From: Judith Ridge <Judith.Ridge>
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 12:49:22 +1000

Further to Mike's post, I would add that I haven't come across any non-politicians who have expressed dismay about Gleitzman's books about our government's policy on the mandatory detention of all asylum seekers. Have you, Mike?

I work as an editor at a literary magazine for children, published by the Department of Education and Training in my state of New South Wales.
("School Magazine" is its imaginative title, but hey, it's been around since 1916 and we're stuck with it ;-)) In each magazine we publish (40 a year, for grades 3-6) we review a book we think our young readers will like, and publish an extract from it. As a publication of the Dept of Education, we have some guidelines we must adhere when selecting materials for the magazine, and taking an overtly political position is not appropriate for us. However, we happily reviewed (or "Bookshelfed", as we call it) "Boy Overboard" when it was first published, because we felt it was a fine piece of writing, and for the sorts of reasons Ginny mentioned; the desire to bring the lives and experiences of children from around the world to our readers through the best writing available.

We didn't, however, Bookshelf "Girl Underground", partly because we tend not to review sequels (although we do break that rule all the time, to be honest...) but also because we felt it was polemical in a way that Boy Overboard wasn't. (Personally, I stood up and cheered as I read it, and ended up writing the teacher's notes for it for the Australian publisher. Ask me how to find them if you're interested!) In terms of today's conversation, we felt it did go too far as far as giving it our imprimatur went. Had we been a commercial publication, without nervous bureaucrats lurking over our shoulders, our decision may have been different. (Or not. At least one of my colleagues felt that it's not an author's place to be overtly "party political" in a children's novel. He is a published children's author himself, so it's a well-considered opinion.)

Having said all that, I have just checked, and both Girl Underground and Boy Overboard are included on the NSW Premier's Reading Challenge reading list. The Reading Challenge is a program designed to encourage children to read for pleasure--I'm on the selection panel for new books to be added to the existing lists. We have to be VERY careful about the titles approved for the Reading Challenge, and some have been removed for bad language or challenging content (to our disappointment and frustration). Clearly, no-one thought Gleitzman's books went too far for the Premier! (The premier is the leader of our state government and is closely associated with the Challenge--he's big on books and reading--and so any book that may embarrass him cannot go on.)

We don't shy away from difficult material (content and language-wise) in School Magazine, although by its nature we tend not to go for "dirty realism"--our audience only goes up to about the age of 12, and we don't want to spring any nasty surprises on unsuspecting teachers who use the magazine in the classroom. That's not to say we don't publish stories about death, or difficult family situations, for example, but we are very careful in the selection and editing of these sorts of stories--and we also strive for a balance of tone and content, within each magazine and across the publishing/school year. We have been censored (those damn bureaucrats!) and we hate it, but we also have obligations to our audience and to the department, which we can't get away from. So yes, in our context, some material does go "too far" (and I'm not talking about the adult erotic poetry that is occasionally submitted by writers who REALLY haven't done their research!) and I am comfortable with that.

In the wider community, I don't feel that Australia is anywhere near as prone to censorship and challenges as is the case in the US. We've had our cause celebres, of course, but they have been few and far between. Traditionally, the worst thing an Australian could be accused of being was a wowser--someone who spoils everyone else's good, honest fun by being overly prudish, and I think this has contributed to a relatively censorship free society. However, it seems that Australia, like the rest of the Western world, is becoming increasingly conservative and I suspect we may begin to see more attempts at limiting young people's access to more challenging material.

On the GLBT topic, I have been enormously puzzled as to why there is so little GLBT Australian YA fiction. I've been told many times by colleagues in the US that Australian YA is "cutting edge"--Marc Aronson once said to me
"your YA writers get away with stuff ours never would." Well, they're not
"getting away with" GLBT themes, and I don't know if it's because no-one is writing it, or because no-one will publish it. Mike? Any thoughts?

Judith


Judith Ridge Editorial Staff The School Magazine PO Box 1928 Macquarie Centre NSW 2113 AUSTRALIA
+61 2 9889 0044 (ph)
+61 2 9889 0040 (fax)


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Received on Thu 23 Jun 2005 09:49:22 PM CDT