Strong At The Heart

Saturday’s event in Westhaven went really, really well. There was a lovely audience, including friends from various parts of my life. It’s a real treat to do a book event in my own community!

Sam and Pearl Oliner, two sociologists who study and write about altruism came and contributed to the discussion. So did Paige Alisen, the founder of The Emma Center.

One woman asked me to post the statistics on child sexual abuse that I cited at the beginning of the conversation. I find these stats both clarifying AND suggestive.

Here they are in their long form and with citations:

–One in four women and one in six men acknowledge sexual abuse in childhood in a retrospective study of 17,000 middle class adults in the Kaiser Health Care System. (The ACE Study, Dr. Vincent Fellitti, U. S. Department of Public Health)

–Two thirds of victims of reported rape are under eighteen. More than half of these are under twelve. (Snyder, Howard, National Center for Juvenile Justice. 2000. Sexual Assault of Young Children as Reported to Law Enforcement. U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justices Statistics.)

–Almost 2 million teenagers in the U. S. have been victims of serious sexual assaults. (Kilpatrick and Saunders, 1997:
The Prevalence and Consequences of Child Victimization, U. S. Department of Justice)

–One third of the people who sexually abuse children are family members. More than half are acquaintances including trusted adults and other children. Only 7% are strangers. (U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justices Statistics, 2000)

–Adults are the offenders in 60% of sexual assaults of children under age 12. (U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justices Statistics, 2000)

the facts speak for themselves

Two things really stand out for me. The first is that–as a culture–we have defined rape as an experience of adult women. But look who is experiencing the majority of rapes.

And that last statistic. If 60% of offenders are adults, that means …

Public discourse on sexual abuse and rape is still in the Dark Ages in many ways. We have a long ways to go before our understanding of childhood sexual abuse catches up with the reality that kids experience every day.

Bloggers who are fans of children’s YA literature have started a new award, the Cybil. Check it out and nominate your favorite book from the past year.

I am honored to serve on the Middle Grade/YA Non-fiction award committee. And, no, Strong at the Heart is not eligible.

Westhaven

Closer to home, I’m speaking at the Westhaven Center for the Arts, in Westhaven, California, this Saturday from 3-4:30 p.m. The event is co-sponsored by the Emma Center, a local nonprofit that supports women who are healing from the mental and physical effects of childhood trauma.

I’ll be showing photos from the book and other behind-the-scene shots. What I’m hoping is that we’ll have a discussion of what we can do in our community to better support survivors and to help prevent abuse.

The event will be at 501 S Westhaven Drive in Westhaven. To find out more, see the article in today’s Times Standard.

If you’re local, do come!

Good news just came in. Strong at the Heart has been chosen for California Collections.

Each year California Readers, a group of educators, librarians, parents, booksellers, authors, illustrators, and business representatives choose one hundred books each for three collections: Elementary School, Middle School and High School.

The purpose is to chose the best books for young readers written by Californians and to assemble them in a list that provides a balanced collection. A librarian who purchased the whole collection would find that fiction, poetry, and a wide spectrum of nonfiction, representing diverse experiences, would all be included.

The criteria are that books in the collections:

— meet the qualifications of excellent literature
— reflect the entire spectrum of curriculum areas in a balanced collection
— focus on the diversity of California population
— illuminate the various California geographical areas and
— raise awareness about issues important to California.

This year Laurence Yep is being honored as the Californian whose books have most often appeared on the list over time. Seven of his novels have been chosen for thirty lists. He, and the rest of us, will be honored at a luncheon in Burbank in February 2007.

You can check out the three lists online.

The books are excellent and so is the overall shape of each collection. This is great company to be in!

If you work with young kids or are a parent here’s a book you might want to know about. Healing Stories, by Jacqueline Golding, describes and recommends picture books that deal with “the big and small changes in a child’s life.”

Of course, when I saw it, I immediately turned to the section–at the end–on abuse. The author covers picture books on prevention as well as physical and sexual abuse and violence within the home.

Several excellent books are on the list–ones I’ve read and reviewed in the past. There were also titles new to me.

teen moms

I found out about this book and others at the Northern California Independent Book Sellers Association (NCIBA) annual expo in Oakland, CA. I drove down and spent Friday and most of Saturday at workshops and on the expo floor where Strong at the Heart was displayed with other books by members of the SCBWI (Society of Chilren’s Book Writers and Illustrators). Jacqueline Golding was there, too, with her book.

A suprise pleasure of the expo was getting to know Jacqueline and YA author Deborah Davis. Deborah has several fiction titles out including Not Like You (Clarion) and My Brother Has AIDS (Atheneum).

Her newest book is You Look Too Young To Be A Mom (Penguin). It’s a compelling collection of writing by teen moms who examine their experiences with motherhood. I’m just getting started reading it, but wanted to pass the word along now. I think she’s done a stellar job of giving voice to young women who are finding their way in the world.

Where do you get your image of who and what survivors of sexual abuse can be? Do the survivors portrayed in books and movies accurately reflect real people’s experiences–or are they projections of the creators’ own fears and beliefs?

This summer I sat down with recent young adult novels that have major characters who are survivors of incest, sexual abuse, and rape. It was eye opening to look at these books side-by-side and consider just what they tell young readers about surviving abuse.

“Hero, Victim or Monster? an author looks at depictions of sexual abuse survivors in YA fiction” was just published in School Library Journal.

Here are some exerpts, but you can read the whole article on line.

At age 10, Jonathan was sexually abused by the family priest. “When I started middle school and realized what sex is, that’s when I really started having a problem with this,” Jonathan, now a young adult, told me. “What happened with Father Jim made me feel like a lesser person.” Jonathan turned to alcohol, drugs, and aggressive behavior to cope with his shame and prove that he could be “cool, a real man.”…

I spent several days with Jonathan when he was 17, interviewing and photographing him for Strong at the Heart: How It Feels to Heal from Sexual Abuse (Farrar/Melanie Kroupa Books, 2005). My purpose was to show—through their own words—how real teens and adults overcome childhood sexual trauma. I wanted readers to have a clear picture of what sexual abuse is, who survivors really are, and how people make choices that lead to a healthy outcome.

The survivors I interviewed have done a substantial amount of healing and come from a wide range of cultural, economic, and racial backgrounds. Our conversations showed me how much we have to learn, if we will only listen. I saw how teens hunger for stories about others, like themselves, who have coped with traumatic experiences. They also gave me new criteria for evaluating fiction that depicts this all-too-common experience of childhood and adolescence.…

… You might expect that trauma this pervasive would be examined—and its impact explored—in literature for the very people who are living it. Yet few of the teens I talked with had seen their experience reflected in a book.…

titles

Books discussed in depth include two by Chris Lynch, Inexcusable and Sins of the Fathers, Laura Weiss’ forthcoming Such A Pretty Girl, R. A. Nelson’s Teach Me, and Beth Goobie’s The Place Where the Losers Go.

There’s also a list of some excellent older books by Jacqueline Woodson, Chris Crutcher, Cynthia Voight and Cathy Adkins.

To evaluate the books, I used four criteria that came from discussions with young survivors. I’d love to know what you think!