The mission of Serious Subjects is to connect readers with books

In Stockton, MO the school board recently voted 7 - 0 to uphold a ban of THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN by Sherman Alexie.

And I've found a bookstores in Missouri ready to help The Banned Book Club share that book with readers.

But wait there's more... today on Laurie Halse Anderson's blog, she posted about a letter to the editor of a newspaper (also near Stockton, MO). The letter writer calls for a ban of her book SPEAK because he considers it pornography!

The Banned Book Club will also be sharing SPEAK with readers in the state of Missouri

Here's how it will work:
1. The main goal of The Banned Book Club is to connect books with teen readers with the consent of their parents!

2. Three copies of THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN by Sherman Alexie and three copies of SPEAK by Laurie Halse Anderson will be purchased by The Banned Book Club for ADULTS in the state of Missouri.

3. By joining The banned book club and receiving a free book, each member agrees to:
a) read the book if you haven't already
b) share the book with a teen reader with the consent of the teens parent / guardian
c) submit a blog post to The Banned Book Club reviewing the book (teen readers also have the option of sending in a review blog post)
d) continue supporting The Banned Book Club by purchasing at least one book in the next 12 months for a future Banned Book Club member.

So, do you want to be one of the first six members? If you live anywhere in Missouri please complete a contact form - be sure to let me know which book is your first choice.

 
 

I’ve been thinking about books where there is a strong divide between the haves and the have-nots that drives the story  - THE OUTSIDERS by S.E. Hinton is a classic example as is Jennifer Hubbard’s current novel THE SECRET YEAR.

The communities in both books are divided by socioeconomic status (SES), but ‘Poverty’ wouldn’t be the right category. In THE SECRET YEAR, Colt’s family lives in the flats, but they have their own home, his older brother attends college.

In THE OUTSIDERS being a greaser meant more than where you lived, it was about belonging to a certain group.  

While most readers of the site now would get the term SES, I hope one day Serious Subjects.com attracts readers. I think SES wouldn’t be the best term, even for the ‘have-nots’ because these books depend on two groups…divisiveness and the invisible barrier between is the key.

For now, I plan to call this category “Economically Divided Communities.” It’s long, I know. Please suggest a better name for this category if you like.  

And don’t forget to suggest books –on this topic or any other serious subject!!! 

update - I just updated the post to link to THE SECRET YEAR and discovered that Jennifer's publisher, penguin, also compared her book to THE OUTSIDES & Romeo and Juliet!

 
 
I am a coward 08/01/2010
 
I’m writing in a 4-star hotel room in Paris. Glancing up now and then to watch my children sleep. They are safe. I’m only a few miles from where I spent last weekend, but the hotels are worlds apart. Last weekend I was afraid. I was also a coward.

I booked a hotel online at a great price and arrived in Paris to find the address under a sign: Sex Shop.

We found our way down the alley and pasted the gated entryway and were met by a clean cut young man who found our reservation in the hotel’s high speed computer. He helped with our luggage and assured me everything was okay. In the light of day the hotel was small, but quiet and clean. I took the picture below
Picture
and thought I would caption it “Happiness is discovering your hotel is not part of the Sex Shop” and filing it under “travel adventures.”

At 10:30pm, the other rooms on my floor went into business. Every twenty minutes there was a change of clientele stomping up and down the stairs.

I’m all for freedom. And I think sex between consenting adults should be private.

But this was not consensual. There was fighting, breaking glass, crying.

My only peace was that my daughter was sleeping through it all. I stayed awake, remote in one had (to throw at any intruders), cell phone in the other hand (to call the police, if needed?)

I had my doubts about the police. Earlier in the day, I had pressed the assistance button in the metro expecting to speak to an attendant. Me “Hello, you said you would open the gate.” Response: “Do not speak English. This is the police.”

So I wondered. About the police. About this hotel. The girls in the rooms on my floor and the ever changing line of men. Time passed with the phone signaling the end of each visit and the change of footsteps. Men slamming doors, sometimes knocking. One speaking in English “I visit you, please?” The fights were bad, but worse was when the verbal fighting turned to blows, the yelling broke down into the girls' sobbing. 

Just when I’d begin to feel brave –consider calling the police, or busting into the hallways between the men and dragging the girls into the “safety” of my room –another lost customer would pound on our door, rattling the wood in the frame. I knew I wouldn’t be able to fend off anyone with only a remote and a cell phone –even with a 14 year old girl who knows jujitsu by my side.

I waited until long after the last fighting and breaking glass (it ending around 9am) and took my anger out on the young man at the front desk, the same one who welcomed us the day before.

This is not a hotel. How could you not warn us? How could you let me bring my daughter to this place?

So now we’re someplace quiet and safe. Here’s a photo of a car parked in front of the hotel next to ours.
Picture
But I still feel like a coward.

And I wonder about our world, that girls could be treated in such a way, while a car stands roped off, guarded, and protected.

Have you ever stayed somewhere you didn’t feel safe?
What did you do?
 
 
Anchor mentioned on the last post that restricting GO ASK ALICE really increased interest in the book.

Maybe this will get more kids looking up words instead of using spell check?

Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary Pulled from the Menifee, Calif. Union School District (2010) because a parent complained when a child came across the term “oral sex.” Officials said the district is forming a committee to consider a permanent classroom ban of the dictionary. Source from ALA banned book week resources

 
 
Today SERIOUS SUBJECTS opens for public viewing.
I've been working on this site for a few months with such high expectations. I had hoped that Serious Subjects would go live with a database of hundreds of books & that Serious Subjects will become a place where people talk about not only the children's literature but the subjects themselves.

What I present today is not as grand as I imagined months ago, but a modest offering....less than 70 subjects and not yet 100 books. But I also offer a determination to keep working, adding subjects, adding books and adding to the conversation.

If this site helps readers find books they need when they need them, I am rewarded. I know firsthand how books can shape lives.

For me GO ASK ALICE by Anonymous was such a book.

While I wasn't on the verge of using drugs when I read it (I was only 12) GO ASK ALICE freaked me out --in a good way!

The detailed accounts of hallucinations. The way the main character, Alice, so quickly changed from someone who took drugs by accident to someone who craved and depended on drugs. What did it for me was when one of her drug trips gave her the sensation that bugs were crawling on her skin.

While reading, I could feel ants crawling all over me.... Even now MANY YEARS LATER, I can handle spiders and snakes, but the idea of a wave of ants coming my way is frightening!

The idea that GO ASK ALICE could be an actual true diary of a girl who used drugs (and paid the highest price for it) also struck home. I desperately wanted the book to be fiction. I not only wanted Alice to survive; but I wanted to believe that drugs really weren't that bad -that dangerous. But every adult I asked about the book gave me a variation of the same answer "I don't know if it's true or not; it could be."

GO ASK ALICE had just that ring of truth to it...it was strong enough to say "This is happening to girls out there. If you're not careful, it could happen to you!"