The Year They Burned the Books by Nancy Garden
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
When I studied journalism, in college, this was before personal computers became common. There were computers in the work room, where we could enter our stories, but these were before the mouse, and you had to code bolds, and italics, and fun stuff like that. This was before what became known as Desktop Publishing, so all the text were printed out and pasted onto the sheet, and then sent off to the print shop to put together.
I bring this up, because, kids-these-days™ probably think all the discussions about layout and printing and such might seem out of date, and since this book was written in the 90s, it does feel a bit out of date. It was before the Internet had become so big, before Wikipedia, before most of the websites that are out there today. That is why the kids, in this book, have to go to the library to research newspapers. It seems like another world, and yet, it was less then a quarter century ago.
But, while the technology might be old fashioned, the message of this book, is, unfortunately still around, that there is a group of conservatives who feel they have to impose their brand of morality on the rest of the world.
And their version of morality says that teens should not have sex, should not be gay, and should not even know about either sex, or homosexuality, because that will protect them.
I wish I could say the fight is old, and doesn’t happen any more, but it does.
There is a great line in the book, after the majority of parents vote to not offer sex education or “certain” books in the library.
“The opinion of the majority is important,” Mr. Just said. “But the majority must never be allowed to tyrannize the minority–nor must the minority be allowed to tyrannize the majority.”
Great book, though it started a little slow. By the time I got half way through my heart was breaking for the closeted teens, and their fight with the family-values parents.
If you want to read other books with teens, censorship, and “morality” minded parents, I would suggest Americus.
Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.