A tiny bit more about the Teen Lit Fest cancellation:

From the Houston Chronicle:

"It's a disappointment when something like this happens," Collier said. "But if parents are concerned that we overreacted, I suggest that they read some of her work. It's very graphic."

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Previously:

Big round-up.
Addendum.
Cancellation.

Comments

[Colleen]

There was also this piece: http://www.ourtribune.com/article.php?id=10718

What got me there was this quote from the executive director of public information for Humble ISD:

“This is an excellent author whose work is appropriate for high-school-age students, but not for kids as young as 11,” said Collier. “That is why her books are in our high-school libraries, but not in our middle-school or elementary-school libraries. There is a big difference between material being age-appropriate and censorship, and most parents get that.”

What I get from that is all the authors at this festival apparently have to be acceptable to 11 year olds which means this is not middle school or high school festival but an elementary school one, correct? (We're talking 5th graders, aren't we?) So it's not for teens and it's not about YA, it's about children which is a whole other thing. Why didn't they just admit that (and label it as such) from the beginning?

[Leila]

Huh.

Which begs the question: If all of the content has to be acceptable to parents of 5th graders, why call it a Teen Lit Fest in the first place?

Which is pretty much the same thing that you asked, Colleen, but... yeah. Here I am, having the same question.

[LG]

So often, "teen" is defined as ages 13-15 (in some cases, a smaller range even than that). It was this sort of thinking that prompted me to leave the teen section of my local public library when I was 14 - there just wasn't anything there I was interested in anymore.

[Chrissy]

Moving from area to area has made me realize that "middle school" has a fuzzy definition at best. The secondary problem being "middle school" and "teen" being thought to be the same thing which they aren't necessarily, depending on where you live. Where I grew up and went to school many elementary schools were K-8. There was one "middle school", which I attended, that was only grades 7 and 8 (my and several other elementary schools were K-6). I thought this was the norm and it supports the theory that "middle school" and "teen" can be synonymous. However, where my husband went to school elementary was K-4 and "middle school" was grades 5-7 (8-12 was the High School).
So, working within that model one can argue that "teen" books are not age appropriate for "middle schoolers" (aged 10-12). But again, agreeing with the above comments, that does not make it a TEEN Lit Fest if you have to aim content for non-teens now does it?
And because I am already babbling without tea and with a very bad cold "teen" lit can be narrowly defined as for ages 13-15, but Young Adult, which is still used by many libraries, can be and is age appropriate for up early college age, 18-20. But YA doesn't have the nice edgy ring to it that "Teen" does, so it's been pushed out in many places.
It all semantics and maybe just meaningless or that could just be the NyQuil morning-after talking.

[hope]

So, how many of the *other* authors invited to the festival were writing solely for eleven year olds? Yeah, I don't think so. Some of their stuff is appropriate for the youngest age group attending . . . and some isn't. And if it weren't for this broo-ha-ha, everybody in Humble would have thought that was just fine. What did they think Hopkins was actually going to say onstage that would be so awful?

I thought the comments in the Housten piece were really encouraging. So they must be some libral rag.