I was relieved to hear that the novel 13 Reasons Why survived a recent censorship scare that was even more disturbing than a typical challenge because there was an effort to circumvent due process and simply remove the book from a central Iowa high school without going through the steps in place.
This book, which I listened to on CD a few months ago (and posted about on this blog), is a mature look at the issue of suicide. As a mother of teens AND someone who cares a great deal about the teens I work with through the library, I admit at times as I listened to this story, it was scary to think of the message teens would hear, especially with the "voice from the grave" narration by Hannah, the character who killed herself before the book even started.
However, the book, overall, makes you think a lot about how each of our actions affects others and can have unintended ripples in others' lives that we may not even realize. I also have faith in teens' abilities to read about all kinds of situations and characters and intermingle their observations with their own values.
