MAUDIE AND ME AND THE DIRTY BOOK

by Betty Miles ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1980

How can you use the book censorship issue as a topic for a kids' book? Simple, put a kid in the teacher's place and take the controversy from there. Here sixth-grader Kate Harris volunteers to read to first graders in a school project cooked up by both teachers. Her only concern is that the other volunteer, Maudie Schmidt, is one of those kids that nobody wants to get stuck with. Kate does not anticipate the fuss stirred up by a few angry parents over the dog book she reads to the kids, and especially over the discussion that erupts spontaneously from the sequence of a puppy being born. The first-grade teacher compliments Kate on her handling of the kids' direct questions and embarrassing declarations (""I've got a vagina!"" ""I've got a penis!""); but the result is outraged letters to the local paper, conferences with teachers and principals, and finally a school-board-meeting confrontation at which the few censors are voted down and the community at large applauds Kate's self-defending speech. (""The majority wins. . . and that's democracy,"" is Dad's summary of the proceedings.) Meanwhile, Kate and Maudie become good friends and Kate acquires a boy friend whose mother went through the same kind of fight in another town. Miles raises no real censorship issues herself: the ""dirty book"" and Kate are obviously innocuous (as a teacher puts it), the protesters obvious extremists, and both Kate and her teacher make clear their very moderate positions. The story is well paced and readable, but its one-sided situation makes it complacently liberal rather than thought-provoking.

Pub Date: April 1, 1980

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1980

Categories: FICTION