Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Karma Bites Book Banners


Don't you just love the "Biter Bit" story line? Especially when it involves those who would ban or burn books?

I suspect that for as long as there have been books, there have been small-minded educators, parents, and "concerned citizens" fighting to keep "disturbing" books out of the hands of young people. It almost never ends well for the forces of repression, but rarely with such karmic panache as this past week, in the small town of Meridian, Idaho.

The book in question was Sherman Alexie's  The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which  the intolerant and tyrannical succeeded in striking from the school district's reading lists. Seems the coming-of-age story of a young Native American struggling to fit into an all-white school was just too painful of an expose of modern American race relations, sexuality, and religion (which is presumably why it won a National Book Award). This is a pattern that has been repeated over and over across the country, only, rather than simply accept it, some of the teens in Meridian fought back. They organized a petition to have the book reinstated, which inspired a fundraiser that managed to collect enough money to buy 350 copies of the book. The plan was to distribute the books at the town's World Book Night, an event organized to put good, readable books into the hands of nonreaders. There were lots of takers--until someone called the cops. That's right: some twisted soul called the cops on kids giving away free books at a book giveaway.

 photo by Aja Romano
Fortunately, when the cops arrived, they realized they couldn't actually do anything about it. Not only that, but the resultant publicity drew the attention of  Hachette, Alexie's publisher, which sent the group another 350 copies of the book to give away free. So the town of Meridian is now awash in this scandalous, provocative little book (written, incidentally, by someone who grew up just across the border from Idaho on the Spokane Indian Reservation), and the book is getting lots of publicity nationwide, inspiring even more people to buy it. Like me.

Biter Bit.


22 comments:

Barbara Butler McCoy said...

I'm headed to the book store.

Anonymous said...

I LOVE Karma!!! Sabena

Charles Gramlich said...

Yep, gotta love it.

Lynne said...

So glad you ran this story, Candy. Since I live in Spokane the story ran a few days ago in our paper. Even though the book was a little edgy and graphic, it was terrific writing. And don't even get me started on book banners...or some of the folks that live in Idaho. Thanks for sharing the story with everyone.

JustWingingIt said...

And the children shall lead...

What a wonderful story. So often we only hear stories about kids running amok, it's nice when we get to hear about kids standing up for something good. Thanks for sharing.

Veronica

Susan J. said...

This is a lovely story, it brought tears to my eyes. If only more nice things like this happened. I was reminded of the old film with Spencer Tracy defending the right for Darwin to be read in schools in a small American town. The banning of books always makes me think of those awful scenes of the Nazi's burning books in World War II.

Susan J. said...

Whoops-Nazis, not Nazi's!

cs harris said...

Barbara, yes, it's hard NOT to buy it, isn't it?

Sabena, yes, it does feel good when it works.

Charles, yes.

Lynne, I'm surprised it isn't getting more attention than it is. It does sound like edgy, but then I think about the adult books I read as a teenager (I didn't even know such a thing as YA existed). Did you know I went to high school and college in Moscow?

cs harris said...

Veronica, yes, I love it when I hear of teenagers with the courage of their convictions.

Susan, yes, it's the same mentality, which is why I guess we react so viscerally to it.

paz said...

LOVE Sherman Alexie! Smoke Signals (the movie) is a perfect little gem. The short story collection where the script was taken from (The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven) is one of my all time faves.

I bought this book for my oldest daughter, but cheated and began to read it. I couldn't put it down. I was heartbreaking, hilarious, thought provoking, brilliantly imaginative and powerfully real.

Personally, I would not have assigned it to anyone under 13 (social emotional age) and feel strongly it would be understood best by those over 15. Simple reason: just because you are experiencing or have experienced something doesn't mean you have the emotional capacity (closely related to neurological development) to fully can grasp its meaning.

But banning was a hysterical reaction (in the clinical sense). I do hope that parents do read this book too.

Lynne said...

I hesitate to ask when you were in Moscow but I went to WSU so we have that 7 mile winding highway between Pullman and Moscow in common. What a small world! (UI is a good school but there are so many pockets of oddballs elsewhere in Idaho. Think Neo-Nazis...) Alexie's work is a bit controversial but not worth banning. (Paz describes it beautifully!) His language and stories are no worse than what I read, either. In fact, at our house if Dad said I couldn't read something I'd figure out how to get it into the house as fast as I could. To me, banning books is just an invitation to read them

cs harris said...

Paz, I do agree that young people can read a book too early (I've always meant to go back and read THE BELL JAR because I suspect at the age of 12 I really didn't "get it.") I'm looking forward to reading his work.

Lynne, I was in and out of Moscow in the 70s, but my parents lived there till my dad died in 1991. I was last there four years ago, when we took my mother's ashes up to bury her beside him. Moscow always felt like an island of educated, secular sanity in the midst of a beautiful land filled with interesting people who were...different.

Susan/DC said...

Alexie spoke at my son's HS and he was wonderful -- smart, funny, poignant, down-to-earth. The talk covered several topics (being "ethnically ambiguous, which gets you stopped at airport security a lot, his father's crush on Irene Bedard, who starred in "Smoke Signals", an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey show) but in the end he pulled all the seemingly discursive threads together to make his point about life as a writer and the need to present his characters and their world honestly. I was so impressed by him that I went right out and bought several of his books. Even more credit goes to him for impressing the teenagers, a very hard crowd to please.

Lynne said...

I love your diplomatic description of the rest of Idaho. I loved Moscow because I could drink beer there before I could in Wash....typical college kid. I was a little ahead of you, graduating in 69. Now everyone knows how old I am:) Glad we live in such a small world after all!

Suzanne said...

I remember as a teenager the Noddy books being banned here. Most people were furious but a few PC fanatics got their way. It never ceases to amaze me that at a time when books about sadistic serial killers and drug addicts and so on were in bookshops that they would ban Noddy (???!!!).

Every time somebody mentions banning books I see visions of Nazis hovering around big bonfires.

PS. I get the impression Candy that you and Lynne aren't talking about Moscow, Russia. Is there a Moscow in the US?

Susan J. said...

Yes, I was confused about Russia also. Not that it makes much difference, given the Russian's current attitude towards homosexuals. Prejudice is the same wherever it exists. It reminds me of Thatcher in the England of the 1980's, outlawing the rights of homosexuals to speak for themselves. Such small minded mentality. Why do we have to go on fighting for decent human rights, every generation, it never ends! At sixty I'm tired of it all. Thank God these brave young people are ready to take up the fight for the rights of a Native American to speak about his struggles. Why should he feel an outcast in his own country? It makes me sick.

Lynne said...

Suzanne...and all of you who are unfamiliar with the west...Moscow, Idaho and Pullman, Washington are two small college towns about 75 miles south of me, just across the state line from one another and about 7 miles apart. (Get your map out again,Suzanne.) The University of Idaho is in Moscow and Washington State University is in Pullman. (When I was in school the beer drinking age was 21 in Wash. and 18 in Idaho...you all can guess where all the WSU students were on the weekends:))
Sherman Alexie is a Spokane Indian and grew up on the reservation just NW of Spokane...sort of a native son to us. And a totally cool guy, as well.

Suzanne said...

Thanks Lynne, It all makes sense now. I was rather puzzled about what IU was too. Now I am with it. It must have been so funny to watch all those students pelt for the border on weekends.

We had a similar situation here for many years only it was with gambling. It was illegal in Victoria until quite recently but legal in NSW. So on the weekends bus loads of senior citizens used to go to Moama, just over the border to play the pokies.

Susan, I agree with you. I used to work with a gay man and it really opened my eyes as to how difficult things were for them. Thankfully things are changing here now but looking back at history I do have to wonder for how long. Prejudice is a truly terrible thing.

cs harris said...

Susan, that's the problem isn't it--the kind of books that get kids' attention are the ones that can make their parents uncomfortable.

Lynne, yes, the good ole days!!

Suzanne, Noddy? Good heavens. And yes, there are actually quite a few Moscows in the US. The one we're talking about is in Northern Idaho, home to the U of I.

Susan, I didn't know that about Thatcher. Not that is surprises me~

cs harris said...

Lynne, I see you already answered her.

Suzanne, some of the traffic went the other way--there was a Tripple X drive in theater just over the state line in Washington. You were supposed to be 18 but we always managed to get in when I was in high school.

Lynne said...

Oh, Candy... I had forgotten the drive-in! Did we go there for the movies? You have made me smile - I think I had a really dreadful blind date there once:)!!!

cs harris said...

Lynne, Pullman also had a regular drive in we used to go to. I remember the summer after I graduated from high school they ran double feature old John Wayne movies one night a week all summer. I think my best friend and I saw every one of them.