Children Read is a local organization that is working to provide books for children who have limited to access to books. This is happening right here in our hometown:
Young Adult Novels w/ POC protagonists
I browse Buzzfeed throughout the day way more often than I would like to admit, but I stumbled upon this cool list of Young Adult novels…
Where The Wild Things Are
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The banned or challenged children’s book I chose is Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. This book was banned because people considered aspects of the book witchcraft and supernatural. The story is about a young boy named Max. After dressing in his wolf costume, he causes problems around his household. He is sent to bed without his supper. Max’s bedroom turns into a jungle environment. He ends up sailing to an island inhabited by malicious beasts known as the “Wild Things.” After intimidating the creatures, Max is hailed as the king of the Wild Things. This book has been challenged since it became published in 1963 up until now. I figured that it was a great choice for my censorship paper since it’s extremely influential in children’s literature.
Censorship Paper (Extra Credit)
And Tango Makes Three is very interesting to me because it is introduced to children at an early age and is a very much a banned book. I also did not think about the book is targeted towards young children, so I decided to change to a popular book called The House on Mango Street. The book was written by a Latino American, and it was about a little girl named Esperanza. It outlines the hardships of growing up Mexican in America and trying to hide her race to fit and conform to what the world sees as “perfect.” She idealizes the “American Dream,” and living on Mango Street was not what she envisioned. Esperanza also noticed how hard women have it living on Mango Street. There is violence and hardship throughout the book, but it ends on a good note in the end. Esperanza realized she would never be able to leave the women behind and she decides to stay. 
Round Table
Scott Westerfeld answers this question by relating a young adults life to that of a dystopian community. He primarily focuses on school and how we are subject to dress codes, have limited freedom of speech rights, are constantly under surveillance, and rise and sit when we hear a bell. He says that because we are constantly being controlled, books about the government breaking down or being attacked continue to be popular now more than ever.
I personally agree with his opinion. Some of my favorite books and movies deal with the government being taken over by kids or young adults fighting for their freedom against those in power. It is true when he says that we are constantly being controlled and told what to do or how to act. I feel that because of this, our creativity is often times impaired and we lack the ability to think outside the box. In fact, some people become so used to this pattern that when change comes along they do not welcome it.
Westerfeld’s commentary can definitely be related to The Giver. In The Giver, everyone in the community is under control and told to think in one way only. Similarly, students in the real world and in school are frequently treated the same way. Students no longer seem to be taught how to think critically because teachers in grades k-12 focus more facts and what will be on the next exam. There are so many underground movements that we don’t know about but should be more aware about. Students are constantly being tracked and watched in the real world, which relates to the way children are watched and tracked in The Giver as well. I think the scariest part about books on dystopian communities is how much they relate to the real world.
Censorship Note
I chose the storybook “King & King” for two specific reasons: I knew it would be controversial (it will most certainly add length to my censorship essay) and I was mildly curious to how same-sex fairy tales were constructed. I was not disappointed on both accounts as this book is as notorious as it is a game-changer for future same-sex fairy tales in the future. The book articulates the romance between two characters just as any other children’s book, expect that at the end, the prince falls for another prince, rather than a princess. The small yet enormous change caused trouble for teachers in various states as parents caused a political uprising to put an end to what their children are being taught in schools. Reports date back a few months ago suggest that parents are not alright with their children being taught about what now is a legal right for same sex relationships i.e. the right to marry. This book is one of the many steps that is aiding the vast movement in accepting a different kind of sexuality and treating it as equality.
Pure Escapism Response
In Maggie Stiefvater’s article of Pure Escapism For Young Adult Readers she explains her opinions on why the dystopian trend is so popular among teenagers and why it will continue to grow within the next several years. She explains that she doesn’t believe teenagers are reading dystopian novels because “the darkness of the subject matter” reflects their lives, but instead they find it interesting. She states that teenagers wouldn’t want to read dystopian novels if it actually reflected their lives because, “Would we be so enamored with dystopian fiction if we lived in a culture where violent death was a major concern?” Instead they read and follow the dystopian trend because it’s simply satisfying to them. Young adults like reading novels about what’s right and wrong, but while reading the novels they have to find where the good is.
I agree with the author that teenagers aren’t reading the dystopian trend because it reflects them but because they find it interesting. The whole purpose of reading is to have your imagination run free and to create an outlet of another world for yourself. I think young adults are able to relate to the characters in dystopian societies because, like the characters, the teenagers want to fight for what’s right; they want to take a stand, speak out, and change their community (or world) for the better. The connection I made with The Giver by Lois Lowry is the “black and white choices” Stiefvater mentions. Jonas was always perceived as different and that was made clear when he was named the Receiver. Jonas thought his society was “polite” and “acceptable” until the Giver gave him memories. He then learns that his community lives without passionate emotions, individuality, and creativity. His world fell on either side of the black and white spectrum but never in-between. We see that Lowry creates a story where finding the good or evil in a character is hard because he/she doesn’t know right versus wrong or good versus evil.
Paolo Bacigalupi and the Inconvenient Truth
Paolo Bacigalupi states that the popularity of dystopian literature for young adult readers stems from a desire for the truth. Bacigalupi refers to the environmental damage and the effects of global warming and how the Earth that children today will inherit will be very different than what the last generation obtained. I would have to disagree with him. While I see some truth in what he is saying, I feel that he linked it too much with his book “Ship Breaker”. While a destroyed environment can play a vital role in dystopian stories, there are plenty that don’t go in that direction, like “The Giver” for example. I think that dystopian novels are popular because they introduce young readers to grey moralities and teaching that everyone has the ability to fight for what they believe in. “The Giver” teaches the reader about grey morality, but the environment is actually doing okay outside the Community.
The Comfort of Darkness
Lisa Fraustino makes a very good point of that we readers ” want to read about the child of dystopia who makes us feel hope for mankind”. Protagonists characters like Harry Potter and Katniss Everdeen both hungry for the dystopian fantasy that we find so prominent in both series. Lisa thinks that the source of the hunger is ran by the dead in which the story takes place, is dominated by war, fear, climate change, economic hardship, class divides and an uncertain future. As readers we root for these characters to overcome the obstacles that their world faces. we as readers want to hold, but Lisa says ” the more we understand how small and powerless we really are against the immense forces that control our existence, the more we yearn to feel meaningful”. So that is why we readers read over and over about how the savior chid in the futuristic world saves society that was beyond compare. I absolutely agree with Lisa Fraustino, I am one of those readers who waited for the next Hunger Games book to come out because I wanted to see what Katniss would do next to save everyone she loves. This can most certainly be related the The Giver, I think that no matter how crazy your future is in these types of novels, readers still want an answer to have hope the the world will be saved. Readers are inspired by Jonas and the courage to defy all he knows. I know as a child reading this book for the first time I thought of how I would have acted, and what I would have done. This is exactly what the readers should feel, Jonas’s attempt to save the dystopian future of his work inspire readers to save their world.
Escaping Into a Disastrous Future
Jay Parini, author of “The Passages of H.M.,” stated that dystopian fiction is a method for young readers to relieve themselves of the pressures set by our society. He wrote that often young adults and teenagers feel as though they are caged by our society and forced to test themselves using methods that often leave them humiliated and often leave them with various levels of anxiety. He goes on to say that the dystopian novels often parallel the way the young readers feel. For example, in “The Hunger Games” novels, children are forced to fight and kill each other just to survive. Teenagers and young adults often feel this way, in a metaphorical sense. Personally, I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. When I was younger, I felt the need to demoralize kids I felt were beneath me, more than likely landing on someone’s shit list at some point. I’ve also been on the receiving end of this treatment, although not often as I had learned how to not stand out enough. “The Giver” is another example of a dystopian novel that kids can relate to. In that novel, everyone is forced to be uniform. This is similar to the way that our society has a tendency to try and make us all act the same when it was never meant for us to be the same or have the exact same outlook.