A Letter to the (Terribly Misguided) Parents Who Want a Book Banned; Some Other Thoughts
So, this is minor news, but when I'm not writing smutty fic for fans of Bones and Doctor Who, I write novels for young adults. I write for teenagers. Most of my post-high-school education is in how to educate teenagers. And most of the thinking I do (relating to writing) is about how my dystopian urban fantasy novels or cyberpunk retellings of classic legends can get teenagers to think about the world -- what matters, what doesn't matter, in different ways.
Writing for teenagers is primarily about thinking.
On the Missouri side of Kansas City, some nonsense is cropping up about banning a book called "Hold Still". It is a story, Amazon tells me, about a young girl trying to adjust to life after her best friend commits suicide. The parents object because it is "lewd" -- the author has the audacity to use the "f" word.
If you know me, I'm sure you can guess my opinion about that fuckery bullshit nonsense.
If you don't know me, or if you can't guess: Um... I think it's crap. The Following Is A Letter.
Dear (Terribly Misguided) Parents of Teenager in Blue Springs, MO, who feel they must police the reading of everyone else's children:
I try to be a reasonable person. I try to look at situations from everyone's perspective and see why they think what they think. I've thought long and hard about your... situation.
But now I'm left wondering: Is this really what parents think their job is, raising a teenager? Adolescence is about facing the crisis that you don't know who you are yet. You question everything you previously accepted at face value: including the "biggies" like religion and sexuality.
To stretch this question further: Let's assume, for a moment, that as parents, you want to pass on your moral, upright, Christian values to your children. (Crazy assumption here in Kansas, let me tell ya.) What scares you? Why are you scared of atheism? Or homosexuality? Are you afraid that your beliefs don't stand up to the idea of something different?
The job of young adult literature, in my mind, is to stretch the mind. I don't write any differently for teenagers than I do for adults, because, as teenagers, they're already living in an adult world. They're watching our movies, they're very likely drinking our drinks, driving our cars. They're inhaling our politics. They've caught on to the fact that they're part of the world and that their opinion will, very shortly, matter to a lot of people, and that, for right now, their money ALREADY matters to a lot of people.
We want a generation that THINKS at the helm of our country. Lord knows we need voices of tolerance, of broad-mindedness. You can absolutely be Christian and work side-by-side with atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, Hindus, pagans, Wiccans, Catholics and Mormons (if you don't count them as Christians. LOL, Republican race joke.), and Muslims. Young adult literature is about showing the young mind, that is just beginning to perceive the depth of other. that is in a separate person's existence, just how real that existence is. How deep the pain can run, how high the love can fly.
Do you want a Christian adult? Then don't try to hide them from the world. Don't try to shield them from it. God did not create the world for us to live apart from it. Do something crazy. Read a book with your kid. Talk about it. If you object to the morality, explain why this is so! Let your kids see that you've put actual thought into your beliefs -- that you're not just Christian because it's what middle-class Americans are.
And if that's too hard for you (as I know, interacting with the human being you created with your spouse is sometimes trying, especially if those dialogues are meaningful and about things that matter), then for God's sake, keep your psychosis to your family. Do not try to legislate the morality of other people's children.
It never ends well.
KJ Stueve
**
This is the future for young adult literature, though -- it's our past, too. We're constantly going to have to fight for our right, basically, to not treat teenagers like idiots.
**
I guess I'm just more peeved than usual because it was pointed out to me on Facebook the other day that we're nearing the anniversary of the day, ten years ago, that a classmate of mine took his own life.
I can't help but think -- what if there had been a character that really connected to him? Someone who was depressed, who made it through? What if he hadn't felt so alone?
And I reflect on what it was like to be nineteen, newly-diagnosed with depression, scared out of my mind and so incredibly sick, with no one in my family who understood -- and I think, maybe a book like Hold Still would have meant something to me.
I guess I'm just saying: Books matter. That's all.
Writing for teenagers is primarily about thinking.
On the Missouri side of Kansas City, some nonsense is cropping up about banning a book called "Hold Still". It is a story, Amazon tells me, about a young girl trying to adjust to life after her best friend commits suicide. The parents object because it is "lewd" -- the author has the audacity to use the "f" word.
If you know me, I'm sure you can guess my opinion about that fuckery bullshit nonsense.
If you don't know me, or if you can't guess: Um... I think it's crap. The Following Is A Letter.
Dear (Terribly Misguided) Parents of Teenager in Blue Springs, MO, who feel they must police the reading of everyone else's children:
I try to be a reasonable person. I try to look at situations from everyone's perspective and see why they think what they think. I've thought long and hard about your... situation.
But now I'm left wondering: Is this really what parents think their job is, raising a teenager? Adolescence is about facing the crisis that you don't know who you are yet. You question everything you previously accepted at face value: including the "biggies" like religion and sexuality.
To stretch this question further: Let's assume, for a moment, that as parents, you want to pass on your moral, upright, Christian values to your children. (Crazy assumption here in Kansas, let me tell ya.) What scares you? Why are you scared of atheism? Or homosexuality? Are you afraid that your beliefs don't stand up to the idea of something different?
The job of young adult literature, in my mind, is to stretch the mind. I don't write any differently for teenagers than I do for adults, because, as teenagers, they're already living in an adult world. They're watching our movies, they're very likely drinking our drinks, driving our cars. They're inhaling our politics. They've caught on to the fact that they're part of the world and that their opinion will, very shortly, matter to a lot of people, and that, for right now, their money ALREADY matters to a lot of people.
We want a generation that THINKS at the helm of our country. Lord knows we need voices of tolerance, of broad-mindedness. You can absolutely be Christian and work side-by-side with atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, Hindus, pagans, Wiccans, Catholics and Mormons (if you don't count them as Christians. LOL, Republican race joke.), and Muslims. Young adult literature is about showing the young mind, that is just beginning to perceive the depth of other. that is in a separate person's existence, just how real that existence is. How deep the pain can run, how high the love can fly.
Do you want a Christian adult? Then don't try to hide them from the world. Don't try to shield them from it. God did not create the world for us to live apart from it. Do something crazy. Read a book with your kid. Talk about it. If you object to the morality, explain why this is so! Let your kids see that you've put actual thought into your beliefs -- that you're not just Christian because it's what middle-class Americans are.
And if that's too hard for you (as I know, interacting with the human being you created with your spouse is sometimes trying, especially if those dialogues are meaningful and about things that matter), then for God's sake, keep your psychosis to your family. Do not try to legislate the morality of other people's children.
It never ends well.
KJ Stueve
**
This is the future for young adult literature, though -- it's our past, too. We're constantly going to have to fight for our right, basically, to not treat teenagers like idiots.
**
I guess I'm just more peeved than usual because it was pointed out to me on Facebook the other day that we're nearing the anniversary of the day, ten years ago, that a classmate of mine took his own life.
I can't help but think -- what if there had been a character that really connected to him? Someone who was depressed, who made it through? What if he hadn't felt so alone?
And I reflect on what it was like to be nineteen, newly-diagnosed with depression, scared out of my mind and so incredibly sick, with no one in my family who understood -- and I think, maybe a book like Hold Still would have meant something to me.
I guess I'm just saying: Books matter. That's all.