I first met Matt a few years ago at NCTE when he, Chris Crutcher, and I did a panel on sports literature.  He’s a terrific speaker and as evidenced, willing to put his money where is mouth is.

A Vermont prison inmate who makes stationery and license plates has gotten the best of the state police by adding the image of a pig to the state decal on their cruisers.

Somewhere in Vermont, there’s a talented artist with a wicked sense of humor.  Too bad he’s in jail.

One of my heroes, Chris Crutcher, reading the paperback of Black Hole Sun in the office of our editor.  Note Crutcher’s prowess at reading upside down while spearing a donut that I’m sure someone tossed him.

“Sometimes when you stare out the window it’s like watching the movies in your mind.” —Jack Gantos.
And sometimes, you make readers laugh so hard, they slobber themselves, and while they’re laughing, you sneak in a nugget of profundity and insight that once they’ve stopped laughing and cleaned themselves up, they say, “Huh. That’s so right.”

I often take solace in the fact that I don’t reside in Arizona.  I take much less solace in the fact that the same wave of paranoia and meanness that has seized that state is spreading to other states, including several in the Southeast, where governments are stripping teachers and and their students of rights (TN) or practicing racial profiling under the guise of national security (AL).  

Matt de la Pena, a YA author, is one of the authors whose work was removed from the classrooms. As Matt says on his blog:  “Ironically, I’m scheduled to speak at Tucson High School on March 13. A young female student there spearheaded the whole thing. She went to the administration on her own accord and helped raise funds. She’s a self-admitted reluctant reader, but she was introduced to my books in a class much like the one above, and something clicked. Because of her effort and passion, this has been the visit I’m most looking forward to this year. I can’t wait to meet her.”

Among the books removed from the curriculum:

Little Indians (2004), by S. Alexie
The Fire Next Time (1990), by J. Baldwin
Loverboys (2008), by A. Castillo
Women Hollering Creek (1992), by S. Cisneros
Mexican WhiteBoy (2008), by M. de la Pena
Drown (1997), by J. Diaz
Woodcuts of Women (2000), by D. Gilb
At the Afro-Asian Conference in Algeria (1965), by E. Guevara
Color Lines: “Does Anti-War Have to Be Anti-Racist Too?” (2003), by E. Martinez
Culture Clash: Life, Death and Revolutionary Comedy (1998), by R. Montoya et al.
Let Their Spirits Dance (2003) by S. Pope Duarte
Two Badges: The Lives of Mona Ruiz (1997), by M. Ruiz
The Tempest (1994), by W. Shakespeare
A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America (1993), by R. Takaki
The Devil’s Highway (2004), by L. A. Urrea
Puro Teatro: A Latino Anthology (1999), by A. Sandoval-Sanchez & N. Saporta Sternbach
Twelve Impossible Things before Breakfast: Stories (1997), by J. Yolen
Voices of a People’s History of the United States (2004), by H. Zinn

The books confiscated and banned are:

Critical Race Theory, by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic
500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures, edited by Elizabeth Martinez
Message to Aztlán, by Rodolfo Corky Gonzales
Chicano! The History of the Mexican Civil Rights Movement, by F Arturo Rosales
Occupied America: A History of Chicanos, by Rodolfo Acuña
Pedagogy of the Oppressed, by Paulo Freire
Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years, by Bill Bigelow

My question is: Who’s next?  Who will be silenced?  Whose story will remain unheard?

My younger locust is a hockey goalie, both ice and roller. Here’s her latest tournament.

*I first heard this phrase uttered by Peter O’Toole in Mel Brooks’ film “My Favorite Year,” which is One of My Favorite Movies. Go watch it.

**In truth Kean probably didn’t say it quite that succinctly.  After all, brevity is the soul of wit, and a guy about to shuffle off his mortal coil probably wasn’t worried about wordsmithing.