Banned Books Week: Spot The Pattern

It's banned book week this week, and here at I Am Writer Hear Me Roar, we are going to play a game called "spot the pattern". I'm sure you have played a version of this in your grade school math classes. You know, you're given the numbers 2 4 6 8 and you have to figure out the pattern (it goes up by multiples of [so a friend pointed this out to me: the numbers actually don't go up by mutliples of two... I just said the wrong word, but you probably got what I meant... and believe me, I actually can do math! I got like, a 90 in math last year!] two! What!?).

Except instead of numbers, we'll use books (because numbers scare us writerly people, right?)

Book #1: To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Source

Harper Lee grew up in a society where black men were thought of as predators; where the only men in the jury were white men so black men had no chance of being acquitted; where things happened like nine teenage boys being accused of rape.

To Kill A Mockingbird is about a mishievous tomboy Scout and her adventures until her and her friends watch a black men getting tried in a court case after being accused, wrongly, of raping a white woman.

To Kill A Mockingbird brings to light the very large issue of racism against black people that was present in the 1930s (both the time Harper Lee grew up in and the time the book is set in) and the 1960s (the time when the book was published).

To Kill A Mockingbird has been banned or challenged at various schools for using swear words, racial slurs, and for general racism. (Just an interesting sidenote, though: it's been said that To Kill A Mockingbird is the one book other than the Bible that has changed people the most... hm....)

Book #2: Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Source

Huck Finn was first published in England in 1884, then in the U.S. in 1885. The book itself takes place sometime between 1835 and 1845. The book follows Huck as he goes on a journey with a black slave Jim, and realizes that Jim is a genuinely nice guy and not like society makes out black people to be.

Twain uses this book to criticize and challenge the racist American society of the time and the perception of black people, specifically the view that black people weren't human and didn't have feelings.

Source

Huck Finn has also been challenged and banned, for word choice (swears and racial slurs) and the line "he not only itched but scratched." It is

one of the most challenged/banned books of all time.

Book #3: The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

S.E. Hinton wrote The Outsiders when she was 16, inspired and irked by the gang rivalry at her own school. The book itself follows two groups who are separated by their social status in high school. It was published in 1967.

The Outsiders has been banned/challenged for gang violence, drug and alcohol abuse, slang language, and family dysfunction.

Book #4: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Source

Our society today is obsessed with entertainment and reality TV. There are also wars, all over the world, all the time. The Hunger Games is about a dystopian society where a reality show-like event is held each year, where children enter an arena and kill each other while the rest of the world watches on live TV for their own entertainment.

When talking about where the idea came from for The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins says "one night, I was lying in bed, and I was channel surfing between reality TV programs and actual war coverage. On one channel, there's a group of young people competing for I don't even know; and on the next, there's a group of young people fighting in an actual war. I was really tired, and the lines between these stories started to blur in a very unsettling way."

The Hunger Games has been challenged/banned, mostly for violence.

Do you see the pattern?

I hope you do. If you don't, I want you to take a second look at all those books - all those books that deal with and bring to light issues of their day, critiquing everything that is wrong with that -our- society. I do not understand why people are banning these books when they have such, such important things to say.

I understand that some books aren't for everyone, I really do. But the thing that bugs me is that these people who are challenging these books, they are challenging them for little things. They are not looking at the big picture, of what the message of these books is, of what they are supposed to mean! These book-challengers are missing the big picture, are missing the fact that these books take all that crazy stuff from reality.

So. What do you think? Should books be banned? Do you agree with me - are these book-banners missing the big picture? Can you think of any other banned books that might deal with society's issues? (Oh, I already thought of another one... The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie...) What are your thoughts on banned books?

SOURCES (brace yourself):

(all other sources are linked to in the text/caption)

To Kill A Mockingbird:

ttp://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=bbwlinks&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=136590

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_kill_a_mockingbird

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harper_Lee

Huck Finn:

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huckleberry_Finn

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1842832_1842838_1844945,00.html  (ok so this article says that there's a movie version of Huck Finn where the black slave is played by an actor who is not black to avoid controversy...!?!?!?)

The Outsiders:

http://world.edu/worldedu_posts/banned-books-awareness-outsiders/

www.sehinton.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.E._Hinton

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Outsiders_(novel)

The Hunger Games:

http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6590063.html (where I got the quote from)

http://swardkehoe.blogspot.com/2011/09/banned-books-week-has-begun.html (what an intelligent reader has to say about The Hunger Games)

http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/bannedbooksweek/ideasandresources/free_downloads/2011banned.pdf

Learning Mostly That I Suck At Writing Titles

Hi! Sorry I haven't been posting as often... but that's what happens when school starts. Anyway, this a post I wrote at the end of August just as I was finishing rewriting a draft of my WIP  (and obviously never got around to posting). Just thought I'd share what I learned. Also, at the end there's a story my brother wrote. Just sayin', if this post bores you, skip to that. ;)

• It is amazing the mistakes your brain can just skip right over. For example, "Gwen sat on her hose". (Yes, brain, the characters in my WIP frequently ride hoses.)

• Less is more. "made it rock" can just be "rocked".  Unfortunately, I like words. I often use too many. :)

• I have used the sentence "She didn't say anything" way too often. It is very obvious she doesn't say anything when she, you know, doesn't say anything.

• I use way too many adjectives. I have to have at least 1700 of them before each noun. (At least that's what it seems like).

• Sometimes sentences just need to switch places in order to make sense.

• I have a habit of using the EXACT SAME WORD a million times. I'm sure that's how many times I used the word "sliced" in my WIP. (My characters do a lot of cooking while they are riding their hoses.)

• Don't mix up "dinghy" and "dingy". Dinghy = little boat. Dingy = dirty.

• And, last but not least, never ask my brother for advice. Evidence:
• Me: Is it "Tamlin had ran" or "Tamlin had run"?
• Bro: Tamlin was running?
• Me: No, that won't work because the story itself is already in past tense.
• Bro: So it's like... double past tense? "Tamlin was ran"?
• Me: ....

Now, as promised, a story my brother wrote... see, I frequently have my brother come across as a complete idiot on my blog when he actually isn't. He's really smart, just doesn't think sometimes when he talks. ANYWAY, here's a story he wrote when we went to the lake on the September long weekend...

ELI WE DON'T WANT YOUR FEET. They are too annoying, they are too purple, they are not wearing shoes, they have no name, they cannot fly, they cannot speak, they cannot kick a giant in the ear, they cannot hear, they cannot smell, feel or taste, all they do is help you walk, ELI WE DON'T WANT YOUR FEET. (by RZS/Gracie's brother).

Cute, isn't it? Can't you imagine that being an awesome kids book?

Anyway.

What have you learned lately... about editing, or writing, or life in general, or really anything?

Learning Is Awesome (I don't care what you say, it is)

I was thinking today about all the things I want to learn/learn about: French, how other countrys governments work, other cultures both ancient and modern, history of other countries, other languages, how to cook...

I was also thinking about how with so much of this stuff money is involved. Whether it be books, classes, ingredients... it costs. Which sucks.

Yet... there are ways to learn without classes or books or anything! (And I'm not talking about school, either. I mean, who learns THERE? And that wasn't sarcasm, by the way.)

Well... how about right HERE? Yup, you can learn stuff right here at I Am Writer Hear Me Roar. What you learn probably depends more on you and your brain, and other determining factors, but yes, you can just come here, read some stuff and maybe take away some snippets and go "You know what, I learned something. COOL."

So today Teacher Gracie is going to tell you... the origin of the phrase "cop out".

I was thinking of this because I was thinking what I would think if an author killed the main character at the end of a book and left the ending at that, and I kind of figured it's a kind of cop-out because it's an easy ending.

Anyway...

"Cop" was originally an old English slang term, around 1695-1705, that meant "to seize" or "to take" or "to capture" or something along those lines, which is where it came to be used for a policeman or "copper". Then a cop-out became to confess and accept a deal with the police, or really entering a guilty plea which came to be called "copping a plea". This was in the 1940s. And now we use it in pretty much the same sense, except we apply it to getting out of just about anything, not just police stuff.

**So ur ces