King Soopers Book Tour

So, while some of the cool people are at BEA, I decided to go on tour!

Check it out, from the bakery, to non-dairy, to produce--its the all vegan tour on West Uintah Street, View of Pikes Peak, USA--the anti-NYC!!!!!

Gothic Novels to put some chill in your summer:

Here's a link to a blog from the author of TANTALIZE with a killer list of gothic novels.

Cassie's Songs

I have published the first imix of songs that Cassie, my heroine, listens to on her record player. The irony never ends here, because digital media pervades our every synapse more and more with every passing moment, while Cassie remains stuck in her analog neverland . . .

So, I want you to hear the soundtrack of Cassie's life, and the best way to do that is through the computer, just as I want you to read the book, and the best way to spread the word is via the computer, and I want to hear from readers and old students and new "friends," and the best way . . .

The first of these songs is from The Worst of Jefferson Airplane (because they're radical like that, lol), a record that is widely available in thrift stores, e-bait, and record stores. Cassie listens to it with her friend Liz, who appreciates the some of Jorma's heavy guitar, and the general tripped-out feel.


The rest, in no particular order:

"Summer's Almost Gone" is a song that everybody should have on the mental ipod (you know, the one that plays in your mind, those songs that run through your mind), with Jim Morrison's smooth, deep voice giving you the essence of autumnal loss--the bluesiest season of all--before the first leaves even fall. Meanwhile, Robbie gives you some sweet slide guitar, John taps a subtle beat, and Ray fills in everything else with piano and organ. "Where will we be when the summer's gone?"

If you haven't felt like a "Teenaged Lobotomy," you haven't turned 13 yet. The Ramones took things back to the Fifties, by doing away with all the tripped-out extended guitar solo jams of the Sixties. Two minute is the average length of a Ramones song, many of which have the brilliance of urban rock & roll Haiku. Cassie was lightening up a great deal when she got into the Ramones, courtesy of Quill and DJ.

Todd Rundgren's Todd is another of the obscure records in Cassie's yard sale purchase. The electric keyboard intro of "Don't you ever Learn?" is longer than most Ramones songs. Todd seem to have financed, with a couple of hits, many hours of the music that is close to his heart--rambling, spiritual, electronic, and often very rocking forays punctuated with some powerful singing, lyricism, and guitar work that have made his hard-core, cult fans proclaim, "Todd is God."

Cassie loved Lightnin' Hopkins, and lots of his obscure records are out there still, scratched up, cheaply pressed, and beautiful because when you listen to them it feels like you are sitting there with ol' Lightnin' as he picks and sings you a story as wet and muddy as an East Texas swamp.

"In the Pines" or "Where did you Sleep Last Night" is one of those heavy, emotional songs, especially when screamed by the inimitable Kurdt Kobain. The lyrics, to my way of hearing it, are not so important in a literal or even figurative sense. They are evocative, and the image of shivering "the whole night through in the pines, in the pines where the sun don't ever shine" blends with the melody to create a psychic icon of loss, alienation, and despair that chills my heart. This song has been sung and recorded for a hundred years by too many people to count. Leadbelly claimed to have written it, and copyright is erroneously claimed by his estate even now. But it's folk music, written by folks, and so it is called a "traditional," meaning it was created by lots of people, and if one person first came up with the idea, nobody knows who that person was. . .

It's a book!

Actually, it's an advance reading copy, an uncorrected proof.

But it looks like a book, it feels like a book, it smells like a book, it reads like a book. So it must be a book! It's hard to believe that an idea of mine, after a little bit of a struggle and a lot of help, is now a book. Kinda cool.

Hey, you! You OTHER Book! Yeah, YOU--the SMUTTY one! Get OUT of the library!!

I just learned of another book banning, this one earning a young defender of morality a BOY SCOUT MERIT BADGE!

Gail Giles' SHATTERING GLASS banned
You'll have to scroll down a little on Gail's livejournal, because the same book, Shattering Glass, earned her the California Young Readers Award, and her later blog entries are about that.

Kudos for our illustrious scout and his mom, who, armed with a photocopier and a highlighter, made one library a more moral place! And in addition to the patch for his uniform sash, sources close to the troop say the scout was also given possession of the offending books (safely wrapped in brown paper) so that he could burn them on his next campout!!!! (this photo is NOT authenticated)



You might have seen my earlier blog, or read lots of others about the banning of Maureen Johnson's Bermudez Triangle. The outrageous thing about that incident, most people said, was that there was nothing "inappropriate" about the novel. The only thing the girls do is kiss, and the only thing that the enemies of free speech seemed to object to was that the girls are kissing each other, which some people seem to think is unnatural.
Intellectual Freedom=Good.
Homophobia=Bad.
And I totally agree with these equations. The damage inflicted by self-righteous haters on countless excellent people who happen to be gay, lesbian, bi, or transgendered--some of whom are my friends and neighbors--what can I say? It's horrible.

But something about the argument that there is nothing wrong with Burmudez Triangle bothers me.

What I'm wondering is, what about the books that have more "objectionable" content? It is easy to defend books that are pretty much innocent. What about the poem, "Have You Ever Faked an Orgasm" that appears along with the other Best of the Best American Poetry in a certain middle school library? What about the adult novel that sneaked into the same library--by a well-known YA writer--containing much that is beyond the ken of 11, 12, 13, and 14-year-old experience? What about Robert Cormier's Fade that a couple of my 8th graders stopped short in reading because of the protagonist's attraction for his aunt? Should these books be purged?

My earlier blog on MJ's book mentioned that I'm a pretty protective parent, but I also think that libraries should be dangerous places. When she was in 5th grade, my daughter read Fahrenheit 451. It was in the classroom library--clearly not part of the vetted curriculum approval process--and though the book terrified her, I did not insist that the book be removed. There are plenty of 5th graders in this "gifted and talented" class who would benefit from the book. If my daughter was not mature enough to read it, the fault for letting her read it belongs to her parents. Maybe I should have paid more attention, but maybe it was okay. She was tested against her own limits and learned that she wasn't ready for that sort of thing. I can't see that any harm was done--no lasting scars from the fires of 451. Not like she when she saw Beauty and the Beast when she was five and became terrified of wolves, woods, and every aspect of nature that isn't equine.

So. Shouldn't libraries be dangerous places where wolves lurk? And while kids need a librarian to come out from behind the desk, a teacher to lead them through the stacks, and parents to read to them long past the age when they can read by themselves, shouldn't older kids, teens and even tweens, negotiate their own way? Shouldn't we trust them more and more as they get older? I'm not saying that middle school libraries should stock Naked Lunch, but I don't see what purpose is served by sanitized literary environments devoid of strong language, procreative desires, and complex moral situations. In other words, where people don't say fuck, where people don't fuck, and where people don't get fucked.

I'm nowhere near ready to let my kid read whatever she wants. I'm not even sure I'm going to let her read MY book! But put me on the committee if somebody wants to start taking books out of her library.

BOOKS OUT OF THE LIBRARY!!

Here's a link to an account of a rather horrifying book banning by a school library: BERMUDEZ TRIANGLE BANNED

The book is BERMUDEZ TRIANGLE by Maureen Johnson, and it sounds pretty innocuous to me, but then I'm homophilic rather than homophobic--"straight but not narrow," more or less, and from my way of seeing it, "they're here, they're queer, I'm used to it."

At my school, SHADE'S CHILDREN by Garth Nix was challenged by a parent a few years ago. Even after she and her kid moved, Mommy insisted that the challenge go forward, apparently because she did not want anyone else's kids exposed to this tale of the triumph of freedom and the family, which, had she read the book, she might have been able to figure out. Yes, there was some rather mature content, but in the view of our committee, it was appropriate for middle school. While some parents and students might object, there is a simple remedy for that: DON'T READ IT and DON'T LET YOUR KID READ IT!

I'm a pretty picky daddy myself, by some standards: there is a lot of stuff I don't let my kids, 3 and 10, look at. Yes, it does come up even with a 3 year old--at day care--and some G movies are too much for toddlers, in my view. I don't want my little boy traumatized by sharp-teeth! (Oh, no, no! I do not!) But parents have the responsibility: take a look at what THEIR kids are reading, and focus on their OWN families. But they have no right to deprive others the opportunity of reading certain books.

As Maureen says, "Book banning sucks!" (yup, yup, yup!)