adults has often been put in a glass display case or hip the checkout desk instead of a shelf. Right also teaches righting for children and young adults in the msa program at the Vermont College of fine arts. Her back is kind of like brothers. With that, turn the program over to david. Thank you very much. [applause] thanks to housing works for having us here. Ingmeg and david are wonderful writers. I read a bit of each of them, and i what were going to do is after i spend five minutes setting the stage for this discussion, well let each of them tame five minutes or less, talking about their own experiences with their bangs and then open it up to discussion up here and then have q a at the en. One year ago during banned books week, the superintendent of the Highland ParkIndependent School district in a wealthy suburb of dallas, summarily suspended seven books not working. Okay. Summarily suspended seven books from use in advanced placement english classes in Highland Park high school. Because of a complaint by one set of parents. One of the books was mine. The working poor. Ostensibly because i had reported womens stories of having been sexually abused as children. The complainant tipped her hand about the political agenda when when she suggesteds a alternative readings ayn rand and ben carson. Be that as it may, the School System became an instant laughing stock nationwide actually because it was banned books week, and some commentators thought that perhaps the superintendent was under the impression that during banned books week he was supposed to ban books. So, there was an uproar in town, and the community really divided along very clear lines between very few parents who objected to several of the books that were in this list, and those who supported childrens right to read and teachers who made these choices for educational purposes. Ill talk about these lines of dispute because they are duplicated in many communities in the country inch this case, all the books were put back in crick him after due process, committees and reviews and supplement but some damage was done because teachers in the school were saddled with new requirements to justify in detail to parents committees why they were selecting certain readings, and some of them felt that politics had entered the classroom. And some of them started looking for other jobs, and at least two i know of, perhaps more, actually left and moved to other schools. So, there was a kind of demoralization. Now, banning is an exaggerated term, actually. Students might consider their own class or the books having been banned from a particular class, have been in certain cases, but of course the books are available elsewhere. This is naoto tall not a totalitarian state. A couple years ago, Gretchen Miller, an ap english teacher in plymouth, michigan, had to tell her students to stop reading the novel wow waterland because she had gotten a call over the weekend as a result of one of the the father of one of her students complaining about one scene of fairly brief scene, not a very erotic scene either, in which a description of sexual exploration by two kids is describe, boy and a girl. So, again, the superintendent just sum mar summarily withdrew the book, and also beloved by tony morrison, from that course. So Gretchen Miller told her students they couldnt read it anymore and had to return their copies to the book room. Some students told me they found waterland boring and sophomoric, but now it was suddenly intriguing and very view returned it to the book room. The local book store had to order more copies. The Public Library ran out. Pretty soon half the town was reading it. American parents who never read what theyre kidwards reading in school, got interested what was going on and had some fascinating and searching discussions around the dinner table, all of which was to the good. In the end the books were put back into the curriculum. However, there, too, there was damage. One of the teachers who was a leader in creating the curriculum, brian reed i wrote a lot about him in my book told me recently there was so much stress and he suffered from so much sleeplessness during this confrontation that he decided no longer to teach ap english. He dropped down to lower levels. So you see that even underneath a victory you have some defeat. Now, as i explored things with parents in this community, and elsewhere, too, i saw a few issues for parents who were challenging books. Some of them are just trying desperately to protect their children from coarse and profane stuff that is so easily obtainable on the internet, and they cant get their hands around digital files but they can hold a book. Some of them felt that school was somehow providing an imprimatur to material they felt was inappropriate for their kids. Sex is a major issue for these parents. And Sexual Orientation is particularly volatile as an issue, and david will certainly talk about this in the case of his book. Sometimes they misunderstand when they think the author or the teacher is endorsing the teacher attitudes of the character. They said recently in an interview that when this happens, the idea that it character represents the opinion or attitude of an author it is a primary understanding. Now the michigan teachers one, the teachers and Highland Park one, but they ended up bruised and to some understanding inhibited for picking books for their students to read that would likely generate controversy and sleepless nights. , so statistics on victories do not really tell the entire story. I would like to go down the table now and ask each of the authors to talk a bit about your own experiences in this regard and provide insights into what you think about it. So, you can hear me all right . My book is titled, wants to kick your. It is about a 16yearold who arrives in high school and that is exactly what someone says to her in the schoolyard. It is is a story about a girl on rapley in the face of being bullied. It is is also a story about a girl coming to terms with changes in her body and how that impacts how people relate to her. The relationship with her mother, her father, and her relationship with being a latina itself. So what has happened with the novel is that also during band book week, which is kind of funny, cumberland county, virginia near where i live had invited me to an assembly because they were doing an anti bullying assembly. The library and invited me. Im going to say in march or Something Like that. Somewhere around august, or september i got a call from the library and saying listen, our principal says you can come but please do not show a slide of the cover, do not mention the title of your work, and please and please do not say the word asset. And so, i said all. I said i had to think about that and i wrote a letter in response and saying why that was not possible for me. Aside from the fact that it is rude to invite and other tier school in that way, i thought it was particularly an ugly thing to do. For kids who find themselves in the crosshair of a bully, they are ready theres something shameful about that. That something about them has caused this to happen. If the school doesnt want to name it as it is, there is something wrong and shameful. Needless to say, judy bloom, who is very involved with the National Coalition of censorship got wind of this. I wrote a blog post, really prior to this may be maybe 60 people read my blog. Suddenly, everybody was talking about the silly sit School District who had created the censorship. Judy bloom got on board and all of these others weighed in because it was banned took week the media appeared at their door repeatedly. The superintendent did not get out of their way. I think the low point was when she said the book really dealt with a kind of bullying that was a kind of innercity issue. I know, it is just so unfortunate. I almost felt backward. It was painful to watch. Since then, that was the most obvious. Really what i am working with now on the book is what i call censorship and i live in virginia and i have traveled a lot throughout the country. A lot of times in the south, the bible belt and so on. I also write picture books in middle grade. Picture books are friendly books, the word asses not found. So, people who know me in that way know me as friendly, kind, sweet, and of, and of course they invite me to their school. We would love you to come but we would really like to talk about the girl who could silence the wind. Not talk about who wants to kick your. Ive been to School Districts where the book is kept in the principals office, if any young person would like to read it they have to go to the principal and ask. He is the person who determines whether the child is mature enough to read the book. So, i agree with you that band book is not exactly the right term because i have not been banned, right. But enormous numbers of obstacles have been placed between the kid who wants to read the story, for whatever reason he or she may have and the wellintentioned adults are in the way. Hi, can you hear me . I think i have a lot of the same experiences as you have had. I i dont know my book has ever been censored, or band but it definitely has been challenges and things here and there, mostly in schools where may be a younger kid has gotten it from the School Library and it causes a big uproar in some time. What i know for tour was in gary, indiana. There is a big thing about it because a younger kid younger kid took out tyrell from the School Library. For me, it is also about soft banning where either the book is not ordered in certain places because of the language, or because with the community it doesnt appear to be the kind of community to read my book. They used to say, well we only have 7 ethnic students in our School District so we do not have your book. Now, they dont use ethnic they say, we are only 7 free and reduced lunch so we dont really i dont really know that means. Literally i hear it all the time. Evidently my book only appeal to School Districts with lots of hungry children. Hungry for books. Anyway, i have gone to places where the book is sort of in the library but not available to the kids. It is in a glass case or it is a black History Month even though it has nothing to do with black history. It is just not available or not there at all. I think it is not only deals with black kids, also because they think its innercity, its just not for our kids in our schools. That is so frustrating because it is a written in dialect and if someone is familiar with hiphop, or rap, it is not unfamiliar to them. Whereas rap music is very popular in all communities that they think they would not understand your book, it is not for our kids. That is so frustrating. I know they would get it, when kids all over the country read it they do get it. Somehow the teachers are the ones keeping it from them. I just need to interject, a friend of mine called this an attempt to create gauge and intellectual communities. I wish i had thought of that. It is a a good way to put it. I think were seeing the explicit and implicit censorship that for my books because i deliberately called it two boys kissing, most the time it is the fact they are not bought in the library. It is the idea, and i hear all again we dont really have any gay kids in our school. You do. Well we are not an urban school, we cant have your books. There is a notion, one that book should be identical to the population of a school which is ridiculous. That only works one way. I grew up in the bronx, my school a black and latino, we had to read the great gatsby, nobody looked at us and said oh well they wouldnt understand this kind of book. It only works one way. We had to read about gatsby and he cap papers on much. He got the free and reduced lunch. Then i think it is fear and ignorance of where censorship comes from. I think they do feel they can keep it on the outside if they dont let the books in, as if there is any way to control the identity of the students in their school. Then the explicit is that if it does get a people object to it. I have run the gamut from actual physical protest outside to book banning to hearing and none of them are fun. We would like to say how most are defeated, which are true. Also people love to say all that is so great your book was challenged because that means you will sell more books, arent you excited . The answer is, no. There is nothing scarier than to know that someones job is on the line, you as an author cannot do anything. It is the advocates who are defending it, they are the ones in the communities on the line. As he said there is always collateral damage. It is never a good thing. Usually i feel very sorry for the children of the parents or doing the challenging. They have not done anything wrong. I think, it is is for me personally, it is personal. That i would have the mind of going into a community and being protested and knowing the protest wasnt just about what my book was about. It was about who i was. Not a word that i had use, but a word that i was. Again, most of the people if not all of the people making the challenges of making the protests were thinking that they could somehow reverse social change by picking on a book. That is not a very effective way of reversing social change, but it did click put people temporarily in a position where it shouldve been one. I think over time the attitudes have changed so much for me. When this came out 12 and a half years ago my publisher was emboldened to do it but i think there was a fear about putting a gay book out there. I think there was a very shock reaction to the book even though there is Nothing Shocking within the book, just because it was a happy, gay book. Gay book. People were not prepared for that. People thought gay kids were existed but they were miserable. If they were were happy, that was too radical. I think now that is not as controversial. Society has changed, sort of the challenges that we saw most recently for two boys kissing feels like the last passages of to turn society back when that is not it. So the challenges have tapered off would you say . I think so. I think also i have written plenty of books with the gay characters, gay teens and because they are not easy targets they do not get challenged very often. There is a silent majority. Nobody ever challenges claires fancy novels for their gay content, but they have these very strong gay characters. They are everywhere, all across our literature. So, my book, those my book, those two books in particular other targets because you can judge them without having to read them. I think the war has already been one and there so many other books kids are reading, even if for some reason access was blocked two boy meets boy or two boys kissing they would be able to find that information in hundreds of other books. One of the problems i found his challengers do not read the books. They get quotes off of the websites, there certain websites and there is one issue that you do not see challenged, at least i did not come across, that is the betrayal of violence. Its very interesting that parents are so concerned about, Sexual Orientation, profanity, generally they do not challenge books because they are violent. I met an author at a book fair last spring and he told me he had a book where he had a drawing of a character with extremely short shorts, the publisher said you Better Change that. It said nothing about a character shown with the severed head. So that is an interesting problem, it seems to me that kids exposed to violent on the internet, video games video games and so forth, and in books. Parent somehow do not get their hands on that. One of the issues that i came across was some parents feeling deeply alienated from Public Schools and wanting to undermine them or control them, but feeling completely out of control, especially conservative parents feeling the government was taking over the job of parenting. They should be the ones to decide what their kids are exposed to. In this world you can disagree with that but you also almost have to simply sympathize with them flailing around to try to protect their kids as long as they can from things they find offensive, even though i dont think its offensive. I have three kids, my oldest grandchild who is a senior in high school read the working poor two years ago on her own. I told her about this back in Highland Park and she was completely puzzled by it. She is a very, very mature kid, both intellectually and emotionally. I think different parents have different assessments of their parents maturity. I am wondering whether any of you have had the opportunity to talk to any parents who did object to your books and get from them some understanding of what was going on, at all . Have . Have you ever had that experience . I have not. Not the ones who have checked my book. Ive had the conversation with librarians about it. Some who early on came to me and said, why did you name it this, it was such a problem, et cetera. So, you know i think they just see language with sexuality like a marker of the collapse of the moral code for their children. That is is really what they are concerned about. As best i can tell. I think as david said, social changes social change. The kids occupy the world that they occupy. They have heard the word ass. They know gay gay guys. It is just the way it is. There is a time that i dont think actually existed of some sort of mayberry time. So you could find a objection to anything i write, even in my picture books because they are latino characters, and they are sending remittances home to family in another country. Folks dont speak english, there is a whole whole group of people who feel really str folks dont speak english, there is a whole whole group of people who feel really strongly, here in this country you must speak enh, ish. What are you doing sending money to other countries, et cetera, et cetera. I think it is this sort of reaction, this rage to a world they do not want to see. Whenever i have been confronted with parents, part of it is calling them about not reading the book. In boy meets boy there is an entry i did wear with parents it, there is another with students in an interviewee, and the parents just lashed out saying i do not like the idea of just the sexualized nature of your writing. There is no in the book, its just language. It was very clear it is the concept of what they had heard in the book that made them think it was some explicit when it was a romantic comedy. I also had a interesting conversation, all Successful Co a ersation ive had with the teacher. She heard me talking about the language of my book, i said, heres heres the deal i know people get upset about the f word. As a writer, we are chosen to write because we choose the exact right word for whatever we are writing. You cannot make the argument to me saying something is so wrong in saying something is so half wrong. Those are two different things. They made two very different things. To say you cant have certain words in your arsenal to deploy to get to the truth it is just wrong. The teacher came up to me and say i have never that argument before. I have heard plenty of times like oh theyre going to hear it anyway the books may have well have it. The idea that the word was actually tied to the meaning of what was being said was a successful argument for her. I wrote a book on poverty a year or circuit by a woman who have been in poverty and discussed her experience. There were a lot of f woro d in the book. To the point where the word did kind of lose its power. One of my reactions of having written this bt ab section in my own book about book challenges and schools, was what a shame that she did this because teachers are not gen ing to assn this a book to their high school kids. They ought to because it is really a good book. It has a lot of great insight. I am wondering whether any of you, when you are writing nd and gone through challenges, think about that at all as your writing . Do you think about what you are writing about are the language you are using with any sense of how it is going to be received i teachers or librarians . Welgoin i guess in my third book there is lots of language, lots of cursing. To me, i thought my only job was to reflect the language as i hear it in my neighborhood and to make the character sound authentit ofto where he grew up, how he grew u h and his parents. He would get away with using that kind of language. For the most part, i dont know how much that has contributed to the fact that my book has not been taught in schools. The bt abger issue regarding language from teachers is the use of the nword. That has been more offputting to them than the s word or any other word. I think it is because the teachers own, not fear, but just being uncomfortable with the word themselves. So they say well i would love to teacher book but you have the my bword in it and i cant, i aa white teacher, my students are mostly black and latino and i cant teach a book with the my bword it in it because they feel uncomfortable. Every time i get a letter like that i just think its a missed opportunity to discuss the word. I think a lot of kids may not even know the history of the word. I used to teach africanamerican literature at a college and my students had no idea it was a negative word. They thought about it in a hiphop kind of way. I think the teacher could talk about it, you dont have to use the word but you can talk about why you feel this way and get a discussion going. I feel thethat e so afraid, insecure, and they jht p over te entire book without addressing it. I guess the the no bord has been a bt abger issue to me. I do think about it, it doesnt stop me but it does give me all serves. I have a a nsaidl coming out in march, burn baby burn it set in 1977. A lot of stuff was happening in new york city in op but. The city was broke, net abhborhoods were burning, though Womens Movement was just bubbling. So it ben i mo dd n to the woro d planned parenthood and Birth Control in my novel. It is in there and i am lnevee just look at it what is haervening in congress right no. So i am bracing myself for people who have not read the novel and will just pull out those woro d and will have realy strong feelings about whether the womens msaidement was positive or ns cative. I was writing historical fiction so i wrote it the way aside, the way i researched it, and the way it felt t cane to the characters in the story. I have to tell you, i know what is coming, i could see the lt at in the tunnel and it is getting bigger. And you dont enjoy this . I dont, lnevee david said, t is very hard to be told that something you have done is vulgar and hurtful to children. N. I was a teacher for years so i have given my life to children in one way or anothe lo they matter to me. So to be cast in a way that you have done something that damages or hurts children, or makes them course, it is hard to carry around with you. Even if you get more sales it doesnt really matter. I did not enjoyedf ither when i got these messages of congratulations from friends and family when the working poor was suspendea it didnt make me feel really good, it left a bad taste in my mouth especially since the book was so badly distorted by the challengers. Then the News Coverage, the News Coverage out there was just visible. There is one accusation aervaret made that the book was socialist marxists. They got in the dallas morning neothe, the reporten i have ben talking for weeks about it, she had been talking about and she never called me to get m did reactio gett this is the ethics every porting. I contacted her and said why didnt you contact me, this is this is ridrtuulous, im an old auntie mark sis from my four years at the new yorages trealles. I learned what socialism was, i didnt like it much, i think it was on page 88 i even said some things about socialie e that wee not very flattering. I did use churchills wit which may have escaped the challenger because remember he said, democracy is the worst system except for all of the others that have been tried from treale to trealle. The same thing could be said about capitalism, i gave some arguments against socialism and later in the book i said marh ee is a failed ideology. He said the person didnt read the book and did you read the book . You have been csaidering e story for weeks, months at that point. She said no i havent no i havent read it. She was a reporte lo and a reporter for the local Radio Station did the same thing. And i said i think you are obligated to give my rebuttal to this, i consider it a smear. Something would complement it. I dont really lnevee that sneer being in your pages without my opportunity to rebut it. So that is the kind of thing you dont reallyf hoy. It is not a pleasant experience really. When you do get a chance to explain things more, forf xample the ht abhland Park High School students were reading my book gather together after school one day, olleanized by one of their teachers to have a skype conversation with me for a long time. They asked some very good questions about poverty, we had an interesting discussion. They have much moref kyosure to the sg iject then they would hae had without that. On thursday im going out there, im going to meet with some of the teachers from the ht abh school, and parents who supported the book reading for their kids. Versm giving a talk in thef vening , not during school hours, in the auditorium of the high school. I offered to meet with thef nglish class who is currently reading my book and they said was the end of the period and it would not be good for instructional process at this time. The one joy that is to be find its way to the kids who most want to have its, who needed, and read it. Theres nothing quite so satisfying as seen kids in their right to read. If there is a silverlining silverlining in my mind, it is that. I think the gates keeper is a to be afraid. There there are so many ways around them now. I personally do not believe in the notion of no boundary for their children. I corresponded with enough gay kids and just refuse to alld them to be who they were, those parents are not the best guardian of their reading. It is great that they have this abel. Ity to read booway far bed what you are allowed to read in class are alld ed to bring home. I do think that, were talking about planned parenthood, that fear that you have, that is the reason to keep it in the book. The only pd er as we as writers have is to give contacts, to give accuracy and t canth. Agaiut f ven if we are gen ing to be found for we know it does get across and the fact that people are attacking us for it meaing o that it is worth it. We talked about holding back the only time i have have held back was during boy meets boy. I did, very consciously, its a romantic comedy so is there that. I deliberately did not uncharacteristrtually, use the f bomb or any language there because i knew historically gay bos ts were uy gally challenged by people and they would use the smokescreen of challenging it with the language. They did not want to see is homophobes so they would sell know its about a gay person, look on page 33. I. I wanted to deny that person any leok timate ground for banning the book are protesting the book except for the fact that the characters were gay. That workea i would like to get people to explore further about what david said about Opening Doors into other parts off xperience. How do we define young adult . What age range is ie i and if the importance of booway like yours for them . They teach this stuff. It used to be a young apaglt was synonymous wits abteam. That they were 13yearold. Now it has changed it has become a an aduget genre as well. So it is agenin3 through age however old the oldest reader is, which is probably pretty ola almost as old as me. F ven olden if you can imagine. I think that is the exciting thing about literature. We catch people while their identities are forming and they stick with it now. It continues tof kylore and it doesnt stop when you turn 20. Woulestions of who you are, you love, what your goal in this world is, that is not just about becoolescence, its about life. Life. That is what we are writing about. We are telling where are the exploratioing fo and fears and conquering fears coming from. That has power to it. Anyone else want to chime in on this. I pags a big question. The only thing with young adults is it provides with windoothe, miout tors, for me i always as a kid, i always wanted a mirror. I never found any book that or that i could see mage elf in. They just did not exist. All the books about a character that look lie me theref ither bos ts about slaves or sharecroppers, there were never any like fun kids living in the city plathe eng double dutch and having fun. So for me, i always wanted to write something that was going to be a mirror for me and amir for other kids lie me who grew up like me. So for me thats what i think a young apagget is. Providing tht miout tor mirror providing that window is someone elses life. That is what i strive to do. Accurately reflect the world that i see. It is funny because i was just interviewed this afternoon on thisungery toprtu, boy it ges slippery tp ling to decide if it is a topic because all of those lines are bluout ted. You can really write about diffrtuult things even to the youngest reader, it is something in the nuance, but to me i pags really a nuance of thecepun. Stis i had that were not really answer. The questions that shape me and folld ed me all the wrl untel. Now. When i am writing i am writing from that place. What are the things that were not aing fower . What are the are the aches that i carried with me . I sent them a more modern treals ig t it isf ssentially those woulestions that lead me. So it is autobiographical to some degree . Yes aget hough the characters are mbecoe up in the situations. It is like creating frankenstein, i am taking pieces fromf vep lboccu. I wel. L ti e your gossiping with your egomania, with your good looks, and ill cook you up, and i have a n ex perso gett that is kind of how it works. I i know who they all are because i am seeking revenge. No, i know who they are but i am re orchestrating the whole thing. I think it might be a good time to start hearing from the audience, dont you . You have some questions for the panel . The rule is, wait for the mrtu because it is being r kiorde ol you will be selected, not by me, or i am keeping this up. It is so wnevrd that we are here at band booway weeway ani feel i need to start with the question with an apology. I realize right nd that one of the things were told earlier is that i said i have a middle School Teacher and i have banned bos ts in my room, we celebrate band books i have every book that i can get my hands on. I. I have your book, your booby your book all in a bin sack called the tough issues, challenging issues, please conference with me b fuore ti ig the book out. I realize what youre talking about asaph censorship. And iult listening insane iult soft ceing fooring bos ts, rmiph my concern becomes how do i deal with parents, because i read all the booway and i know what is there and i want to be able to sell them properly to kids. My first thing is, i am adding to the promirem but would really like your take on, what would would we do as teachers to honor all booway and mi e sure that e are alss ar i dont dont want o stay covering ourselves but yes. I think the promirem with doing what you did, aget hoam ht comes from the right place, is that when you talk about tough isy ges, rough smy cff,f dgy, that also propagces the person who is not going through. The message youre sending is if this haervens to you you are somehd different. That you are, basically living a life that is much harder than anyonef re te. It mchaconc be, but that is not the messaging we want to send. I think like an amazingf ssrl about this about hd you have to rereallagine your notion of what the reader is, usually when we talk about the reader we are defaulting to the ibooks ocent, usually white, usually privileged child who is reading about things they do not knoon we have to start thinking of the reader is the kid in the class was reading about the think that is not a tough issun. For the . We have to make sure that messaging reflects that. Agaiut i think thef asiest wrl, i think to do things is just to booktalk. Before you put the bins down just go through the booway and say what theyre about. Dong label them. You do want to get warnings about what the ibre getting into but that is the wrl to do it. Mi e sure all of the books are discussed youre not are not singling out anything, then the kids can mi e iwith aod decisions about what theyre ready for, thats what i would think. Seems to me a lot of young becoult books that i have read speak to kids and what theyre going talk ough,f ven thoam h though characters are not exactly like them, its like good literature and it rises to the universal. Get see something of thed lves rn these characters, and their interactions with other kids, with their parend and so forth. So could when you talk about the Sexual Orientation may not be theirs but a lot of the other thin a t are theirs. I think that generates a sense of empathy, it does cross those more superficial boundaries. Thats what i would srl. As a grandfather reading these books. To your credit you have the bos ts in your class, i think that is the mthat i t important thing. Most people would shy away from doing that to begin with. That with. That is the mthat i t important thing. Right, i feel like making certain bos ts other or certain experiences, other. I get that with my books that they are in the africanamerican experience or the street lit s kition, or literally in the back of the library under urban books. I was at a panel, one of the liruariaing fo in the audience d she put a little red sticker on all of the books about black people so that kids who want to find those booway can find them easier. It was terrible. So it makes us feel late other. Likewise the smy cdents going throam s abthin a t in your clm going through tough issues, makes them feel lie other. So, mix them ul te i think booktalk is a great thing and it is a great skill to practice. Kids book talking tof ach other ig t what they have read. Public libraries, and i there is a latino section, and it is hispanrtu heritage month so what can i say about this. Theres a little table, and here we all are we go away. That is the ses ae thing with mirack History Month. You never see the books about us any other trealle. Like they mchaconc have a valentines day display but they never have our books on that. Or beach reading, reading, everything is only that one liegle time of year. They look at our books and then they put it back awaell skids a alitplaarre. I want to srl i are to have d wonderful libraries and teachers who do it differennst wa these are some of the things you do see. Their argument is we want our patients to find the book that they feel aegached to. Our arge ment is that we would like everybody to find the book. Any other questioing fo . I want to mention one thing about this. In the high schools i looked at as a result of the challenges, one of the things the schoore t have done is to provide parents with more information about the readings that are coming up in el kitive courses. This was requested by parents so that they would be better informed and could d kiide whether thbe would want their chel. Dren to take those courses are not. This is particularly he case with advanced placement courses. Of course anstanced placement english courses are supposed to be collegelevelivi y lhich sam gests the readings should be collegelevel. To restrict those courses to readings that are soms ard inll e hse criate nd th the pard definition is to redefine the courses, it seems to me. One of the argumend i mbecoe in the hchahland park case when thbe nle considering the working poor for this time of year, they had to go talk ough a whole e hse cress, i just voluntarilyd the Parents Group that was advocating these to take a look at the list of universities that have used the book in freshman reading, and reading. Also in various courses from kionomrtus, sse criology, t ril scie mte, and so, and so forth. That demonstrates the book is coing foidered aentsroe hcredter collactbout alevebooks. Therefof youre going to have a collegelevel course in high school how can you obj kit to that booby or any of the others that are signed actually. One of the limits of college . Nothing. Whatever the criteria are. I think the other thing that it is wise to remind us some of the parents about is that many teachers are parend. Thbe have had kids who have goe through school. They have are to been aegentiveo the readings of their kids. E talked to one tean michigan whose daughter is in collacte n me. , she said one ofe di nedes she felt between her and the parents who are objecting to beloved by julie morrison, and others was their understanding of the maturity of 17 yearolds. Her experience as a mother of a girl who hbeco gone talk ough tt partrtuular phase of life led hr to feel that kids that age, especially those that schan up for apf nglish could certainly handle those books. Theyre difficult, especially beloved as you all know, it is a ruel. Liant booup. It is one of e best american novels of our time. It is not easy to read, it is noreatinear, it it is challeno oni morrison doesnt lead you by the hand as a reader you parachute into the middle of a story and have to put it together, which is great because when a reader participates in the process you feel that you had a role in the creativity. I think that book could not easily be read by mthat i t hchh School Juniors or seniors without the guidance of a good teacher. That is true with a lot of these challenging books, and i mean challenging intellectually, emotionally. Kids benefit i think, from being in a classroom where a good teacher can lead them through an understanding and discussion. It is a much richerf xperie mte, it contributes mfich more to thhemr growing process than if they simply talk about it with thhemr peers, orf ven at home. I think that aes aeics for dy tg this kind of literature in school. When the michigan case blew up, there were Many School Board meetings where people debated and water land and so forth, studend who are r kient grbecouates of the hchah school came back from college to testify on behalf of of this currrtuule m. Thbe were aes aes wing they fod themselves mfich better prepared than their peers when they went to college b kiause of these teachers and these boorie. The teachers were stunned in a pleasant way. The type of supt rileve they got from the comdiffniat was a sit iserlining. I think it demonstrates the value of the structure discussion in the class and a booups that mrl not be so easytoread, and i dont mean just because of the languag when ig t b ki a lse of the sub mbct. My booby working working poor does have a chapter in which i discussed sexual aig se of chel. Pen, not b ki a lse i asked others about it but the people who i interviewed would say tell me about their child. Many women, i think mthat i t wi interviewed, at some at some point in the course of our interviewing, sometmeaes the first inter ne lit sometmeaes later, told me they had been abused. They told me that because i think they thoam di it was an meat rileveantf of thelanation of the vulnerabilities they felt, the loss of selfesteem, the inabel. Ity to form relatioing f, the dissociated reactions they had, the emotional shutdowns and so forth. I think this hll peing fo aciats socioeconomic lines, it it is not just the poor. People who are poor do not have the wherewithal to get e hofessional help. For them, it can be extremely debilitating. I included it b ki a lse it kidt coming up a usin, and a usin. I said to my wife who is a social worker, i dont understand why women are telling me this. I po a strangelike they stranger, they do not know me. She wisely said, thats the reason. Hey feel free to tell you because you are stranger and you do not know their families. So, but but myy icstion to myse thei after this challenge s okay, how many kids in these classes were sexually abused as liegle children . How many of their parend were sexually abused . Are the teachers prepared to deal with that partihislar issi, and h me. Do they prepare their students for reading this particular section which can actindite lots of strong emotioing fo. Eersd is a particular aftermath of sexual abuse, so that is an important n westion that teaches have to a the athed lves when they use a book that is written for adults. It it is not wriegen for kiad, ureatike their boorie. I am not pitching down to a younger age, i am writing for my cell. I am writing the wrl i would like to read i ki there are issues they are and i think it is important for teachers, who all are a laer all ned to think about them as they assign these readings. I think that is titine for booups wriegen for children as well. Issues are tough but are actually happening to the kids, ththat i e kind of issics can cp in any book. I have a couple of questions, picking up on some things that you send one is that parend are generally the ones who protest and are concerned about prot kiting their children. How can you talk to these parents and put their fears that rest and let their children have rurotd readingf of theeriet ae . Then in terd aof the teachers we have to face the fact that not all teachers are good, people. What should be done in terms of teacher training so that they will be betterf n wuse ped to read these boorie . These boorie . L questions. Again i think it is entering a dues loatue of what they are of and what they think the book is doing and given the context of the book and if we can talking about the personal place it came from. Talking about the reaction people had to it and md pe it nt thctionreticaultschallenge ig ta personal one. Again, will that work . Nine times out of ten mrlbe not but it wel. L be a mfich more interesting conversation and the person will get a much more person will get a much more interesting take awa they all and a usin thats the best you can do. Certainly, again i gave the example before that when you can en usge trying to find the natue of the offense especially if the person has not read the book is mea adleveant because then you can say iugh s not lanatuage, its t this, its not that. Again for me very rarely wel. L a parent want tfir rage di out and say well i do not want the Children Reading about gay people. It is taboo sometmeaes about homophobues. So it is sort of calling them on that and what are you really objecting to. And then you can talk honestly about the issue, about where this comes from. Again it is where you get that se c adlevetingit they im on many censorship panels and their different ways, i think at the end of the day the best person to talk of the members of the comdiffnity are e members of the community. Nobody wants the author to come in and talk b ki a lse we do not know their community. It is much better when people who know are the ones to talk to them b ki a lse they can talk it through them in a much less antagonistic way as they are not this other person coming from another place. Another place. L perspective given where we are in this dageital age, boorie are the least problem, really. It is the thing you can grab s a booup illy blessing, or the teacher basically says you have to read this for a course, parents who do not llitae it are diffch more llitaely to oacher o that and so the environment of the internet, the video games that they have trouble controlling. The father who objected to water land and beloved told me that he controlled the sciatead aat home e hetat carefully for his children but what happens when they go to friends houses . What happeing fo when they get r me. N iof theeonart what h ipens next year when they Start College . I think there is a certain lack of realism among parenlly who n to create an artificial environment in which their kids do not have contact with the ideas or situations, frtutionaly that they are going to have contact with anyway. My aing fower is open dishisssin dial wric, freewheeling argumens at home, some parents are able to do that, some are not. As i mentioned in the mrtuhi usn case there are book challenges for a lot of those discussions at home. That kind of parenting is a wrl of showing your child respect. One of the things i heard from the High School Students in , and a usin was a seing foe of outrage that they e not respected. That their maturity was treated dielsissively. Who are these parenlly to tells what we can read they are basically trying to ihave athatr ne lits on the rest of us. We are mature enough to handle this especially, mr. Miller, mr. , mr. Reeve gmided us throuit the dishisssiouall i think for parents there is a lesson here which is to always treat your child with respect. That does not mean you do not have boundaries or limits, it means you basically trust your chel. D tof xeroughise his or her inner are nalics that you have introduced. That is really what matters not trquestng to control thef thisere rl en neron then ki teachers a think there really is room, and i dont know about ning dfus but i think there is room for serious serious coursework in training on how to deal with literature that is llitaely to be challengd d in a fairly conservative town but i dont ever remember saquestng that chaficers body language was a disally te for parents. I wish there is still around so i could have a conversatiorob about all of this. I think it was a are nery interesting to hear from. Which you teach beloved . Forf realhave ale. I think she hays Great Respect for her students, some of whom still get in touch with me decades later to srl h me. Mfich thues. Loved her as a teacher. She was tough on them but they admire that years later. I would llitae to think that she would do thavir teach that kind of stuff because it is challenging, it is diffihislt, t ren wires intellectual c iabel. Ity , it reqmires students to rise to a higher level of is n abel. It they i think really that is what it is about. So i do not have a nice answer, my guesses teachers who do not feelf n wipped to do it do not do it. We know what is done and while we run up against, we dondia knw what boorie are not old mered by the library. We do not know which ones do not get into the currrtuulpeople t sure there is a lot of soft ceing foordo tlim behind these. Okay, one more question. I have a qicstion, h me. Do u feel about the medues n of literature. They made a common early on about teachers dealing with the stress of dealing with ato a nd, challenge books, so there is a connection between socioeconomic and pri nelege and access to booups were interesting boorie r on a scale of literacy itself. When youre trying to speak to these comdiffnities or pro nede a mere, you have a tension with the medium of literature. Does that mnd se sense . Does that mnd se sense . L to llitae intercity or communits do they have trouble with just the conces la of literature in . Is that what youre asking . Were books in general . This up mickly can aing fowerin because we have been told that 830 is the bewitching moment. Can youf icstion orrin here arify . Here arify . L levels. No, that was just because the non advanced placef nglido t courses in that particular school did not use books that were likely to be challenged by parents. He did not need to sagen booups. It had nothing nothing to do with ethnic minorities, it was neleveually all white, well i wt say it is all white, but majority white school. Students were not taking the aysstudnced placement courses we reaysing more traditional classics. Shakespeare, and so forth. They were not ladely to be challenged. The more m somern boorie such as beloved were reserved for the ap courses. So he was not in the zone where he was ladely to want to use books to raise the hackles of social conservatives. In that partihislarf nglido t depalevement. I gicss we are out of time. We will be here to sign. Please s are t adleve the amazing work. Can buy our boorie and by others too. [applause]. [inaudible conversation] [inaa thile conversation] th the ma thile conversatiorat thile conversatiorat l us to get publishing moods, r whee, bling updates, behind te r wenes prtuaskre and are nidct. Author information and you can talk directly with others during . Socebooup. Com book tv. So i was covering the syria crisis from more or less iugh s er of 2011, long before there is any isis presence in syria or at least acknowledged at this dehere are preseibe. I got to know a lot of the opposition, which in the beginning was peaceful micotesters and act deislly. When it b ki iue an arms rebelln against the assad regime i