RSSChallenged books depict challenging young lives
Lois Lowry’s The Giver, Robert Newton Peck’s A Day No Pigs Would Die, and Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War are three extraordinarily well-written young adult books with strong plots, healthy protagonists, and compelling themes. These three books are similar in another way: According to the American Library Association, they have all been challenged, which means that formal requests were issued recommending their removal from bookshelves (citing, among other things, sexual content and violence, which are explained in this review).
The irony is that these three books are thought-provoking, well-written, and forceful. The reading of such books should be encouraged, precisely because realistic and alternative viewpoints and slices of life are presented. However, these books—the best in young adult literature—are confined, restricted, and removed while badly written and unimaginative books are left on the shelves.
The Giver, pseudo–science fiction in which a young man, Jonas, is selected by his community to be a Receiver of Memory, is thoughtfully penned by Lois Lowry. In a society that neither feels nor sees deeply beyond the surface, Jonas stands alone to learn, realize, and judge as taught by The Giver. He, and the reader in tandem with him, are appalled by what he learns of his perfect life. The author presents euthanasia, infanticide, and sexual awakening with calm, clear, and bold strokes. The discussion of such topics in this book came under scrutiny and, as such, the book was challenged. In a cross between Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Match Girl, the issue of morality, as weighed against acceptability in society, is presented. It is a powerful story and one for the thinking reader to discover.
In contrast, A Day No Pigs Would Die presents the life of a Shaker farm boy on the edge of adulthood. Robert Newton Peck opens the book with the graphic, no-holds-barred description of the birth of a calf. For this and other like descriptions, including that of a boar mounting a sow, the book earned challenges and its suitability to curricula was questioned. In truth, farm life is difficult and, as the author makes clear, poverty in farm life is very difficult. This book is a brutal, honest look at life, death, and the breeding and birthing of animals—with familiar and distinct discussion and abrupt clarity. It is indeed what happens on a farm. The author describes this kind of existence, and the emotions of a young boy coming to grips with that life, very well. There are no euphemisms here—just plain talk, and a rather bleak outlook.
The Chocolate War, an ugly and violent slice of high-school life finely and realistically presented by Robert Cormier, has been both challenged and banned on numerous occasions. Included in this book are episodes of masturbation, rough language, and an ending that culminates in a vividly described beating—all of which are integral and in keeping with the book’s theme of integrity as a stance against evil. The Chocolate War centers around a school’s endorsement and sponsorship of chocolates and the policies enforced by a secretive, power-hungry society of students. The protagonist, Jerry Renault, refuses to sell chocolates and, consequently, stands alone and defenseless—trapped between a sadistic instructor and the equally twisted leader of the secret society. Objections to the book were voiced regarding its negative outlook and even bleaker finish. The book may be pessimistic but, again, there are no punches pulled. Robert Cormier calls it straight and plain, and illustrates, much as we would like to believe otherwise, that sometimes integrity doesn’t prevail.
All three books show merit. All three are finely written. Far from being banned or challenged for removal, they should be read for their content and views by those in junior high school, high school, and beyond. They are provocative classics in the best sense of the word.