Curation of Challenged Books

Some Context

One of the assignments that I am tasked with completing for my coursework is a curation of Children's Literature. We have the freedom to choose any books that we like, but the books should be centered around a theme.

In preparation for this assignment I started researching and thinking about various themes: nerdy books, action stories, classic children's literature, top book picks....and so on. The lists are endless, and they are all wonderful. I did stumble across one idea that caught my eye: challenged books. The beauty of the challenged book is that it can fall into any of the categories that I listed above; yet it also has the added intrigue of being challenged. Why was it challenged? Who challenged it? How many books are challenged? Right away I was inspired by the idea of addressing challenged books. 

  

Rationale for Challenged Books

I set out to create this curation not necessarily to find specific answers to questions like those mentioned above, but to prompt a discussion about what causes literature to be challenged, and to address the value of keeping challenged literature in the classroom. 

After I began my search of challenged books – first in Canada, and then expanded to the U.S. – I was surprised at how many of my favourite titles were on the list! Apparently, I love controversial books! Some of the books like Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, or The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, I was unsurprised to see on the list.  I had heard the controversy around these books and knew that they had been challenged. However, even classics like To Kill A Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, and The Lord of the Flies were also popping up on my challenged list. I was shocked to see that classic literature that was taught to me in high school had been challenged. So, what could possibly be in these books that my English teachers found so valuable that warranted them being challenged?

Figure 1

Reasons for Challenge

What are the common reasons that books are challenged? In a search of freedomtoread.ca and the ALA's 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books, the same reasons cropped up over and over. The same reasons in fact, that are depicted in Figure 1: "unsuited to age group", "offensive language", "moral/religions reasons" and so on. In essence, we are not trusting children to handle the material that is presented in the book. We do not deem children capable to handle the material. However, if we are not allowing the children to be guided through difficult literature in the classroom with sensitivity and awareness, are we truly preparing children for analysing difficult literature, and the material presented in it, on their own? In Susan Fanetti's article "A Case for Cultivating Controversy: Teaching Challenged Books in the K-12 Classroom", she argues that "by preventing [children] from gaining knowledge of and experience with those ideas, we will make them incapable of understanding them" (2012). Restricting children's access to challenged material doesn't protect them, but leaves them unprepared for facing it in the future. 

In Defence of the Challenged Book

Challenged books, are by their very name, thought-provoking. They present sensitive topics and difficult issues that must be handled delicately. Yet they are also named as such because they challenge us, our beliefs and our thinking. Challenged books force us to step outside our comfort zone of the accepted 'normal'. Not teaching challenged works to students is just one form of censorship, and demonstrates that we don't view the students as capable of handling the material. However, as teachers and parents who are confident enough to allow their children to read challenged literature find, children are quite capable - when given the right tools. Going back to Fanetti's article, "when we take the opportunity to share challenging work with children and are available and open to their questioning and discussion, their potential to understand increases commensurately". With our guidance, students are very capable of handling the material in challenged works - and are better off for it!

My "15"

In searching "challenged books" it becomes apparent quite quickly that there would certainly be no shortage of books to choose from. The ALA's  list is not named "The 100 Books that have been challenged" rather, it is named "The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books". I thought it would be difficult to narrow my choices down when there were so many choices; however, the choice of my 15 challenged books was simple. Books had to meet the first two of the following criteria, and preference was given to the third:

1. Challenged at least once for its use in schools in North America
2. Books that were commonly read by students today either as part of a school's curriculum or because of its own popularity
3. Books that may fall into a "Classics" category

One of the interesting things about searching through the list of challenged books, was how many of the titles would today, typically be considered Classic Literature. This both shocked and amused me: these titles, heralded by English teachers today, were once (and some quite recently), thought inappropriate for the classroom? Yet now we sing their praises and encourage (force)  English students everywhere to read them. . . I think that there is an important social and cultural lesson in that for both teachers and students. What is considered appropriate now, likely wasn't a number of decades ago. 

I also chose books that had a fairly broad age range. Bridge to Terabithia and The Giver are generally taught around age 10-11. The Handmaid's Tale, on the other hand, is generally taught in senior English, around age 16-17. The reason that I specifically chose books from a broad age range is because I think challenged books are important over the course of an education, and not just once a student reaches high school. While I focused my selection on challenged Literary Works, I included a few that would fall outside this category such as Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, and The Face on the Milk Carton; these books are quite widely read and appreciated - both in the classroom, and outside of it. 

I really like the idea of teaching a course or creating a display in the library around challenged books, and especially literature. I would teach the students the novel, but with the added layer of also teaching the context from which it was challenged. This would encourage students to think about the book from a new perspective and understand how people of another time felt. It is important to understand this particular context to really grasp the literature's intent, as well. Really, any grounded English teacher should be teaching context with novels; however, going a step further and addressing the challenged around the novel would add further depth and perspective to the students' understanding. 

Challenged Literary Works

Other, Popular Challenged Books

Bibliography of Chosen Books

Alexie, Sherman. The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian. New York: Little, Brown, 2007. Print.

Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid's Tale. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1986. Print.

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967. Print.

Cooney, Caroline B. The Face On The Milk Carton. New York: Bantam Books, 1990. Print.

Crutcher, Chris. Staying Fat For Sarah Byrnes. New York, N.Y.: Greenwillow Books, 1993. Print.

Lee, Harper. To Kill A Mockingbird. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1960. Print.

Lowry, Lois. The Giver. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993. Print.

Golding, William. Lord Of The Flies. New York: Coward-McCann, 1962. Print.

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: Perennial Classics, 1998. Print.

Keyes, Daniel. Flowers For Algernon. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1966. Print.

Orwell, George. Animal Farm. New York: Knopf, 1993. Print.

Paterson, Katherine. Bridge To Terabithia. New York, NY: T.Y. Crowell, 1977. Print.

Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone. London: Bloomsbury, 2001. Print.

Steinbeck, John. Of Mice And Men. New York: Penguin Books, 1993. Print.

Twain, Mark. The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn. New York, N.Y.: Baronet Books, 1990. Print.

References

Ala.org, (2016). 100 most frequently challenged books: 1990–1999 | Banned & Challenged Books. [online] Available at: http://www.ala.org/bbooks/100-most-frequently-challenged-books-1990%E2%80%931999 [Accessed 21 Feb. 2016].

Fanetti, S. (2012). ALAN v40n1 - A Case for Cultivating Controversy: Teaching Challenged Books in K–12 Classrooms. [online] Scholar.lib.vt.edu. Available at: https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/ALAN/v40n1/fanetti.html [Accessed 30 Jan. 2016].

Freedomtoread.ca, (2016). Challenged Works. [online] Available at: http://www.freedomtoread.ca/challenged-works/ [Accessed 21 Feb. 2016].

Said, S. (2015, September 29). Can children's books help build a better world? Available at:http://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2015/sep/29/childrens-books-build-a-better-world-sf-said [Accessed January 3, 2016].

Note: All images retrieved from a Google image search of "Challenged books" 

We Are Water

I recently finished reading Wally Lamb's book We Are Water.


If you have read my previous review on The Goldfinch, you will already be aware that I am not fond of reading the book's sleeve in its entirety. Instead, I read a few sentences and then decide to jump into the story. . . or not! This was my tactic with Wally Lamb's book as well. As a result, all I knew going into the book was that Annie Oh had left a marriage of twenty seven years for a woman.

The book is truly centered around the Oh family, their past, and how they got to the place they are at. It started off quite slowly with the narrative focused on character development rather than plot. In the end while it is worth it to get a sense of who these characters are and where their motivations come from, I felt the build was unnecessarily slow. Though the story is mostly focused around Annie, and her now-ex husband Orion, it also gives brief glimpses into the lives of the three children, as well as Annie's fiancée, Viveca.

While slow at the beginning, the pacing certainly picks up about one-third to halfway through the story. The narrative itself switches from Annie's, to Orion's, to the children's point-of-view, among others. The timeframe also switches from the present, to the crux of the Oh's marriage breakdown, to even further into Annie's past. We Are Water is beautifully written and demonstrates how even if we think we can escape our past and its many ghosts, it will always surface in our present.

I deducted half a star for the tedious start of the novel, but other than that the book would be a solid four stars. It is well written, contains interesting characters who are nicely developed, and shows the growth and change of people over time as a result of our circumstances. Okay, so does any novel ever but this book is great and is definitely worth reading!

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

I thought I would start off my book reviews with one of my recent reads - Donna Tart's The Goldfinch.




This was a book that was coming up over and over again on must read lists, best-sellers, and of course, Goodreads. And then the cover won it's beautiful golden stamp - The Pullitzer Prize. Everyone was in agreement - this novel was great! After much resistance (I tend to avoid books that are super popular, for awhile and then I give in) I picked up the Goldfinch from my library and began my journey. The size of the book itself is a bit daunting, coming in at 760 pages. However, right away the book draws the reader in.

I began to read the book with very little fore-knowledge, my preferred method of reading (who else hates book-flap spoilers? Anyone?). I prefer going into a book knowing very little of what is about to happen.

The story starts off describing a traumatic event in Theo's childhood. I don't want to say too much about it as it is a worthwhile read...It is from this singular event that the rest of the narrative unravels. We follow Theo as he navigates adolescence, as well as watching him in adulthood.

The Goldfinch truly does center around Theo and the events in his life; however, Tartt's character development surely has to be one of her main strengths as a writer. Even if we wouldn't be making the same choices that we see Theo making, Tartt's description of his character is so vivid that we understand the why very clearly. And of course no one grows up alone in life, and Tartt has blessed the narrative with other brilliant characters to allow the novel to shine even brighter. We meet Boris, Theo's childhood friend - one of the most interesting characters in the novel. Pippa, a young girl who was part of the same traumatic event that Theo was. And then there is Hobie, the loveable older gentleman that takes Theo under his wing when it is needed most.

Not a particularly plot driven novel, The Goldfinch is driven by the incredible characters that Donna Tartt has brought to life. As readers we yearn to find out where Theo is going next, and what unfortunate circumstance he may find himself in. Rather slow-paced for its size, The Goldfinch is nevertheless worth following through to witness Theo as he navigates the choppy waters of life.