A PRINCIPAL of an elementary school in the Boston suburbs recently called - a week before my author visit - to tell me that the school wasn’t going to send book orders home with students because it didn’t want to give parents the impression that the school was endorsing the objectionable material in my book.
Which book, I asked?
“Well, the one where . . .’’ I heard her shuffling papers, “. . . there’s some kind of . . . pregnancy issue?’’
“Do you mean Fern’s mother who dies in childbirth in ‘The Anybodies?’ ’’ I asked, wondering if this was really objectionable in light of Harry Potter’s murdered parents.
“I guess so . . . And,’’ she went on, “there’s a bad word?’’ She paused. “The word . . .?’’
“That would be ‘The Prince of Fenway Park,’ ’’ I said. The novel is about racial tolerance, drawing on the history of racism in baseball, and includes an author’s note concerning my rationale for using the “n’’ word. I assumed she hadn’t read the book or the author’s note.
She stressed that she didn’t want to deal with angry parents complaining about the books, and how she just couldn’t give the impression that the school was endorsing my work.
I explained that the state of Massachusetts as well as many other states had already endorsed “The Anybodies’’ and that it was on several summer reading lists. The principal told me that none of this mattered, explaining that her district was one that had opted out of the president’s recent address to schoolchildren.
Her voice was weary, embattled, fearful. I’ve been doing school visits for five years, to more than 100 schools, in some of the most conservative areas in the country, and I’d never had this reaction.
Then it dawned on me that there was a possible connection between the recent uproar from parents about the president’s address and my visit. She’d brought it up, after all. Like many other administrators throughout the country, she had taken a lot of heat from parents - on both sides of the aisle. It also hit me that the narrator of my novel, a biracial 12-year-old boy whose face lights up the cover, looks an awful lot like a young Barack Obama. Was this aspect of the book playing into the nervous call?
She told me that she would be happy to send the book orders out after the visit. I wasn’t sure how this made her less culpable for promoting “objectionable’’ books. But she assured me that it did.
I could only assume that if the interest in my books came from children, parents would buy the books. But if parents felt the endorsement was coming from the school, she’d be caught in the crosshairs.
Isn’t the purpose of an author visit - to boost literacy, to give the school an opportunity to have a shared literary touchstone?
Of course, the bottom line was: If the school found my work objectionable, then why did it invite me? Or was it that things had suddenly changed?
All I know is that it felt like a strange form of censorship, especially as I was told it was coming from a district that had already censored the president. If Obama’s uplifting speech about studying hard in school was objectionable to parents, then, from now on, what isn’t?
Surely not literature about life and death. Surely not a historical view of racism, even if it sends a message of tolerance and reconciliation.
I feel there has been a shift in fear this fall. The chaotic town-hall meetings, the new Jerry-Springer-inspired definition of debate, a congressman shouting at the president in the middle of a speech, and the idea that those who yell the loudest win have suddenly created a more volatile environment for us as a nation, and at what expense?
The overwhelmingly sad thing for me was the sound of fear in this woman’s voice and her utter lack of conviction in the things that probably once inspired her to become a teacher in the first place - the way someone can talk about the world of books, the power of the imagination, and change a child’s life.
Julianna Baggott is a novelist for both children and adults. She also writes under the pen name N.E. Bode. 
