Book Scoop: I'm Scandalous!
Looks like 2012 is going to be a year of firsts. Recently I posted about doing my first blurb, and now I have another first:
My First Scandal.
Doofenschmirtz Backstory: I'm good friends with the librarian at Miss M's school. She's incredibly supportive of my books, and while she has the whole lower school reading my fairy book series, Populazzi's not entirely appropriate for most of the under-twelve set. The book is appropriate for the upper schoolers, so my friend — we'll call her Angie — passed the book along to the librarian there. Let's call him Doug.
Doug read Populazzi and loved it — so much so that he wanted it to be the inaugural novel of the school book club. Fantastic! Doug and I met and he filled me in on the whole grand plan: he'd have the students read the book, I'd come in and chat with them… it would all be spectacular.
We had the conversation before the holidays, and I hadn't heard from Doug since, but I figured he just got bogged down with other projects and hadn't gotten around to launching the club quite yet.
Then just two days ago, I ran into Angie at a coffee shop.
"I'm so sorry about the book club!" she said.
"Sorry?" I said. "Why?"
"Oh. Doug didn't tell you?"
He didn't, but it turns out what had happened was that he had launched the book club with Populazzi. At least, he'd tried to. Until one of the students complained it was "too racy," and therefore inappropriate for the club.
Doug didn't want to start the club with a scandal, and he certainly didn't want to start it by angering anyone's parents… so he pulled the book. I imagine he didn't tell me because he was embarrassed. I emailed him immediately and told him not to worry, I understand his position and it's fine.
Do I personally think my book is too scandalacious for a high school book club? Of course not. Sure, it deals with some hot-button issues like sex, drugs, and eating disorders… but teens deal with those issues too. And in Populazzi there are consequences to every decision Cara makes. Not preachy consequences, just the real life ripples that come from throwing certain rocks into the pond. Personally, I think it's valuable to read about a character who doesn't always make the best choices — especially in a book club setting where you can then talk about what drove him/her to those choices and think about what the character could have done differently, or what you might do in the character's same position.
That said, I get where Doug is coming from, and I'm honestly not upset. I in fact gave him some alternative titles to start his book club. None of them are sanitized stories — they're all beautifully messy and real — but they're terrific, and worthy of group discussion. Specifically, I recommended Sorta Like a Rock Star by Matthew Quick, Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King, and Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson.
And speaking of the great Laurie Halse Anderson, I feel like my book club "banning" has put me in great company. LHA's Speak is among the ALA's Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books of 2000-2009, as is Judy Blume's Blubber and Are You There God, It's Me Margaret.
Best of all, being "challenged" puts me in the company of my favorite characters, the gang at Hogwarts. Yup, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series starts off the Challenged list. I therefore take the whole episode as a badge of honor, and in my mind I'll send Cara, Claudia, and Archer over to the Three Broomsticks to swap war stories with Harry, Ron, and Hermione over mugs of butterbeer.
If you're an author, have you ever had an experience like this? As a reader, what books from the challenged/banned list are your favorites? (I linked to the list above.) I look forward to your thoughts!
