To the students, teachers, administrators, school board members and citizens of Camden, Delaware:

            It has been brought to my attention that my book Whale Talk has come under challenge at Caesar Rodney High School in your community.  As you might imagine this book has been challenged in other communities, and the outcomes have varied.  Because I have been contacted regarding the challenge, I feel an obligation to tell you why I wrote the book and answer as many questions as I can that generally come up.  I also feel the need to say I have no personal stake in your final decision.  A book censored in a particular high school or school district doesn’t have much effect on the author; nothing like what it has on the teachers and librarians, professionals all, who have chosen that book for reasons particular to their perceptions of the students in their charge, and certainly nothing like what it has on the students.

.. ..

I certainly support any parent who, for whatever reason, wants a say in what his or her own children are exposed to.  Alone in my office, in my capacity as a therapist I might have some different perspectives on that for the parent but from a philosophical standpoint, I stand behind it, and am grateful for any parent who cares enough to participate in his or her child’s education, even if we disagree on the best ways to do that.

.. ..

I have read the specifics of the challenge; let me address those issues:

“All (choice) books contained profane language but “Whale Talk” by Chris Crutcher contains over 140 profane words including the use of the “F” word 17 times.  There is sexual content, drug use, suicide, violence, references to smoking.  Chris Crutcher’s material is famous for his use of profane language in his books geared toward teens.”....

.. ..

Actually if you were to talk with teachers at the National Council for Teachers of English or the librarians at the American Library Association they would tell you that Chris Crutcher is famous for writing books that people who don’t often read, and particularly boys, will read.  Chris Crutcher is famous mostly among conservative Christians for his use of profane language.  It’s been a while since I’ve read the book but I’ll stipulate to the complainant’s list.  About all I can say is those are issues that young people face today, and yes, I do write about them.

.. ..

“The more a teen hears/reads profanity the more comfortable they become with profanity, therefore, making the profane works a “norm” and okay to use because teens do not have the “impulse control” that adults have.”

.. ..

You know, that sounds good, but it’s way too sweeping a statement to be true from a developmental standpoint.  There are all kinds of teenagers who choose not to curse, though they hear it in the halls of their schools every day.  They make a decision for themselves about whether or not to use that language.   They also make decisions about their behavior, which is considerably more important in my view.  And you know what else?  A lot of them who decide to go ahead and use profanity, for whatever reasons, then grow up to be doctors and lawyers and sociologists and business people and philanthropists and preachers.  And authors.

.. ..

“How can you tell a teen not to use profanity – then give him/her required reading that is full of profanity?”....

.. ..

This one is easy.   You hand out copies of the book and say, “Okay, listen you guys, this book contains language that I can’t, because of school and community policy, allow used in the classroom.  The language is reflective of the characters’ lives and the desperate conditions in which they learn to survive.  And it is also reflective of language used by you, and many times by us, in the safety of our peer groups.  We don’t have to use the language to talk about that desperation, or our responses to it.  I don’t want you to get in trouble and I don’t want me to get in trouble, so let’s keep the class dialogue within the guidelines of the rules.  Okay?”

.. ..

I can’t imagine not getting an “Okay” in return.

.. ..

“Profanity used in the classroom by the teacher or the students can create a poor learning environment for some students.  Not everyone wants to hear, let alone read, profanity.  In addition Christianity is mocked several times and the names of Jesus and God are profaned over a dozen times.”

.. ..

There is no requirement that teachers or students use profanity after they have read this book, or in the process of discussing this book.  Any good teacher lays out the parameters of what is acceptable or not acceptable in his or her classroom.  And while I agree that not everyone wants to hear profanity, it is true also that not everyone wants to hear righteousness and condemnation of the expression of hard lives.  No one dies when a character, out of consternation or irritation says, “Jesus” or “Jesus Christ.”  It may irritate some focused Christians, but those same Christians are unlikely, in my experience, to complain if the leaders or icons of some other religion’s names are taken in vain. 

.. ..

“Under the guise of literature students are being taught that there is a double standard which could create a lack of respect towards authority and rules.”

.. ..

I don’t know what this means.  I don’t know what the double standard is or what any of this has to do with the creation of respect of the lack thereof.   Respect doesn’t happen when we dictate to kids that we require it.  Respect comes back to us when we give it; when we let kids know we are working to understand their perspectives.  

.. ..

(I do not perceive any instructional value in the use of this item) “unless it is edited without profanity.”....

.. ..

The complainant is saying there may be useful information here – indeed instructional information – if only we would take out the cussing.  Hmmmm.  I guess I think that speaks for itself.

 A five year old girl twenty some odd years ago, found her way into my heart because she endured the slings and arrows of a viciously racist step-father and came out still standing.  She is the prototype of the girl who uses many of the “profanities” the complainant objects to in Whale Talk.  If you saw her when I saw her: if you knew her when I knew her, she would break your heart, and her story would make you soar.  Her depiction in my book is reflective of that.  Many of the remaining  “profanities” come from the representation of that vicious step-dad.  I included them in the story to let readers know the truth of what I saw on a daily basis.   Yeah, the kids talk like kids talk.  I’m sure there are also “F” bombs that I, as the author, see as natural.  If you don’t already know, go ask the kids if they talk like that. 

.. ..

In the final chapter of Whale Talk, before the epilogue, the adoptive father of the main character steps in front of a bullet to stop the killing of the above mentioned little girl.  In that single act he finds redemption for some of the horrors he believes he has created in his own life.  His dying words are “You’re going to… have to… forgive him, T.J…. He didn’t had no idea… what he was doing…”  the present day equivalent of “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  I wonder why conservative Christians who consistently want this book removed, don’t embrace that.  It was written intentionally.

.. ..

It amazes me sometimes when censors forget that the teachers their schools have hired are professionals; men and women who have trained at colleges and universities, who have read hundreds, sometimes thousands of books before selecting those they believe fit the populations they teach; men and women who study not only the content areas in which they will teach, but the students to whom they will teach them.  It also amazes me when I see individuals or members of groups with agendas making broad claims about teenagers and about adolescent development that they can’t back up and that don’t jibe with developmental research.  I have to be amused when someone goes to the trouble of counting  words that offend them in a story; as if I’m allowed x number of “F” bombs, but not y number of “F” bombs. 

.. ..

We don’t have to use the language of our teenagers to show them the respect of knowing what that language is and that we are aware of the difficulties of some of their lives. 

.. ..

One statement made in the challenge indicates that some students may be made uncomfortable in an environment in which realistic issues and realistic language are addressed.  I’m not sure education is always supposed to be comfortable.  Life certainly isn’t. 

.. ..

My father was a World War II B-17 pilot who when he was the same age as I was when I graduated college, had flown 35 bombing missions over Germany; eleven before he came back with all his engines.  He was a patriot and a vocal “conservative.”  If you were to run as a “conservative” in our county for any office from Dog Catcher to President of the United States, my dad was your county campaign guy.  He was also on the school board during all my, and my sibling’s, years in public school, and he’d have run a nail through his eye before allowing a book to be censored.  He was a consummate believer in the Constitution he thought he went to war to defend.  He believed the idea of “separation of church and state,” was a concept conceived to protect the church and the state.  My father’s and my politics were very different, but we certainly agreed on that point.

.. ..

If you’ve read this far, I commend you.  I can ramble.  Let me wrap it up by saying thank you for including my words in your discussion.  I realize the issues that confront educators can get complex when religious or political beliefs have to be considered, but in the end, those beliefs aren’t what educate us.  Curiosity educates us. 

.. ..

If there are many students like Michael Watson, whose thoughts on this issue I have read, then the controversy itself has been educational.  He actually says it all far better than I.

.. ..

Thank you for your time and attention.

.. ..

Chris Crutcher

Courtesy of the River Cities Reader
http://www.rcreader.com/news/innocence-ignorance-and-experience-chris-crutcher/all/
by Mike Schultz
Chris Crutcher, the author of more than a dozen books and short stories featuring teenage protagonists, has earned a bevy of awards and accolades over his 26-year writing career, with eight of his works named "Best Books for Young Adults" by the American Library Association, and Teen Book Review hailing 2007's Deadline as "a brilliant, well-written, thought-provoking, and, to put it simply, truly amazing novel."

So why do so many people seem so angry at him?

On April 14 and 15, the writer will participate in Quad City Arts' biennial "Super Author" program, sharing his young-adult-lit experiences in a series of public lectures, workshops, readings, and discussions. Yet in addition to being an author, the Spokane, Washington-based Crutcher also serves as a therapist for children and families, which might help explain why his published works engender such debate: They deal with serious issues, and frequently discomforting issues, that Crutcher himself has addressed as a therapist.

In the author's 1983 debut novel, Running Loose, a high-school football star must contend with a racist coach and the unexpected death of his girlfriend. 1993's Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes features a classroom discussion on abortion and a title character who, at age three, was violently abused by her father. The protagonist in "A Brief Moment in the Life of Angus Bethune" - a short story published in the 1991 collection Athletic Shorts and adapted into the 1995 movie Angus - is growing up with not one but two sets of gay parents. And other Crutcher works deal either specifically or tangentially, but always forthrightly, with themes that include religious bigotry, parental neglect, and suicide.

Topics such as these, it should go without saying, have netted the author more than his share of controversy, leading to encounters with parents and school groups that have publicly challenged his books, and have even fought to have them banned from library shelves. Fittingly, Crutcher's area speaking engagements find him speaking on the theme of "Controversy, Censorship, & Critical Thought," and during our recent interview, the author admits to embracing his role as provocateur.

"There are groups who believe that if we can keep our children innocent, we can keep them safe," says the 62-year-old author. "But I use a different 'I' word - I think they mean if we can keep them ignorant, we can keep them safe. And no one has ever been able to tell me when innocence turns into ignorance. I mean, I tell people all the time: If you're five or six years old and you believe in Santa Claus, you're cute; if you're 14 and you believe in Santa Claus, you're gonna get a bloody nose."

A Double Dose of Adolescence

Born in Dayton, Ohio, Crutcher was raised in Cascade, Idaho - "a really small town," he says, "and real conservative, with philosophies that were absolutely black-and-white."

Though active in athletics ("I went to a school where everybody played, or there wasn't enough for a team"), he admits that he wasn't what anyone would call a model student in high school. "I had an attention span of about 15 seconds," Crutcher says with a laugh. "School just didn't ... . It didn't work for me. It was partly that I was somewhat rebellious. I had maybe a double dose of adolescence going for me."

After graduating high school in 1968, however, Crutcher - a self-described "child of the '60s" - found his interest in learning piqued after entering Eastern Washington State College. "I got into sociology first," he says, "and my first discovery was that things weren't black-and-white, and that institutions were more interested in keeping themselves alive than they were in telling the truth. I got interested in having been fooled, and trying to find out if there was a truth, what it was."

Crutcher earned his BA in sociology and psychology, received a subsequent teaching credential, and taught primary and secondary education in Washington state and California throughout the 1970s. He went on to serve as the director of Oakland, California's Lakeside School - an alternative program for at-risk youth - and establish a private therapy practice in Spokane. Yet by the early 1980s, Crutcher was feeling the urge to write.

"At some level, I always knew that I could be good at it," he says. "That I could manipulate words well. I mean, one of the reasons I didn't have to do a whole lot of work in high school is I could bluff my way through. I think I had probably a natural writing skill and a natural communication skill; I didn't relate those to academics, but I could ... you know, I could cover my butt."

And given his years of working with troubled youths, Crutcher felt he had a unique vantage point from which to write about youths.

"I think what's scary about adolescence, sometimes, is so intense that there's a natural move toward forgetting it," says the author. "You know, it's real easy to say about the first time you were in love, 'That's not real love, that's puppy love.' But the reality is it feels exactly the same way it feels when you're older, you do as many stupid things both times, and it has the same effect. You can't pooh-pooh it.

"We tend to want to go back and say, 'Well, anything that happens when you're a teenager, it's not real. That's practice.' But your feelings are just as intense, you know? Everything's intact. And when you're a teenager, it's intact cubed."

Beginning with Running Loose, a first-person narrative by a distressed high-school football star, Crutcher's goal in writing was to deal realistically with teen issues, and to do so from a teen's perspective. Yet the author says that, from the start, finding his "inner teen" was never as difficult as some might imagine.

"Any writer knows that whether it's fiction or nonfiction, you have to find your writing voice," says Crutcher, "and once you do, you tell your story in that voice. So if I go back and find my teenage voice, or a voice much like it, then I'm saved.

"I have writer's block two or three times, maybe five times, with every book," he continues, "but what it usually is is writer's glut. There are so many things you want to write, and your mind is popping around so much, that you don't know what direction to go. It paralyzes you. And all of a sudden, it seems like you don't have anything to say."

Though his works have been categorized as young-adult literature, Crutcher says he never wrote with a genre in mind. In truth, he says, "I didn't know there was such a thing as young-adult literature. I wrote a story about a kid who was 18 years old, and that's just where it went. I just figured out the stories I wanted to tell, and let the marketing people decide what they were.

"If Catcher in the Rye were written today," he adds, "they'd have to at least focus it on that genre."

Yet while reviewers were impressed with Crutcher's literary talents - Publishers Weekly called Running Loose "a tightly plotted, compelling tale that's compassionate, funny, and sensitive" - the author quickly discovered that the book's explorations of teen dating, racism, sex, and death weren't being embraced by everyone.

"I look at things in a different way than a lot of people would like me to," he says with a laugh. "The black-and-white morals that come with almost any fundamental kind of belief get knocked around pretty good in my stories."

Deadline, by Chris Crutcher

Something Other Than Fear

One of the most common complaints against Crutcher's novels is his use of profanity, as the author is determined to write the way teens actually talk - a choice that his critics have argued is irresponsible in books directed toward teenagers. (The "F" word, the "S" word, and the "S.O.B." phrase are routinely employed in Crutcher's works.)

"It's an easy out," he says of the issues some take with his works' frequently salty conversation. "They don't have to get in the discussion of why they really want the book banned. One of the things I did with [2005's] The Sledding Hill, which I haven't done with any other book, is I purposely scoured it for bad language. If somebody wanted to go after the book" - which, ironically, climaxes with a town-hall meeting on the subject of book-banning - "I wanted them to not be able to hide behind 'There are some bad words in there.'"

But Crutcher's themes would seem to give his critics no end of ammunition, and the author says that nothing seems to engender more debate than his nonjudgmental depictions of homosexuality in such works as Athletic Shorts and 1995's Ironman. "The whole gay thing is where the racial thing was 20 or 30 years ago," says Crutcher. "If you're looking for something that's just blatantly bigoted that people look past all the time, that's it."

The author refuses, though, to let squeamishness over the subject prevent him from addressing the issue. "When I was working full-time as a therapist, I worked with some kids who were gay, and I discovered why there's such a high suicide rate, and why there's such a high attempted-suicide rate, and why there's such a high rate of depression among those kids - because they feel they can't tell the truth. And that's dangerous."

Crutcher has also received his share of criticism for his characters' inquisitive, uncommitted attitudes toward religion, and his casting of devoutly religious characters - such as The Sledding Hill antagonist Dan Mulke - as the most closed-minded figures in his books. "As much as conventional Christianity or Islam or any of the major pool of religions are meant to be comforting," he says, "they operate on fear. If you don't behave right, some real bad stuff is gonna happen to you.

"And burning in hell doesn't sound great," says Crutcher with a laugh. "Eternity's a real long time. So the idea that we need to find something other than fear to operate from makes a lot of sense to me.

It's impossible not to imagine many of Crutcher's own beliefs being echoed through his characters' dialogue; in an amusingly meta subplot in The Sledding Hill, the author even introduces Chris Crutcher as a character in the story, invited to a public discussion on the censorship of his own books. (Interestingly, the "character" actually chooses not to speak once he arrives - he decides to let the book's central character speak for him.) And Crutcher makes no bones about his characters oftentimes serving as a personal mouthpiece. "There's no question that if you read my books," he says, "you get a pretty good sense of what my politics are. And my belief that a lot of kids who exist in isolation don't have to, and if we knew them better, we wouldn't allow it."

Yet Crutcher says he has always been prepared for angry complaints against his themes and style. He admits, though, that he's still shocked when parents and organized groups want to take their anger to the next level, and prohibit his works from schools and libraries.

"You know, coming out of the free-speech movement in the early '60s, and the hippie generation, I thought it was done," says Crutcher of literary censorship. "I was real surprised when my first book got challenged and then banned in a middle school. And that was in the '80s. I mean, I thought we fixed this, you know? I thought it was shameful to want to ban a book."

As Crutcher well knows, he's certainly not the only young-adult-literature author to see his or her works embroiled in controversy.

"I was talking with Judy Blume," he says, "and I used to do some banned-books events with Robert Cormier, and it always seemed to me like they were wounded by the attacks that were made on them. Judy Blume was completely blindsided. She thought she had written a book that was really gonna help girls" with her youth classic Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret., "and then she got hammered. She didn't see it coming."

Crutcher, though, says he refuses to take the attacks personally, and makes no apologies for the potentially frightening subjects he explores. "Every story I've ever written has a source of reality in a kid's life," he says. "So I know I'm talking about something that's real, and I feel totally comfortable with my work.

"I always said there were two places in my life where I'm fearless: I would go anywhere with a client [in therapy] - there's no place I'd block off - and there's nothing I wouldn't write about. Beyond that, I've had every human failing and fear there is. But you have to acknowledge fear, and if you can articulate it, it's less scary. A monster out of the closet isn't as scary as a monster in the closet."

I Thought It Was About Me

Crutcher's acceptance of his works' controversial nature, however, doesn't keep them on public bookshelves, and the author has attended numerous book-banning rallies over the years at which he's been called upon to defend both his books and those of fellow writers.

"Even in conservative communities, there really aren't that many people who would ban a book," he says. "They do understand freedom. And they understand that they need to have control over their own families and their own immediate arena, and that other people have to have control over theirs.

"But then there will be a group," he continues, "and it's usually a fundamental-Christian group, that will start with a complaint from a parent with a kid in school or whatever, and then it moves out to the church. And if there's a picket line somewhere or a school-board meeting, those folks will be there. They're very vocal, and they believe what they believe, and they come with fire."

Yet through his years of defending young-adult literature against threatened banning, Crutcher has discovered that no arguments made by authors, teachers, or librarians prove nearly as effective as those made by students. "If it's a school-board meeting, or some formal meeting where they're discussing the book, the best antidote to it [banning] is those kids who line up at the microphone to tell the school board why they like the book. What the book did for them.

"I saw a kid defend Fallen Angels, Walter Dean Myers' story of a young kid who goes to Vietnam right after high school. The kid got up there and he said, 'I'm a straight-A student. I could go to any university I want. But I'm going into the service, and in a year, I could be in the same place that Walter Dean Myers' character is, only it'll be sand instead of a jungle. But I'm a pretty good writer, so if I come back here and write what I know, do you mean you guys would ban me?' And it was done.

"You know," Crutcher continues, "A book is sometimes even better than it had a right to be because of the history the reader brings to it. I mean, I've got my philosophy, others have their philosophy, and off we go. But if you get kids up there saying, 'I read this book and I thought it was about me,' that's something that most school boards won't take on."

And Crutcher believes that such personal involvement might begin occurring with even greater frequency, given the staggering popularity - and not just among teens - of recent books and series directed at the youth-lit market.

"My agent was telling me the other day that right now the big paydays are coming in young-adult literature," says Crutcher, "and not just for the [J.K.] Rowlings and [Stephenie] Meyers. There are just a lot more people reading books about kids," which the author finds unsurprising considering the genre's current wealth of talent.

"I do think that, overall, the quality of writing that you see in young-adult literature right now is matchless," he says. "Walter D. Myers. Christopher Paul Curtis. Laurie Halse Anderson is just putting out some great stuff. God, I read a book by Elizabeth Scott not too long ago that is probably the edgiest book I've ever read of any kind. It's called Living Dead Girl, and it's a story about a girl who was kidnapped by a pedophile when she was eight, and now she's 15. It's not a book you can't put down; it's one you keep putting down, but then you keep picking it back up.

"Alex Sánchez is another," Crutcher continues. "And there's John Green. And Chris Lynch is another who has this huge range. I mean, there are a lot of really, really fine writers out there."

Plus, of course, there's Rowling and Meyer, and Daniel Handler, too. "Books like Harry Potter and the Twilight series and Lemony Snicket," says Crutcher, "one of the things they've done is they've made it cool to carry a book. When I started writing young-adult literature, it really was the red-headed stepchild of real literature.

"And it still is, to some degree," he adds with a laugh, "but that mostly comes from people who write adult literature."

The author realizes, though, that no matter their acclaim and popularity, he and fellow young-adult-literature writers will likely continue to fight against censorship, which Crutcher believes "comes from a place of fear, but to people's credit, it also comes from a place of protection.

"We say a stupid thing as adults," he continues, "and we say it all the time: 'I don't want you to make the mistakes I made.' What people forget is that what we have in common with teenagers is that we're always as old as we've ever been; we have what we don't know ahead of us, and what we do know behind us.

"The only real teacher is experience. And the only way you can make words experience is to get them into the imagination. Otherwise it's just a lecture."

On Tuesday, April 14, author Chris Crutcher will appear at the Friendly House of the Quad Cities at noon, the Moline Public Library at 4 p.m., and the Bettendorf Public Library at 7 p.m.

On Wednesday, April 15, Crutcher will appear at the Midwest Writing Center at noon, the Davenport Public Library Fairmount Branch at 4 p.m., and the River Music Experience at 7 p.m.

For more information on Crutcher, visit ChrisCrutcher.com. For a schedule of the author's local appearances and information on Quad City Arts' "Super Author" program, visit QuadCityArts.com/literarysuperauthorevents.asp.

Some parents want three books banned

Updated: Friday, 06 Mar 2009, 12:25 PM EST
Published : Thursday, 05 Mar 2009, 6:24 PM EST

• 
  
  Kristin Crowley

Conversations of a Deranged Old Man: In Five Rounds

Why the BIG OLD OBAMA BUTTON on the homepage?  Read on… 

ROUND ONE 

From: Heidy
To: Stotan717
Sent: 10/14/2008 9:31:08 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time
Subj: re: info hello,

I just read a great article about you and your books in our local paper (Knoxville News Sentinel). It peaked my interest enough to google you and find your website. ( I have a 12 year old son and a 14 year old daughter)
I didn't read any further than the first line.
Please do not tell me, or anyone else for that matter, who to vote for. Everyone needs to make their own decision, for their own reasons.  No one should vote for a candidate just because someone tells them to. This is important for everyone, but especially the young adults who are voting for the very first time.
I went on your web site to get informatin about your books, not discover your political opinion.
respectfully,
heidy cusick 

From: Stotan717
To: Heidy
Sent: 10/14/2008 3:31:10 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time
Subj: Re: info 

Heidy, Last time I looked we lived in a free country where freedom of expression is not only allowed, but encouraged.  Vote for Obama! isn't a demand; it's an advertisement.  It states who I want a majority of people to vote for.  I even have one on my lawn.  And guess what.  Not one of my neighbors, who are almost all McCain supporters, told me not to tell them who to vote for.  I guess they were comfortable knowing they could make up their own minds.  Why do I have the feeling that if I'd had the right name up there, you wouldn't have said a word?  I'm sorry to hear (or read) that instead of swallowing the fact that I have a political opinion and reading on to discover whatever it was you were interested in from reading the newspaper article, you jumped off the site.  But that's part of YOUR first amendment rights and I applaud you for exercising them.    Chris Crutcher  

ROUND ONE PS 

From: Stotan717
To: Heidy
Sent: 10/14/2008 4:10:44 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time
Subj: Re: info

AND I'm assuming you're aware the voting age in the United States is 18, so if a young person, say 12 or 14, were to fall under the mesmerizing effect of my half-inch high Vote For Obama, they couldn't actually do it. 

ROUND TWO

In a message dated 10/15/2008 4:39:16 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, Heidy writes:

I am a Obama supporter, but not one of you or your books and will spread the word... 

From: Stotan717
To: Heidy
Sent: 10/15/2008 7:52:14 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time
Subj: Re: info 

Feel free.  You haven't read my books, so you don't know that.  You are just one more angry person that wants things your way.  I hope you get them.  CC 

ROUND THREE 

In a message dated 10/15/2008 4:40:40 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, Heidy writes: 

AND you are a complete idiot....
I am on a crusade to spread the word about your rudeness and disrespect.
I certainly DO NOT want someone like you around my 12 and 14 year old. 

From: Stotan717
To: Heidy
Sent: 10/15/2008 7:55:58 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time
Subj: Re: info 

My rudeness and disrespect is only in response to yours.  What an arrogant and self-centered thing to do: visit my web site and tell me what YOU think should or shouldn't be on it.  All you had to do was read click off.  I happen to believe in the American voting system, and the right of every person to say what they believe in.  Any person can go on there and simply say they don't agree.  Go back and read your original letter and then come back and tell me how disrespectful I am.  CC 

ROUND FOUR 

From: Heidy
To:Stotan717
Sent: 10/15/2008 9:58:44 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time
Subj: Re: info 

I went on your web site to learn about your books. You posting your political opinion is using BAD JUDGEMENT and UNPROFESSIONAL. That's what your yard sign is for. I don't go listen to a singer I enjoy because of their singing and expect to hear their political views. I DON'T CARE. That is not why I would be there and that is not why I visited your site.
I was not disrespectful in my original email, however you sound like a deranged old man in all of yours. Getting extremely defensive, why so sensitive Chris?  You sound as if you have a screw lose...go medicate.
BOTTOM LINE: whom ever you are behind, it should not be advertised on your web site for your books. I AM RIGHT - YOU ARE WRONG.
please DO NOT contact me again, I have better things to do than "talk" to an idiot as you.

oh, and about Obama, I lied. 

From: Stotan717
To: Heidy
Sent: 10/15/2008 11:28:22 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time
Subj: Re: info

Believe me, I knew when you said it that you were lying about Obama.  And it probably wouldn't be a good idea for you to go to my web site again because I have published our correspondence word for word.  I want to make sure that people know what a deranged old man I am and how RIGHT you are and how WRONG I am.  It's MY web site, you idiot.  And you also lied about why you went there in the first place.  Chris Crutcher 

ROUND FIVE  

In a message dated 10/15/2008 11:46:24 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, Heidy writes:

YOU just don't get it. My kids love to read and I am always looking for new books/authors for them to experience. THAT IS WHY I went to your web site. I have not said one word your political views. They are yours, I just don't care to know them, I wanted to know about your BOOKS.
and I don't have a sign in my yard. Just grass, tree's flowers and kids playing...
Not certain who I will vote for yet, there is not one good candidate, but I must choose , because it is the American way...and my right and my duty. 

From: Stotan717
To:Heidy 
Sent: 10/15/2008 11:54:03 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time
Subj: Re: info If you wanted to know about my books you would have gone to look at my books.  I've read enough of your ranting to know you aren't going to be intimidated by the word Obama if you really wanted to know about my books.  But it's a lot of fun watching you try to make a case for something you can't make a case for.   

THE END?  We'll see.

Guess not...

ROUND SIX

Earlier this week, I got a letter from Mark Rogers, geographic location undisclosed.  In honor of BANNED BOOKS WEEK, I thought I'd post my response here.     CC

Dear Mark Rogers,.

I received your email containing the threat to get all my books banned from your son's school.  You must be a very influential and powerful citizen.  I couldn't keep all your issues in mind at one time, so I've answered you in point by point. 

Are you right on the mark or Mark on the Right?

Chris Crutcher. My 12 year old son checked out "Deadline" this week at his middle school library. It was recommended to him by a friend who said it was "cool". After reading some I was appalled that this was allowed to be at the school. I am in the process to have this and your other books removed from the school. You can call it "censorship" or you can call it "filtering". Am I endangering my son or just forcing him to be more selective in his choice of books. I am upset that my school librarian thought that she had the last say on what was appropriate for my son. I am more concerned that you think that you are helping youth by talking so blatantly about social concerns in a way that is defiant, foul and very perverse.

I'm guessing your son's librarian didn't think she had the last say on what was appropriate for your son.  I'm guessing she wanted to have a wide selection of books so that all kids could find something they might like to read.  I'm guessing your son isn't the only kid in his school.  You might want to check out why your son's friend thought the book was "cool."  And you might want to check into your own belief system which seems to include taking the book away from your son's friend as well from him.  And if I were in your shoes I'd be way more interested in what my son thought after he read the book (or chose not to) and in having a conversation with him about it so I could tell him my objections.  You ask if you're endangering your son or just forcing him to be more selective in his choice of books.  It sounds to me as if in your world he doesn't have a choice of books.  You have a choice of his books.  I mean, that's the point, right?   And by the way, Mark, you don't know what I think I am doing.  Truth is, I could flood your inbox with emails from kids and adults alike who love the book and believe it gave them a different, better, perspective on their lives.  I'd be glad to do that, if you'd like. 

In researching your background it seams that this challenge is not new to you, something that you are proud of as well. I quote, "I've been on the top 10 most-banned books list three years in a row, And I say that with a note of pride." What are your real intentions here Mr. Crutcher, to help a really messed up generation of young people or to see how many reactions you can get out of the conservative, church going, up standing, moral people of America.  You use your "art" as a sounding board for your political and social views. It does not set a good and moral standard, nor does it up lift or inspire. I think you have a twisted agenda when you can say that your intentions are to "relate to young people" by using foul language and talking about having sex or being a homosexual or a racist parent, Well I say not in my back yard Mr. Crutcher. You do not have permission or the right to help my child.

Actually, you may be happy to know we have a point of agreement.  I totally agree that you have the right to tell your twelve-year-old child what he can read and what he can think.  You have every right to take the book away from him after he's checked it out and you've read it.  The two of you can work that out in therapy when he's fifteen.  But the school isn't your back yard, Mark.  It's every student's and every parent's back yard.  And it's my back yard, Mark.  It has a library.  I didn't read anywhere in your email that you're an expert in education.  The teachers there are; as is the librarian.  They spent years and money on that specific education. 

You quoted me correctly regarding the banned books list.  Do you know why I say that "with a note of pride?"  Because if you look at banned books lists year after year, they are filled with some of the best literature of our time.  There are normally at least two Pulitzer Prize winning works of fiction on that list.  Names like Twain, Vonnegut, Angelou, Cormier, Walker, Blume and Shakespeare are on that list.  The "note of pride," for me is to be mentioned in the same breath as the masters, though I in no way consider myself a master. 

Look, if I were to spend my time seeing how many reactions I can get out of "conservative, church-going, upstanding, moral people of America," my job would be too easy.  What a narcissistic, arrogant thing for you to say.  I'm interested in where you get the right (other than that you live in America and you can say any ill-thought-out thing you want to say) to call your Christian perspective the only moral perspective.  I know a lot of Christians who are embarrassed by your claim to represent them.  They believe people need to make choices to grow; they believe Christ thought the same thing, and Mark, they are every bit as moral as you.  Beyond that, one doesn't have to be Christian to be moral.  One has to be moral to be moral.  I challenge you to find anything on my web site or in anything I've said in public that even remotely approaches your charge that I "relate to young people by using foul language and talking about having sex or being homosexual or a racist parent."  I've certainly written about gays and I've certainly written about racists.  And I've certainly used realistic language.  Those things exist in our culture and I write about them.  Sue me. 

It is a shame that my tax dollars went to buy your attempt to spread your liberal minded views to the most impressionable. You hide behind this notion that if we don't let our children be "free thinkers" and tolerate any form of social defiance that they will somehow lose respect for, or lose the trust to communicate freely with us parents. I will say that trust and respect comes from children seeing adults acting like adults and not children. Standing for what is right and living it in front of them. You do not have to talk like them or dress like them, or heaven forbid act like them to earn the right to say what is socially right and wrong, because that is the real issue here isn't it Mr. Crutcher. It is not yours or anybody else's place to say what is socially or politically acceptable to my son, that is MY place. If I say homosexual relations are not socially acceptable and is wrong that is what I have a right to as a parent. The school, political parties, or authors cannot take that right from me. The same goes for foul language, disrespecting adults, sexual relations, rape, murder, assaulting old ladies, you get my drift.

Boy, do I ever get your drift.  However it's no bigger a shame that some of your tax dollars go for things you don't agree with than it is that some of mine go to cover the truth that your group is tax exempt.  Hey, welcome to America.  The difference between us in that regard is that I am more than willing to pay taxes for things I don't agree with because I understand that in a free country, the fact that everyone has a point of view is celebrated.  Your simple assertion that you know what is "right" because you have a belief system is just that: simple.  I find it interesting that you have something against letting children be "free thinkers," as if anyone could stop that.  It's behavior that we need to pay attention to, Mark, not thinking.  I won't take the time here to address the last truly powerful dude on the world stage who was against "free thinking."  I agree it is not for anyone else to say what is socially or politically acceptable to your son, as much as it isn't your place to say that for other people's kids.  I'm totally willing to let you try to control what your son sees and hears and thinks; as I said earlier, the two of you can work that out in therapy when he's older, or he can work it out for himself if you're unwilling to engage him should he discover the world to be different from what you described.  And you're correct, you do have the right to teach your son to be intolerant of a group of people who make up approximately ten percent of the population of the world – I wonder how God let that slip by – and who feel they have the right to express their love and regard for each other the same way you do, and have that love and regard be accepted by the free society in which they live.  A shorter way to put that is, you have the right to teach your son to be a bigot.  By the way, I don't "talk like them" or "dress like them."   My jeans are out of date and most teenagers wouldn't be caught dead in my choice of shirts.  I rarely call anyone "dude" or "bro" in my day to day conversations, the above reference to Adolph Hitler notwithstanding.

I am sure you do not agree with me and think I am an over protective parent with a hidden agenda of his own, well you would be half correct, there is not a Protect the Rights of Parents Organization that I am aware of, so I have to protect him from free thinkers like you who do not think there is a difference in right and wrong only the perspective in which we approach right and wrong. Again I quote "My point is that good and bad, or good and evil, are relative terms, and they are also terms of perspective?"

Believe me, I don't think your agenda is hidden, and I don't know whether you're an overprotective parent or not.  That too is a relative term.  I also didn't say there is no difference between right and wrong.  I said they are relative terms, and also terms of perspective. 

This E-mail will be sent to the local media and to other outlets to expose as many people as possible for your lack of respect and contempt for the parent and anybody else that does not see it "your way" .

Mark Rogers

I'm sure they'll be happy to get it.  And I'm sure they'll jump right on your bandwagon to expose my lack of respect and contempt for etc. etc. etc.  I can't have contempt for you, Mark.  I don't know you.  I'm betting if I did I'd see a guy who has a lot of concern and regard for his son, and I'll bet his son feels loved.  As an advocate of child protection for more than twenty five years and as an educator for ten years prior, I can have nothing but respect for that.  What I have contempt for is your simple notion that you have the answers for everyone.  I know kids who are crushed by your kind of inflexibility.  I'm bewildered by any group that calls itself moral at the same time it cares less about how children feel than about how that group thinks.  I am bewildered at the idea that for a free people to be truly free, they have to allow a small group of control freaks to control thought.  I'm flummoxed by any group of people who mask their fear with righteousness. 

You're not an educator, Mark.  You're not a child developmentalist.  You're a guy with concern for your kid.  So be concerned.  Restrict him from whatever books and video games and television programs and movies you want to.  Show him what you believe to be right and wrong.  Lead by example.  I don't have any right to stop you from doing that and I wouldn't try.  But I will continue to write stories that reflect what I see, whether people like you choose to make personal attacks or not.  In my view I have an obligation to the people who do believe they get something from my books, to continue to write, whether you want to take poorly-thought-out shots at me or not. 

Believe me I had second thoughts about even responding to your email.  Cooler heads on my side of this debate often say we need to find common ground to talk this censorship issue out, and there are times I attempt to do that.  But as I said, your agenda isn't hidden and your heels are dug in as deeply as are mine.   My father used to tell me that when a fool and a wise man argue, it's hard for those on the outside to tell which is which.  But hey, Mark, there's your lesson in perspective, because I'll bet each of us has a different idea of who the wise man is. 

Chris Crutcher

Late night 9-1-08

I'm supposed to be writing my stories, but I've got CNN and MSNBC soundless next to me and I keep turning the sound up when I see Sarah Palin's name at the bottom of the screen.  They're debating whether or not she is the best choice for Vice President based on the fact that her seventeen year old daughter is pregnant out of wedlock.  Wedlock: what an interesting word.  At any rate, the guys on the left are trying to this situation needs to be looked at because the guys on the right are always throwing "family values" in the nation's face, and that if the tables were turned the Right would be all over this.  (I do realize that I'm already in trouble in this discourse because I called the folks on the right and the left "guys."  Sue me. 

I'm looking at my friends on the left and I'm saying "Shut the hell up."  Do not go there; not because you don't have the right, not because turnabout isn't fair play, not because if Chelsea Clinton had gotten pregnant as a teenager they'd have ripped the heart out of that family, eaten the vital organs and not even belched.   But because there is a seventeen year old girl involved, who wasn't careful and who's live is changed irrevocably.  Like any young girl who gets pregnant she was faced with choices that probably didn't look all that good.  She could have not told and sought an abortion.  She could have decided to have the child and gone through the heartbreak of carrying it all those months in the throes of the biological attachment that inevitably takes place and then giving it up.  She could decide to bear the child and keep it and raise it as a single mom, keeping in mind that statistically there wasn't a very good chance she had found "Mr. Right," quite this early in her life; or she could have decided to have it, marry the father and give it a go.  There are extenuating circumstances we won't know about; there have to be.  There is simply every possibility we can imagine.

There is also one and only one decent thing to do.  Leave it alone.  Shut the hell up.  It has nothing to do with anything.  It doesn't prove anything.  It isn't about hypocrisy; it isn't about what would happen if the tables were turned.  Want some family values? Value the family.  Allow the things that happen in families (apart from abuse and neglect) be taken care of in those families.  Have a big heart.  Leave a seventeen year old girl the room to deal with a tough situation in the loving arms of her family, if in fact they are loving arms… and I believe there are.

I am very close to one hundred percent against every life issue and policy issue Sarah Palin stands for.  I don't like guns. I believe women should have the right to choose when and where to have children (though, and GET THIS, I am not for abortion – and neither are the large percentage of pro-choice advocates.  We all know there is heartbreak with abortion; we all want it to be a last resort, so get off that). I believe anyone who thinks creationism should be taught in public schools as a science is an idiot .  I believe anyone unwilling to give gays and lesbians equal rights under the law is a bigot.  I will vote against Sarah Palin all the way.  I will be loud and clear about that vote.  I will try to charm or bully people into voting my way.  But I will not say one word about her daughter's pregnancy, past this blog. 

My fellow liberals, we are either decent or we are not.  Most of us have come to believe that the Republicans in power in the past eight years are not.  We believe their policies hurt people.  We believe their politics are the politics of the powerful and of the greedy.  A lot of us are pissed and we'd like to get even.  But this is a seventeen year old kid.  And we either protect kids or we don't.  I'd like to think we do.  If I'm right, we put this one to sleep now.

I've said this a lot of places, but I don't know that I've said it here.  All this business about religious factions getting involved in politics has bothered me forever.  I know from history that John McCain does not believe what the far right Christians believe and that he is NOT married to the idea of getting rid of Roe v Wade, but he has no choice but to say so because if he does, he loses a boatload of votes.  In other words, Christians are keeping him from telling the truth, if you care to look at it from that particular perspective.  I also know that Barack Obama isn't a tried and true follower of the Reverend Wright's old church and all he went through when Wright voiced his religious opinions was mostly a waste of time.  He was prevented from telling the whole truth in the same way McCain was.  I think neither of these guys is particularly religious.  Not being particularly religious myself, I like that.

BUT ALL THAT ASIDE, the framers of the Constitution sought to separate church and state BECAUSE of all that.  They knew that human law does not make particularly good spirituality, and vice versa.  And they knew how devisive fights between belief systems could be.  They knew the only way for people to figure out ways to live together when their belief systems differed so, was to MAKE JUSTICE BLIND to all that.

My father considered himself  a conservative among conservatives.  He believed in small government.  He believed people should be governed at the local level.  He didn't like being told what to do.  My father was raised in a small community and with my mother he raised us in a small community.  People don't starve in small communities.  They don't freeze to death.  They don't sit on heat grates with nothing to eat and wonder if they'll be taken care of tomorrow.  That's because it's really hard to let someone you KNOW, starve or freeze.  So I guess my dad came by his political beliefs honestly.  As I got older we disagreed, but they were good and civil arguments.  But this is the kind of conservative my father was.  He'd have run a nail through his eye before he'd let a book get banned.  He believed as much in personal control as he did local control, which meant he believed a woman had the right to choose when she would have a baby.  He told me a LONG time ago how foolish it was to make drugs illegal and then punish people who used them.  He knew that treatment and preventitive action was the way to go.  When I was in the second grade I came home angry because they had changed the "Pleja Leegence."  They had inserted "under God," and it was taking me and my friends forever to remember where it went.  We, like all second graders, didn't understand The Pledge anyway, so we stuck it in randomly.  Even though I was way too young to understand, I remember my father telling me, "It's probably against the law" to do that.  He knew it was being put there by people with a religious agenda, in the midst of, and following the McCarthy era.  

I wish I could talk with conservatives of that era now.  For one thing, they would talk with me and I with them because, though we'd differ on many issues, we'd agree on many also, and we wouldn't have to hate each other and call each other stupid, to come to compromise. 

This country needs to get back to teaching and learning basic Civics.  We need to remember what was meant way back then, by the word "freedom." 

If it were up to me, any church who went political, on EITHER side, would lose it's tax exemption.  On the spot.  If you want to be a religious group, be a religious group.  If you want to be a political action group, then step up and admit it.  And pay, like other political action groups do. 

We seem to be operating under the assumption that if one isn't religious, one can't have morals; that without the threat of hell and damnation, none of us could be good, could make laws that would take care of "the least of our breathren," as well as ourselves.  That's simply not true.  Empathy and sympathy are not necessarily in the domain of religious belief.  They're in the domain of anyone who aware of his or her connection to the human race. 

Now if THAT doesn't wander all over the place, I don't know what, but I figure a blog is made for ADD guys like me.   

Guess it's about time to get something in this space.  I've been watching this election campaigning while eating a lot of Pepcid.  I hear all this talk about Obama "moving to the center" and along with it, I get messages that some of the younger citizens are losing their passion for him.  Let me encourage you not to do that.  Barack Obama is in as precarious a position as a presidential candidate can be.  He has to keep his idealism alive and bring in the young vote at the same time as he keeps older voters who are used to the old ways.  If he gives up on either of those groups, he loses.  Plus, you cannot overestimate the power of racism in this country.  That's the 800 pound gorilla in the kitchen; the one nobody wants to talk about.  Don't give up on him as he walks the tightrope the media is making him walk and the McCain campaign will make him walk.  LISTEN to him.  Understand that you can't make changes from the outside.  He will have to start where the system is now and work his magic on it over the first years of his presidency.  People who want change want it fast.  I know, I grew up in the sixties when people were taking to the streets over the war in Vietnam and over civil rights.  It looked like a lot of changes were being made and being made quickly, but look at us now.  So much of what we fought for is gone because we didn't establish a strong base.  Over the past eight years our country has lost its soul.  We have lost our unique perspective on freedom because the Bush/Cheney administration has made us afraid.  We have forgotten the reasons he framers of the Constitution wanted intellectual freedom and the separation of church and state.  We have forgotten that freedom is risky. 

I'm sixty two years old.  I've paid attention to politics for a long time and I truly believe that this election is the most important of my lifetime, and you have to remember that I lived through Kennedy's election, Nixon's election, Reagan's election.  I'm an optimist.  I believe that good things can happen for people based on the policies we create and the integrity of our leaders.  George Bush, in my opinion, has no integrity and because of that, we've lost our standing in the world.  I've lost reason to be "proud to be an American."  I want it back.  I want decency brought back into government.  I have been angry for eight years because I believe I have been cheated.  I want the country my father was proud of, and by the way, he was a big time Republican.  Conservative meant a whole different thing back then. 

But I'm rambling.  I want any young people who read this blog to change the statistics on young people who vote.  Even if you're a McCain backer, go out and vote.  Make the numbers big. 

..TR> Face to face with a Stotan
Posted: Friday, May 30, 2008 - 02:39:03 pm PDT
By Matthew Weaver
Herald senior staff writer

Young adult author spends day at secondary school

MOSES LAKE - It's not every day students get to meet the author whose books they've read in class.

Truth be told, people like William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens and Nathaniel Hawthorne might have some explaining to do over the required reading.

Spokane-based author Chris Crutcher, however, didn't have nearly so tough a job.

Crutcher spent the day at Columbia Basin Secondary School in Moses Lake Wednesday, going around to various middle school and high school classes before speaking in an assembly at the end of the day.

Crutcher spoke through sponsoring program GEAR UP.

GEAR UP site director Kassandra Watson said Crutcher was requested by several teachers who had been working with his books for several years.

Crutcher's visit meant a lot to the school, Watson added.

"Sometimes, in a school such as this, they get quite frustrated because people might not come out and visit and you don't get certain impacting visitors," she said. "This is somebody who really means something to them and he actually cared to come out. Plus, he's somewhat local, so they can really connect to him and where he's coming from."

Crutcher talked about where he got his ideas and read from several of his books throughout the day, including "Stotan!" (the title refers to a cross between a stoic and a Spartan), "Whale Talk" and his most recently published work, "Deadline."

GEAR UP instructor Gabe Adame called Crutcher's public speaking "mesmerizing."

"Some kids just didn't really know who he was," he said. "They read the book, but they weren't that excited. Now, they're just on the edge of their seats: What's he going to say next?"

Watson said Crutcher made the connection the school was hoping for.

"It was incredible," she said. "For an author to come in, talk about writing and to read directly from his books and to have the kids just eating up every word, it's a godsend. That doesn't always happen."

Ninth-grader Tyler Johnson said he read Crutcher's "Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes."

"In my opinion, his book really does build suspense, because when the teacher stopped reading, you just want to keep going," Johnson said.

"I thought it was wonderful, I'd like him to come back again," said Kimberlin Robinson, 10th-grader. "Just the way he writes his books I think is amazing. Just the way he explains things in his book and the stories, how they're written. I would definitely like him to come back."

"It was a chance to come and work with kids like the ones I used to work with when I was in alternative ed," Crutcher said. "I had a ball. Really good audiences all the way through. Just good questions."

Crutcher said he was impressed with the wide range of students at the school and where the students are headed.

..TABLE> ..TR>

..TR> http://www.columbiabasinherald.com/articles/2008/05/30/news/news01.txt  ..TABLE>..P> 12:04 AM  3 Comments (Add Comment) | 4 Kudos Translate Columbia Basin Secondary School 9th-grader Kristina Reisdorph talks with visiting author Chris Crutcher Wednesday afternoon as GEAR UP site director Kassandra Watson looks on at center. Photo by Matthew Weaver/Columbia Basin Herald Powered by English Albanian Arabic Bulgarian Catalan Chinese Croatian Czech Danish Dutch Estonian Filipino Finnish French Galician German Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Indonesian Italian Japanese Korean Latvian Lithuanian Maltese Norwegian Polish Portuguese Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Slovenian Spanish Swedish Thai Turkish Ukrainian Vietnamese