"Speak" - a novel by Laurie Halse Anderson

"Speak" tells the story of a young teenager who teeters on the precipice of that tenth circle of hell - High School - as the one thing no teenager entering high school wants to be: a social pariah. The whole unfortunate chain of events that ripped Melinda from her comfortable circle of friends began at a end-of-summer party that started with booze, and ended with a call to the police.

Melinda makes the 9-1-1 call that would bust up the festivities, but it was the last cry for help this traumatized girl would make over the next nine months. In fact, she stops speaking almost entirely over course of the school year, treacherous terrain she navigates as the weirdo loner. There are no friends left who would dare speak to the snitch who broke up the party, which makes the natural dissolution of middle school friendships much more painful.

Instead Melinda is trapped in her own head, where she is free to say, often with acerbic wit and wry observations, what her mouth can no longer say. It is there we meander through the tightly woven recesses of her mind to untangle what has rendered our heroine mute.

The book hit my radar during "Banned Books Week." This YA title tackles very adult material in the inciting incident that propels Melinda onto her journey to rediscover her voice. This seems to upset some folks who would prefer to whitewash information handed to impressionable teenagers, to reinforce this facade that nothing bad can happen to you until you hit that magical birthday that makes you old enough to deal with your circumstances.

If only we could so easily "ban" the behavior that facilitates the need for such a book.

When I was in ninth grade, much like Melinda, I found my voice right in front of my speech class, where I acknowledged that I was a survivor of rape. My season of silence lasted nine years before I finally just let it erupt out of my soul like a painful volcano. It was a moment that shocked the entire class into silence, because I'm sure many in the class could never have expected that one of their classmates withheld such a painful secret.

Maybe many believed the facade that such a thing could never touch the sweet sanctity of childhood. They were fortunate enough that such a concept was blissfully foreign to their own particular experience.

What I didn't expect were the girls who came to me later in private to tell me their own stories - stories of incest and rape and the same binding shame that had kept us all silent until one brave voice decided to speak up.

We were all in this bubble of silence, thinking we were alone, never knowing we were part of a growing, muted society who didn't get the memo such things just weren't supposed to happen to young kids.

That's the real facade.

According to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, 44% of sexual assault survivors are under the age of 18. More than that, "girls ages 16-19 are 4 times more likely than the general population to be victims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault."

When you factor in that 60% of rapes go unreported, that means that there are teenagers out there struck just as mute as "Speak's" heroine. These are victims locked deep in the recesses of their own mind, told by those whom they trust that childhood is a safe place where these things are simply not up for discussion.

In a shocking demonstration of perfect irony, those who would ban such a book indeed silence a character who fought so hard and so bravely to find her voice... the only thing that would help her heal.

I have to admit, I made the same mistake. Though my novel, Dirty Little Secrets, features a similar painful coming-of-age for a 19-year-old girl, I did not market my book to the YA market. I felt the subject matter too dark, too traumatic. But in all fairness I did wallow a bit deeper in the mud than Anderson, whose book balanced a 13-year-old (PG rated) point of view with very adult subject matter.

My book is more in-your-face and not quite as delicately self-censored. If my book was banned, I'd understand.

"Speak" being banned makes no sense to me.

The story itself is well-crafted and a very quick read (I finished it in a matter of hours.) Anderson gives you enough detail to understand the pain and isolation without making it too sensationalistic. "The Event" is delivered over a couple of paragraphs, like ripping the band-aid off of a healing wound. It isn't explicit, just very matter-of-fact.

She uses imagery like the seasons turning and visuals like seeds and trees to demonstrate growth and the passage from one growth period to another. I would have preferred to see the turning point at the end of the book more foreshadowed as to how she finally resolves her silence in a very dramatic, yet almost non-organic way. It was satisfying, but there was that very slight kernel of non-plausibility that stole some of its thunder.

It's the only real complaint I could muster for this important piece of work, which should never be silenced to "protect" our kids.

To really protect your kids, give them a safe haven where all discussion is allowed and welcomed.

Always, always, ALWAYS give them the permission to speak.

**** - highly recommend.