I guess I owe the Christian Civil Liberties Union a thank-you–if I hadn’t read about their efforts to ban / burn the book “Baby Be-bop“, I would never have been introduced to Francesca Lia Block and her fantastic writing.
The story begins with a tweet from a friend pointing me to this article (original URL here). Sadly I was not able to get my hands on the original CCLU claim, but the article had me hooked. Racism? Six-figure fines? Book burning? I had to read it myself.
Lucky for me, the Hennepin County public library system had a copy. I reserved it, and was reading it within a week. The book was hard to put down, and I enjoyed it immensely. It did contain elements inappropriate for children, but suitable for all but the most high-strung young adults.
The nearest thing to racism I found in the book was around page 15:
After school Pup and Dirk listened to music in Dirk’s room. They could play it loud because Fifi was a bit hard of hearing. On the wall was a chalk drawing Dirk had made of Jimi Hendrix.
“That is hell of cool,” said Pup. “You are a phenomenal artist, man.”
Dirk tried to concentrate on keeping his ears from turning red.
“My mom went out with this gross trucker guy once,” Pup told him. “He saw the Jimi poster in my room and goes, ‘That nigger looks like he’s got a mouth full of cum.’ I wanted to kill him. I told my mom I would if she didn’t stop seeing him.”
I’ll let you decide whether or not this is sufficient to label the book “racist’. There were a number of other things that make this book less appropriate for kids–some alcohol, tobacco, and drug use, and some sex. Plus a vampire. Surprising that the CCLU is OK with vampires [insert blood of Christ joke here].
On its face this book is about a homosexual teenager trying to reconcile what he knows his is with what he thinks his family wants him to be. That message doesn’t speak to my condition; what does is the story of the compromises we make between what we know in our hearts to be true, and what we have to do to live in the world with other flawed humans.
One piece of dialog that captured my attention is found on page 92:
[Duck] had heard [his mother] talking to her best friend Honey-Marie about Honey-Marie’s son Harley. Harley was a few years older than Duck, and Duck had always admired him from afar. He looked like he was born to play Prince Charming with his fistfuls of curly dark hair, flashing dark eyes and ballet dancer’s body. He spoke in a soft rich voice and wore baggy cotton trousers with Birkenstocks and colorful socks. Harley was a waiter at a café in Santa Cruz but he really wanted to go to San Francisco and perform Shakespeare. Finally, just before he left, he told Honey-Marie that he was gay. She was devastated. Duck heard her tell his mother, “My heart is broken.”
Then he heard his mother say, “It could be worse. He could have something really wrong with him.”
He breathed a sigh of relief on the other side of the kitchen door.
“Something is wrong with him,” Honey-Marie said.
Then Duck’s mother said, “I guess you’re right. I’d probably feel the same way if it was my own son.”
As a parent, this struck me to the marrow.
Related Links
- A teen book burns at the stake [salon.com]
- Christian Civil Liberties Union Wants to Burn Books! WTF?
- The ALA summary [ala.org]
- let me Google that for you. [Google.com]
- Google blog search for “baby be-bop”
Tags: Baby Be-Bop, Francesca Block