When Rainbow Rowell’s first YA novel Eleanor & Park came out this spring, people loved it. After John Green gave it a glowing (shimmering, really. Incandescent, even) review in the New York Times, even more people loved it. It was an Amazon Best Book of the Month, a New York Times bestseller, and it inspired a shocking amount of beautifully rendered fan art. I loved it, my mother loved it, my pregnant coworker loved it, my friend who “never reads YA ” loved it. You probably loved it, too. (Full disclosure: Rainbow Rowell is a friend of mine. She once mailed me a photograph of Alan Alda and also a postcard with a drawing of an oyster on it that said “The World Is Your Oyster” after I quit my day job, so I would even go so far as to call her a “good friend.”)
A group of high school librarians in Minnesota loved Eleanor & Park so much that they chose it as their school district’s summer read, giving all their high school students the option to read it – and invited Rowell to come visit the Minneapolis-area schools and the local public library this fall.
But there are some who do not love it, not even a little bit, not even at all.
Two parents, with the support of the district’s Parents Action League have convinced the Anoka-Hennepin school district, the county board, and the local library board to cancel her events next week – calling Eleanor & Park a “dangerously obscene” book, demanding that it be removed from library shelves and asking that school librarians be disciplined for choosing it.
From the National Coalition Against Censorship:
Until we got involved in the issue, Rainbow Rowell couldn’t be 100% sure she had even been disinvited. The teachers and librarians had showed great enthusiasm at the outset, but as the date of her visit drew near, she was given mixed messages about her contract there and eventually came up against a communications freeze. A parent had lodged a challenge to profanity in the book and asked that the librarians who organized the talk to be punished. They riled up an action group (with experience in censorship) to organize against the author at the level of the County Board. The order came down. The talk was nixed and librarians were asked not to speak on the topic.
By mid-August, it looked as though the school visit would have to be cancelled – Rowell’s literary agent received a note informing her of the official challenge – but that it would still be possible for her to attend an event at the public library.
Then these concerned parents took the fight to the county board (“Too hot for teens or taxpayer money,” according to the Watchdog Minnesota Bureau), and that was the end of things. Right, as it happens, in the middle of Banned Books Week, which I found too delicious and infuriating to pass up, and begged Rainbow to let me talk to her about it. She begrudgingly agreed.
Rainbow! Hello! Thank you for changing your mind about this!
Mallory! Hi!
What I find most amazing about this is that it only took (as best as I can tell from what I’ve been able to dig up) a handful of insufficiently-gruntled parents to override the wishes of local students and librarians. There’s the guy who went through your book and counted all of the swear words (220, give or take), and the original complainant, who sent in a thirteen-page review to the Parents Action League (which is a good twelve pages longer than your NYT review). That it wasn’t enough for them to cancel your visit; that they’re still trying to get your book out of the libraries and punish the librarians who recommended Eleanor & Park in the first place. Such power!
It sounds like most of this hadn’t really reached you, had stayed fairly internal, until just a few weeks ago, once the debate reached the county board.
Yeah, that’s when things got really weird and awful. (At least for me.) After this county board meeting, my agent got a call saying that my contract (which they’d had for months) hadn’t been accepted.
We weren’t sure what that meant. For a while, I thought I was still coming for the events, but wouldn’t get paid. Which would be fine. I agreed to come before I knew about the money. I normally don’t charge for events – though I don’t think it’s wrong to charge, and if a place offers me something, I take it. (Ed. note: According to the Watchdog, “Anoka County Libraries agreed to collaborate and cover the author’s $4,000 stipend with taxpayer money from the Minnesota Legacy Amendment Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund,” so none of Rowell’s fee would have been taken from school or library funds.)
But then everyone in Minnesota stopped talking to us. I eventually found out from the National Coalition Against Censorship that the public library board met and decided that my public library visit was not “considered appropriate.”
At what point was it made clear to you that your invitation to speak had been rescinded? Did anyone from the district attempt to explain the reversal or apologize for it?
That wasn’t clear until to the National Coalition Against Censorship got involved – at another parent’s request. I still don’t really know what’s going on, but I’m not mad at the librarians.
It doesn’t sound like the librarians had much say in the matter once the board stepped in.
I think this must be miserable for them. They all read my book and decided to share it with their students – that’s what they do for a living; they’re professionals – and then this happens.
This is the same county that Rolling Stone described as waging a “war on gay teens,” yes?
Yeah. (That Rolling Stone story is so heart-wrenching, I couldn’t even get through it.)
The Parents Action League, the people who objected to Eleanor & Park, was actually formed in response to a district policy about discussing sexual orientation in the schools. You can read more about the Parents Action League here. And you can see their alert about my book here. Normally the group takes on books with homosexual content, which Eleanor & Park doesn’t really have. (Though my other books do.)
One of the most horrific parts of their challenge was that they asked that the librarians who chose my book be officially disciplined.
Can you tell us a little bit about Eleanor & Park, for our readers who might not be familiar with the book or its themes? What elements did the Parents’ Action League object to in particular?
Sure. Eleanor & Park is set in 1986. It’s about two 16-year-olds who fall in love on a school bus. The story is told from both of their points of view. Eleanor, a chubby redhead, is the new kid at school, and she’s facing some pretty intense bullying. Also, she has a terrible, abusive stepdad, who makes life at home miserable. Park’s home life is pretty good – his parents love him and each other – but he’s one of the only Asian kids at school, and he listens to bands no one has heard of, and he feels like a misfit, even inside his own house.
So Eleanor and Park fall in love. Unexpectedly. And intensely. And they both feel saved by that love.
The Parents Action League is mostly responding to the cursing in the book – there’s a lot of it.
But it’s so bizarre to me that they’re objecting to the cursing because Eleanor and Park themselves almost never swear. I’m not anti-profanity, personally, but I use profanity in the book to show how vulgar and sometimes violent the characters’ worlds are. The very first line of the book is:
XTC was no good for drowning out the morons at the back of the bus.
Park pressed his headphones into his ears.
He’s trying to block out the profanity! And Eleanor hates that her stepfather curses so much. She complains about it throughout the book.
There’s also some pretty vulgar sexual language that the parents have objected to: Someone harasses Eleanor by writing gross things on her school books. It’s one of the more traumatic things that happens to her.
The parents who objected have also said the book is pornographic; there are a few kissing scenes with the two main characters. Nothing too explicit, and Eleanor and Park decide not to have sex yet.
Do you have any idea how successful the campaign against the book has been? Is there anyone in Anoka County fighting to keep Eleanor & Park on the shelves?
I really don’t know. I know the group has demanded that my book be removed from the schools. And I know that the National Coalition Against Censorship plans to fight that, as part of their Kids’ Right to Read Project. My hope is that Eleanor & Park stays in these libraries – and that I eventually get to visit Minneapolis/St. Paul for some sort of book conversation.
I think for a lot of adults who are no longer in school, who have left the towns they grew up in and been safely ensconced in a Big City Somewhere, it can be easy to dismiss stories like this as tempests in a teapot. Censorship seems to some of us so silly that we forget how important it is for kids in isolated or rural areas to have access to different thoughts and ideas, that “the Internet” isn’t the magical cure to all their problems until they turn eighteen and get to leave. Because sometimes they can’t leave, or don’t want to, but their choices still matter.
Right. I mean, that’s me. I grew up in a city, Omaha, that’s even smaller than Minneapolis and not that far away. The Midwest isn’t someplace I’m trying to escape – it’s where I’m raising a family. I hate to think that intellectual freedom is something we fight for only in certain parts of the country.
Kids here have the right to read. They have the right to think and imagine. To see their own world in books. To see other worlds in books.
I respect these parents’ decision to not let their own kids read my book or hear me talk. But it really shocks me that they’ve been able to make that decision for the whole school district.
Has anything like this happened to you before? Have any of your books been challenged or censored at a school-wide or district level? Have you gotten complaints or criticism about the type of content you write for young adults?
No. I mean, this is my first young adult book. But it’s been really well-received by teachers and school librarians. A few other schools across the country also chose it as a summer read, which has been really cool. And the book won the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for excellence in children’s literature.
I feel like I should say that my book is considered “sophisticated YA,” for teens/people 14 and up.
You’re very sophisticated, Rainbow.
Thank you, Mallory. It’s true
You initially didn’t want to talk publicly about this; can you explain why? And what changed your mind?
Well, you changed my mind. When you pointed out that this isn’t really about me. It’s about the students at these schools, who already read my book or might like to – or might like to read other books that reflect their real lives.
When this all happened last month, I was really upset by it. (I still cry when I talk or type about it.)
Pause as Mallory hands Rainbow a tissue through the monitor.
Because the characters are so close to my heart, and everything about this campaign deliberately misses the point of Eleanor and Park’s story.
When I told my sister that some people (Ed. note: or, you know, “one guy”) were outraged by the language in my book, she said, “They should try living through it.”
And that’s just it. Eleanor & Park isn’t some dystopian fantasy about a world where teenagers swear and are cruel to each other, and some kids have terrible parents.
Teenagers swear and are cruel to each other. Some kids have terrible parents.
Some girls have terrible stepdads who shout profanity at them and call them sluts – and some of those girls still manage to rise above it.
When these people call Eleanor & Park an obscene story, I feel like they’re saying that rising above your situation isn’t possible.
That if you grow up in an ugly situation, your story isn’t even fit for good people’s ears. That ugly things cancel out everything beautiful.
[Image used with permission from Simini Blocker]
Tags: banned books, books, censorship, eleanor & park, rainbow rowell, simini blocker, ya
I really worry about what’s going to happen to America’s small towns in the next few decades. Are ANY good people from our generation staying behind to try to make them decent places to live?
Rainbow, for one.
I wouldn’t call Omaha a small town exactly but every little helps, I guess.
I grew up in an actual small town in the outer reaches of Nebraska. Omaha is a hotbed of vice and modernity in comparison. There are *gasp* nonwhite people there.
Funny, my family is from Scottsbluff, and yeah, Omaha looks so cosmopolitan in comparison.
By the way I should say I’m probably wrong — obviously a lot of smart/sensitive/different people from small towns have always felt the urge to move to cities while many others have stayed and made them, in some small way, better places to live. I just hope the changing economic and political calculus that has made our cities such nicer places to live isn’t also turning the suburbs and rural areas into even more barren and hostile cultural wastelands.
This really reads as snobbery. I don’t live in the US, but I wouldn’t call rural Canada a “cultural wasteland” and so I assume the same is true of the rural US. Rural Newfoundland, for example, actually has a pretty rich culture. It may not be the kind of culture you value, but it certainly exists and is interesting in its own right.
Rural areas can be lovely places to live, especially if you grow up there and have strong ties to the place. I chose to move to a city, but I can definitely see how the rural areas I lived in could be nice for other people – my own siblings really liked growing up in our small town, and my oldest friend is pretty attached to the small city (25, 000 people, give or take) she’s lived in for almost her entire life.
I think it’s really hit or miss– one of the first “OMG KID RUNS AWAY WITH INTERNET PERSON” stories was about a gay boy at my high school, and once he came back, it was just generally accepted that he was gay, and nobody made a big deal of it. And our school had FFA and a head cheerleader who chewed tobacco. I would absolutely consider it a rural area, but the attitudes ranged from “prehistoric” to “progressive”, and the schools reflected that. (Not that we got to learn about condoms or anything, but we at least learned evolution.)
Sure, but that happens everywhere. I live in a city now (I mean, it’s not Toronto, but the population is in the hundreds of thousands and we’re in close proximity to several much larger cities), and I definitely see evidence of “prehistoric” attitudes here too.
Plus, for all the wails of “but think of the CHILDREN!” no one is actually thinking of the children. Education is not a priority in our country, and it makes no difference whether rural or suburban or urban (see Philadelphia for example).
Sure — I wasn’t trying to say cities are inherently better. But it seems, anecdotally at least, like more of the people who keep culture alive in rural/suburban areas, and make them liveable for those who are different, are moving to cities when they are young. And those who are already doing this work, like the librarians in this story, are under sustained attack from many directions (budget cuts, censorious parents).
I also like living in the city, but it would be great if the next kid like me who grows up in my hometown could stay and live there happily if s/he wanted to and situations like this make me worry that is getting less and less likely.
ETA: My hometown is in central Florida but shares many similarities with Bachmann’s district in MN.
Actually, you know what? If my calling a county that inflicted Michele Bachmann on the nation and is now busy driving gay kids to suicide and banning lovely, universally-acclaimed YA novels a “hostile cultural wasteland” “reads as snobbery” then so fucking what, I’ll own that. I’m a snob against places that are politically retrograde and actively destroy culture, sorry.
I don’t know; I mean, on the one hand I understand that instinct, but on the other hand; New York City is the home of the stop-and-frisk policy, you know? That’s pretty hostile and destructive and retrograde, too.
I mean it’s just objectively true — Lakeland, FL, has a nice little art museum and couple of libraries but they are never going to compare to the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress (and I can get some damn fine Southern cooking in DC, too, possibly at a brunch with some gay-married friends). What I’m concerned about is a country where cities have a *complete monopoly* on culture and tolerance because literally all of the people who care about those things have left the suburbs and rural areas — because cities have become much nicer places to live than they used to be, while suburbs and rural areas are suffering from economic decline and the hollowing out of public services (who are the people that made life bearable for you when you were a kid? Teachers? Librarians? Counselors? All public employees.)
For example, my parents are reasonably cultured and politically progressive people who lived in cities when they were younger, but felt the need to move to the suburbs because of crime, pollution, better schools, and job opportunities. Now they patronize the local symphony orchestra, book stores, libraries, independent movie theaters, and interesting restaurants. In their small way, they make the town a better place to live for people like me, the other weirdos I’m friends with, and the vast majority of the Toast readership who value these sorts of things.
I, on the other hand, can’t ever imagine living or raising kids in a place like Lakeland. Most of the people I grew up with who stayed (with one or two exceptions) are exactly the kinds of people who might support banning a YA novel for swears or voting for Bachmann. All of the people I know who are like Rainbow or her characters who had the chance now live in other places, mostly large cities: Chicago, Ft. Lauderdale, Atlanta, Orlando, DC, Queens, Chapel Hill. Maybe this is extreme selection bias plus media exaggeration, but if we all STAY in the cities then the small towns are just going to get worse — for people like me, you, Rainbow, and her characters.
So I’m not trying to say cities are better than small towns, fuck small towns, full stop. I would actually like for every part of the country to be a place where, just for example, a child will not be hounded to death due to his or her sexuality. My original comment was me wondering, have demographic/economic patterns doomed small towns to more and more of this sort of thing? If so that’s not something to gloat about from our tiny city apartments, it’s SAD.
This is an old comment and I’m sorry to be replying so late, but I do want to point out that people are harassed, threatened, and killed because of things like sexuality and gender identity in cities, too. Things that “actively destroy culture” also happen in DC. But as a function of the city’s size, people will remember its name for other things in a week or a day or an hour.
Particularly for queer kids, this “today our cities are enlightened and our rural places are not” stereotype is PART OF THE PROBLEM–there is a pervasive cultural narrative, a lot of which comes from “nice” “enlightened” people who have moved to the city and “made it” and now produce so much media, that the country is not a place to be queer, and that the Real Queer Experience happens in a handful of major cities, and that your small town will never love you.
One good book on the subject is Out in the Country: Youth, Media, and Queer Visibility in Rural America by Mary L. Gray.
I would move back in with my parents before I would even think of raising my children in rural Texas, and my husband, who is from a very small town, is just as opposed to the idea. Urban environments and rural environments each have their own challenges, but I prefer to live in a place with more diversity that allows my children more choices and fewer bigots.
Life long Texan. There are progressive, nice rural towns in Texas just as any other state. Maybe more so, since it is a bigger state.
Off the top of my head: Marfa, Alpine, Terlingua, Fredericksburg, Wimberley, Rockport…
And then you hear awful stories like an established hippy diner in the heart of liberal Austin, TX allowed for a bigoted asshole to massively harass a couple of girls so publicly it gets written up in Texas Monthly: http://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/two-wo…
HOWEVER, the play you are referring to is NOT a small town. 5 high schools is not one small town. And not all small towns are anti-everything. If you don’t like small towns, don’t live in one. Your universally bashing them is just a different brand of hate.
Sadly, Anoka-Hennepin School District 11, where this happened, is the largest school district in the state of Minnesota, and an outer ring of suburbs to Minneapolis/St. Paul. These aren’t a bunch of small town kids that are subjected to the Parents Action League…it’s really sick what they are able to get away with.
On the other hand, Detroit.
Thanks for sharing this Rainbow & Mallory. I’m adding Eleanor & Park to my reading list!
I cannot properly articulate my immense love and appreciation for this book. I just can’t. Whenever I try, my words become a jumbled mess. But the way I feel about this situation truly comes down to this:
“It’s about the students at these schools, who already read my book or might like to – or might like to read other books that reflect their real lives.”
I needed this book 8 years ago. I needed it when I was hurting myself, trying to remain invisible, actively being told not to take up space as a fat girl. I needed to know that my experience, or anything that even closely resembled my experience, did not exist in vacuum. I needed to not be so fucking alone.
It took me a long time to get to a place of peace with myself and my body, and I’m damn glad I did, but this book exists here and now – and it deserves to reach as many girls like me as humanly possible.
Rainbow, thank you so much for talking to Mallory and us! I read Eleanor & Park for my Forever YA book club and we loved it. I was surprised and disheartened to hear that it had been targeted for removal from shelves; I’m always disheartened when that happens and not usually surprised, but I was surprised this time because E &P is just such a genuinely uplifting, beautiful book (like most books that are removed).
Another thing I’m surprised (…but lbr not really) at is that the librarians were disciplined. Most school and public libraries have removal policies in place for these kinds of situations, which involve review of the item in question and are designed for transparency. It sounds like such a policy wasn’t utilized in this case, which isn’t the fault of the librarians in question but outside groups who overrode/ignored procedure.
(On the off chance that Rainbow will be reading the comments: I loved Eleanor and Park. Fangirl is on my Kobo, waiting for me to finish my current book before I can get started, and I’m rushing the current book a bit because I’m excited about Fangirl.)
Fangirl is amazing!!
Elenor and Park gave me all the feels – it was just such a fantastic, touching book. It’s awful that some jerks try to control what other people read. Makes me want to buy a million copies of E & P and pass them out to teenagers everywhere.
Also, I’ve just started reading Fangirl, and so far, it is great.
Stories like this – the censorship efforts, not E&P – send me into full “flames on the side of my face” mode. It’s a library! Its job is not to swaddle children in a cocoon of “classics” – which are often problematic as hell, just older – and insulate them from reality. I would bet real American dollars that those teenagers in the Anoka-Hennepin district use more filthy language than the book does. Because they are teenagers. Disciplining the librarians is just disgusting. Ugh. Petty morality tyrants.
Eleanor and Park has been on my to-read list for a while, and Fangirl (Rowell’s latest book, which came out last week) is currently being… raved about by my many fandom friends. I’m glad to hear from Rainbow directly about this, and I really hope she gets up to the Twin Cities for a talk.
I’m glad you’re talking about this, Rainbow–I would understand why if you chose not to, but your comments are thoughtful and dignified, which is more than I can say for my initial response to hearing about this (“are you fucking kidding me??”) It makes me tired and sad to think of parents who decide that they get to make reading choices for other people’s kids, especially since they so often refuse to put forth the effort to actually engage with the material and understand its context. I can’t imagine that these are parents that read with their kids or talk with them about confusing and controversial topics. E&P (and more recently Fangirl) spoke to me strongly as a twentysomething, and I think they would have meant a lot to me as a teen.
I’ve been on a waiting list for this book at my library for over a month (it was 23 people strong when I signed up). But I’m in a major metropolitan area, in a small suburb that considers itself to be fairly liberal. All my friends who have read the book (including internet friends from all over the place, some of whom tend to be rather conservative in many respects) rave about the book and recommend it wildly. I can’t wait to read it. (Just checked: I’m up to 8th on the list!) So clearly this kind of attitude is not the situation everywhere–not even everywhere in the midwest.
That said, the fantasy world’s clearly not in the book, it’s in the minds of the parents who think that by banning a book they can prevent children from ever hearing profanity or witnessing bullying or any of the uglier parts of life (such as, say, bullying and shaming librarians). Or who think that if such a thing were possible, it would keep children from all harm and pain and bad influences and ensure them a perfect life.
I hope that the sensible people in this community in Minnesota stand up and fight. Even if they lose, they’ll have taught the children of the community an important lesson about bullying.
Put FANGIRL on your list now – you’ll be desperate to read it as soon as you finish E&P, to keep the Rowell-words in your life as long as possible.
And Attachments!
To be honest, this kind of thing makes me think E&P going to become a classic YA novel. I’m already putting it on my daughter’s bookshelf, next to Judy Blume.
I hadn’t heard of this book before, but this interview just made me buy it for my daughter. I know I’ll read it too!
Keep fighting the good fight, Ms. Rowell.
This post is example number one million of how The Toast is exactly aligned with all my interests.
E&P was my favorite book of the year, hands down. And I’m tumblr-book-clubbing the hell out of Fangirl, which I also loved — but I think I loved E&P better. It’s such a beautiful, heart-wrenching, uplifting book and I really wish it had been around when I was a teenager. And it makes me sad that this small group of yahoos is making it unreadable for kids who need it.
Rainbow, thanks for sharing and please keep writing hundreds of books just like it so I can read them forever.
I LOVED Eleanor & Park and while I think parts of it are permanently imprinted on my brain (that first handholding scene, for one) I would never have guessed it would’ve been banned for profanity because that is not at all what stuck out to me. It wasn’t at all gratuitous, it was just part of what made the whole book have that feeling of truth.
(Also, Fangirl is awesome too. I’m a fannish person, so if anybody else had written a book about a girl who writes slash I’d be a bit wary, but Rainbow gets it.)
(Also also, I’m jealous that you’re friends with Rainbow, Mallory. She seems awesome.)
THE HANDHOLDING SCENE. My stars.
RIGHT???
I just want to say that I haven’t read E&P but it’s definitely next on my list…and I just finished Fangirl and loved loved loved it. So sad that this kind of ridiculous censorship still goes on when most kids will see/hear things a million times worse in real life.
Two parents. That’s all it takes?
That’s what infuriates me. That two parents — TWO — can bring in an organization designed specifically to amplify their minority voice and bully a whole district — and have it work — is really appalling.
“That if you grow up in an ugly situation, your story isn’t even fit for good people’s ears. That ugly things cancel out everything beautiful.”
So well put – it made me want to cry in the way that really true things can. I can see why so many people have raved about your writing!
I hate when my home state is disappointing. Minnesota, you are better than this!
Thanks so much for this conversation, Mallory and Rainbow. Eleanor & Park is an absolutely brilliant book.
E&P was so good and so sad and I would have loved to read something like it when I was in school.
(Fangirl had a direct line to my soul and I finished it and went right back to the beginning and read it again.)
I loved Eleanor &Park, my kids loved it too. I gave copies to my niece and nephews. They also loved it. It is a beautiful book. It would make a lovely movie.
Don’t let the bullies get you down, Rainbow!
As a librarian and a lover of E&P (and Rainbow, though I’ve never met her), this is really disheartening news. Rainbow’s comment -“I respect these parents’ decision to not let their own kids read my book or hear me talk. But it really shocks me that they’ve been able to make that decision for the whole school district” – is spot on and so timely. The freedom to read is so important!
At the end of the day, it’s the parents who make the decisions. Especially when it’s concerning THEIR kids, no one else really has a say in it.
The parents…make the decision about the libraries? And what other peoples’ kids can and can’t read? Or about what their own kids can?
A parent making a decision for their kid is, “No, you’re my kid, I don’t want you reading this, I don’t think you’re ready yet.”
A parent making a decision for their kid is not “I want no kids ever to read this, ever, in the history of kids.”
But who ever said librarians had the right to give things to kids that the parents don’t want them reading? Maybe next time they’ll consider speaking to the parents first, or even sending a form, to see if it’s ok. That’s the problem with our society, people think parents need to take a backseat in their kids lives. And when the kids end up in serious trouble, it’s not the librarians who pick up the slack, it’s the PARENTS.
“End up in serious trouble.” Today, it’s reading Eleanor & Park; tomorrow, it’s huffing guns and shooting glue.
My mother always new what I was teading when I was growing up. The fact that all these kids read an ” objectionable” book and no one had anything to say until a few weeks before the authors visit says A LOT about their attention as parents!
You know, my librarian NEVER called my mother before allowing me to check out a book, not once. Fiendish!
Of course, when I was too young to pick for myself, my mother took me to the library and saw first hand what I was checking out. But by the time I was a teenager, she trusted that she’d raised a daughter with good judgment who could discern the difference between positive and negative models of behavior. Plus, she knew I being exposed to other actual teenagers all the time – some of whom cursed, did drugs, and/or had sex. But my parents had the wacky notion that somewhere between infancy and full-on adulthood, as a parent the job was to stop sheltering me and start guiding me. WEIRD.
“And when the kids end up in serious trouble, it’s not the librarians who pick up the slack, it’s the PARENTS.”
Exactly. The parents who don’t get involved until the slack needs picked up have missed out on their responsibility as parents. Being involved and invested in a child’s life is not an author’s job, a publisher’s job or a librarian’s job. It is a parent’s. For his/her own kids.
Read with your kids, talk about what you read and help them apply it to their lives. Because whether parents want to admit it or not, the world is full of sex, drugs, profanity, bullying and abuse. It’s also full of kind, open-minded, virtuous people. Your attitude and investment in your child’s life shapes his/her future. Not whether a novel has more than 200 swear words.
But it is ok, without asking parents because of this little document called The Constitution of the United States of America. I fully believe parents should be aware of what their kids are reading if they want to be, but no, librarians and libraries do not have to run it by a parent first. Additionally, this book was a choice…no one was forced to read it.
Yes, damn those librarians and their fiendish Clockwork Orange contraptions that literally forced these teenagers to read this book full of curse words!
Didn’t you know “optional” means mandatory?
They only have the right to make the decision for their own kid; this was not required reading.
But we’re they aware of what was being given to their kids? Doesn’t seem like they would have been so upset if they’d known about it.
Are you asking if this optional, public summer reading program was a secret that was somehow kept from parents? I’m trying to operate under the assumption that you’re asking these questions in good faith and not being deliberately dense, but you’ve got to work with me a little here.
I think this cuts both ways, though — if a parent wants to make the decision for their kid to read or not to read something, then they need to be responsible for finding out what the optional reading list is.
If parents want to be involved, then they should be involved! If swearing bothers them, they should talk to the librarian and ask them to recommend some high-quality YA books without profanity. If they think any books referencing sex shouldn’t be available to their eighth-graders, they should ask their kids’ teacher, “Hey, I’d really prefer my child not be reading anything sexually explicit at this point, is there anything on the reading list I should be concerned about?” Personally, I would prefer any children I have didn’t read those horrible Left Behind books — so I’ll talk to them about it directly, I won’t demand the town barbeque every copy they see.
It’s not like these librarians were smuggling second-graders copies of Mein Kampf inside One Direction lunch boxes. Librarians can’t anticipate every possible parental objection, so their job is to recommend books. Parents’ job is to parent.
It is so disheartening to see that so few people can have such a large impact on a library. Really, one or two parents can make this happen? Really? That’s appalling.
What strikes me as a unifying theme within all book banning endeavors is that the parents freaking out about them never seem to have actually read the books, they always just seem to flip through them and fixate on something like language or sex taken wholly out of context. John Green’s “I am not a pornographer” video on YouTube is his rebuttal against people who want to ban Looking for Alaska for having a BJ in it (a pointedly horrible one, on purpose). The books that these people want to ban are inevitably books that are chock-full of reality, showing kids things that happen in the real world and how characters respond to and survive them. The parents censoring this stuff want their children to exist in Pleasantville, where nothing is awful and nothing ever hurts, but that’s not realistic. It’s not the real world. And teens freaking know it.
Book banning makes me feel full-on flamethrower levels of flames on the side of my face with how stupid and awful it is. I have to think about the upside: banning a book almost always results in that book looking even more enticing to the kids that people are trying to shield from them. Here’s hoping E&P becomes a classic. I’m going to get a copy today.
“I have to think about the upside: banning a book almost always results in that book looking even more enticing to the kids that people are trying to shield from them. Here’s hoping E&P becomes a classic.”‘
Absolutely. I can bet that kids who were previously indifferent to reading this are suddenly very interested to know what all the fuss is about. Total Streisand Effect here.
First of all, this book was my favorite of the year – I’m so grateful to my 15 and 12 year old daughters for bringing such good YA into my life. Second, my 15 year old loved it and passed it down to her sister, who said to me after reading it, “Mom, it’s a little inappropriate.” (She’s in 7th grade and everything is slightly queasy-making then, as you may recall.)
So I read it next, and I had to have a sit down with the 12 year old to say: I approve of everything in this book. When you are a teenager, you may find that you want to hold hands with a boy and that you think a lot about kissing him, and that’s normal. These two people are in love, they’re respectful, they’re honest with each other and the parents who have earned that honesty. I would be proud if you emulated the way Eleanor and Park treat each other.
She, of course, left the room screaming “Just stop talking!” But I meant it.
Third: I married a half Asian guy but we didn’t meet until our twenties. This book made me want to go back and find him at 16.
Reading Fangirl now, and that’s what we are of you, Rainbow – you keep on keeping on.
It kind of sounds to me that the REAL reason these parents don’t like this book is because it has a interracial relationship, and they’re just using all this other stuff to justify getting rid of it so they don’t look racist? Am I off base here?
I bought Rainbow’s book today because I’m from Minnesota–from Anoka county and a graduate of the high school Rainbow was supposed to speak at–and this appalls me. It appalls me because even if there was something inappropriate about Eleanor & Park (I doubt there is, but let’s say there is for the sake of my point), any parent could use it as an opportunity to discuss what’s “right” and “wrong” or what’s inappropriate. Use it as a learning tool; banning something only teaches people to hate without context.
And, as someone who WENT to the very high school/school district in question, I can say that kids swore and kids talked about sex. And that was a decade before Eleanor & Park was released. To think that profanity or sexual situations can be kept out of teens lives by banning a book is idiocy. Books are not the problem.
I have no sympathy with parents who try to limit the books and ideas their children are exposed to. Here’s the second-to-last paragraph of a letter Kurt Vonnegut wrote to the head of a school board who burned copies of Slaughterhouse 5:
“If you and your board are now determined to show that you in fact have wisdom and maturity when you exercise your powers over the education of your young, then you should acknowledge that it was a rotten lesson you taught young people in a free society when you denounced and then burned books–books you hadn’t even read. You should also resolve to expose your children to all sorts of opinions and information, in order that they will be better equipped to make decisions and to survive.”
The whole letter is absolutely worth a read: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/03/i-am-very-re…
E&P is probably my favorite book I’ve read this year (and I adored Fangirl also). I live in Minneapolis, though I’ve nothing to do with any of the public schools here, as I moved here for college in 2005, and have no kids of my own. Anyway, I am absolutely fuming about this, and I’m wondering if there’s anything I can do on this end to help? This kind of book banning is sickening, and I can’t believe a small handful of parents were able to make a decision for the whole district.
I never understand how a couple of vehement people willing to throw so much effort at creating negativity and opposition can gain so much traction, when it seems like a couple of passionate people working equally hard to spread something positive – or maintain something positive – have a far harder time of it.
Probably I’m wrong, and there are tons of ‘haters’ out there whose voices just aren’t being heard and whose opinions are discounted. Right? Please tell me I’m right.
Thanks for this. Eleanor & Park is one of my favorite books of the year. There are a handful of YA books I’d like to give to every teenager I know; E&P is one of those rare books I want to give to every human being I know. I’m 32 years old now, but it’s the kind of book that I know would have been life-changing for me as a teenager. There are kids who need books like this, and I’m glad to know this one is out there for them to find, and I’m sad to know there are d-bags trying to keep it away from them.
(I read Fangirl in about two days after it was released, too, even though I’d actually put it down once in a while just to try to make it last longer.)
I’m perfectly aware this will be small comfort, but this reader (and his kids) will definitely be picking up this book now (it was already on our radar, but now it’s a definite).
I just finished reading Fangirl yesterday, and it was amazing, so I’d been thinking about picking up some other books by Rainbow Rowell anyway. Eleanor & Park just moved higher on my list.
Parent of E&P reader here, first-time caller.
This has been my favorite book this year. It is so gorgeous and moving and sweet and meaningful, I could plotz. I let my 11-year-old read it, and she had the same reaction: it is incredible. The language is beautiful but not fancypants-labored, both characters are wonderfully drawn, the book shows how music can save your life (I too came of age musically in the 80s, and I was just swooning at the songs –Rowell compiled a playlist for the book on the interwebs if you wanna look for it), the abusive situation is harrowing but countered by a portrayal of Park’s parents’ healthy marriage, and Eleanor rescues herself as much as Park rescues her. (And hey, likewise — Park comes into his own through his love for Eleanor.) And it’s FUNNY as well as lushly romantic and sad. Did I say the best book this year thing yet?
My policy is if a children’s/YA book is banned or challenged, I buy it. (We just bought Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass, another super-well-reviewed book by another author who was just disinvited to a speaking gig by self-professed guardians-of-youthful-innocence douchebags.) I am not a super-permissive parent — my kids are not allowed to watch any Disney or Nickelodeon live-action TV (though they can watch Phineas and Ferb till the cows come home). But I do not have the right to deprive other kids to watch The Suite Life of Zack and Cody — and yes, this is an apt parallel, b/c E&P was not on a required reading list; it was an OPTION. And for the love of Judy Blume, punishing librarians takes dictatorial dickheadedness to a WHOLE NEW LEVEL. THE PARENTING WORLD IS POPULATED BY SELF-RIGHTEOUS JUDGY TYRANTS. Rest of us gotta speak up. Let our teachers and librarians do their friggin jobs.
I don’t have much to add to the conversation, everyone seems to have it covered. It’s tragic that these kids are missing out on the amazingness that is E&P and how ridiculously beside the point these complaints are. I am so sad that this is happening to such a beautiful book and wonderful author.
Brilliant interview, Mallory and Rainbow. Thank you. And Rainbow, I’m really glad Mallory talked you into doing this interview. Like you said, it’s important for books like this to be available for kids, because not every child has a rosy life and those kids can find hope in stories like yours. Please don’t let this stop you from writing more books about tough subjects. We’re here for you.
This is late, but the wonderful Linda Holmes just wrote about this interview, and some of her points are so insightful and apply to so many other things we’ve talked about on The Toast that I want to tell everyone about them, especially this paragraph:
“If sealing this particular book off from young readers tells them anything, I fear it will be, ‘If something like this happens to you — if people swear at you, or they call you a slut, or they make comments about your body — don’t tell anyone, because talking about how hard it is to survive this is no excuse for letting any of these words or ideas or issues come out of your mouth.'”
Full article here.
I haven’t had the chance to read this book yet but it is on my TBR, I’ve just had too many prior commitments. Anyways after reading this I’m definitely ready to read it even more and it makes me want to buy a ton of the teenagers in my family this book. It seems to me that it would help kids that are bullied or are even doing the bullying to see things in a different perspective. I am from a TINY town and I know that some parents like to keep their kids sheltered. Now to each their own…but I don’t think this should effect every kid in that area. Also I don’t care where you are from I’m 100% positive that there sweet, innocent child has either heard all those words and more on a daily basis at school or has said them themselves. Sorry but that’s the reality of it. You can only shelter so much. Taking away books from kids is not the way to do it when there is no legitimate basis to it. I’m especially appalled by the fact that they want the librarians punished. They did nothing wrong. They thought like any logical adult and thought “you know I bet a lot of kids can relate to this and just maybe it can touch them in some way that I can’t and help them somehow”. It honestly made me tear up a little knowing that Rainbow is so hurt by this, which is expected, but definitely not deserved. I feel sad for the librarians, the school district, and all the kids that are having this done to them. It’s just not fair. Great interview Mallory.
Let me admit 2 things: I haven’t read E & P yet, though it is on my TBR list. Secondly, I am from MN and I live one district over from Anoka Hennepin and know it fairly well. I am completely floored by how far 2 angry parents have taken this situation. I feel horrible for the librarians, and for the kids who have enjoyed the book and will enjoy the book still. I have a close teacher friend in that district and can’t wait to get her opinion.
To rainbow: please still consider a trip to the Twin Cities!!
The last few lines of the interview made me well up. Beautifully said, Rainbow Rowell. Here’s hoping thousands more teens get the chance to read your stories.
Well of course, I have to go buy this book now for my 13 year old daughter. Thanks, parents against whatever for your recommendation!
Coming in a bit late, but thanks to this post I downloaded Eleanor & Park for my Kindle yesterday evening – and stayed up until 3 am until I finished the book. I then went to sleep and dreamed about it.
I can’t really describe how this book has touched my heart, but it has. I loved them both, and Eleanor’s family really struck me in a painful way because it reminded me of the family of a (very dysfunctional) guy I dated in my early twenties. The same sense of claustrophobia and tension and a bit of wildness was there.
I could ramble all day, so I’ll just say – thank you for this interview, Mallory, and thank you Rainbow for sharing this beautiful book with us.
I literally downloaded it immediately after reading this article and will be reading it as I’m treadmilling my way to certain death tonight. I love it when people get all huffy over a book- it gives me a new one to read!
I am a librarian in Florida, and I have both read E&P and recommended it, highly, to teens I think might like it. It saddens me to no end that my fellow professionals are being/ have been punished for doing the same. It is my job to monitor my child’s reading habits, and it’s other parents’ job to monitor their own children. Personally I don’t feel my daughter could find a better book than this.
Plus, based on what I overhear from teens in my library in passing – or see on the FB pages displayed on their monitors as I walk by – they themselves are the source of much fouler language and explicit sexual commentary than anything I’ve seen in a book thus far.
This isn’t about small towns; Anoka is just an outer suburb of Minneapolis. Ugh. I’m embarrassed for Minnesota – this is not us! There are still a dozen places here where you could come to speak. In fact, I’m sending this link to a few organizers I know. Anoka is just a little Peyton Place if they let a few loud parents take over. And I”m getting the book. Stick to your guns! You know what they say about publicity…
I find this so sad, but hopefully in light of this and because of this, these kids actually go out of their way to read the book. You know kids, tell them don’t do something and they actually will do it. So I am hoping that because of these people that the kids at the schools go out of their way to read your book.
We are all so scared. I’m sorry the book and the author were treated this way, but like the author’s sister, I’m also concerned that these parents think THIS book should be censored. It suggests, first, that they can’t absorb the book’s positive messages, and second, they have no idea what world their children are coping with every day–much less what will equip their children to be safe in that world. Keeping writing. With the overwhelmingly positive response the book has received elsewhere, this development reflects on a notably backward county in Minnesota far more than it does on the book or the author.
I’m a YA librarian in a small rural town in Minnesota. I am happy to report that Eleanor and Park is constantly checked out, read, and raved about by teens and adults alike.
The fact that Rainbow was disinvited shows what power a few bullying parents have. I don’t know the insider story, but one would hope that the library policy will at the very least keep the book on the shelf. That’s why we have those policies, and that is why we have the freedom of information to back us up. I hope that others in the school district are speaking up, showing that very few feel that way about the book.
Good luck to Rainbow, and I have to say, we would be THRILLED to have her come to our library!
As an Anoka-Hennipen student, I am very concerned with the issue revolving around the censorship of this book, and, in response, I have started the following petition(warning, semi-long read):
We, the Anoka Hennepin students (and/or staff) who have signed this petition, do not support the plan to ban the book Eleanor and Park from our school libraries. While we acknowledge the right of the organization which is attempting to ban this book, (Parent’s Action League) as parents, to control what their own children read. However, we do not believe that this organization should be given the right to control what other people’s children read. We believe that the Anoka-Hennepin school board should reject the plan to ban this book, for the following reasons.
A: Morals differ from culture to culture, and even between groups within a culture. This proposal represents an attempt by one group of people within a culture to impose their moral standard on all other groups in their area.
B: Throughout the course of history, people in positions of power have tried to eliminate ideas that they have found threatening. Some examples of these leaders who have waged war on ideas are Jehoiakim of Judah, Qin Shi Huang, Adolph Hitler, and Mao Zedong. Besides censorship, these other thing that these rulers are known for is the brutal dictatorship with which they ruled. The Anoka-Hennepin students who have signed this petition do not believe that the name of the Anoka-Hennepin school board should be added to this list of names.
C: The challenge to this book is somewhat insubstantial. While the book Eleanor and Park does contain some profanity, it is, in all likelihood, no different from the type of language that the average Anoka-Hennepin student hears on a daily basis in the hallways, bathrooms, locker rooms, and lunch tables of their high school. This is a sad fact, but that does not make it any less true.
D: Although the Parent’s Action League most likely wishes to decrease the number of Anoka-Hennepin students that read the challenged book, there is a strong chance that a ban would have the opposite effect. What is meant by this is that because of this controversy, students will become more interested in Eleanor and Park, and will attempt to gain access to a copy and read it even though they would not have been interested in this action before a ban was discussed. For this reason also, a ban would be ineffective, because students would bring the book in from outside sources not affected by this ban.
E: Even if the Parent’s Action League is utterly and completely insistent on this issue, an outright ban is not the only option. Other options include having this book accessible to upper-classmen only, and having the book accessible only accessible to students whose parents have signed a form that informs them about the content of the book.
F: Banning Eleanor and Park from our school district libraries would generate negative media publicity, of the variety commonly referred to as “bad press.” In our opinion, Anoka-Hennepin school district does not need any more “bad press” after the recent controversy involving Rolling Stone magazine.
For these reasons, the Anoka Hennepin students (and/or staff) who have signed this document below, do not support the plan to ban the book Eleanor and Park from the school libraries in our district.
At press time, I and the other members of my Humanities class have gathered over 150 signatures. So, in answer to Ms. Rowell’s concern: yes, someone is willing to do something to fight censorship in Anoka County.
I bought and read Eleanor & Park! What a beautiful glimpse of reality. I am a product of Anoka-Hennepin school district, as are my children; a small group of closed minded people make me embarrassed by this fact.
My kids can read whatever they want to read and this will make them better citizens.
Even though Rainbow Rowell’s reading at Anoka County Library was canceled, Avalon School in St. Paul and St. Paul Public Libraries are welcoming her and inviting the public to hear a reading from Eleanor & Park and join in a conversation about censorship. The events are next Wednesday, October 30th. More details here: http://www.sppl.org/rainbow
As a Minnesotan, this makes me very sad and angry. Unfortunately, the Anoka-Hennepin School District has had issues in the past in dealing with anti-gay bullying. Just do a Google search and you’ll find a number of articles, including when the Southern Poverty Law Center got involved. Unfortunately, much of the school district is in Representative Michele Bachmann’s district and a deep vein of intolerance and ‘Christian’ radicalism has taken root there. It’s not surprising, given their history. Still, one would hope this could open a dialogue there about censorship and allowing a small group to dictate how things should be run for all children in the district. Parents need to educate themselves and then do what’s in the best interest of their children, not be swayed by religious ideologues.
It’s truly sad and narrow-minded of them to do what they did.. why they had to bring a whole district or school even to such level… it’s ridiculous. i understand their purpose but… I have read loads of books that would be viewed as obscene and absolutely inappropriate for 13 yrs. old and up (heck, even 20 yr. olds shouldn’t read it) and Eleanor & Park is not one of them. NOT EVEN CLOSE.
Rainbow Rowell did a wonderful job on the book and does not deserve such kind of scrutiny.
I am in the middle of reading this right now and it is absolutely beautiful, Do I think it could have been written with a little less cursing? Yeah. But that is the way Rainbow Rowell, the artist chose to write it. I don’t think kids are going to be corrupted by reading it. I am sure they hear more than that at lunch. The people who think that they are sheltering their kids are a little naive.
Wonderful Interview. Thank you.
Yesterday I got the email from goodreads with Eleanore and Park as the number 1 teen fiction. In the comments it spoke of it be censored so I immediately downloaded and stayed up reading it all night. But I couldn’t figure out what it had been banned. Until this article…. It was the cussing???? huh…wow. What I don’t understand is how it is ok to have YA literature flooded with dystopia stories full of senseless violence committed by children. Our cultures celebrates these stories by turning them into blockbuster hits.
In the book Park states Eleanore was like art because she made him feel. This book is like that a piece of art that makes you feel. I loved every word. It made reality beautiful. it saddens me that some people fear the beauty of the real world.
I’m from Minnesota, and I’m so ashamed that this censorship happened here!!! Eleanor & Park is beautiful, and I LOVED it!!! There have been other disgusting problems in that same school district. I think there is a SMALL pocket of crazies who know how to rock the boat. What a shame. They can’t see the forest for the trees.
A beautiful interview between Mallory and Rainbow.
I have never experienced my first love, not yet anyway. And I’ve wondered how it may feel like to have someone that will make me feel perfect when I haven’t changed a bit or become my safe haven when the world around me seems like hell. Someone that encourages me to rise against all odds and face what has been imprisoning me.
‘Eleanor & Park’ has laid all of those possibilities out for me to explore, to help me believe that a feeling that connected Eleanor and Park is real. There is nothing wrong for someone to believe, in fact it is what children do best. Imagination is what makes man-kind unique. Someone – especially a parent – should know better than ruining their child’s hope.
Regarding the cursing and swearing, unfortunately there is no way to stop it from influencing anyone. If it’s not from books, then it will be from family, friends, classmates, movies, the internet – the list is endless. Swearing has become a large part of our society, sheltering your children will only make them naïve. A family like Eleanor’s definitely exists somewhere here on Earth and someone is definitely as foul as her step-father out there right now, it is a simple fact. Banning a book will not stop someone like Richie, Eleanor’s step-father, continuing to be abusive to children.
Rainbow, you are such a talented writer and I have been extremely moved by your writing. You are an author who continues to strike my heart. I love what I see in your books, your interviews and I know I will love you in person. Thank-you, for blessing your readers and fans with your gift (and I love 80’s music, so I’m with you, girl). If you ever drop by ‘The Land Down Under’, stop and say ‘hi’.
Sincerely,
A 14-Year Old Girl.
This event first came to my attention through a friend’s post on Facebook – we both attended Anoka High School – and now her children do. She was rightly shocked and horrified that a small group of parents could seemingly intimidate the school district and even the county libraries into not only pulling the author event but also the books from the shelves. Many of my family and hers are teachers in the same district. I cannot explain how this has happened – Anoka is not a small town any more (not that small towns have the monopoly on the narrow-mindedness that leads to censorship) but a suburb of Minneapolis-St Paul, which is a pretty hip and not hysterical place on the whole. When I was attending Anoka High School, in the 1980s – the same era that Eleanor & Park is set in, it was the largest high school in the state of Minnesota and there were at one time over 1100 students in my grade. It was like a John Hughes film – with plenty of cliques and lots of swearing, even. I am sure I had lots of friends whose parents considered themselves Christian, but I can’t imagine anyone getting so worked up over a book – worried enough about its potential damaging influence not merely to choose not to buy it for their children but to launch a campaign to prevent its author from speaking at an event that local teens could attend AND to put pressure on librarians to remove it so that NO child in the school or local area could access it easily. Such people must have existed in the 1980s – that I don’t remember them suggests that they simply weren’t taken seriously then, even in Anoka.
Anyway, I was intrigued and outraged in equal measure when I read what had happened. Outraged for obvious reasons, as others have outlined in these comments. But also personally – I still have many friends and family not just in the area but working in schools in this district and they deserve better. Librarians and teachers are professionals who care deeply about the children in their care and know what they are doing – they deserve to have their professional judgement trusted by their employers, and, when necessary, defended against senseless attacks. (One of my classmates is now the president of the local teachers’ union and summed this up better than I can in a letter to the school board: http://ahemweekly.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/statemen…
Finally I was intrigued because although I do not live in Anoka anymore, I am a school librarian and I had not yet come across this book – or this author. I looked the books up and saw some nice endorsements from John Green, a writer whose work I’ve enjoyed and which is very popular at my school. The next thing I did was to order Rainbow Rowell’s books for our library. So, Rainbow, if you ever in London, and fancy talking to some students about your writing and/or the importance of freedom of speech, you’ve got an open invite to our school. Eleanor & Park may well feature in our next Banned Books display…
God, I’m currently quite baffled to hear that some parents considered Eleanor & park to be “pornographic”, seeing how I loved the book for not being shallowly focused on pure sexual attraction between the characters, nor having any explicit sex scenes in it at all, but ratehr delivering a realistic account of falling in love for the first time.
Makes you wonder if they read the same book I did… oh, wait, silly me, “No two persons ever read the same book”.
Elenor and Park gave me all the feels – it was just such a fantastic, touching book. It’s awful that some jerks try to control what other people read. Makes me want to buy a million copies of E & P and pass them out to teenagers everywhere.
I LOVED Eleanor & Park and while I think parts of it are permanently imprinted on my brain (that first handholding scene, for one) I would never have guessed it would’ve been banned for profanity because that is not at all what stuck out to me. It wasn’t at all gratuitous, it was just part of what made the whole book have that feeling of truth.