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Diversity and censorship

Darren Groth book “Are you seeing me” Has been nominated for the CBCA Book of the Year: Older Readers category.  

Twins Justine and Perry are at a crossroad in life. Twelve months ago their father passed away from cancer. Their mother left them when they were four. They have just turned nineteen and have now decided to take a road trip together to Canada before they go their separate ways.

Perry is different, special, literal and empathetic. He is a loving and caring brother, he also has a brain condition. For more than a year Justine has been Perry’s sole carer. This uplifting story is told with the alternating voices of the siblings as they both try to work out how their lives will be now that they are on their own.  

Perry is obsessed with earthquakes, Jackie Chan movies and mythical creatures. He even uses earthquake analogies to understand the world around him and cope with the way his brain and body reacts when things go off kilter. He also has a plan to liberate his sister from responsibilities of life.

I enjoyed reading this book, there is a lot of light-hearted humour and quirky Aussie symbolism throughout the book. The story cleverly explores themes of family, relationships, disability and social stereotypes making it an exceptional book for discussion groups. There in lay the challenge how to do the book justice in a review. Firstly I checked out the publisher’s website and read over their teacher’s resources section. Impressive. 

Random House Australia 

www.randomhouse.com.au/teachers 

When investigating CBCA book nominations to review, I also became a CBCA member and went to a judge’s talk at Sacre Coeur, Melbourne. Which I found very informative in regards to the books but also in the role of a CBCA judge. They have to read 400 titles and report on them as part of the process.

When researching censorship I found a paper presented last year, ‘Requiem for a Beast: A case study in controversy / Erica Hateley. In 2008, the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) awarded Matt Ottley’s book Requiem for a Beast: A Work for Image, Word and Music, Picture book of the Year.  Ottley’s book is about one young man’s attempts to reconcile his families and countries ruthlessness and shameful history against Aborigines, at the same time trying to comprehend why he attempted to take his own life. This caused media and public condemnation towards CBCA and the author at the time.

 Hateley’s case study involved an online survey enquiring about the presence or use of Requiem in school libraries as a result of the controversy. 

     (72%) Had read the book

      (65%) had Requiem in their collection

          How or where is it located, ...themes varied

                               picture book/graphic novel

·                             teachers only

·                             senior students

·                             restricted adults only

·                             Year 7 and above

         Requiem as a possible teaching tool:

·                             used for the Stolen Generation studies

·                             considering it for inclusion in the year 11-12 curriculum for an                                   Indigenous Issues story
·                      For art

·                              Identity Area of Study

Hateley claimed that the CBCA Award got the book into school libraries, but that the controversy (real or perceived) is keeping it out of circulation (literal or symbolic). (Hateley, 2014) 

Referance  

CHildren's Book Council of Australia. (2015). Retrieved from

http://cbca.org.au/ 

Groth, D. (2014). Are you seeing me. North Sydney. Random House Australia. 

Hateley, E. (2014). Requiem for a Beast: A case studyin controversy. The Asian Conference on Literature & Librarianship 2014 Official Conference Proceedings Retrieved from 

http://eprints.qut.edu.au/72924/3/72924%28pub%29.pdf 

Random House Australia. (2015). Retrieved from 
www.randomhouse.com.au/teachers