Books, bonfires, and what are your children reading?

 

The American Library Association just held its annual meeting, virtual this time because of omicron. During the sessions, they recognized some outstanding books  for children and young adults. The 2022 John Newbery Medal went to The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera (Levine Querido); the Randolph Caldecott Medal was given to Watercress, illustrated by Jason Chin and written by Andrea Wang (Neal Porter Books/Holiday House); and Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley (Holt) won the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature. Boulley is a registered member of the Chippewa tribe who writes about her Ojibwe community in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Notice anything about these titles? They are all about and/or written and illustrated by marginalized members of our society. Yep, people of color and LGBTQ. Exactly the kind of books that Texas Representative Matt Krause (unfortunately, Fort Worth has to claim him) wants examined for inappropriate content and removed from school libraries. So far, he has 850 titles on his list (suppose he’s read every one of them?).

The list includes books on human rights, sex education, and, of course, any books having to do with LGBTQ people. You’ve probably never heard of most of them, but there are a few classics in there, like A Clockwork Orange, The Confessions of Nat Turner, The Kite Runner, Lolita (of course! Maybe he just didn’t know about Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which caused a censorship fuss when I was young). If you’re interested, you can skim the entire list here: Inappropriate Book List - School Libraries (substack.com)

Some titles Krause somehow missed come to mind. A new book that has received high praise, Gender Queer, a memoir by Maia Kobabe charts a journey to self-identity and will surely lead many lists; a novel titled No Filter and Other Lies by Chrystal Maldonado is about “a fat, Puerto Rican girl” (made me laugh out loud) who steals another girl’s identity and creates a whole new online life for herself. There’s a lot of soul-searching, thought-provoking stuff being written for kids and young adults.

An editorial today caught my eye: The writer the fuss about censorship today is all diversion. Conservatives don’t want us thinking about Republicans who support Russia’s intrusion into Ukraine, abortion rights, voter suppression, gun control—those big issues that have so much impact on our daily lives and on democracy. So let’s give folks something they can really get in a fuss about while ignoring what’s going on behind the scenes. I admit I fell for it, full of outrage at the idea of burning books, let alone banning them.

Despite diversion, I find censorship just as worth fighting as racism. If a kid is ready to read a book, let him or her have it. If they have questions, they can take them to a parent or a teacher (that assumes a lot of good about the people in a child’s life). And that’s the other part of this: there’s much hue and cry about parental rights. To hear Guv Abbott talk, you’d think he invented the idea. Truth is that parents have always had access to their children’s teachers and the curricula. Through parent/teacher organizations, parents are encouraged to be part of their children’s education. These days, however, parents who ignored the open house and never met the teacher suddenly feel empowered, with the governor’s blessing, to dictate not only what their children can read but what an entire school district can read. They are suddenly more knowledgeable than the teachers and librarians who trained for years to be able to educate kids and turn them into good, productive citizens. It’s wild and crazy—and a great menace to raising a new generation of educated folks capable of critical thinking. (That’s another whole topic.)

I didn’t mean to ramble about all this. What I meant to do was praise the quality and diversity of today’s literature for children. The Newbery is awarded annually for distinguished contribution to children’s literature; the Caldecott goes to the artist of the most distinguished picture book. These are not lightweight awards but are coveted through the world of children’s literature.

And as if to buttress the importance of these books, the publishers are putting a lot of money and effort into the covers. See the illustrations above.