Censorship

I’m about to include three book reviews for graphic novels I was not able to keep here at H-B Woodlawn. When this happens, I send the books to the public library. It’s a very hard call. I believe in the First Amendment and I believe in the American Library Bill of Rights. I have a reputation as a librarian who has “anything and everything” on the shelves and while that is not completely true, my “line” is a lot farther out than it is for many librarians. The bottom line for me is not the content, but the “defendability” of an item. In other words, I don’t mind strong language, adult situations, etc. if I feel the book is well-reviewed, from a respected publisher, on a few recommended/award lists and has a “purpose” in our collection. Over the years, I’ve gladly defended books about human sexuality, books with a certain kind of art, books where soldiers swear (really! they do???), books about loving relationships and books about how hard it is to grow up. But sometimes, on rare occasion, I find books that I simply cannot include. They may be good, laudable even, but they are not “defendable” and I therefore turn them over to our public library which, thankfully, has an appreciation for the gifts that can be found in the written word. Read on.

“Night Fisher” by R. Kikuo Johnson

It’s rare that I choose to “de-select” a book by sending it to the Public Library, but this is one occasion, and it was not an easy decision. “Night Fisher” is a graphic novel about Loren Foster, a haole teen (white) living in Hawaii. His father is a dentist obsessed with maintaining the yard of their house and critical of Loren when he brings home a “B”. Loren is a good boy, but, at 17, drifting. Attempting to find some direction or meaning in his life, he reconnects with a childhood friend who is into batu (crystal meth) and begins a mild downward spiral. Respected reviewers from Booklist and Publisher’s Weekly gave it glowing reviews, and it isn’t hard to see why. There are deep metaphors here, layers that are still occurring to me days after finishing the book. The title, “Night Fisher” is only referred to in the book’s opening sequence, but the idea that this is a young man surrounded by darkness, unsure of what is out there or how to get to it, is apt. Loren asks his father how he knows about knot-tying. He asks another adult how he knows about changing tires. Loren is a young man who wants to know about things, but life seems to be eluding him. He clears out the jungle of weeds in his yard only to have it grow back again. He spends an evening with a young woman, only to have it turn sour when he can’t be honest with his classmates about the nature of their encounter. While Loren is absolutely understandable, he is also a bit of a wuss. He bounces from wanting the girl to hating the girl, from staying away from his druggie friend to committing crimes, while stoned, with the friend. The entire story is also very egocentric from Loren’s point of view. Some of the dialog is faded out, other dialog runs off the page. The message is clear. What other people have to say is unimportant, less important anyway, than what is going on in Loren’s head. And there is a lot of randomness in there. He flashes on naked breasts when discussing Las Vegas (apparently, many Hawaiians move to Las Vegas) and his father appears to do dental work on him as punishment for getting arrested. How much of this is real and how much of it is his interpretation of events is never made particularly clear. It’s not that I object to the serious tone or mature subject matter. We have many books that contain these kinds of themes. It’s that the book has no seeming moral center – the bad guy gets into M.I.T. and the good guy remains lost. That may be a fact of life, but it makes an already dicey book less defensible should someone object. This is the reality of school librarianship – you can have the edgy books, but you have to be able to defend them. As far as this book is concerned, feel free to check it out … at your neighborhood public library.

“Teenagers From Mars” by Rick Spears & Rob G

This book came in with “Night Fisher” and has similar edgy issues. Drugs, violence and sex are prominent in the book – but I like it a lot better. And the message is clear. The “message” of this book is that censorship is bad. Bad, bad, bad. Meet Macon, a lost 18 year-old dying of asphyxiation at his local Mall-Mart. When a 13 year-old kid he has befriended gets in trouble for trying to buy a comic book at the store, the manager decides to ban all comic books for fear of being charged with selling pornography. A fight between Macon and the manager ensues and Macon is fired. From there, the situation continues to escalate into a town-wide hysteria by book banners. Along the way, Macon meets Madison, a determined anarchist who helps him “fight the man”. The book is written very tongue-in-cheek, with the occasional wink at the reader to acknowledge that this is a comic book about banning comic books. The art is also very well-done, visual gags being clear with the uptight establishment guys. Unfortunately, this is another title that will have to go to the Public Library. I loved it – I did. I laughed, I appreciated not only the message but the humor … but the “pipe up the butt” of the Mayor was the penstroke too far. Again, though I tend to be limited less than other librarians, there is a line, and this one crosses it, unfortunately. Who knows? Maybe I can tell kids to go to the public library for such fare, and that will help bridge the gap for them as they leave us. Read on, and power to the people.

“The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch” by Neil Gaiman & Michael Zulli

This is the third graphic novel I had to give up (it was a gift from another school). I really went back and forth on keeping it for a while. The tale is a typically dark and funny one by master storyteller Neil Gaiman (now, “NEWBERY WINNER” Neil Gaiman, how cool is that?) and is clearly a graphic novel for adults. A group of thirty-somethings go for an outing in London. Like many meanderings by such folks, this one strays to the more off-beat entertainments, as our crew finds themselves in a bizarre underground circus of sorts. The realistic dialog grounds a fantastical tale and the stunningly beautiful watercolors by Zulli (think “Sandman”) enrich every page. Proceeding from one cavern to the next, our audience finds side-show performers and magicians; entertainers who delight in disturbing and challenging the psyche. So as not to give anything else away, I will stop with the plot synopsis at this point. The problem with the book? Nudity. To be specific, naked breasts on a woman in a nun’s habit. While I fully understand the context of it, this becomes hard to defend in a school library. As breasts continue to become prominent on the following pages, I became less and less sure that I could keep the book here. My assistant suggested the “cover ‘em with a marker” method that I have, sadly, used in the past, but the artwork here is too lovely, and my chicken scratches would have marred it. Perhaps if this were Europe, and we had healthier attitudes about the human body. But we don’t. And so, off to the public library it goes. By all means, check it out next time you are there.

“The Graveyard Book” by Neil Gaiman

Oh my, oh my, oh my. First, kudos to the Newbery committee for finally finding the “cool”. Second, don’t we love Neil Gaiman? Don’t we? Really? What a delightful, fun, sad, adventuresome, touching, scary book this is. Apparently begun as a short story about a boy who lives in a cemetery, the tale now covers the entire childhood of the boy known as “Bod” who comes to live in an ancient and crumbling cemetery under devastating circumstances. “Bod” is raised by ghosts and … others … but the magic of this book is subtly drawn, with the emotions and the visceral feel being paramount. Not since Peter S. Beagle’s “A Fine and Private Place” has a novel so gentle and reverently portrayed the world of the dead through the eyes of the living. As always, it is the reflection of who we are, and what life is, that shines through in this analysis. And Neil Gaiman’s prose is, of course, stunning. A sample:
“A graveyard is not normally a democracy, and yet death is the great democracy, and each of the dead had a voice, and an opinion, as to whether the living child should be allowed to stay, and they were determined to be heard, that night.
It was late autumn when the daybreak was long in coming. Although the sky was still dark, cars could now be heard starting up further down the hill, and as the living folk began to drive to work through the misty night-black morning, the graveyard folks talked about the child that had come to them, and what was to be done. Three hundred voices. Three hundred opinions.”
I often tell kids that good writing is like a painting, and this book is like an impressionist work, with shadings that continue to spin and move on every page. It is a rich book, and one that I dearly hope will be read. I often make predictions as to which Newbery winners will become “classics”. I am often wrong. I hope that this time, I’m right. This book deserves to be read. And savored. And chewed on. Bon appetit.