This Book is Banned -- a basics on censorship for children

 

Banned Books Week is held every September, yet in these past few years, it has become even more important to educate the public about. Celebrating the freedom to read is a cornerstone of a free community. When others dictate what is or isn’t available to read based on biased opinions, it is dangerous. I teach my older elementary school students about the history of banning books and they are continually shocked by how it starts small, but then grows to epic proportions. Student lessons on this even reach our present-day times when book bans and challenges are at the highest levels on record. 

As an educator and librarian I am trained on how to select the best books for my school’s library collection. A book that I will definitely be adding and reading with students is the humorous, yet informative picture book, This Book is Banned.  

From the start of the story the narrator is speaking directly to the reader, warning them that they will never make it to the end of the book because an arbitrary decision to ban the book’s topics will keep them from reaching its conclusion. Through humor, the writer demonstrates how book bans affect people’s ability to choose for themselves.

The hand-drawn illustrations by the artist, Julia Patton, are detailed and they help the information get through to the reader in a funny way. Readers will want to go back and look at the images again and discuss what they see. 

I highly recommend this book for elementary students and the larger community. It sends an important message while entertaining the reader about this topic. Very rarely do picture books do this well. It would benefit the reader to supplement this book with further research into the current situation in which books are being banned, especially books by people whose perspectives are not widely shared. 

Thanks to NetGalley for sharing an ARC of this book with me.

Here is an interview of the author, Raj Haldar, as he discusses what brought him to write about this topic and a video of him reading aloud the book:

Listen to and/or read  NPR's All Things Considered news broadcast about This Book is Banned.

Middle grade readers can continue their study of this topic by reading the following chapter books:

 Ban This Book, by Alan Gratz 

Attack of the Black Rectangles, by A.S. King

What are more books that deal with censorship that you'd like to share in the comments?

We are home: A Pho Love Story

 A Pho Love Story is a young adult, romance debut novel by Loan Le, about rival Vietnamese restaurants in L.A. whose owners have a long history of animosity and competition. Imagine the mess that ensues when their high school seniors, Bao and Linh, become partners for a school project and end up falling for each other!  This is an important story about how family and cultural pressure can influence the children of immigrants.  Rather than communicate their needs and wants, immigrant children often go-with-the-flow and end up stressed.  A Pho Love Story is a richly layered story full of humor, bonds, love and hope.  It resonates strongly with people who straddle dual cultures and don't want to let anyone down, including themselves.

As a teacher, librarian, and parent, I would use this book to discuss many topics with readers. Starting with the main characters, Bao and Linh, whose point of view changes with every-other-chapter.  Bao accuses Linh of being a liar because she isn't forthcoming with her family about her true passion of painting.  Readers can take a side and debate who is in the right and wrong in this situation.  

Another topic for discussion is how Bao and Linh go about their romance.  At first they hesitate to partner up because for their entire lives they were told by their families that it was taboo to associate with the other.  Despite their apprehension over being seen by someone in their community circle they embark on a friendship which grows into a romance.  Do readers agree with how the events unfolded?  Were there any times when they could've come clean with their families?

I just loved the friendship between Bao and Linh.  The more time they spent together the more they discover all that they had in common: they both recognize their Vietnamese culture along with the pressure to make their families proud.  It is unique to live in America where, as the children of immigrants, they are exposed to more avenues and opportunities than their parents.  Communicating this with their parents is difficult because their parents are unknowledgeable about how these experiences lead to future success.  Readers can talk about anyone in their life whom they feel like can understand them and their background.  

As the child of immigrants myself, I connected to this story especially when Linh was looking at old photographs of her parents from Vietnam.  She notices how happy and idyllic the scenes are and thinks, "It seems impossible to think that outside the frame of this photo, the country they knew was changing rapidly.  And yet here they were: joyful."  It would be interesting to pose this question of what is happening outside of the frame when looking at photos as primary sources with students.  Although countries go through so much change that their citizens are pushed or pulled to emigrate, the constant that they feel is family, cherished moments and unforgettable memories.  This is universal.  Which is what hurts when in the story there is a racist posting online with the person telling those in Little Saigon, "go home!"  Bao responds by writing an op-ed titled, "We Are Home".  His message is that immigrants are real people with a past that needs to be listened to in order to understand why they would leave their homes in order to make a better life here.  In the wake of the anti-Asian hate-crimes on the rise recently, his writing hits hard.

Le also captures what it is like when your secrets are revealed to your parents.  When the truth is out and you have to deal with the shame that stems from disappointing them, but also the other side of the feeling that what you did and hid from them was something that felt perfectly natural to you.  Linh calls the aftermath of her parents finding out as, "Terse. Cold. Punishing."  Readers can talk about times when they kept secrets from their loved ones or friends.  What was keeping them from being honest? Did they find ways to get through it? 

The most uplifting part of this whole story is the network of support that Bao and Linh have through their friends, teachers, neighbors, and family members who see their struggles and encourage them.  Like when Linh's aunt says to her, "Be the brave, honest person I know you are."  Readers can name people in their lives who provide this advice and kindness to them.  Maybe they are that support system to others in their lives.  Why is it important to form and nurture these relationships?

All in all, I absolutely loved this book. I'd recommend it, even to adults, because it has universal themes and good knowledge to bestow about Vietnamese history, food, language, and culture as a whole.  For example, how to pronounce PHO: it rhymes with, "huh?" Thank you, Loan!  I had never read a book with Vietnamese characters that I can recall and I cannot wait to read more from this amazing author.

Not So Pure and Simple: a rom-com for the ages

Not So Pure and Simple, by Lamar Giles, is a multi-layered story aimed not just for a young adult audience, but for adults who have opportunities to understand better what this generation is experiencing.  

The story introduces Del, a high school junior who is ready to jump at his chance to ask out his crush, Keira, now that she's available.  Only she has joined her church's Purity Pledge Alliance group and is not showing any interest in Del.  So he decides to join the group, too, in the hopes that he can spend time with her.  

What ensues is nothing what Del expects.  At times the story evokes laugh-out-loud situations and conversations between the characters.  At other times the story provokes multitudes of questions about what our youth face today in terms of pressure, posing, and getting their questions answered fairly.  The epic conclusion leaves the reader satisfied as the paths for the characters continue to stretch well-beyond the pages of the story.

The best part of this book's coming of age arc for Del is the support he gets from his family.  They allow him the space he needs to attempt to be his own person, but they provide guidance when those attempts fail.  

 

Poesy the Monster Slayer: Action-packed, clever thinking

 

Poesy the Monster Slayer by Cory Doctorow illustrated by Matt Rockefeller is quite the read-aloud to share with elementary-aged children.  Children are often asking for scary books and if there are monsters, even better.  This is the perfect story for those fearless children who believe that they can overcome anything. It is also nice for anyone who likes stories with action, humor and an element of surprise.

Posey's parents tell her it is bedtime but sleep is the last thing on her mind.  She's been studying her monster book and is ready to take these monsters on who attempt to get her after the lights go out.  Poesy uses the facts she learns about each monster--werewolf, octopus, vampire, Frankenstein--to drive them away.

Even with her parents waking up to put her back to bed, Poesy's work is never done.  Each page's illustrations have clues that point to the next monster that will visit Poesy.  This makes reading and re-reading the book ideal for children.  The illustrations also include comic style speech bubbles and frames which make it a different reading experience for picture book readers. 

Some ideas for enrichment include:  children can make a comic of themselves dealing with a rule that they disagree with, like bedtime. They can brainstorm what they know about different monsters.  How would they use what they know about them to drive them away?  Turn the focus on Poesy's character:  how would they describe her?  What was their favorite way that Poesy protected herself?  How would they have done things differently?