“The realities of classroom teaching today,” i.e., the stranglehold of censorship.

An e-mail from a teacher who’s read the FALLOUT ARC and wishes she could use it in her classroom, but can’t.  Here’s what she says:

Dear Mr. Strasser,

 I am a sixth grade English teacher who just finished Fallout.  It was a compelling story and I must confess, I skipped the last three flashback chapters to keep reading about the shelter-ettes.

Selfishly, I am hoping you are hard at work on a sequel!  We have read The Diving Bell as a class in previous years and I initially thought I could use Fallout as a book club book. Simply loved the topic and how you write.

Here is my dilemma:  Thanks in part to a rabid Evangelical parent I had the misfortune to encounter two years ago,  our district now has a lengthy book approval process.  I fear the discussion between the boys about homosexuality will cause the book to be rejected. (not the Playboy mention, underage  drinking or nudity in the bunker, mind you.)

 Please know this does not reflect my personal views but rather the realities of classroom teaching today.   I would welcome your thoughts on how I could present this to the close-minded.

I wrote back:  Thanks for your note. I appreciate your kind words about the book and I am sorry about the situation you're in. The best answer that I feel I can personally give to your request comes in two parts.

 First, the book has been chosen by the Junior Library Guild (http://www.juniorlibraryguild.com/company/).  As you will see from this link, they probably know as much as anyone about choosing age-appropriate books for readers.

In addition, how about taking the constitutional approach? Do the people involved in the book approval process believe in the rights granted under US Constitution? How would they feel about someone else deciding to take away their constitutional rights? Do they understand that the First Amendment also protects their right to practice the religion of their choice? How would they feel if someone came along and told them they could no longer practice their religion?

We believe in Freedom of Speech. It’s part of the foundation of our country. The people in question has every right to prevent their own children from reading a book. But under our Constitution they have no right to decide for others what they can read.

And she wrote back:

Re: Freedom of speech.  It's a great concept but does not really apply to teachers in the classroom.

(Believe me, I researched and met with ACLU lawyers at my own expense.)  As you are well aware, educators have been vilified in the media and are under attack. We are no longer entrusted as professionals to get the best, most thought provoking books into the hands of readers. It is a very

sad situation.  The overwhelming threat of ligation from lunatics trumps all. 

That last paragraph breaks my heart. Welcome to primary education circa 2013, where teachers’ hands are cuffed and censorship not only festers, but thrives.

BEA Buzz for Fallout?

I signed Fallout ARCs yesterday at BEA.  Candlewick provided four large boxes of galleys. What a pleasure it was to see that they’d printed so many.  The line for signatures was long. There were YA librarians looking for giveaways for summer reading programs, but also a number who said they’d heard good buzz about the book and wanted to take a look.  

What they're saying over at Goodreads:

"Although it’s historical fiction, it reads like survival/dystopian fiction and I found it to be very powerful."

 "I was absolutely riveted by the powerful bunker scenes - they convey humanity at its best and worst."

Fallout Chosen as Junior Library Guild Selection!

 

While it won't be officially published until September, Fall out has been chosen by the Junior Library Guild.

Fallout is part memoir and part speculative fiction. It is rooted in my experience as a twelve-year-old boy living through the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.  What made this event unique for me was that our family was the only one in town who actually had a full-scale bomb shelter built beneath our house. 

This gave me a unique perspective in as much as I not only worried along with everyone else in our country about the very real possibility of a World War Three, but I had to worry about trying to survive as well. Many of my anxieties concerned the possibility that a war might start while my father was at work, and therefore too far away to get home before the bombs fell. In that case:  1) Would there be time for me to run home from school before the bombs fell?  2) Since everyone in town knew we had a bomb shelter, would others get there first and demand to be allowed in? 3) What if my mother, brother and I got inside and our neighbors came and wanted us to let them in? 4) How would we know how long to stay in the shelter? 5) What would we do when we got out? These worries mixed with and influenced many of the other insecurities – about girls, sex, athletics, school – that boys that age feel.

Thus the Bomb is partly the story of what really happened, and partly about what could have happened. As a memoir, it is a recollection of the affect such a dire world event had on an innocent young man who was growing up in a protected homogeneous middle-class environment. As speculative fiction it is an exploration of what very well might have occurred had there really been a war.

 And finally, I hope that, in its own small way, it is a celebration of life in the face of adversity.

The Houses of Wish You Were Dead

 

Wish You Were Dead is set in the fictional town of Soundview, which is not unlike Larchmont/Mamaroneck where I live. It’s a good setting for a mystery that involves income inequality because this is an area that displays some fairly stark examples of it. Housing ranges from mansions like Madison’s to the apartment in which Maura lives over a store.

 

Wish You Were Dead

"Today at school Lucy Cunningham looked at me like I was something the cat coughed up.  I don’t have to explain who Lucy is. You already know because there’s only one kind of girl who would look at anyone that way.   I’m going to be completely honest here because, after all, what’s the point of pretending? So here goes. It really hurts when Lucy looks at me that way.  But here’s what hurts even more. Sometimes when people look at me that way, I feel like maybe they’re right."

And so begins Wish You Were Dead,  Todd Strasser’s award-winning mystery about the unintended consequences of ill wishes.

http://alturl.com/yxd3n

Teacher Feels No-Fee Skype Was Very Valuable

Mr. Strasser,

Just a quick note say thank you for skyping with Maine East yesterday. The students are really enjoying your books and I think the Skype was a very valuable experience for them. The teacher was extremely happy and grateful, so thank you again. I have attached a photo of the class to this email.

Rika Ghorbani

What Makes A Writer Feel Good

They read it with this cover!

Dear Todd,

I teach 8th grade Language Arts in southern Maine. Two boys in my class this year were really struggling with reading. They were at about third grade level.  "I HATE books!", "Books are STUPID!" were some of the milder comments I got from them.

I decided to pull them in for private reading work. It was just the three of us and I selected a third grade reading level book for us to read aloud together. They hated it.

Rummaging around in a school closet, I found three copies of "Friends Till The End."

"Why do we have to read this?!", "I hate soccer!", "It's prolly just about nerds!", "sounds like da Outsiders movie you made us watch, greasers and Socs!", "Dumb!"

That was a month ago. We usually cover about a chapter a day. Today one of my students, Nate did not show up for  SSR (sustained silent reading). The other student, Phillip, (who provided MOST of the comments I've quoted) said, "come ON! Let's get started, I LOVE this book!" I said, "really?" "YEA, it's not some nerdy, boring book. It's about real people that I can relate to. I LOVE this book! I'm gonna see if the author has any other books. Do you think he does?"

Well, I've googled you and was I happy to find that you do have a few other stories. ;-)

I just thought you'd like to know that you've made a tremendous difference in the lives of at least two young, now proficient and steadily improving, readers.

Thank you.

Kevin Neely  Sanford Junior HS Language Arts 

“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful." -- Albert Schweitzer