 cleverly concealed his internet browser history, what teenage girl didn't wear out the pages with the dirty parts in Judy Bloom's novel forever? What young boy didn't silently weep into his pillow each night at the thought of dying before he was able to cup a naked breast in his hand? And what young reader boy or girl couldn't relate to this passage about another character in the chocolate war one rolling the goober to bear. The goober was beautiful when he ran. His long arms and legs moved flowingly and flawlessly. His body floating is at his feet weren't touching the ground. When he ran he forgot about his acne and his opulence and the shyness that paralyzed him when a girl looked his way. Even his thoughts became sharper and things were simple and uncomplicated. Often he rose early in the morning before anyone else and poured himself liquid through the sunrise streets. And everything seemed beautiful. Everything in its proper orbit. Nothing impossible. The entire world attainable. When I first read that passage back in 1976 I thought, yeah man all things aren't possible. All things except, and I think you know where I'm going with this, allowing a student like me to study Robert Cormier's novel in my seventh grade classroom. I finished the book and I wrote a positively glowing endorsement. Yes, every kid should read this. And I gave it to my mother to hand into the school war. But even as I wrote my words of praise on behalf of the chocolate war I swallowed a realistic dose of despair. I knew my words would end up like horror. Jerry Reynolds at the end of the novel battered, bloody, bruised, and on the way to the hospital in the back of an ambulance. The lions would win. David would whimper. What a shame. It's a really good book. And that's why I'm honored to stand here today nearly 40 years later and speak publicly, finally, on the book's background. So to all the Mr. Puckers of the world, I have just one thing to say. Let our children read and decide for themselves. Let them run free through pages where everything seems beautiful, everything is in its proper orbit, nothing is impossible, and the entire world is attainable. Thank you. Please welcome Janet Fox. We'll read from the absolutely true diary of the I chose this book to read portion of, not only because it's a gorgeous book and one of my favorite books, but because it speaks to so many issues that young people face. Issues of diversity, issues of bullying, issues of being not normal or not acceptable in the community. And he does it so good, like with humor, and wit, and a profound sense of self. A warning on the first lines, and this is a little bit raw and offensive. You know what, it's offensive in ways that are beyond the world. Hey, Chief Rogers said, you want to hear a joke? Sure, I said. Did you know that Indians are living proof that natives fuck buffalo? I felt like Roger had kicked me in the face. That was the most racist thing I ever heard in my life. Roger and his friends were laughing like crazy. I hated them, and I knew what I had to do, that I had to do something fake. I couldn't let them get away with that shit. I wasn't just depending myself. I was depending Indians, black people, and buffalo. So I punched Roger in the face. He wasn't laughing when he landed on his ass, and he wasn't laughing when his nose bled like red fireworks. I struck some fake karate pose because I figured Roger's gang was going to attack me for bloodying their leader, but they just stared at me. You punched me, Roger said. His voice was thick with blood. I can't believe you punched me. He sounded insulted. He sounded like his poor little feelings had been hurt. I couldn't believe it. He acted like he was the one who'd been wrong. You're an animal, he said. I felt great all of a sudden. Yeah, maybe it was just a stupid and immature schoolyard fight, or maybe it was the most important moment of my life. Maybe I was telling the world that I was no longer a human target. You made me after school right here, I said. Why? He asked. I couldn't believe he was so stupid. Because we're going to finish this fight. You're crazy, Roger said. He got to his feet and walked away. His gang stared at me like I was a serial killer, and then they followed their leader. He used. I had followed the rules of fighting. I behaved exactly the way I was supposed to behave, but these white boys had ignored the rules. In fact, they followed a whole other set of mysterious rules where people apparently did not get into this fight. Wait, I called after Roger. What do you want, Roger asked? What are the rules? What rules? I didn't know what to say, and so I just stood there, red and mute like a stop sign. Roger and his friends disappeared. I felt like somebody had shoved me into a rocket ship and blasted me to a new planet. I was a freaky alien, and there was absolutely no way to go home. I'm going to not get any more release on that. I understand that we don't have any visuals, so I wanted to know how many people have read this book. All right, so you know that there is a bit of movement in it. I'll show you at birth and times. I chose this book because I am a big fan of Marie Sindat, and I first discovered in the night kitchen in a children's literature class that I took in college. I was so surprised to find out that he had written a book that was considered very controversial, and of course had to read it. When I was looking at the information about why it was banned, I discovered that the book actually came out in 1970, and almost from the moment it hit library shelves, it became a target censorship. The critics said that it contained gratuitous nudity, and it could be the foundation for future views of pornography amongst children that have been exposed to. It remained a part of a list that the Young Earth and Library Association kept of the top 100 most censored or challenged books, and it was on that list for a number of years. I was just reading recently that there was a suburb in Chicago that after 30 years of having had banned it, finally was going to allow it back in an elementary school library. Unfortunately, in some instances where it actually wasn't removed from library shelves, people, school principals, teachers, and even librarians went ahead and expurgated it by drawing clothes on. So in the night. Did you ever hear of Mickey? How he heard a racket in the night and shouted, quiet down there, and fell through the dark, out of his clothes, past the moon and his mama and papa sleeping tight into the light of the night kitchen. Where the bakers who baked till the dawn so we can have cake in the morning, mixed Mickey and batter chanting, milk in the batter, milk in the batter, stir it, scrape it, make it, bake it. And they put that batter up to bake a delicious Mickey cake. But right in the middle of the steaming and the making, and the smelling and the baking, Mickey poked through and said, I'm not the milk, and the milk's not me. I'm Mickey. So he skipped from the oven and into bread dough, all ready to rise in the night kitchen. He kneaded and crunched it and pounded and pulled till it looked okay. Mickey in dough was just on his way and he made himself an airplane. Then the bakers ran up with a measuring cup, howling milk, milk, milk for the morning cake. What's all the fuss? I'm Mickey the pilot. I get milk in the Mickey way and he grabbed the cup as he flew up and up and up and over the top of the milky way in the night kitchen. Mickey the milkman dived down to the bottom singing, I'm in the milk and the milk's in me. God bless milk and God bless me. Then he swam to the top pouring milk from his cup into the batter below. So the bakers, they mixed it and beat it and baked it. Milk in the batter, milk in the batter, we bake cake and nothing's the matter. Now Mickey in the night kitchen fried a cockatoodle-doo and slid down the side, straight into bed, cake-free and dried. And that's why, thanks to Mickey, we have cake every morning. There's going to be some Captain Underpants on the day of the movie. They had to ask me if I wanted to participate in this wonderful event. I immediately pried that I wanted to read one of the classics, Huckleberry Finn or Kill a Mockingbird or Captain Underpants. And I scored really big. I was really good with Underpants. Captain Underpants is the most challenged book in America in 2012, 2013. That, according to the American Library Association's Office of International Freedom, I suspect it's well on its way to being the most challenged book in 2014. Very interesting book. I read Captain Underpants, I suppose, about 20 years ago, my daughter's in children's librarian and she makes sure that I get the really good books. Captain Underpants tells of the adventures of two fourth-grade boys, George and Harold. The boys are authors of the comic strip about a superhero they named Captain Underpants. And that's based on the observation that superheroes run around in their underwear and when George and Harold decide to create one, they add that. So their superhero also runs around in his underwear. Captain Underwear flies around wearing loneliest briefs in a red cape, saving the world from such monsters as the talking toilet or the inevitable monster. A creature spontaneously comes to life from the school lunch food that children throw away. In addition to their literary endeavors, Harold and George are pranksters. So you get a feel for their entertainment, so let me read a section from the book. See, where are we? Yes, there you go. Remember I said that George and Harold's Silly Street got them big, big trouble once? Well, this is a story of how that happened. And some huge pranks and a little white veil turned their principal into the coolest superhero of all time. That was the day of a big football game between the Hurwitz Mumbleheads and the Steubenville stinkbugs. The bleachers were filled with fans. The cheerleaders ran onto the field and shook their pom-poms over their heads. Thank you, Edward. A fine black dust lifted down around them. Give me a K, shouted the cheerleaders. K, repeated the fans. Give me an N, shouted the cheerleaders. N, repeated the fans. Give me an A, ah, ah, ah, two. Ah, ah, ah, two. K, repeated the fans. The cheerleaders sneezed and sneezed some more. They couldn't stop sneezing. Hey, shouted the fans with bleachers. Somebody sprinkled black peppermint in the cheerleaders' mom-mom. I heard them do that. The cheerleaders stumbled off the field, sneezing and dripping with music mucus, and the marching band took their places. But when it began to play, steady streams of bubbles began blowing out of their instruments. The phones were everywhere, up and down in the field, the marching band slipped and slipped, leading behind a thick trail of bubbly foam. Hey, shouted the fans with bleachers. Somebody poured bubble bath into the marching band's instruments. They did that, asked another fan. Soon the football team took the field. The knuckleheads kicked the ball. Ah, ah, ah, went the ball. Higher and higher it went. The ball sailed into the clouds and kept right on going until nobody could see it anymore. Hey, shouted the fans with bleachers. Somebody filled the game ball with helium. I wondered who did that, asked another fan. The missing ball didn't make any difference because at that moment, the knuckleheads were rolling around on the field, scratching and itching like crazy. Hey, shouted the coach. Somebody replaced our meat-eating muscle rub, lotion, with Mr. Prankster's extra scratchy itching time. I wondered who did that. Saw the shout of the fans and the bleachers. The whole afternoon went on much the same way, with people shouting everything from, hey, somebody put sea monkeys in the lemonade. Hey, somebody glued all the bathroom doors shut. Before long, most of the fans and the bleachers had gotten up and left. The big game was forfeited and everybody in the entire school was miserable. Everyone that is, except for two given boys, crouching in the shadows beneath the bleachers. Those were the best friends. Yeah, laughed Carol. Yep, chuckled George. There are me building art at the top. That's for sure. I just hope we don't get busted for this, said Carol. Don't worry, said George. We covered our tracks pretty well. There's no way we'll get busted. And of course, we get busted. That's a pretty difficult incident, or incident from the book. And it's interesting that this book is challenged as the author Dave Wilkie notes, there is no vanity, no sex, no nudity, no drugs, no smoking, no alcohol, no guns, and no more violence than it did for superhero cartoon. On the other hand, it's not hard to see why some people would object to this. There's an ample amount of disrespect for authority, pranksterism, kids having fun. And there's an ample amount of scapological reference, most of it in the kind of terminology that we parents use to toilet drain our children. But it comes out of the potting toilets in Professor Pooby Bants and references like that, which apparently people feel they need to object to. Why should we encourage people to read this book? Well, it's very fun. All of us used to thank fart jokes were very funny. Some of us still do. And there's nothing wrong with the healthy bit of risk with respect for authority. Most important, look like Captain Underpants lets children enjoy the joy of reading. This is a fun book. Particularly those little pranksters who are often the most reluctant readers of the ones that we can hope will read Captain Underpants, learn to enjoy reading, and get the habit for the rest of their lives. So Persepolis is an autobiographical memoir by Marjane Satrapi. She starts talking about the Islamic Revolution in 1979. And all of the cultural changes that she had to go through definitely talks about nonconformists and our family breaking norms. As far as my research goes, the Chicago Public Schools banded last year because of the torture scene where one of the guards is urinating on a prisoner. In today's day, where we have people being headed in the same area for the same sorts of reasons, I don't understand what this book can be made. It is definitely parallel to what's going on. So I'm just going to read the first couple. This is me when I was 10 years old. That was in 1980. And this is a class photo. I'm sitting on the far left so you don't see me. From left to right, we have Masheed Narheen Meena. In 1979, a revolution took place. It was later called the Islamic Revolution. Then came 1980. The year it became obligatory to wear the veil at school. We didn't really like to wear the veil, especially since we didn't understand why we had to. It's so hot out. Execution in the name of freedom. Give me back my veil. You'll have to lick my feet. Ooh, I'm the monster of darkness. Idiot! And also because the year before, in 1979, we were in a French non-religious school where boys and girls were together. And then suddenly in 1980, all bilingual schools must be closed down. They are symbols of capitalism. Bravo! One wisdom of decadence. This is called a cultural revolution. And we found ourselves veiled and separated from our friends. And that was that. Everywhere in the streets there were demonstrations for and against the veil. At one of the demonstrations, a German journalist took a photo of my mother. I was really proud of her. Her photo was published in all the European newspapers. And then I could see that my mother was really scared. But she dyed her hair and wore dark glasses for a long time. I really didn't know what to think about the veil. Deep down, I was very religious. But as a family, we were very modern. I was born with religion. At the age of six, I was already sure I was the last prophet. This was a few years before the revolution. You see, before me, there have been a few others. I wanted to be a prophet because our maid did not eat with us. Because my father had a catalan. And above all, because my grandmother's the way to survive. I have all the women who are interested in me. But you have with us and listening to someone read it again in this context is all going to prompt to go back to the end of the video with more appreciation this time. I want to thank all of the committee who have been standing together. And I think they're all here now. So right now, thank you very much. Thank you very much. I'm going to have this speaker on the other video. It's a nice thing. I'm just a little bit more comfortable. But I'm going to have this speaker on the other video. So everybody, I'm going to have this speaker on the other video. I'm going to have this speaker on this video. I'm going to have this speaker on the other video. Thank you so much. Thank you.