Quite a few of my books have come under fire in the current atmosphere of book banning. I’m working on compiling material for defending each of these titles, but am focusing on Heroine at the moment, as it tends to be the most challenged title of mine. Below you will find materials to defend having Heroine available on your school classroom or library shelves, along with impact statements from adults, students, addiction counselors, juvenile prosectors, and recovered addicts.

Heroine Impact Statements — a downloadable PDF of statements from an array of readers.

If you are located in my home state of Ohio, the Ohio Revised Code Section 3313.60 prescribes curriculum for Health Education, including, “Prescription opioid abuse prevention, with an emphasis on the prescription drug epidemic and the connection between prescription opioid abuse and addiction to other drugs, such as heroin.” Which of course, is exactly what this novel does.

Lately, the novel has come under attack as “pornographic,” because it contains the words blowjob and vagina. Each of these words is used once, never as an action or in description. They are used in dialogue, jokingly between characters. Pornography is defined as, “printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity, intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings.” This is so clearly not the case when it comes to the content in Heroine, that it is almost difficult to argue against, as it’s so self-evident. It’s as if I’ve been asked to prove why the color orange is not the color blue, and I’m kind of just left going… I mean… it just isn’t.

PEN America’s commentary on best approaches when such attacks are leveled:

Pornography, Age Appropriateness, Obscenity and Sexually Explicit Content

These terms are used interchangeably as a weapon against literature for young people. They become ways to disguise the real attack on public education, diverse and inclusive literature, LGBTQ and BIPOC voices and the professionalism of librarians and other educators. Nobody needs to defend a book from these “charges” - we need to shift the language back to the professionalism of the librarians and the value you know your book has brought to young people.