Judy Blume's Blog, page 2
March 4, 2010
Deja Vu All Over Again
Key West - they're at it again and this time right in my backyard at the Sugarloaf School, on
Sugarloaf Key, about 20 miles from Key West on US 1. That's right -- a parent has challenged Forever, charging that distributing the book to minors is a felony under Florida law and that it also constitutes sexual harassment. Huh? She doesn't believe in censorship, she says, but she wants the book removed anyway. She's holding the librarian responsible, as a student checked the book out of the school library, then read aloud passages from it on a school bus.
Welcome to the world of school buses. What your child doesn't learn at home, he/she is sure to
learn on the school bus. This parent doesn't want any student to have access to Forever. Sugarloaf School goes through 8th grade. The best time to read Forever is before a student is sexually active. Then there's time to talk, to think, to weigh the pros and cons, to consider the consequences. There will be a hearing in the next weeks to decide what to do -- remove the book from the school library's YA collection; limit (by age/grade) the students who can access the book; or leave it on the shelf where it is.
A reporter from the local paper, the Key West Citizen, called me for comments. I explained to him that the book is a love story about two 18 year olds, seniors in high school. The first sentence in his article in the next day's edition of the paper referred to Katherine and Michael as pre-teens. Was he listening? I mean, what's going on? I thought about writing a letter to the editor but don't want to escalate the situation. It's not as if we haven't been through this before.
I've put the teacher who contacted me, and the school media specialist, in touch with Joan Bertin of the National Coalition Against Censorship. And I've sent them a letter , along with some recent e-mails fr
om readers about the book. I asked if I could attend the meeting but was told it probably won't be open to the public. The school seems to have its policy in place for dealing with challenges to books. I applaud them for that.
A couple of the best teachers I know lost their jobs for defending books and their students' rights to read them back in the 90's. Two were in the state of Florida. One, Gloria Pipkin, wrote a book about her experience - At the Schoolhouse Gate: Lessons in Intellectual Freedom.
And now, tod
ay, comes news from Riverside, CA that there's been a challenge to the dictionary for including the words oral sex. They're considering removing all the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionaries from classrooms. Gee, Forever doesn't even include those words. When I wrote the book in 1975 oral sex wasn't winning any Teens Choice award. No rainbow parties for Katherine and Michael. Katherine and Michael were in love, they acted responsibly, and now they're being bashed for it.
Update: The committee at the Sugarloaf School voted to retain Forever in its YA collection. Thank you to everyone on that committee who stood up for the students. And thank you to Joan Bertin and the NCAC for their thoughtful letter.
And can you believe this one? Barnes&Noble online has contracted with an organization called Common Sense to rate books for parents who have concerns about contents. Read a great post about this on Salon.com.
Margaret got the green light for kids 14 and up! Readers younger than 14 received the ye
llow light -- proceed with caution. Most kids are reading Margaret at 10. I can't imagine a 14 year old reading it for the first time. I wish parents could make these decisions for themselves, not depend on some rating system. Common sense is the tool every parent needs. Not an organization calling itself Common Sense.
Some people think the Common Sense website is fundamentally misguided, in creating categories that essentially label certain kinds of content “inappropriate” for kids under a specific age. I will have to check further but at this point I agree. And this isn't about only my books. Your favorite books might get a yellow or red light, too. It's all about fear, about not trusting your own judgment, and certainly not trusting your young readers to choose the books they want to read.
When my daughter was 12 she wanted to read Portnoy's Complaint, recently published and endlessly discussed in our family. She was a reader and she was curious. I suggested she wait a few y
ears when it might make more sense to her but she really, really wanted to read it now. What to do? I gulped and told her okay, but to please come to me with her questions. She took it from the shelf and ran off with it to her bedroom. Ten minutes later she was back. Bor-ing! she said, putting the book back on the shelf. I knew what that meant -- there's something in this book that makes me uncomfortable. I don't want to read it.
Meg Cabot has also blogged about Common Sense and BN.com. Meg is the one who alerted me to the situation.
If it's true that BN.com has removed or revised the Common (Non)Sense info
f
or parents, as the Salon story suggests, then Yay! And thanks to all the writers who got involved (Sarah Dessen, Rachel Vail, Meg Cabot are three I know who took a stand). And thanks to Kate Harding at Salon.com. And to the librarians who've spoken out on behalf of young readers everywhere.
Next post -- soon, I hope! How I Spent My Birthday. And no, it wasn't blowing out all those candles on a cake.
xx Judy
Sugarloaf Key, about 20 miles from Key West on US 1. That's right -- a parent has challenged Forever, charging that distributing the book to minors is a felony under Florida law and that it also constitutes sexual harassment. Huh? She doesn't believe in censorship, she says, but she wants the book removed anyway. She's holding the librarian responsible, as a student checked the book out of the school library, then read aloud passages from it on a school bus.Welcome to the world of school buses. What your child doesn't learn at home, he/she is sure to
learn on the school bus. This parent doesn't want any student to have access to Forever. Sugarloaf School goes through 8th grade. The best time to read Forever is before a student is sexually active. Then there's time to talk, to think, to weigh the pros and cons, to consider the consequences. There will be a hearing in the next weeks to decide what to do -- remove the book from the school library's YA collection; limit (by age/grade) the students who can access the book; or leave it on the shelf where it is.A reporter from the local paper, the Key West Citizen, called me for comments. I explained to him that the book is a love story about two 18 year olds, seniors in high school. The first sentence in his article in the next day's edition of the paper referred to Katherine and Michael as pre-teens. Was he listening? I mean, what's going on? I thought about writing a letter to the editor but don't want to escalate the situation. It's not as if we haven't been through this before.I've put the teacher who contacted me, and the school media specialist, in touch with Joan Bertin of the National Coalition Against Censorship. And I've sent them a letter , along with some recent e-mails fr
om readers about the book. I asked if I could attend the meeting but was told it probably won't be open to the public. The school seems to have its policy in place for dealing with challenges to books. I applaud them for that.A couple of the best teachers I know lost their jobs for defending books and their students' rights to read them back in the 90's. Two were in the state of Florida. One, Gloria Pipkin, wrote a book about her experience - At the Schoolhouse Gate: Lessons in Intellectual Freedom.
And now, tod
ay, comes news from Riverside, CA that there's been a challenge to the dictionary for including the words oral sex. They're considering removing all the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionaries from classrooms. Gee, Forever doesn't even include those words. When I wrote the book in 1975 oral sex wasn't winning any Teens Choice award. No rainbow parties for Katherine and Michael. Katherine and Michael were in love, they acted responsibly, and now they're being bashed for it.Update: The committee at the Sugarloaf School voted to retain Forever in its YA collection. Thank you to everyone on that committee who stood up for the students. And thank you to Joan Bertin and the NCAC for their thoughtful letter.
And can you believe this one? Barnes&Noble online has contracted with an organization called Common Sense to rate books for parents who have concerns about contents. Read a great post about this on Salon.com.
Margaret got the green light for kids 14 and up! Readers younger than 14 received the ye
llow light -- proceed with caution. Most kids are reading Margaret at 10. I can't imagine a 14 year old reading it for the first time. I wish parents could make these decisions for themselves, not depend on some rating system. Common sense is the tool every parent needs. Not an organization calling itself Common Sense.Some people think the Common Sense website is fundamentally misguided, in creating categories that essentially label certain kinds of content “inappropriate” for kids under a specific age. I will have to check further but at this point I agree. And this isn't about only my books. Your favorite books might get a yellow or red light, too. It's all about fear, about not trusting your own judgment, and certainly not trusting your young readers to choose the books they want to read.
When my daughter was 12 she wanted to read Portnoy's Complaint, recently published and endlessly discussed in our family. She was a reader and she was curious. I suggested she wait a few y
ears when it might make more sense to her but she really, really wanted to read it now. What to do? I gulped and told her okay, but to please come to me with her questions. She took it from the shelf and ran off with it to her bedroom. Ten minutes later she was back. Bor-ing! she said, putting the book back on the shelf. I knew what that meant -- there's something in this book that makes me uncomfortable. I don't want to read it. Meg Cabot has also blogged about Common Sense and BN.com. Meg is the one who alerted me to the situation.
If it's true that BN.com has removed or revised the Common (Non)Sense info
f
or parents, as the Salon story suggests, then Yay! And thanks to all the writers who got involved (Sarah Dessen, Rachel Vail, Meg Cabot are three I know who took a stand). And thanks to Kate Harding at Salon.com. And to the librarians who've spoken out on behalf of young readers everywhere.Next post -- soon, I hope! How I Spent My Birthday. And no, it wasn't blowing out all those candles on a cake.
xx Judy
January 7, 2010
Happy F-ing New Year!
That's Happy Freezing New Year!
Yes, it's true. We're freezing in Key West. I know...I know...this is nothing compared to the rest of the country but we're setting some kind of record here. If not the lowest temps ever recorded it's certainly a record number of brrrrr days. You should see us -- everyone is in as many layers as they can come up with (and tank tops don't count). There's not a space heater to be had. Who knew my study had no heat? Who cared until now? So George has move...
Yes, it's true. We're freezing in Key West. I know...I know...this is nothing compared to the rest of the country but we're setting some kind of record here. If not the lowest temps ever recorded it's certainly a record number of brrrrr days. You should see us -- everyone is in as many layers as they can come up with (and tank tops don't count). There's not a space heater to be had. Who knew my study had no heat? Who cared until now? So George has move...
December 9, 2009
Miss New Jersey
Key West -- okay, so I'm not exactly Miss New Jersey. But I've just found out I'm in the 2010 Class of the New Jersey Hall of Fame. Does that count?
This is how I heard the news -- an early morning phone call from Bill Yankee, my friend and personal trainer in Key West --who always wanted to be the first, he said, to congratulate someone who'd made it into the NJ Hall of Fame. He found this wildly funny. You know, all those New Jersey jokes. (Bill is from Cleveland so plenty of opportun...
This is how I heard the news -- an early morning phone call from Bill Yankee, my friend and personal trainer in Key West --who always wanted to be the first, he said, to congratulate someone who'd made it into the NJ Hall of Fame. He found this wildly funny. You know, all those New Jersey jokes. (Bill is from Cleveland so plenty of opportun...
October 31, 2009
Fantasy Fest '09
Key West -- Halloween is a week long holiday in this
town. And it's not all for the kids. People come from all over to celebrate. Some locals hide-out for the week, others are happy to join in the fun. This year Fantasy Fest celebrated its 30th anniversary with a worthy theme - Villains, Vixens, and Vampires. (Reminds me of the title of Carolyn Mackler's great YA novel, Vegan, Virgin, Valentine).
Let's start with the Pet Masquerade on the grounds of the newly renovated Casa Marina
Hotel...
October 28, 2009
Goodbye, Norma Fox Mazer
Key West -- So sad that my old friend and colleague Norma Fox Mazer has died. I can't remember the first time I met Norma -- probably in the early '70s. I do remember bringing home her first book, I Trissy, for Randy to read. And every book after that for a long time. She was an amazing writer. An honest writer. The story she contributed to Places I Never Meant to Be, Original Stories by Censored Writers, still haunts me. It was the story of a mother and a daughter. Norma had three daughters...
October 12, 2009
And now -- Ta Da!
New York -- The big event is approaching.
Monday night (October 19th) at City Winery in New York, the 35th Anni
versary Celebration of the National Coalition Against Censorship with a show featuring fabulous actors, comics, musicians, reading from and riffing on my books. Am I anxious? You know I am. I've put away everything else on my plate to concentrate on finding the best passages to read, the funniest anecdotes and one liners from letters. And who knows what surprises the standups will hav...
Monday night (October 19th) at City Winery in New York, the 35th Anni
versary Celebration of the National Coalition Against Censorship with a show featuring fabulous actors, comics, musicians, reading from and riffing on my books. Am I anxious? You know I am. I've put away everything else on my plate to concentrate on finding the best passages to read, the funniest anecdotes and one liners from letters. And who knows what surprises the standups will hav...
September 22, 2009
Sunday in the Park with George
New York -- tell me it's not true! Tell me summer isn't over!
In case
you're thinking Judy must have had the greatest time because she hasn't blogged in two months, think again. In my last blog I told you about a producer who was coming to the Vineyard to talk about a screen adaptation based on Tiger Eyes. Our meeting went well and the next day Larry and I sat down to talk about the screenplay and how we were going to collaborate. Flash forward two drafts -- and weeks of 12 hour working days -...
In case
you're thinking Judy must have had the greatest time because she hasn't blogged in two months, think again. In my last blog I told you about a producer who was coming to the Vineyard to talk about a screen adaptation based on Tiger Eyes. Our meeting went well and the next day Larry and I sat down to talk about the screenplay and how we were going to collaborate. Flash forward two drafts -- and weeks of 12 hour working days -...
July 22, 2009
That Was Easy!
MVY -- a month has passed since my last blog entry. I don't like to think about this because it means summer on the Vineyard is almost half over and what have I done so far? Not a lot. I haven't even been out in my kayak. I thought today might be the day. It's sunny at last -- a nice change from the wettest summer I can remember. A perfect summer day, actually. Or, I could be reading in the hammock (I'm in the middle of a charming novel - Family Man - by Elinor Lipman.) And no, I've not
June 30, 2009
Big City Saga
MVY -- We spent three weeks in New York between Key West and Martha's Vineyard. The weather may have been dreary but the city certainly wasn't. Arrived at our apt (after a weekend in Baltimore) on a damp Saturday night. Took me half an hour to realize my travel purse was missing. It contained my wallet with driver's license, credit cards, iPhone, a couple of prescription meds, a can of Simply Saline, a tube of Polysporin ointment and whatever else I'd managed to stuff into its many zippere
May 29, 2009
SAT (For Better or Worse)
Key West -- It's that time of year for those of you who will be applying to college in the fall. You have to take them. You have no choice (well, almost no choice). But look at it this way. You can't possibly do as poorly as I did. (More about that in a minute.)A few years ago I was asked to give the commencement address at Mount Holyoke College. Usually I think long and hard about accepting such an invitation. But not this time. From the moment their invitation reached me I didn't think
