The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The Perks of Being a Wallflower
by Stephen Chbosky
Fiction. 213 pp.
MTV Books. 1999.

Written in the form of letters, The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a coming-of-age story that follows Charlie's freshman year as he begins to negotiate high school and new friendships and adolescence. The letter motif works well for this novel. I like how it creates an intimacy with the narrator and how it propels the plot forward when Charlie is able to feasibly skip over chunks of time and only convey those things that are truly important to understanding him.

By and large, I liked the book. I liked Charlie. I just can't say that I liked the twist that came at the end. Not that it was necessarily a twist, I guess, since I somewhat expected that revelation. But still, it really seemed to hit at an odd time and didn't quite feel right.

And I wonder how younger readers will take the book. I know that USA Today compares the book to classic works like The Catcher in the Rye and A Separate Peace, as indicated on the back cover. And I also know that the book shows up on a number of reading lists because it has a young protagonist. But a young protagonist doesn't make a book appropriate for younger readers. Of course, perhaps I'm mistaken. I mean, there must be something to it since it has apparently sold over 700,000 copies and is passed from teen to teen.

And really, I'm not surprised that it hit the Top 10 Challenged Books list in 2004 (for homosexuality, sexual content, and offensive language). Nor am I surprised that parents in Commack, New York, objected to it showing up on the optional summer reading list for incoming sophomores. Granted, I do wish that parents would actually start reading books before they object to them. Because the date rape that is listed as one of the objectionable scenes is really rather innocuous, especially when you consider Charlie's reaction to it.

a few more of my favorite things

To cap off this week's tribute to Banned Books, I thought I would just point you in the direction of some of the book blogs in my blogreader.

For starters, to keep up on challenged and banned book information beyond this week, you can go to AS IF! Authors Support Intellectual Freedom. They'll keep you in the know throughout the year, what with their mission statement to "[champion] those who stand against censorship, especially of books for and about teens."

Or, to get the same information with a lot more flair and personality, you can go to bookshelves of doom. This blog basically gives you lots of book news and has me convinced that we all need to have librarians like this in our lives. (Master Fob, now you know what I aspire for you to be . . . )

Then there's Read Roger. This is a great blog if you want to keep your pulse on what's going on with Horn Book Magazine. For example, today's post tells you which books will be getting starred reviews in the November issue.

If you want to try and get a jump on who will win next year's Newbery, then I recommend Nina's Newbery, wherein they are staging for a Mock Newbery in December. Sounds like my idea of a good time. (But some people often question my idea of a good time, so don't take my word for it. Necessarily.)

If you want to see a site that does what I had originally thought I wanted to do but just didn't have the strength of will to actually pull off, go to Books Books Books. That's right . . . All reviews, all the time. Remember, high school librarians are your friends.

And to end, I highly recommend Unshelved. This one's a comic strip. You should add it to your blogreader. You know you want to. All sorts of funniness . . . Pimp My Bookcart . . . te he he.

if you like . . .

For today's tribute to Banned Books Week, I thought I would combine the week with a little feature I have linked in my sidebar--the Literature Map. The basic premise here is simple: you type in an author's name, and the site will show you a slough of authors who are similar. Mostly I like playing with it because it's fun to watch the authors' names explode and drift on the screen.

For my list today, I'm going to use the Book Sense list. Just because I want to.

So, if you like . . .

Harper Lee then you should also read . . . Hmm. The closest author appears to be Emily Bronte. Though Edith Wharton, Phillipa Gregory, Alice Sebold, and Bernard Cornwell are kinda sorts nearby.

Brent Hartinger then you should also read . . . Well, the computer says he's not yet available. I guess my recommendations would be David Levithan, Alex Sanchez, and Julie Anne Peters.

Lois Lowry then you should also read . . . Judy Blume. VC Andrews, Susanna Kaysen, and Fern Michaels are also in near proximity.

Helen Bannerman then you should also read . . . She's not yet available either. And I haven't read her, so I can't even throw out my own ideas there.

Toni Morrison then you should also read . . . You get heaps o' choices with this one--F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zora Neale Hurston, Carson McCullers, Emily Bronte, and Willa Cather, just to start.

Aldous Huxley then you should also read . . . Sheesh. He gets even more than Morrison, and they're practically on top of one another--Albert Camus, Franz Kafka, George Orwell, Hermann Hesse, Kurt Vonnegut, James Joyce, Milan Kundera, Charles Bukowski, Henry Miller, Tom Robbins, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Umberto Eco, Jack Kerouac, Vladimir Nabokov, and Oscar Wilde.

Judy Blume then you should also read . . . Weird. Apparently the closest match is J. R. R. Tolkien. Yeah. Such weirdness. If you hit the next level out, you can read Lurlene McDaniel or Lois Lowry.

J. K. Rowling then you should also read . . . It looks like the closest match wants to be Arthur C. Clarke. But you also get Philip Pullman, Douglas Adams, and J. R. R. Tolkien.

Yevgeny Zamyatin then you should also read . . . His chart is fairly spartan; however, you still get a good reading of Gustave Flaubert with a touch of Orson Scott Card, Douglas Adams, and Neil Gaiman.

Chris Crutcher then you should also read . . . And our last one today also has a number of similar authors--Wendelin Van Draanen, Will Shetterly, Richard Peck, Karen Hesse, and Kate Chrisholm. Okay, and quite a few others. I just don't feel like listing them.

a few of my favorite things

Warning: This is a participatory blog. Post a comment already.

For today's post honoring Banned Books Week, I thought I would go through the ALA's list of the 100 most frequently challenged books of the 90s. So, after you read my list, I want to hear yours. I want comments. Show me the love. You know you want to.

The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier. I know that this isn't necessarily a popular book. It's so bleak. But I just love Cormier's writing. And I love that he gets gritty.

Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling. I think it's safe to say that it's a given that I like Harry Potter.

Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson. Umm. Would someone please tell me why this is on the list? Also, could you explain to me how it made it to number 9 on the list? I love love love this book. Back in the days when I was going to write a thesis and I was selecting books to use in the analysis portion of my thesis, I skewed the selection criteria to ensure that this would be one of my books. And one day, I'm going to read it without crying at that one point. If you've read the book, you know what I'm talking about.

The Giver by Lois Lowry. Such a good book. And such contention about its ending in my adolescent lit class . . .

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I remember reading this in the ninth grade. I remember it actually had an impact on me. I should reread it to remember what that impact was.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Give me a good piece of dystopian literature any day of the week. Ahh. Such happiness.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Merciful heavens . . . Who knew that my ninth grade English teacher was such a rebel? We certainly had no idea when we drove her to the brink of her sanity and she left for a mission to Africa at the end of our school year. (Granted, if she had not hand-selected our ninth grade honors English class and placed in it 20 girls and 6 boys and then proceeded to always give the girls As and the boys Bs, the boys wouldn't have learned that they would get nothing better than a B and start writing and producing material that the boys found to be thoroughly enjoyable. Such as the radio drama that used every bodily noise we could find on the albums in the school library. Or that little ditty of a piece about a nuclear holocaust wherein I might have been a tad bit overly descriptive about what it would feel like to have your flesh eaten away layer by layer. But I digress.)

So that's a little list of some of my favorites. Your turn.

ghosts of Banned Books Weeks past: 2005 quotables

At my former place of employment, I was seldom confused for what anyone would call a political conservative. In fact, I was generally acknowledged and tolerated as the company liberal.

Of course, what I always found perplexing was that the tell-tale sign of my liberality seemed to be the posters that adorned the walls of my office. I didn't think they were all that subversive to the conservative climate; in fact, I thought that they were quite apropos for a publishing house. I mean, they were just posters with quotes about why censoring and banning books is bad.

Anyway, I feel inclined now to share my subversive quotables with you. They're from last year's Banned Books Week posters. Enjoy.

"A censor is a man who knows more than he thinks you ought to." Granville Hicks

"Did you ever hear anyone say, 'That work had better be banned because I might read it and it would be very damaging to me?'" Joseph Henry Jackson

"When in doubt, go to the library." from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling

"And in my experience, well-read people are less likely to be evil." from The Slippery Slope by Lemony Snicket

"Spare the sword, summon a book." from Yo, Vikings! by Judith Byron Schachner

"All the secrets of the world are contained in books. Read at your own risk." Lemony Snicket

"If she could have done one thing to make absolutely sure that every single person in this school will read your interview, it was banning it!" Hermione to Harry in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling

"Books and ideas are the most effective weapons against intolerance and ignorance." Lyndon Johnson

"Censorship is crippling, negating, stifling. It should be unthinkable in a country like ours." Norma Fox Mazer

"I'm not a rebel, trying to stir things up just to be provocative. I'm doing it because I feel like writing about real life. I still can't believe there's anything objectionable about telling it like it is." Norma Klein

"What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist." Ahmed Salman Rushdie

"If [the] book be false in its facts, disprove them; if false in its reasoning, refute it. But, for God's sake, let us freely hear both sides, if we choose." Thomas Jefferson

"I have met thousands of children now, and not even one time has a child come up to me and said, 'Ms. Rowling, I'm so glad I've read these books because now I want to be a witch.'" J. K. Rowling

"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them." Ray Bradbury

"But it's not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers." Judy Blume

"Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it." Mark Twain

"Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us." William O. Douglas

"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein." Robert H. Jackson

"Censorship, like charity, should begin at home, but unlike charity, it should end there." Clare Boothe Luce

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin

"If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable." William J. Brennan, Jr.

"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all." Noam Chomsky

what to read

Now that we've established that this is a good week to read banned books, I'm sure you're dying to know what you should read. Here is this year's list of the Top Ten Most Frequently Challenged Books:

• It's Perfectly Normal for homosexuality, nudity, sex education, religious viewpoint, abortion and being unsuited to age group;
  
• Forever by Judy Blume for sexual content and offensive language;
  
• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger for sexual content, offensive language and being unsuited to age group;
  
• The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier for sexual content and offensive language;
  
• Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher for racism and offensive language;
  
• Detour for Emmy by Marilyn Reynolds for sexual content;
  
• What My Mother Doesn't Know by Sonya Sones for sexual content and being unsuited to age group;
  
• Captain Underpants series by Dav Pilkey for anti-family content, being unsuited to age group and violence;
  
• Crazy Lady! by Jane Leslie Conly for offensive language; and
  
• It's So Amazing! A Book about Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families by Robie H. Harris for sex education and sexual content.

Off the list this year, but on for several years past, are the Alice series of books by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.

Just because a book hits the Top Ten doesn't mean that these are your only choices. I mean, I've been trying to read Of Mice and Men since last year's Banned Books Week, but I just can't seem to get into it.

Fortunately, there are other lists out there. I only know this because one of my favorite authors wrote on his blog that his book was ranked second on the list. But Geography Club isn't anywhere on this list. That's how I discovered that Book Sense has their own list. (For those who don't know, Book Sense is the publication voice for the American Booksellers Association, which consists of all those really cool independent bookstores.) This is their list:

1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee;
   
2. Geography Club by Brent Hartinger;
   
3. The Giver by Lois Lowry;
   
4. The Story of Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman, Christopher H. Bing (Illus.);
   
5. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison;
   
6. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley;
   
7. Forever by Judy Blume;
   
8. Harry Potter and the sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling;
   
9. We by Yevgeny Zamyatin; and
   
10. Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher.

If this still doesn't give you anything you really want to read, then go here to check out the 100 most frequently challenged books of the 90s.

Sigh. You're still not happy? Well, I'm sure there are other books that have been challenged that you can read. And even if there aren't, you can get started on some of the books that are sure to crop up on those lists in the next few years.

For example, you might want to start with David Levithan's new book (released just a couple weeks ago), Wide Awake. My review will be coming, well, sometime in the future. But let me say that I enjoyed this book, and I'm certain that it'll be making its way to the banned books lists. For starters, it takes place somewhere in the not-too-far-but-still-indeterminate future following the election of the country's first Jewish president. Who also happens to be gay. Of course, the election was close, so the governor of Kansas (a member of the opposition party) decides that his state is far too close (only one thousand votes) and he initiates a recount. All sorts of political commentary in this book (perhaps a little more than I like, as it brought out the angry political in me). Some of the "subversive" political plot might get the book challenged, but it will officially get challenged for the sixteen-year-old boy who has sex with his boyfriend. Regardless, good book.

Now, get to reading.

Go.

Now.

Come on.

Just do it.

There . . . that's much better.

National Banned Books Week 2006

Dang it. I always forget that Banned Books Week starts on Saturday instead of Sunday. I really should try to remember that for next year.

Anyway . . . Read banned books. It's good for you. And this year is the twenty-fifth year that you get to celebrate this week by reading banned books. Woo hoo!

So, as I get on to more meaningful content, I think I'm going to let the ALA's PSA serve the primary text for tonight's blog post. I'll post my own content throughout the week.

More than a book a day challenged in U.S. schools, libraries
Banned Books Week marks 25th anniversary September 23-30

(CHICAGO) More than a book a day faces expulsion from free and open public access in U.S. schools and libraries every year. There have been more than 8,700 attempts since the American Library Association (ALA) began electronically compiling and publishing information on book challenges in 1990.

Twenty-five years after the first observance of Banned Books Week, more than 1,000 people stayed past 1 a.m. debating a request to remove nine books - including "The Things They Carried" by Tim O’Brien and "Beloved" by Toni Morrison - from a Chicagoland school district. The books were ultimately retained.

"Forever" by Judy Blume was one of more than 70 titles a Fayetteville, Ark., mother requested be removed in 2005. Twenty-five years earlier, the book was restricted in the Park Hill (Mo.) South Junior High School library because the book promotes "the stranglehold of humanism on life in America."

"Throughout history, there always have been a few people who don’t want information to be freely available. And this is still true," said ALA President Leslie Burger. "The reason more books aren’t banned is because community residents - with librarians, teachers and journalists - stand up and speak out for their freedom to read. Banned Books Week reminds us that we must remain vigilant."

Bookstores and libraries around the country will celebrate the freedom to read with exhibits, readings and special events during Banned Books Week, September 23-30, 2006. First observed in 1982, Banned Books Week reminds Americans not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted. City Lit Theater in Chicago and ALA will kick off the week with theatrical readings from recently challenged books September 24. The ALA also will participate in a virtual panel discussion with author Chris Crutcher ("Whale Talk") and 15 high schools on September 25. Participants will hear about Crutcher’s experiences as a frequently challenged author, learn more about the history of book banning in the United States and examine contemporary issues in intellectual freedom and access to information.

The virtual panel discussion is sponsored by MAGPI at the University of Pennsylvania and utilizes Internet2. Additional support is provided by the Ohio State University and Educational Service District 101 in Spokane, Wash.

There were 405 known attempts to remove books in 2005. [This, by the by, is actually a pleasant thing to see, considering that there were 547 challenges the previous year.] Challenges are defined as formal, written complaints filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness. About 70 percent of challenges take place in schools and school libraries. According to Judith F. Krug, director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom, the number of challenges reflects only incidents reported, and for each reported, four or five remain unreported.

"We are as busy as we’ve ever been in fighting censorship attempts in schools and libraries," Krug said. "Libraries are no longer simply about books - but also about DVDs, videogames and online information."

Robie Harris’ "It’s Perfectly Normal" was the most challenged book of last year. Rounding out the top five most challenged books in 2005 were:

• "Forever" by Judy Blume for sexual content and offensive language;
  
• "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger for sexual content, offensive language and being unsuited to age group;
  
• "The Chocolate War" by Robert Cormier for sexual content and offensive language; and
  
• "Whale Talk" by Chris Crutcher for racism and offensive language.

Banned Books Week is sponsored by the American Booksellers Association, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the ALA, the Association of American Publishers, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and the National Association of College Stores. It is endorsed by the Library of Congress Center for the Book.

National Banned Books Week

This week (okay, it started Saturday, and it goes until Saturday, which I think is a bit odd, since I run my weeks on a Sunday to Sunday or Monday to Monday basis, but, oh well) is National Banned Books Week. The American Library Association has information about it, so check things out there. Well, knowing me, most of their information will probably end up here.

According to their website, The ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom received a total of 547 challenges last year. A challenge is defined as a formal, written complaint, filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness. According to Judith F. Krug, director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom, the number of challenges reflects only incidents reported, and for each reported, four or five remain unreported.

Being Banned Books Week, I think everyone should go out and read a banned book. And if there were 547 challenges, you clearly have a wide range of choices.

Here are the 2004 Top Ten Books Challenged:

1. The Chocolate War for sexual content, offensive language, religious viewpoint, being unsuited to age group and violence
   
   
2. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers, for racism, offensive language and violence
   
   
3. Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture by Michael A. Bellesiles, for inaccuracy and political viewpoint
   
   
4. Captain Underpants series by Dav Pilkey, for offensive language and modeling bad behavior
   
   
5. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, for homosexuality, sexual content and offensive language
   
   
6. What My Mother Doesn't Know by Sonya Sones, for sexual content and offensive language
   
   
7. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak, for nudity and offensive language
   
   
8. King & King by Linda de Haan and Stern Nijland, for homosexuality
   
   
9. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, for racism, homosexuality, sexual content, offensive language and unsuited to age group
   
   
10. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, for racism, offensive language and violence

Off the list this year, but on the list for several years past, are the Alice series of books by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Go Ask Alice by Anonymous, It's Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.

So go and read a banned book today.