SCUMBLE, by Ingrid Law

If you read Ingrid Law's SAVVY of a couple years ago, you have to read SCUMBLE! And even if you missed the first one, don't worry, they're companion novels, and you don't have to read them in any particular order. If you haven't heard of them yet, well, Walden Media is making SAVVY into a movie, so chances are you'll meet up with it eventually. But why wait? Read it today!

SCUMBLE is lovely. It's one of those books you read (and reread) as a kid that becomes a part of you. The main character is Ledge, younger cousin to Mibs, who you met in SAVVY. In this kind of family, there are a lot of changes that come when you turn 13. Not the least of which is that you get a savvy--a peculiar-to-you talent that no one else can do. Like the ability to can radio broadcasts in jars. Or the ability to stir up a hurricane. Or have electric charges come out of your fingertips. Ledge is excited to get his savvy--until it hits. His savvy is breaking things, and at the rate he's going, there won't be much left to break soon. Keeping the damage under control while his family goes to a wedding at Uncle Autry's farm in Wyoming is tricky enough. Throw in a nosy neighbor girl and her determined-to-own-the-town father, and Ledge's problems have only just begun. Highly recommended!

SPEAK

Okay, it's hardly news now, but I've had an incredibly busy week so far and have not had a chance to post my thoughts on the recent attempt to ban Laurie Halse Anderson's book SPEAK from a Springfield, MO area school. I have read many, much more eloquent posts on the topic, but I did want to add my thoughts to the world at large.

The short version, in case you don't live in the YA book world like I do: a guy wrote an editorial calling for SPEAK to be removed from the schools because he believes it to be "soft porn." He called for the removal of a couple other books which I have not read, therefore I can't comment on. But I can comment on SPEAK. SPEAK is an uncomfortable book, yes. But it isn't pornography! Pornography is meant to titillate, to excite. This man seems to feel that SPEAK promotes teen sex. The message of SPEAK is the exact opposite: rape is WRONG, and we as individuals and as a society need to stand up against it, as well as help the victims of this kind of violent crime. Believe me, it does not make you want to run out and have sex. It makes you want to be a hermit and not talk to anyone.

Two weeks or so ago I listened to a youth therapist share stories of kids who had survived terrible things. (He told us about survivors—I am sure he knows many who did not survive.) He talked about secrets, how every town has them, and how it is incredibly hard to talk about secrets, even when they are terrible, even when they are happening to you. When you are a victim of one of those kinds of secrets, or even if you are keeping the secret for someone else, there is an imbalance of power that seals your mouth, even as you are desperate for help. I would add that even when he or she is an innocent victim and supposedly in a safe place, a secret keeper (speaking again of the bad kind of secrets) may feel guilty for the things that are happening. They shouldn’t. But they often do. And so a person coming directly to them to pry open the secret can find there is resistance to admitting to it, to talking about it. Because doing that acknowledges, I am broken. I am unfixable. I am nothing.

Mr. Crutcher’s observation was that taking a book about some completely fictional character who has undergone something similar and sharing it with a real-life victim gave a completely different result. Suddenly, people were able to talk about things. Explore what “the character” could do to find help. Discuss the obstacles that might be in the way. And, in some cases (documented in countless letters to countless authors of those difficult books, Chris Crutcher and Laurie Halse Anderson included), that book has been a lifeline to safety and healing.

Well, my kid hasn't had that experience, you may say. But the book shows an all-too-common scenario of what could happen to a kid who isn't looking for it, who is innocent, who doesn't realize that other people don't have quite as innocent intentions. It's not just a book to help those who have been hurt. It's to prevent that hurt as well. If you are a parent who doesn't want your kids going to parties with alcohol involved, then this book agrees with you.

And that's why I feel this book needs to be available in the schools. Speak is a book about a girl who had no idea what she was getting into, who gets raped, and consequently feels she is broken, unfixable. Silent. And it’s how she finds a way to not be a victim anymore. It isn’t a fun, curl-up-with-the-hot-chocolate sort of book. But it’s a voice and a rescuing hand for many people. Maybe some victims have no problem finding help at home. But unfortunately, most rapes are committed by people the victim had reason to trust. That's why we need open doors to help in neutral locations, like schools and libraries.

That's why silencing this book would be like silencing the victims, and giving the perpetrators a voice.