“Literature is the better part of life […] provided life is the better part of literature.”

Wallace Stevens, From Adagia

The document entitled Parent Findings & Additional Proposed Guidelines for the Review and Approval of High School Reading Materials (Proposed Guidelines) has been carefully reviewed by the staff of Anoka-Hennepin High Schools. The thoughtful ideas presented through thorough research are well-reasoned and the issues raised are not taken lightly. It is the finding of the staff—the Principle, the English teachers, the Library Media Specialists, the School Counselor, and the School Board—that the novel Eleanor and Park be removed from the summer reading list for 2013 but remains allowed to be taught in the classroom under the careful supervision of Literature Educators. The themes of love and hate, violence, sexuality, and abuse of Eleanor and Park is incredibly relevant to teenagers in our community, and the truths of these difficult subjects transcend the nastiness of the language and the action of the plot to a place of understanding, compassion, love, and acceptance for the two protagonists of this particular novel.

Eleanor and Park is taught as a contemporary realistic fiction that presents important issues of bullying, developing sexual identity, verbal, sexual, and physical abuse clearly outlined in the Proposed Guidelines. However, it is precisely the realistic portrayal of these issues that is necessary for the truths of the themes to reach our young adults who may struggle with life’s ugly difficulties that cannot be censored. In discussing the importance of the realistic fiction genre, Butcher and Hinton summarize Aronson’s argument in Exploring the Myths: The truth about teenagers and reading: “[…] a writer of realistic fiction like a great painter, must go beneath the surface of life to explore discontinuities, examine the subconscious, and investigate unsettling truths. The results must not be sugar-coated stories of perfect lives but frank examinations of the choices young adults must make” (Butcher & Hinton 128). Within the context of the English Literature classroom, Eleanor & Park is an important example of the realistic fiction genre that investigates unsettling truths of abuse and sexuality through shocking realism. To censor the book is to sugar-coat the difficult issues our teenagers face. 

As the Proposed Guidelines states, we are confronted by the nasty language and sexually explicit themes within the first chapter. Setting the opening scene on the bus situates the language and the complexities of developing sexuality within the social structure of kids themselves. Teenagers will swear and threaten each other, and they will grapple with issues of romance and sex, and the consequences (e.g. pregnancy) thereof as realistically painted in this first chapter (Rowell 5-9). Rainbow Rowell creates this horrific scene for Eleanor’s entrance in the story as well as the new kid in school. The 666 school bus (hell) as Eleanor states with devils such as Tina (Rowell 10-11) is precisely the place where she will rise with Park above the ugliness. In her online article “True Love, Book Fights, and Why Ugly Stories Matter” by Linda Holmes, she states, “Ultimately, Eleanor & Park is an enormously optimistic book about love and connection, about the capacity of people to be powerfully consoling and healing to each other, even when they’re 16.  And for that healing to be meaningful, there has to be some honesty about the injury” (Holmes). The stark and realistic portrayal of nasty language and the sexual issues of teenagers is necessary for the beauty that Eleanor and Park create through their love, which is moral. Although they get real close to having intercourse, Park hesitates at the end of the book for two important reasons: he doesn’t have a condom and he doesn’t want to believe he’ll never see her again: “‘Eleanor, no, we have to stop. […] I don’t even know how to…I don’t have anything. But I don’t want you to get— […] I need to believe that it isn’t our last chance […] I need you to believe it, too’” (Rowell 302-303). Showing maturity and real love for Eleanor, Park fights his hormonal urges and finds the beauty and intelligence of making the very important decision to abstain from sex. Protected sex and abstinence are the important lessons here for our teenagers as they grapple with their own immature hormonal tendencies for physical desire.

The staff here at Anoka-Hennepin High School agree with the Proposed Guidelines on the issue that “it is possible for those educators to have a disproportionate impact on the moral and societal views of our children […] as the family unit continues to be eroded and children receive less and less intentional instruction in these areas” (Proposed Guidelines). However, to be able to instruct in the moral area of difficult and ugly subject matters, we as educators need to be as strikingly honest as Rowell is with her novel Eleanor & Park. Referring to the NCTE Position Statement on The Student’s Right to Read, “English Teachers forced through the pressures of censorship to use only safe or antiseptic works are placed in the morally and intellectually untenable position of lying to their students about the nature and condition of mankind” (NCTE Position Statement). The truths of the text Eleanor & Park and the important truths of pedagogy far outweigh the aesthetically displeasing nature of ugly and difficult subjects relevant to the lives of our youth.  Therefore, the staff here at Anoka-Hennepin High School has decided to allow this novel to be taught in the classroom under instruction, but we will remove it from the summer reading list so as to not promote without instruction the ugliness of foul language and sexual activity.

Works Cited

Aronson, M. Exploring the Myths: The Truth about teenagers and reading. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow (2001). As summarized in Bucher, K. & Hinton, K. Young Adult Literature: Exploration, Evaluation, and Appreciation 3^rd Edition. Boston: Pearson, 2014. Print.

Bucher, K. & Hinton, K. Young Adult Literature: Exploration, Evaluation, and Appreciation 3^rd Edition. Boston: Pearson, 2014. Print.

Holmes, Linda. “True Love, Book Fights, and Why Ugly Stories Matter” Monkey See Pop Culture News and Analysis from NPR. npr.org. National Public Radio. (18 September 2013). Online article. http://www.npr.org/sections/monkeysee/2013/09/18/223738674/true-love-book-fights-and-why-ugly-stories-mattergly%20Stories%20Matter

NCTE Position Statement. “The Students’ Right to Read.” ncte.org. National Council of Teachers of English. (November 2012). Website. http://www.ncte.org/positions/statements/righttoreadguideline

Parent Findings & Additional Proposed Guidelines for the Review and Approval of High School Reading Materials. parentsactionleague.org. Parents Action League. (24^th July 2013). PDF. http://www.parentsactionleague.org/storage/post-images/Parent%20Findings%20and%20Additional%20Proposed%20Guidelines%20-%20130724%20v1_1.pdf

Rowell, Rainbow. Eleanor & Park. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2013. Print.

Stevens, Wallace. Adagia. As quoted in: NCTE Position Statement. “The Students’ Right to Read.” ncte.org. National Council of Teachers of English. (November 2012). Website. http://www.ncte.org/positions/statements/righttoreadguideline