Unsafe to read?

  • By Julie Muhlstein Herald Columnist
  • Wednesday, June 22, 2011 12:01am
  • Local News

Just in time for summer, when kids just can’t wait for hours of recreational reading — yeah, right — serious people of letters are engaged in a literary spat.

The subject of the spat is subject matter: what topics are and are not appropriate for young readers.

The Wall Street Journal

‘s Speakeasy website on media, entertainment and the arts published a compelling blog June 9 by Sherman Alexie. The award-winning author, in his piece “Why the Best Kids Books are Written in Blood,” tells about reactions teen and preteen readers have shared regarding his young adult novel, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.”

Alexie, who grew up in poverty on the Spokane Indian Reservation, writes that children as young as 10 have sent him crayon-written letters about their own struggles. Children often have told him that his “Absolutely True Diary” is the only book they’ve ever finished.

I don’t doubt it. When I packed a vacation book bag before leaving for Idaho’s Priest Lake last summer, I put in “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” for myself.

On the beach, I ended up reading long passages aloud to my then-11-year-old son. The book takes place on the Spokane reservation and in nearby Reardan, the farm town where my father grew up.

Much of the story, told in a 14-year-old boy’s pitch-perfect voice, centers on Reardan High School basketball. The autobiographical novel won the 2007 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature.

After I read most of Alexie’s book to my son, he read it himself. That’s proof for me that Alexie works magic with reluctant readers. Some question whether his magic is appropriate for a young audience. The Richland School Board voted this month to prohibit Alexie’s book from classrooms at all levels because of profanity and what some on the board see as potentially offensive content.

Alexie’s Wall Street Journal piece was a pointed response to a June 4 article also published on the newspaper’s website. Meghan Cox Gurdon, who writes about children’s books for the Journal, criticizes the emphasis on violence, abuse and other wrenching themes in today’s literature for teens.

In her article, “Darkness Too Visible,” she writes of “images not of joy or beauty but of damage, brutality and losses of the most horrendous kinds.” Her views are thought-provoking, but I don’t happen to agree that teens are too young to see — on the printed page — scenarios that might reflect challenges in their own lives, or that will help them understand kids leading very different lives.

To me, reading is stepping into another person’s shoes.

Smartly, The Wall Street Journal included with Cox Gurdon’s article a list of books recommended for young readers — although labeling “True Grit” and “Fahrenheit 451” as “Books for Young Men” is an almost laughable insult to girls.

Also silly is the Journal writer’s statement that “40 years ago, no one had to contend with young-adult literature because there was no such thing.” I guess she forgot about Holden Caulfield, J.D. Salinger’s fictional friend of alienated teens since “The Catcher in the Rye” was published in 1951.

I’m not much for age limits on ideas, not once a child is of middle-school age. I’d jump for joy if my 12-year-old couldn’t put down a copy of “1984” or “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Both books are often found on American Library Association lists of books challenged or banned in schools.

Other parents would disagree with me, and that’s just fine. Each family makes choices based on deeply held values.

In this first week of summer, I’m looking for ways to coax my son into a reading habit. The best help I found was on the website of Valley View Middle School in Snohomish. There, seventh-graders are required to read at least one book over the summer and share projects related to their books by the second week of school.

It’s an excellent idea that takes parents out of the book battle — blame it on the school. The Valley View website includes a link to an interactive list of authors, compiled by teachers, giving kids plenty of choices. Alexie’s “Absolutely True Diary” is not on the list.

“This is the first year,” said Robin Reese, a seventh-grade language arts teacher at Valley View. “We wanted to create community at the very beginning of the year. It’s one way to get to know your students, by what they read over the summer.”

It’s also a way to curb what some teachers call the “summer slide,” when kids lose academic skills.

At my house, I don’t expect any high-minded debates over literary differences.

More likely this: “Pick up a book, will ya?”

Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; muhlstein@heraldnet.com.

Keep kids reading

Teachers at Valley View Middle School in Snohomish have compiled an interactive list of authors appropriate for middle-school-age readers. To see the list, go to: http://valleyview.sno.wednet.edu/ and click on “Summer reading with active Author links.”

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