Censorship vs. YA: Ultimate Fighting Smackdown XXXVIII

A friend’s recent blog post led me to this train of thought, so I’m going to ride on her coattails for today.

For as long as there have been books for kids, there have been nosey old women who probably need to get out more declaring what is and is not appropriate for other people’s children to read. That’s not fair, I’m sure there’s a lot of nosey old men out there too.

I’m pretty liberal when it comes to censorship in that I really hate it, find it creatively restrictive, narrow-minded, and generally stupid. While I’m not advocating we start putting hardcore XXX material in Dr. Seuss, I am saying that if the natural progression of a story involves sex, drugs, death, or one of those other taboo subjects that make aforementioned old women cluck their tongues and waggle their fingers, then it should be allowed and not squashed.

Allow me to illustrate:

In R.A. Nelson’s book Teach Me, main character Carolina falls for the hilariously named Richard Mann, her high school English teacher. Dick Mann falls for her too and the two of them proceed to do naughty things to each other. I didn’t really enjoy the book for several reasons: Carolina is an arrogant, snide girl who thinks she’s better than everyone, Mann is dull, and the conclusion is tacked on and hokey, but one of the main reasons was when and how the two lovers decided to finally do the deed.

There’s a lot of talk of unrestrained passion and forbidden love, etc etc. I’m inclined to think that a grown man willing to make out with his underage student in the back of his car wouldn't draw the line at just making kissy faces. Carolina and Dick do eventually consummate their relationship, but not until after Carolina turns 18, and Nelson is very careful and clear in pointing this tidbit out to the reader.

It just seemed to me like the characters had already thrown caution and societal norms to the wind. Mann is already risking his career and jail time just by getting to first base with Carolina. In for a penny, in for a pound, right? No, wrong. Mann and Carolina display uncharacteristic restraint by waiting until Carolina is nice and legal. Either Nelson is a total wuss, or an editor came in who was worried about what the local Censor’s Knitting Circle would have to say about this sort of thing.

The book still would have been predictable and otherwise irritating, but at least the characters would have made more sense. This is when I have an issue with censorship: when it ruins the flow of a story, the message, or the characters, and nine times out of ten it does just that. It’s also insulting to the audience by treating them like naïve toddlers or incompetents, which I’ve already expressed my feelings on.

Kids who are at a level to read young adult fiction probably already know about sex, drugs, and death. I was hearing about the latter two from my local D.A.R.E. officer back in second grade, and the former was officially introduced to me three years later, though I’d heard about it from some shady first graders ages before.

Censorship isn’t all bad, but I have a hard time coming up with examples of when it’s beneficial for a work of art, “art” being the operative word. If something is really a work of art, an expression, then a censor has no place messing with it.

Censorship isn’t always just about cutting out nasty swears or mention of drugs, and it doesn’t always come from an outside source. Sometimes an author can be their own worst enemy and decide to censor themselves. I’m a member of a message board that focuses on writing for youths ranging from pre-school to high school, and there’s always some good discussion going on somewhere.

However, the board’s population is mostly composed of moms and older women who write nice stories with cheerleader spies, or picture books about how important it is to share. Which is really great, honest. Those types of books are fine by me. But it means a guy like me with a somewhat darker, more mature style of writing is often at odds with the general consensus. One writer once said she felt it was our responsibility as authors to give our young audience uplifting stories that ended well and gave everybody hope and a smile.

Bullshit.

I wasn’t so blunt in person of course, but that’s some unrefined bullshit. My one and ONLY responsibility as an author is to tell a good story. Everything else is secondary. Conveying a meaningful theme, enlightening the reader, giving them hope for tomorrow, are all take a back seat to telling a good story. Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War is a very good story that ends on a very low note. He didn’t fail in his responsibility as an author because his main character is seriously down in the dumps by the last page. Making everything sunshine and gummi bears because you feel you have to is a form of self censorship. Don’t do it.

If your story naturally has a happy ending, awesome. If your story is very much a gloomy affair, focusing on darker and more serious aspects of life, and you just feel compelled to wedge your Brady Bunch conclusion in there, stop. Think. Don’t stop yourself from putting in a sad or scary ending just because it’s sad or scary. That’s you censoring yourself and having it mess with the flow and feel of your story. The end result is going to be a sub-par narrative, and a rightfully pissed off audience.

I’ve had to do this sometimes. I’ll be writing something for a young YA or older middle grade crowd and think, “Maybe this is too much.” So I’ll ask myself, is it in character? Does it make sense plot wise? Is it gratuitous? If the answers are yes, yes, and no respectively, it stays, even if it makes me a little anxious or unsure. I may come back later and fix it, but sometimes I just have to stop worrying what my mom will think if she ever reads my stuff and go with it.

To sum up, censorship, from outside or within, eats shit on toast most of the time.

And Richard Mann is a hilarious name.