Earlier this week, one of our local high schools pulled a book from its summer reading list after a parent complained about its content. (Read the Post and Courier article about the book’s removal
here.) The book?
Some Girls Are by Courtney Summers. The school, West Ashley High School. We want to let all West Ashley High School students (and anyone else who would like to read the banned book) know that the Charleston County Public Library carries multiple copies within its Young Adult collection. Not only do we carry it, we encourage everyone to read the award-winning and necessary novel.
Rising ninth graders enrolled in Honors English I had to pick between two books, Summers’ or Paul Volponi’s
Rikers High, and have the book of their choosing read before the first day of school.
Rikers High follows a boy awaiting trial in New York; Summers’ book chronicles Regina Afton’s fall from popularity after she is nearly raped by her best friend’s boyfriend. Regina is then threatened, ostracized, bullied, and physically harmed by her former friends — as are the few people who have stuck by her side.
Well, that content was deemed inappropriate by a mother of an incoming freshman. And that is her right. She can want her daughter to read the other book on the list. She can express her dissatisfaction with the selection of the book. She can write
editorials until the cows come home about it. But that’s where it should end. One mother should not be able to dictate what appropriate reading material for a whole classroom is. However, that is exactly what has happened at West Ashley High School.
To respond to the parent’s grievance, Principal Lee Runyon added
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn to the list of options, hoping to offer a milder choice in terms of content. But even that wasn’t enough. Now the book has been pulled off the list completely, robbing other students of the chance to read a book that examines some very real struggles teenagers face growing up. (Note: Some Girls Are has been replaced by Laurie Halse Anderson’s
Speak, which also examines rape culture in high school.)
Yes, there is drinking in Some Girls Are. And drugs. And sex. And foul language. But you know what, there is drinking, drugs, sex, and foul language in high school, in life. Not everyone participates in it, but it is there and it is real. You know what else is in high school? Mean girls and boys, bullies. These are just some of the battles — all of which are addressed in Summers’ book— that today’s teenagers face while trying to navigate their high school careers and start finding out who they are. These students need to have ways to relate to what they are dealing with, whether that’s through peers or elders, books or movies. They need outlets to understand what is happening, to discuss what bothers them, upsets them, confuses them. And one of those outlets has just been stripped away from them because of one person.
Make no mistake, this is a form of censorship. The school was not advocating for students to participate in any of the “questionable” deeds from the book; these actions — drinking, using drugs, sex — were not being condoned. The book was selected because of its relatability; it was an opportunity to provide a jumping off point for some very real and frank discussions. It’s a book that, since its publication, has been used to help reluctant readers learn that not all reading is boring or hard or unrelatable. It’s a book that, sadly, reads more like a true account of the high school experience for far too many people. The book’s subject matter is difficult, but that’s what makes the book such a necessity.
Courtney Summers knows that
Some Girls Are was pulled from the reading list, and she wrote a response on her Facebook page as well as her
tumblr page. Being the brilliant author that she is, Summers perfectly and eloquently addresses what happens when we censor reading material from teens: “We don’t protect teen readers by denying the realities many of them are faced with. Often, in doing so, we deny them a lifeline.”
Let’s not deny any more lifelines for teenagers, they need as many as we can offer.
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