I Feel Pithy Book Blog

Title: The Catcher in the Rye

Author: J.D. Salinger

Status: The most banned and challenged book in the US between 1966 and 1975 for being "obscene" and containing an "excess of vulgar language, sexual scenes, and things concerning moral issues."

The Plot:

Holden Caulfield has been expelled from yet another prep school. Once again, it is for poor academic achievement. Before going home to face his parents anger at his expulsion, Holden decides to take a "vacation" and runs away to New York. The book is essentially 48 hours in the life of Holden as he undergoes a mental breakdown. He suffers bouts of depression and euphoria, impulsively spends his money on unnecessary items, and generally acts strange. All of this happens before he eventually collapses into a full breakdown.

Life keeps moving around Holden and most of the people he surrounds himself with are completely willing to ignore what he calls his "madman stuff". That is, until his psychosis starts to affect their lives and social beliefs. The story is told as a monologue from Holden's point of view and is supposed to challenge the reader to think about Society as a whole and it's attitudes towards the individual. Holden's final take is that the world is full of "phonies" and we are left to wonder whether it is Holden or society that is insane.

My Take:

This is not the first time I read this book. The first time I read it, I was 15 years old. The most I can say is that I didn't get it. I didn't get what the big deal was about trying to ban it. I didn't get why so many adults talked as though it had changed their lives when they were teenagers. I just didn't get it. I tried talking to a teacher about it. His explanation was that it was simply dated by the time I read it and therefore, it's themes wouldn't ring as true to me.

Reading it now, my opinion hasn't really changed. Only now, I can articulate what it is I really dislike about the book. In a nutshell, it's Holden Caulfield. Yes, the book is extremely dated and what was considered shocking in the 1950's would be a Disney movie now. But, it's not just that. Holden Caulfield is thoroughly dislikable as a character. He whines his way through life and never accepts responsibility for his actions. Also, he is completely spoiled and downright irritating.

But, I can't really blame Holden. The writing itself is lacking. It's like Salinger is trying too hard to sound like a teenage boy. It's like his whole point is to shock rather than paint a vivid picture. The prose seems stunted for lack of a better word. The way the story is told, there is no reason for me to want to follow Holden to New York and see the world through his eyes. The only thing I want to do is tell Holden to grow up and stop being such a brat. But, I can forgive a bratty unlikable main character, I can't forgive poor story telling, and that is the real problem I have with the book.

An Interesting Note: John Lennon signed a copy of the book for Mark Chapman. Later that same day, Chapman shot Lennon as he and Yoko Ono were entering their building. The book was found in Chapman's possession when the police arrested him.

Title: The Giver

Author: Lois Lowery

Status:According to the American Library Association, The Giver has been ranked as one of the most commonly challenged books in public and school libraries.  In 1995, it was one of the three most commonly challenged books...More on that in a minute

The Plot:

Jonas lives in a very orderly community. It is governed by a group of elders. It has rules for everything. There is no war, or poverty, or pain. There are no worries about making the wrong choice since every person's role in the community is decided. There are no choices to make. If someone breaks the rules 3 times, is unable to fit into the society, or has served their purpose and reached a certain age, they are then "Released" from the community.

It is in this world that Jonas has spent the past 12 years of his life. He has reveled in the sameness and is looking forward to being assigned his new role in the community. However, things begin to change once he has been assigned. You see, Jonas is the new "Receiver of Memories" for his community. It is now his job to receive and hold within himself all of the memories of the time before order. This means that Jonas gets to experience joy and happiness. It also means he must experience pain. Part of that pain, is understanding what it means to be "Released."

Now, Jonas must break the rules to prevent the "Release" of a young child named Gabrielle. He and Gabe must leave the community to find what is "elsewhere".

My Take:

I personally thought that this was a beautiful coming of age story. When I was researching banned books, this one struck me because it was by one of my favorite children's authors. I read all of the Anastasia Books growing up. This one was much deeper than those.

I am trying very hard not to spoil it for anyone who hasn't read it, so it is very difficult to describe without giving anything away. For me, this was a story of growing up. Every child comes to a point where they realize that the world is bigger than just their family. What's more, every child eventually comes to understand that adults lie.

One of the charges leveled against this book was that it glorified Communism. When I saw that, I wondered if the person challenging the book had actually read it all the way through. It is true that the community Jonas lives in is very Communistic, but Jonas rejects all of that. His character sees beyond the Community and seeks a life outside of it.

The book is also charged with containing sexual passages. I didn't see anything like that. There is a brief paragraph in which Jonas discusses a dream he had that involved a female classmate. His parents see this as the beginning of what is termed the "stirrings" and he is promptly medicated to control those urges.

I think the hardest part with this work is placing it. I think that it is a bit too juvenile for high school students, but a little on the mature side for anyone under the age of 11.

More on the book's status:

• The Giver was challenged in 1995 by a
  
  parent in Franklin County, Kansas, on the grounds that it is "concerned with murder, suicide, and the degradation of motherhood and adolescence." The book was removed from elementary libraries but remained available for classroom use at teachers' discretion.
• In Wrenshall, Minnesota, a school board member
  
  and two parents objected to the inclusion of The Giver on a list of books to be purchased for a high school, on the grounds of offensive language and objectionable themes. The school board approved the book but stipulated that parents would receive a list of books to be studied during the year.
• In Johnson County, Missouri, complainants charged that The Giver desensitized children to euthanasia and asked that the book "not be read in class to children under high school age."
  
  The book remains in the high school section of the K-12 library.
• A parent in Sidney, New York, publicly objected to the novel's "usage of mind control, selective breeding, and the elimination of the old and young alike when they are weak, feeble and of no more use..." but did not file a formal complaint.
• A review committee in Brecksville, Ohio, recommended the removal of The Giver from an elementary library. Objections referred to infanticide and adult themes in the novel. The book was
  
  removed.
• Somewhere in Oklahoma (no city given), a parent objected to the novel's use of terms such as "clairvoyance," "transcendent," and "guided imagery," because these are "all occult New Age practices the Bible tells us to avoid." The review committee voted unanimously to retain the book but prohibited it from being read aloud in fourth grade. The committee also recommended that immature readers be discouraged from trying it, and that the librarian should make fewer copies available.
• Medford, Oregon: In the absence of a formal review policy, language arts teachers decided not to use the book in seventh grade classrooms after a parent complained of graphic descriptions of euthanasia.
• In 1994, The Giver was temporarily banned from classes by the Bonita Unified School District in LaVerne and San Dimas, California, after four parents complained that violent and sexual passages were inappropriate for children.

The book was restricted to students with parental permission at the Columbia Falls, Mont. school system in 1995 because of its treatment of themes of infanticide and euthanasia.

Since these were both by the same author and are in the same genre, I decided to review them together.

Title: Where the Sidewalk Ends

Author: Shel Silverstein

Status:Challenged at the West Allis-West Milwaukee, Wis. school libraries (1986) because the book "suggests drug use, the occult, suicide, death, violence, disrespect for truth, disrespect for legitimate authority, rebellion against parents." Challenged at the Central Columbia School District in Bloomsburg, Pa. (1993) because a poem titled "Dreadful" talks about how "someone ate the baby."

Title: A Light in the Attic

Author: Shel Silverstein

Status: Challenged at the Cunningham Elementary School in Beloit, Wis. (1985) because the book "enourages children to break dishes so they won't have to dry them." Removed from Minot, N.Dak. Public School libraries when the superintendent found "suggestive illustrations." Challenged at the Big Bend Elementary School library in Mukwonago, Wis. (1986) because some of Silverstein's poems "glorified Satan, suicide and cannibalism, and also encouraged children to be disobedient."

The Plots:

Invitation

If you are a dreamer, come in,

If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,

A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer...

If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire

For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.

Come in!

Come in!

And so begins Shel Silverstein's book of sardonic and nonsensical poems Where the Sidewalk Ends. This book, like A Light in the Attic which came after it, has no real plot. It is a book of poems that are some times silly, sometimes witty, and at all times imaginative. Both books feature simple line illustrations by the author to further the picture began by the poems themselves. The poems in both books range from nonsensical, to magical, to ridiculous and back again. The overall effect is two volumes of children's verse that refuses to talk down to the children themselves.

My take:

I am biased towards these books because they were two of the first things I ever checked out of the library as a child. Reading them as an adult, I can see clear correlations between the work of Shel Silverstein and Dr. Seuss. There are a few key differences. Silverstein does not make up words. His drawings are very simple line drawings with no color.

By keeping both the drawings and poems themselves simple, Silverstein manages to encapsulate a single imaginative thought in one or two pages.

I am kind of confused about the reasons for challenging the books.

I assume the "occult" charges are because one of his poems mentions witches, goblins, and ghosts. I didn't get the other charges. I saw no mentions or hints at suicide or violence. As for the "drug use" charge, I am still trying to figure that one out. And, I haven't been able to find any information to clarify the charge.

I guess if you tried hard enough you could construe a child not wanting to go to school or take out the garbage as "disrespect for legitimate authority, and rebellion against parents." But, as that is fairly common among children, I don't see how his poems encourage the behavior so much as comment on it.

Even as a child I understood that the poem "Dreadful" was tongue-in-cheek and I didn't know what tongue-in-cheek meant. I understood that no one would actually eat a baby, but the poem was funny anyway.

Since I loved these books so much, I made sure both of my nieces received copies of them as well as his other work The Giving Tree.

It won't be this week. I began the review so many times and couldn't finish it. I procrastinated and procrastinated and in the end, I deleted what I had. Why? Because I am unsure how to review it without spoiling it. Because it really made me sad, and books that touch me that way are hard to describe.

So, here is the deal:

I am going to re-read it. Because I already know how it all turns out, I am hoping that it won't be as hard on me. That way, I can objectively review it here. I've had to do this before. There have been times when I have read something that touched me so much that I had to read it again to get it out of my head. So, this isn't new to me.

Damn you JK Rowling for being such a talented writer. In the meantime, check out my other sites Moody's Fluff Report and The Southern Epicure.

Title: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Author: Maya Angelou

Status: In 1994, this book was challenged in several high schools. The challenges were in Iowa, Texas, Colorado and Georgia. The main complaint against it was that it provided "encouragement to partake in premarital sex, homosexuality, and use profanity. It was also criticized as "a lurid tale of sexual perversion."

The Plot: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sing is an autobiography of Maya Angelou. It begins when Angelou is a small child in the 1930's South and ends with her high school graduation and the birth of her son. As young children of divorced parents, Maya and her brother Bailey are moved to their grandmother's home in rural Arkansas. Maya sees herself as an ugly unwanted child. She and her brother experience a deep-seated racism first hand, and live in fear of lynch mobs. At the age of 8 Maya and her brother are moved again. This time, they are moved to St. Louis to live with their mother. One of her mother's live in boyfriends (Mr. Freeman) molests and then finally rapes her. They go to court and shortly afterwards, Mr. Freeman is violently murdered. Maya becomes mute. She believes that both the sexual assault and the murder of Mr. Freeman are her fault. She essentially believes she has become a mouthpiece for the devil.

After Maya and Bailey are returned to their grandmother, Maya slowly regains her voice- with the help of a kind educated woman named Bertha Flowers. Later, she and her brother are moved again- this time to California. She spends a summer with her father and after her father's girlfriend cuts her in a fight, she runs away. She lives for a month in a junkyard with a group of homeless teenagers. She returns to her mother in San Francisco and at the age of 15 becomes the city's first black streetcar conductor. By sixteen, she is pregnant. She hides her pregnancy for 8 months in order to graduate high school. The book ends with her growing confidence as a mother.

My Take:

I was 14 years old the first time I read this book. At the time, I was really into Dickens and had just discovered Marlowe. My English teacher thought I might enjoy reading something that was more grounded in the 20th century. So, she recommended it for me.

I remember being hypnotized by it. I couldn't get over how separate she was from the telling of her own story. She was so matter of fact about everything. When she describes how she felt after her rape and the subsequent murder of the rapist, I thought, "How can she be so matter of fact?" By the end, I wasn't sure if I liked the book or not. I felt as if a blindfold had been ripped from my eyes. I saw just how much bigger and harder the world was than I previously thought.

So, when I decided to do this book challenge, it was immediately added to my list. I just wasn’t sure how I would feel about it when I got to the end. I’ve read all 5 volumes of her autobiography. So, re-reading I Know Why Caged Bird Sings was akin to coming full circle.

The book was still as spellbinding as it had been when I was 14. But there was a difference. When I was younger everything that she’d gone through was so shocking and disturbing. That, coupled with her detached tone throughout, was like a spray of cold water in the face. The re-read left me spellbound with the beauty of it and the strength of Maya herself. Her trials are still quite shocking when you consider her age, and maybe time and the evening news has hardened me to violence, but the focus seemed different for me.

At 14 my focus was on all of the horrible things that happened to this young and innocent girl. At 30 my focus is on her strength and the uplifting nature of her spirit.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is an autobiography that reads like a novel. The prose is poetic and will grab you from the first sentence. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a beautiful coming of age book. The way Maya Angelou unflinchingly reveals herself will reverberate within you long after you’ve put the book down.