And on the Topic of Banned Books...

A young adult novel that has come under fire in its author's native country will be making its way to the U.S. Ted Dawe's Into the River, which earlier this month became the first book in more than two decades to be banned in New Zealand, has been acquired by Jason Pinter at Polis Books.

The award-winning coming-of-age novel, published by Random House New Zealand in 2013, has become a target of the conservative group Family First. According to CNN, a representative from Family First said the book's "strong offensive language" and "strong sexual descriptions" drove the organization's complaint. The group said it also took issue with the fact that book "covers serious things like pedophilia and sexual abuse."

Family First asked that the country's Office of Film and Literature Classification—which generally deals with ratings on things like movies and video games—look into the title, which won the New Zealand Post Margaret Mahy Award in 2013. The result has led to the book being pulled from retailers, schools and libraries.

Author, Ted Dawe

Targeted at boys 15 and older, the novel follows a Maori boy whose life is upended after he wins a scholarship to an elite prep school in Auckland. Te Arepa Santos's struggles to fit in, as he deals with issues of assimilation, are at the heart of the novel. This process, Pinter explained, forces the character to "turn his back on the culture and history that helped shape him and his ancestors."

The banning of Into the River has stirred a number of authors to speak out, with many criticizing the government for what they perceive as a blatant act of censorship. Among those taking up the issue are Man Booker winner and The Luminaries author Eleanor Catton, who said of the ban: 

appalling and shameful...says nothing about the pretext and everything about those who are enforcing the ban.

Pinter acquired North American rights to Into the River, as well as Dawe's earlier novel Thunder Road (the sequel to Into the River), directly from Random House New Zealand. Polis is aiming to publish Into the River, in both hardcover and e-book, in June 2016.

Award Winner, Ted Dawe's Book, Banned in New Zealand

In keeping with my previous post, Children's Books Banned from Bookshelves as Late as 1990,  I thought this news from the world of children's literature was decidedly worth a follow-up:

Ted Dawe's young adult novel Into the River won the New Zealand Post Margaret Mahy Book of the Year award and was also the winner of the Young Adult Fiction category.  And yet, it is banned by many bookstores and schools. 


But a judge is defending an award-winning children's book, which has been taken off the shelves in some bookstores, saying the book's descriptions of sex acts, drug-taking and coarse language help to tell the real story.


Some bookstores are refusing to sell the book and organizers of the awards have sent out a "explicit content" warning stickers to all booksellers.
The novel has stirred up controversy but chief judge of the Children's Book Awards Bernard Beckett has brushed it off, adding:

 It was a "magnificent" and "important" book...and feels more real than any teen novel I have read in New Zealand."

"I want people to read this book. It's about a young Maori boy, grew up on the East Coast, who moves up to Auckland on a scholarship.  He's a boy with potential, he's smart, he's got the world ahead of him and then that gap between two worlds is too big he ends up in a boarding school where he can't find a place to stand.  It's exactly that story about what happens to these kids who fall through the gaps and what the implications are for them."

Ted Dawe

But its "unnecessarily graphic" content, coarse language including the c-word, drug and sex references has provoked response.  Family First's Bob McCoskrie said Mr Dawe and judges were out to "pollute the moral innocence of kids" and even adults would find it offensive.

Beckett contends the story could not have been told without the coarse language, drug and sex references.:

"In the same way that Macbeth can't be told without a murder, you can tell a different story, but the story you can't tell is the cost of this lifestyle and what happens to these kids."

You decide.  Have a look at Into the River, and assess it for yourself.  The only caveat, as far as your humble blogger is concerned, is that New Zealand is a democracy of the first water and, as such, book banning should be scrutinized at the very least.