Speak. Loudly.

Dear Blog,

I am one of the (no doubt hundreds) of bloggers and twitterers (tweeters?) who is totally outraged by this article, which you've probably read by now.  The main cause for my anger is that the article, written by a Dr. Wesley Scroggins, is "soft pornography." 

Yes, I mean  a book that deals with the aftermath of the rape of a teenage girl.  The idea that it is anything else is, excuse my language, utter crap.

I quote from the article here-

In high school English classes, children are required to read and view material that should be classified as soft pornography.

Um, excuse me?! Either he hasn't read it, and is just acting on complaints of other parents, or he is very disturbed if he finds that rape is pornography. 

One such book is called "Speak." ...As the main character in the book is alone with a boy who is touching her female parts, she makes the statement that this is what high school is supposed to feel like. The boy then rapes her on the next page. Actually, the book and movie both contain two rape scenes.
I seriously doubt that this Wesley Scroggins, the writer of the article, has even read Speak.  Unless I missed something, then there's only one rape scene in the book.  And it isn't even graphic. It's more about what Melinda feels like, and what's going through her head. Nay, I suppose any readers 13+ could read the book.
And, what, then?  We read about sexual assault in newspapers and on the television and the radio- so why should books be any different? What world does Scroggins live in if he thinks that such novels corrupt our safe, happy childhood innocence?
It makes you wonder what Scroggins was like as a teenager, actually.  Another part of the article proceeds to talk about the evils of sex education being taught to eighth-graders, to which I can only say; better we young'uns know about the, erm, ways of the world than we don't.  The teenage pregnancy rate here in England is the highest in Europe. Surely Scroggins' way of wanting to keep us all in the dark is only encouraging that?

The very idea of banning Speak  is to my mind ludicrous.  Speak has helped many people come to terms with all shapes and sizes of abuse since it was first published in 1999.  It faces the brutal truth, which otherwise would be just swept under the carpet and left there for years, silent, smoldering into nothingness like the unspoken (that's the poet in me coming out), which Melinda tries so hard to hide in Speak.  But you know what the message is? There's a clue in the title.  Speak up. 

The article also attacks Twenty Boy Summer and  Slaughterhouse-Five, neither of which I've actually read, but, still.  Slaughterhouse is one of those Great Works of Literature everybody praises, but of which Groggins says "...is a book that contains so much profane language, it would make a sailor blush with shame. The "f word" is plastered on almost every other page."

 Does he honestly think that teenagers have never encountered swearing?  We hear far worse things on the streets and in schools than between pages of books. 

There are almost 300 comments on the article, however, most of which argue against Croggins. And as well as a multitude of blog entries (here and here and several other  places too) on the subject and a twitter thread, #SpeakLoudly.  So, well, yay for all the people who are standing up to Scroggins and speaking. Loudly.  

Foreign Language Friday: Inkdeath

Dear Blog,

As I write, it is Thursday. I’m writing this entry on my laptop at 10pm because I’m out pretty much all day tomorrow. My laptop doesn’t have the internet on it, but tomorrow morning I might have time to copy over this entry to my blog on the main computer downstairs and publish it. .

I must admit it seems a little funny to be reviewing the third book in a trilogy without having mentioned the other two on my blog. But I read the other two a while back and I only read Inkdeath a couple of weeks ago, and it’s still fresh in my memory. I’m planning to re-read the first two books in the trilogy-Inkheart and Inkspell-at some point soon, so I’ll review them too.

Name: Inkdeath

Written by: Cornelia Funke

First published in: Germany as Tintentod

Translated by: Anthea Bell.

Summary (from the blurb): Life in the Inkworld has been far from easy since the extraordinary events of Inkspell, when the story if Inkheart magically drew Meggie, Mo and Dustfinger back into its pages.

With Dustfinger dead, and the evil Adderhead now in control, the story in which they are all caught has taken an unhappy turn. Even Elinor, left alone in the real world, believes her family to be lost-lost between the pages of a book.

But as winter comes on there is reason to hope-if only Meggie and Mo can rewrite the wrongs of the past and make a dangerous deal with death…

Review: Apparently following JK Rowling, Cornelia Funke is the most popular children’s author. And with reason! I first encountered her when I was nine, and I borrowed the audiobook of The Thief Lord from the library. I put it in our family’s car and I used to be disappointed when we walked to and fro. I kept asking my mother if we could take the car instead.

I devoured Inkheart when I was ten or eleven and read Inkspell about a year later, so it made me so very happy when Inkdeath came out. I rushed out and bought it in hardcover.

Inkheart was amazing. I loved it! A book about books! What could be better?! And though it wasn’t quite as fantastic, Inkspell kept me up late for several nights in a row as well. All the twists and turns of the plot had me spellbound, the magical characters leapt off the page.

Alas, in Inkdeath, the twists and turns of aforementioned plot were too many to keep track of. It was like wandering around in a big maze. Only a few things mattered, really: defeating the Adderhead, keeping Meggie and Farid together, and returning to normality. So why did the author throw in a load of other characters and give practically each one their own plotline? Concentrating and making sense of it was like untangling a big ball of wool. And as a knitter, I know how infuriating that can be. There was an epic cast of characters and locations at the back. It doesn’t need to be 712 pages, dear blog.

And what happened to what characters I actually cared about? Meggie turned into a small, spineless, simpering shadow (no alliteration intended) of the awesome heroine she was in the first two books. She kicked butt (that doesn’t sound quite so cool with my English accent as it does when Americans say it. Please can an American just read this paragraph aloud to say it as it was intended?). But in this book she just pined after Farid the whole time. There’s no time for teenage angst, my friend. The Inkworld needs saving! You’ve got to get out there and restore everything! Yeah! *punches air*

She seemed to fade away into the background to be replaced by…

Mo. Who for no apparent reason became the Bluejay even though he kept saying he wasn’t. I think he was supposed to be the real “hero” of the story. Alas. I’m afraid children don’t find it as thrilling when adults save the day. At least this one doesn’t. 

Indeed. Meggie and Farid, what spineless little creatures they were in this book, seemed to be the only children around. Did Cornelia Funke forget who she was writing for? Even if she was writing for under 18-year-olds, Inkdeath is much darker stuff than the first two books and seems much more like a teenage book than the first two.

Two things: as ever, Anthea Bell does a top job of translating. She was the genius behind the transformation of The Princess and the Captain from French into English, and she does it again! Another thing: the illustrations at the end of most of the chapters and the quotes from books at the start of each chapter are cool. The illustrations are pretty, but, well, that doesn’t make up for the story I’m afraid.

Summary: Definitely, in my opinion, the worst of the three in the trilogy. Anybody who read and loved the first two would stay away, or at least borrow the paperback copy from the library instead of blowing £12.99 on the hardback edition. Sorry, Cornelia Funke. As much as I love the rest of your books, Inkdeath wasn’t much fun at all. I feel really guilty rating this 2, but I need to be honest.  

*sigh*

Review: The Fall

Dear Blog,

this will be a very short review, because my mother keeps nagging me to finish a hat I'm knitting.  I don't think she realises that knitting is supposed to be fun.    Oh well, that's my mother for you.

So in an attempt to get out of repeatedly poking myself with double-pointed needles, dropping and losing count of stitches and misreading the pattern, I'll review The Seventh Tower: The Fall by Garth Nix.  Then I must face this stupid hat. 

I was interested in reading this because I'm a HUGE fan of the Old Kingdom Trilogy. They're probably some of the best books I've ever read. So when the Seventh Tower was released in the UK I was excited and voted for it at a book club I go to. Compared to two other books shortlisted for What We'll Read Next, The Fall won. I sat down in a quiet corner with it ready to be as wowed as I was by Sabriel.    
Alas, it was, in four words: Not The Old Kingdom. In five, Definitely Not the Old Kingdom.


This is for many reasons.  In short, compared to the wonderfully thought-up world that is the Old Kingdom, Tal's world is definitely not as mind-blowing. Tal himself seems underdeveloped and I had no reason to feel sympathetic towards him. That said, none of the characters had me rooting for them.  Are we supposed to like Milla? *shrugs*  Perhaps so, but I didn't.

It's just, well, too short.   Which is funny, really, considering the preceding sentence is: much like A Series of Unfortunate Events, the series doesn't need to be so long.  There are seven books, which could be compressed into two or three and certainly made much more interesting (but A Series of Unfortunate Events just got samey after a while).  It's too short for you to relate to the characters, for there to be a proper plot.   I can say much the same for the second book, Castle, which I've also read and I put down thinking, "Okay, so they got into the castle...apart from that, what else did they achieve?"
Nothing seems properly explained.  Why, exactly, are the Sunstones so important?  What illness is it that threatens his mother's life?  Perhaps these questions are just left unanswered so you buy the other six books. 

However.  Maybe this is all just because I've read the Old Kingdom trilogy and to me no other book by Garth Nix will ever live up to it.  I'm sure if I hadn't read them then I would have enjoyed The Fall much more than I did.  I can sort of imagine my ten-year-old self reading them and probably going "wow!", much as my own little sister does with this series. 

Summary:  Give it to any  9-13 year-old who's slightly too young for the OKT.  They can read Sabriel later and be blown away by it.  But anybody who has read it probably won't like it much. Because I fall into the latter group, I'll give it a 2.
Meh.