Chris Crutcher on Writing for Teenagers, Intellectual Freedom, The Sledding Hill & More

Book-banning is familiar territory for Chris Crutcher: Each of his nine books has caught the attention of censors around the country. It is fitting, then, that his latest novel, The Sledding Hill (Greenwillow Books), a Summer 2005 Book Sense Children's Pick, explores friendship, grief, growing up -- and a censorship attempt at an Idaho high school.

Two noteworthy elements of the book: First, the 14-year-old narrator is dead (but he's got an upbeat attitude about the advantages of invisibility). Second, there is an adult character who didn't excel in high school, yet ended up a successful author. His name? Chris Crutcher. He's the author of Warren Peece ... the fictional work of fiction under fire at The Sledding Hill's high school.

Crutcher's meta-story is deftly crafted and carried out; his comments about himself make for funny bits, and there is no navel-gazing. Rather, the book offers several layers of insight into what could happen if a community attempted to dictate what its young people should think, feel, and read, and describes how proponents of a challenged book might react.

Crutcher travels the country extensively to speak about the importance of intellectual freedom (http://www.chriscrutcher.com has details of his super-busy schedule). Bookselling This Week recently caught up with Crutcher via e-mail.

BTW: Where are you now?

Chris Crutcher (CC): I'm in L.A., meeting with folks who want to make a movie of Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes. I've been all over the country talking to schools, state library and teacher's conferences, and doing public library presentations. I've been talking about censorship because I've been getting censored a lot. The conservative Right has been able to do what my parents could never do: Censor me.

BTW: Do you view traveling as something that you have to do ... or something you can't imagine not doing?

CC: I think it's important to connect with an audience with more than just my stories. It helps kids believe they could be published one day when they see an average guy who has.

There is also an arrested adolescent part of me still responding to my father, when he noticed my lack of direction and drive and facetiously asked if I thought someone was going to pay me to talk and eat (which they seem to do now with high regularity). I'm also aware that, without my readers, there is no Chris Crutcher the writer, so I feel some obligation.

BTW: Are there any elements of your life that drive or inspire you to write for teenagers?

CC: I write about teenagers because I remember my own teenage years so well, and because I have all my adult life worked with teenagers in tough times: as a teacher in an alternative school in Oakland, and as a child and family therapist with a focus on child abuse.

BTW: When did the idea of being a writer first occur to you?

CC: In high school, I would write an English composition in 15 minutes and not care about the grade, but there were two teachers who assigned me 500-word themes as punishment for transgressions, of which there were many. I would stay up 'til two in the morning trying to write stuff that would make those guys laugh, and when I was successful, it was the best reward I could get. I didn't have the nerve to actually think I could do it until my mid-to-late 20s, and didn't really get the guts until my mid-30s.

BTW: Your books have been banned or challenged more than a few times. Does that discourage you? Do you take it personally?

CC: It doesn't do anything to me, and I almost never take it personally. I try to meet the censors with their own intensity, but that's mostly about political beliefs.

I recently was hurt, though, when someone in Grand Rapids, Michigan, read one of my short stories as racist. I have always stood fast against racism, and for many reasons am particularly sensitive to it. I didn't like being cast in a racist light. Beyond that, I don't take any of the censorship stuff personally, but I put a lot of energy into fighting it.

BTW: Writing books, and working with teens: Could you have done one without the other?

CC: I could've done one without the other, but neither as well. You're looking for the thread that matters, in some human being's story, or in your character's story. Writing makes me slow down and ask myself what I really think about some of the tough situations I work with. That makes me a better storyteller, because I want to get it right, and a better therapist, for the same reason: one is a source of stories and one is a source of solutions.

BTW: In the list of authors Ms. Lloyd [teacher of the "Really Modern Literature" class in The Sledding Hill] gives her students, you included Grisham and Clancy along with Vonnegut. I get the feeling you're far from a snob -- let alone a literary one. Do you subscribe to the notion that it's great if kids enjoy reading, regardless of the authors and books they choose?

CC: Me trying to be a literary snob would be like Ann Coulter applying for a job in Social Services. Not on this planet.

We should be celebrating reading of any kind. True readers will evolve, and the others will learn to read for enjoyment. We are so snobbish about what we think is important. And we're lazy; there are great new, contemporary books teachers don't keep up with. I truly hope that, some day, a kid raises his hand in a class where Stotan! has been assigned and loudly calls for a book by an author who is still living.

BTW: The paragraphs in the chapter "If the Game's Too Easy" about authors and storytelling, the connections that come from reading and talking, will surely resonate with readers. Is that what you try to convey to wannabe book-banners? Does it ever work?

CC: The next book-banner I convert will be the first. Most of this dialogue is for people on the fence, those who worry about "what the world is coming to," and might think control-freaks can make it better for kids. In my world, we're always better off when we talk about issues. Stories are one of the best avenues we have for leveling the playing field with adults and kids.

BTW: Do you have a favorite/neighborhood independent bookstore?

CC: One is Auntie's Bookstore, here in [Spokane, Washington]. They're smart about books and totally supportive of writers.

I like The Reading Reptile in Kansas City. The owner [Pete Cowdin] writes as A. Bitterman, and he is funny, smart, and irreverent. There is always a great audience there.

Also, Anderson's in Naperville, Illinois ... I had a reading for King of the Mild Frontier scheduled there, and kids from a local high school were to attend. One of their friends from the debate team had excerpted from Whale Talk a piece to do at the state forensics tournament, and was killed in a car accident just before it.

The kids and their debate coach came to the reading to present to me what they were going to read at the tournament. I had planned for the reading a very funny presentation, which ran across the mood that might have been created by the loss of this wonderful kid. The kids got there early and the folks at Anderson's let us use a private room to address all the pain...and their wish to keep their friend's memory alive.

I told them we keep our loved ones alive by the acts we commit in their names, and if they would do their presentation, I'd dedicate my next book to their dead friend. Then we went upstairs and had a lot of fun with King of the Mild Frontier. The Anderson's people were amazing -- they just smoothed the way.

If you want to know the boy's name, you can find it on the dedication page of The Sledding Hill. --Interviewed by Linda M. Castellitto