December 10, 2009

News to me

According to this article describing a Muncie, Indiana mother's thus far unsuccessful efforts to get Nancy Garden's Endgame removed from her son's school library, King Dork was complained about and removed from two middle school libraries in the area earlier this year.

Endgame sounds rather edgy and disturbing (and the kid's dad probably has a point that in our current zero-tolerance environment no student could get away with turning in an assignment dealing with the same subject matter, which is a paradox of a sort.) It's kind of hard to imagine how King Dork could be "worse" in that regard, but maybe it is: middle school is tricky, and King Dork is recommended for age 14 and up after all. Anyway, Endgame is on my to be read list now.

I'm often asked about whether my books have been "banned" or "challenged" and so forth and I think the assumption is that, as the author, you would know somehow. But google alerts only inform you if it gets in the paper somewhere, and that can be quite random. It could be happening all over the place and you'd never know.

Posted by Dr. Frank at December 10, 2009 06:51 PM
Comments

You are now in the esteemed company of Kurt Vonnegut et al.

Congrats.

Posted by: Jeff at December 10, 2009 11:33 PM

Goddamn that story bummed me out. The kid actually likes and connects with a book and then his mom freaks out and now he's gonna have some kinda stomach ache pavlovian response every time he reads something he enjoys from now on out of fear that his mom will get in all the Muncie newspapers again.

Anyway, King Dork rules. I guess if you write a book that doesn't piss anyone off, you probably aren't doing something right.

Ben Esch

Posted by: Ben Esch at December 11, 2009 07:03 AM

Part of it is name recognition too. Stephen King - his books are all over middle schools, here in Kansas anyway, and he is really no less graphic than Frank or Garden. But, hey, he is famous and a brand name.

Posted by: David at December 12, 2009 04:09 AM

Controversy is the best kind of exposure. Both your books are fucking awesome.

Posted by: John K at December 16, 2009 06:27 AM