Update on the Bitch magazine YA 100 list/book removal brouhaha:

Response from the Executive Director (which can be found on page two of the comments, timestamp February 2, 2011 - 11:25am):

If ever it is appropriate to characterize Bitch Media monolithically, it is safe to say that Bitch Media is an organization that loves books and we have a particular love for YA books.

There are thousands of YA books that we would heartily recommend and lend and passionately discuss and debate.

But we made a list of 100. Lists like these evolve and change. In some iterations a book isn’t listed, later it’s back again. Lists are idiosyncratic, biased and not the be all and end all. With the thousands of choices, there will always be some reason to choose one book over another.

I know for writers, readers and promoters of books, removal from a list can be a red flag, a call to action, a slippery slope toward book banning and censorship.

That’s simply not the case here. We’re proud to have all the books removed from the list available in our library (and, yes, it is a physical lending library in Portland, OR). I sincerely hope that more people buy, read, and discuss these books because of this discussion. But they’re not on this list.

And for those authors who have asked to be removed from the list, we respect your support for fellow authors, but it’s our list, with of our recommendations for young adults, and we think your books merit inclusion at this time. We don’t remove the books because we are asked; we remove or include them based on our judgment.

For these decisions, you can castigate or praise us, but I’ll hope you’ll do so in solidarity with an organization that promotes discussion and debate and condemns censorship.

Julie Falk, Executive Director, Bitch Media

Color me unimpressed. Sure, it's their list, but refusing to remove the authors who've specifically requested to be removed is disrespectful at best. And unless I missed it, they've never responded to any of the comments disagreeing with the complaints about the books that were removed in the first place.

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Previously.

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A few more links:

Scott Westerfeld.
Tansy Rayner Roberts.

Comments

[Diana Peterfreund]

FWIW, I did not ask for my books to be removed "in support of fellow authors." I asked that my book be removed because it is clear to me that if they can take one line out of context and use it as grounds to accuse a book of "internalizing negative stereotypes" then they could certainly do the same for my book -- you know, if they ever read it.

Which I doubt they did, since, if they had, they would have the same problems with Rampant.

[Leila]

Well, who even knows. Maybe they'd have had the same reading of that plot thread that I did... until someone else said differently.

[Danika the Lesbrarian]

Err, are they planning on constantly updating it? If not, how is it going to "evolve and change"?

And I highly doubt anyone who censors or bans a book believes that their particular case is censorship.

[Leila]

Maybe, that way, they can change it whenever they feel like it, and no one will squawk?

And, yes. In pretty much every single book challenge article I've read, the challenger says, "I don't believe in censorship, BUT..."

[Sara Kelley-Mudie]

To sum up: "We are standing firm in our waffling. And we will respond to requests, except when we don't."

I know plenty of people who have served on national and state level committees to create lists of recommended books; this takes a LOT of time, and they take it seriously. Heck, I AGONIZE over the creation of my summer reading list, and I don't have nearly the audience for it that Bitch Media does for what they create.

To lazily slap together a list like this, without being prepared to defend your choices, is inexcusable.