Suggested Reading

By: Dave Connis

Recommended Age: YA

Lexile: N/A

Sensitive Content: Language

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"Clara Evans is horrified when she discovers her principal’s “prohibited media” hit list. The iconic books on the list have been pulled from the library and aren’t allowed anywhere on the school’s premises. Students caught with the contraband will be sternly punished.

Many of these stories have changed Clara’s life, so she’s not going to sit back and watch while her draconian principal abuses his power. She’s going to strike back.

So Clara starts an underground library in her locker, doing a shady trade in titles like Speak and The Chocolate War. But when one of the books she loves most is connected to a tragedy she never saw coming, Clara’s forced to face her role in it.

Will she be able to make peace with her conflicting feelings, or is fighting for this noble cause too tough for her to bear?"

What I Thought:

This was a powerful and super interesting book about censorship – actually the first I've read about it. As you read each page, you can start to see the layers unfold. At first glance you'd have thought this would be about a book revolution, underground library, blah-blah-blah, but I thought the same thing before I read it, too. This book is not only about censorship and a book revolution, but also about what a book can do to you, how books can affect you (some in good ways, but also some in less-than-ideal) and how not to judge a book (or person) by its/their cover (literally). As I said on the post of Summer and July, all the characters are written with such depth and detail and complexity in their lives that one would actually think that they have a perfect life from the outside. Because they hide it so well, people often mistake them for someone they're really not. But what really stood out to me the most was the actual understanding of how a book can change. Unfortunately, I've not gone through an experience of a book persuading me to start a book revolution, but I guess that comes when you're older and the books start to shift out of the naive-and-innocent-child-friendly tales to something so much more advanced, complex and real. Suggested Reading is for sure a book I implore you to read, if you are able to – in terms of age and maturity level.

On page 316, something Clara said really resonated with me because that's exactly what I thought. And I hadn't even realised that my thinking was such until I read it. I was so amazed when that happened. I think this realisation was a pivotal/profound moment in the book, because as you can see from the book cover, the question "What are you missing" is on it. And Clara asked the exact same question when she asked herself "What am I missing" But only read the paragraph if you want to risk the spoiler. Not really a spoiler I think, though.

"Books had always been such a positive part of my life, an only-ever-good thing I was praised for being into. So when someone else said, "No, these aren't good for you; I got angry. Now that anger had been replaced by worry and confusion, I wondered for the first time what reason someone could've had to say they weren't good for me. I'd felt off about the Unlib from the day it started because I'd never questioned books before. Id always thought that if it was book-shaped, it was good. My mom and dad had affirmed as much. In the same way, I'd never questioned what books actually did to me. For me. With me. My whole life, I’d only seen the world open its arms to books. But suddenly I had Mr. Walsh saying that they weren't good for me to read? Id had no idea someone could look at a book and think it would make them, or anyone else that read it, worse off. I'd had no idea someone wouldn't want someone else to read something.

And it had bothered me. Why?

Why?

What was I missing?

And now I finally saw it."

Clara, pg. 316/317 SUGGESTED READING by Dave Connis