Richie's Picks: Great Books for Children and Young Adults

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"I can bump him, and I will, because the one thing that is as true out here as it is in the Earthgame is connection. Connection is love. Staying connected with Eddie Proffit is as good for me as it is for him, because love is as true on earth as it is in the farthest reaches of the universe.

"So I do it."

"Just Do It." --Nike slogan

In KING OF THE MILD FRONTIER: AN ILL-ADVISED AUTOBIOGRAPHY, Chris Crutcher recognizes Michael Jordan as a hero--not for his legendary on-court accomplishments, but for the manner in which Michael responded to the brutal murder of his father. Chris notes of Michael:

"When asked about his feelings for his father's killers or what should happen to them, in the only recount I ever heard, all he said was, 'My father is dead. That's all I care about.'"

In rereading Crutcher's autobiography I continue to be moved by Michael's response. I'm so touched by it that one day I'm going to make a point of giving Michael a big long hug.

It actually won't be "one day" since, according to Billy Bartholomew, there is no "time" where he now exists. Billy is the dead teenaged narrator of Chris Crutcher’s new novel THE SLEDDING HILL. And according to Billy Bartholomew, once me 'n Number 23 are both history I'll be able to hook up with Michael or anyone else who has come and "gone."

Life on Earth, as Billy explains it from his beyond-this-world perspective, is but a game, the Earthgame. Once you get to where he is, you "travel at the speed of imagination" and "laugh in wonder at all the crazy considerations you had while playing the Earthgame because you were so focused you thought things were important."

Nor are there emotions after death, Billy explains, other than a "pure joy of knowledge--and a sense of coming home."

What to many readers will be Billy's most shocking revelation from beyond the grave is that everyone who dies ends up IN THE SAME PLACE! That means me and James Dobson, Tucker Carlson, and Bull Conner are all going to get to spend eternity sharing the same celestial real estate with (formerly) practicing homosexuals and hippies, independent film makers, blasphemers, Bin Ladens, black people, and banned book authors.

Chris Crutcher is a runner, as are so many of the characters he's created over the years. Crutcher's been spending a lot of his time lately running around the country defending his good name and his great books which are being challenged so frequently that you've got to figure there’s some serious hit list out there making its way to right-wing pulpits around the country.

Of course, there's supposed to be a separation of Church and State, at least in theory. That wasn't the reality when it came to Crutcher's own childhood experiences--as he recounted in KING OF THE MILD FRONTIER--and it sure doesn't seem to be the case today if you’ve paid attention to as many recent articles about book bannings as I have.

Many of the childhood stories of religion and death that Crutcher includes in his autobiography find their way into the plot of THE SLEDDING HILL. And if you've read the autobiography you realize there are going to be a bunch of huffing, puffing, scowling preachers when they start getting an earful of Billy Bartholomew.

But they're going to have a bit of a problem deep-sixing this baby. Crutcher’s written a book without ANY "naughty" words. Not a single f-word, sh-word, n-word, b-word, or a-h word. If they want to ban THE SLEDDING HILL from school libraries, they're going to have to get it banned because of Billy Bartholomew’s blatantly blasphemous revelations.

And that's the catch, because in Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No.26 v. Pico, the landmark 1982 Supreme Court case concerning school-library censorship (I quote from Russell Freedman's IN DEFENSE OF LIBERTY: THE STORY OF AMERICA'S BILL OF RIGHTS.),

"[T]he court held that students' rights were violated by removal of the books and said that a school library provides 'an environment especially appropriate for the recognition of First Amendment rights of students.' "School officials have a great deal of power to decide which books should be in their school libraries, but they ‘may not remove books from school library shelves simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books,' said the Court. 'Allowing a school board to engage in such conduct hardly teaches children to respect the diversity of ideas that is fundamental to the American system.' "

Now along with the recent book banning news stories, there have been some pretty articulate words from certain teens who feel the same way about having their school libraries raped by the Religious Right as I felt about the Nixon White House invading the offices of the antiwar group I belonged to when I was their age.

As recently explained so articulately in the Kansas City Star by a Kansas high school student named Sasha Mushegian,

"It's true that some words and ideas should not be introduced to students who have not reached a certain level of maturity. But the amount of sheltering these parents are trying to accomplish is more appropriate for elementary school children than for people capable of earning wages, taking college-level courses and driving cars. These are all actions that require a degree of personal responsibility and capability of rational thought that these parents seem to think we lack.
"Yes, we're not completely mature yet; sure, we often make bad decisions--but maturation is a process. There's no magical age at which we mentally and emotionally become adults.
"How can you expect children to mature if you don't expose them to books in which reality is messy and confusing, morals are not immediately clear, making the right decision requires analysis of subtleties, and characters make the wrong choices? How do you expect students to think for themselves if you never expose them to situations that are challenging and unfamiliar (yet still safely contained within the pages of a great work of literature)?"

I can easily see all this leading us toward another Supreme Court showdown to determine whether in reality we're a theocracy or a democracy.

Then on the other hand, I can just imagine some overly-pierced, black-attired, parentally-oppressed young person reading all of this discussion, rolling his or her eyes, and impatiently wanting to know the important stuff:

"Come on, Richie! Who the fuck cares what those right-wing assholes are bitching about now? Just tell us whether the new Crutcher book is worth a shit!"

Okay, well, as a matter of fact it is. THE SLEDDING HILL caused me to laugh a lot, cry a little, and exercise some brain cells.

"Everyone thought our friendship was odd; what was a smart kid like me doing hanging out with a kid with an IQ short of triple digits? Truth is, Eddie's IQ turned out to be off the charts. His mind bounces from one thing to the other pretty much however it wants, though, and long before he should be finishing up one thought, he's on to something else. Eddie doesn't come to very many conclusions."

Longtime friends Eddie Proffit and Billy Bartholomew like to run. It's the one thing that can keep Eddie's mind focused. But then--in a rather short period of time--Eddie discovers both his dad and his best friend Billy dead from totally random accidents. And things go downhill from there when Eddie's nemesis, the Reverend Tartar, starts hanging out with Eddie's grieving mom.

Fortunately, Eddie discovers something that begins to help him get his mind around what has happened in his life. No, it's not a controlled substance--it's a book.

And, unfortunately, you can guess what the Rev. and his followers from the Red Brick Church want to do to that book.

Enough said. I recommend taking it for a spin. (But remember to turn INTO the slide.)

Richie Partington
http://richiespicks.com
BudNotBuddy@aol.com