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‘I never get used to it’
Knox County Schools leaders, following a new state law, decided to pull 48 books out of its libraries and classrooms.
Dashka Slater’s nonfiction book “The 57 Bus” was among them. It is among the five most-challenged books in the state.
Her book is a true crime narrative about two teenagers in Oakland, California. Sasha Fleischman, a teen who identifies as agender (neither male nor female) was riding a bus back from high school when their skirt was set on fire by another teen, who was arrested and tried as an adult.
The crime made headlines in 2013.
Slater’s book explores the intersection of race, gender, the juvenile justice system and income inequality. “The 57 Bus” has won multiple awards and was named in Time magazine’s 100 Best Young Adult Books of All Time. She has written several other children’s books.
“The 57 Bus” has been banned or challenged in several states including in Idaho, Iowa, Texas, Florida, New Jersey, Kansas, South Carolina, Wisconsin and now Knox County Schools libraries.
She spoke to Knox News about how she deals with challenges to her book and how it affects her approach to writing.
This Q&A has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Knox News: How does it feel to have your book banned?
Dashka Slater: This book has been on the receiving end of a lot of bans and challenges and it never gets easier. I never get used to it.
This book was a labor of love that I spent three years reporting and the idea that anyone would take this book of my heart as being anything other than a gift given to the world in good faith is heartbreaking. I also can’t believe that in 2024, almost 2025, that people are willing to sit by as the government tells them what they can and can’t read.
I’m moderately familiar with Tennessee’s Age-Appropriate Materials Act. I track this issue pretty closely and I don’t tend to remember the differences in wording with each state that has passed an educational gag order.
Your book was categorized as patently offensive. What is your reaction to that?
Note: Tennessee law defines “patently offensive” to mean that which goes substantially beyond customary limits of candor.
I just have to laugh.
There’s no sex. There’s not even kissing. There are two main characters, both of them are teenagers, one is 16, one is 18. Fleischman, who I assume is the person they feel is offensive because they are gender-queer, is also asexual and not particularly interested in sex.
There’s some ballroom dancing, I guess, if people are concerned about that. What people are concerned about, I presume, is that there is a glossary that has definitions of words that explain how people categorize themselves in relationships, in their romantic inclinations, their gender and their sexuality.
If somebody is offended by the definitions of words, I think it’s pretty hard to have an education system that doesn’t allow dictionaries because that’s basically what my book contains. There are some definitions of words that do not explain anything graphic. They’re just who you like and what you feel you are.
Your book is marketed toward teenagers. Why do you think teenagers should read a book like ‘The 57 Bus’?
My goal as a writer and as a reporter who writes for young people is to create a place where conversations about important issues of the day can happen. I always tell young people that they are about to get the keys to this whole democracy and drive it off a lot. And, I want to make sure that when they receive those keys that they have had an opportunity to consider what their values are.
What do they believe this world should look like? What are their thoughts about justice? What are their thoughts about race, gender, the world, how do we respond when something bad happens? All of these kinds of questions are ones that any citizen of the United States has to grapple with in some way.
I want our young citizens to have had a chance to talk about those things and think about those things in a way that is fact-based because I’m a journalist and so everything in this book is true and has been verified and fact checked. I have no agenda other than that. Let’s have a conversation, let’s think about what it means to walk through the world with different kinds of experiences. Let’s talk about what should be done in a case where a young person severely injures another young person. What should be the response and how would we create a world in which both of these young people are safe from harm?
And, these are questions that young people are thinking about already. Young people have a sense of fairness and justice. These are things that they want to discuss and want to think about and want to know about.
Did you consider sensitivity while writing the book? What was your reporting and editing process like?
We think very carefully about what is appropriate and how do you explain things to young people in a way that they can understand and is also age appropriate and not traumatizing in any way.
There are many, many layers of sensitivity thinking that go into writing a book like this, where, first I’m checking for what’s factual. There’s a fact-checking process.
I had readers who read for race and gender, to make sure that everything is OK. Mostly what I was thinking about is that this book asks people to take a leap and that leap is to feel concerned and compassion for two people who are on opposite sides of this crime.
So mostly I was concerned about whether people would be willing to do that. We live in a very binary world where there are good guys and bad guys. I ask people to set that aside and look at these two individuals and what happened in this case through a more nuanced lens.
That’s what I was worried about: Would people go on that journey with me? And they did. The book was incredibly successful. It won many awards.
A couple years went by where everything was fine and then Moms for Liberty burst on the scene and book banning became the new hot trend in about 2021-2022, post COVID. At that point, I really wasn’t expecting it. I had thought if people were going to have objections to the book, they would have happened years ago.
Where was your book first banned? What was that like?
The first one I heard about was in Rhode Island.
There was a mother in Rhode Island who was upset that her child was reading the book in school, and she thought that they should be learning cursive instead, which I found pretty funny since we learned cursive generally in third grade. By high school, hopefully you’ve moved on to other topics that require critical thinking.
We talk a lot in this country about literacy and that we want to be raising readers. We want kids to do better in their test scores for language arts. Research has shown that you create a lifelong reading habit by letting kids read the things that they enjoy. The idea of taking books away from kids that they are seeking out is wrong.
What are your thoughts on oversight for children’s books? Should there be open access to everything children want to read?
We have these amazing professionals who already work on this exact topic and they are called librarians. They have advanced degrees and training. Their lives are spent steeped in this. We also have trade publications and reviews and many, many people who work on this exact question: How do we select books that are right for readers in elementary, middle and high school? Readers of different ages have different needs.
What I object to and what I think any red blooded American should object to is the idea that the government is going to make that decision. That a politician is going to decide for your family what your child has access to. Of course every family is different. I have no objection at all to any parent saying my book is not for their child. That is their God-given right as an American and as a parent, but you don’t have the right to make that decision for other families.
What’s next for writers like yourself as book bans continue to spread? Will this change how you write?
Absolutely not. Our loyalty is to our readers. We write for children and young adults because we believe in them.
We care about them and we want them to have books that reflect who they are and what they’re interested in. We care about what topics are relevant to their lives.
We have a nationwide organization, Authors Against Book Bans. We have the support of our publishers. We will defend to the fullest extent of the law and of our abilities our freedom as creators and our rights as members of this democracy to reach the readers who are interested in reading our books.
Why did you decide to write this story for teenagers instead of adults?
I originally covered this story for The New York Times Magazine and the whole time I was working on it, I had this feeling, wouldn’t it be amazing to be able to write this for young adults? Largely because I just felt like the issues were so relevant to them and they would be interested.
I started out as a criminal justice reporter and this question of what do you do when something bad happens, how do you solve the problem is the big question for everybody. We have to make this decision in our personal lives and we have to make this decision as lawmakers and as citizens and voters.
And so, I really loved the idea of young people having a chance to talk about it.
How do books like ‘The 57 Bus’ contribute to conversations about race?
There is only one way that I know of that you get to actually walk in another person’s shoes and that is through reading. That’s how you can find out what it’s like to live a different life.
I got lots and lots of letters from kids from all over the world and they generally fall into three three categories. I hear from kids who identify with Fleischman in some way. They’re on the LGBTQ+ spectrum, they’re trans or nonbinary and they are excited to see their experience reflected.
Fleischman is also autistic and I hear from a lot of autistic kids, too. Or, they’re a kid of color who maybe has had some experience with the justice system or has somebody in their family who has been involved with the justice system and they really identify with Thomas and they want to talk about that in their letter to me.
But, the vast majority of letters I get are the third category, which is kids who have nothing on the surface in common with either one. And yet, they find they can relate to these two characters because of other things that aren’t identity-based. They relate to Thomas because he is the class clown. They relate to Fleischman because Fleischman loved games and video games. Their responses are based on human kid stuff.
That’s an entree for them into learning about the other things that are more particular to those identities. I love that discovery when people see beyond some identity marker that seems to be a reason for them to be separated.
I hear from parents who read this book at the same time that their kids did because their kid handed them the books and wanted them to read it so that they could understand something. And to me, that’s the most wholesome thing in the world. I just love hearing that incredible conversations happened within families because everybody read the book.
Areena Arora, data and investigative reporter for Knox News, can be reached by email at areena.arora@knoxnews.com. Follow her on X @AreenaArora and on Instagram @areena_news.
I never get used to it
No matter how many times I experience it, I never get used to the feeling of heartbreak. The ache in my chest, the tears that seem to never stop, and the emptiness that consumes me. It’s a pain that never dulls, no matter how much time passes.
I never get used to the feeling of disappointment, of knowing that things didn’t turn out the way I had hoped. The sinking feeling in my stomach, the thoughts of what could have been, and the regret of missed opportunities. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, one that lingers long after the initial sting.
I never get used to the feeling of failure, of falling short of my own expectations. The self-doubt that creeps in, the questioning of my abilities, and the fear of not measuring up. It’s a heavy burden to carry, one that weighs me down and holds me back.
But despite all of this, I know that I will keep pushing forward. I will keep facing heartbreak, disappointment, and failure head-on, because I know that they are just temporary setbacks. I may never get used to the pain, but I will always find a way to rise above it.
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- Embracing Change
- Adapting to New Norms
- Overcoming Challenges
- Resilience and Growth
- Coping with Uncertainty
- Personal Development Journey
- Finding Strength in Change
- Thriving in Unfamiliar Territory
- Embracing the Unknown
- Building Resilience in Adversity
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