BY SARA GEORGE

Oct 4, 2022

High school student Mickey Catalan has a passion for softball. When she is injured in a car crash right before softball season, her ability to keep playing is threatened. To deal with her injuries, she is prescribed painkillers, and she becomes addicted.

Mickey is the main character in author Mindy McGinnis’ 2019 book “Heroine.” The young adult novel received this year’s Missouri Gateway Readers Award, intended “to promote literature, literacy and reading in Missouri high schools.” Students across the state vote on the winner.

The Edgar Award-winning author was in Columbia this week to speak at Douglass and Hickman high schools, as well as venues including Columbia Public Library.

“Heroine” was challenged in the Rockwood School District near St. Louis during the 2021-2022 school year. According to the Challenged Materials Committee report, the challenger was concerned the book encouraged drug use and contained material that was inappropriate for students.

“I was partially amused, because it’s probably my tamest book,” McGinnis said in an interview Monday. “I was like, ‘Oh, if you don’t like that one, wait till you read the next one, you’re gonna get really upset.’”

In the end, her book was allowed to remain in Rockwood schools without restrictions.

McGinnis, who worked as a librarian aide at a school that served grades six through 12 for 14 years, is familiar with attempts to remove titles from the shelves. Her first question to those raising concerns over a book, she said, was whether they had read it. The answer often was no.

“If they say this book is inappropriate for their child, that is their call, and that is fine,” McGinnis said. “When they say this book is inappropriate for all the children, and no one is allowed to have it, that’s censorship — and that’s when we have a problem.”

McGinnis said that although her books may be considered young adult, she doesn’t “pull any punches.”

“I write about violence, and I write about murder, and I write about rape, and I write about a drug addiction,” she said. “And if you don’t think those things are happening to teens, then you probably haven’t walked outside lately.”

According to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, in 2020, there were over 100 deaths caused by non-heroin opioid overdoses for 15- to 24-year-olds. In Missouri, drug overdose is the leading cause of death for adults age 18 to 44. More than 70% of those deaths involve opioids.

“I was visiting a school where there was a funeral for a child, a student that had OD’d. And I was talking to the staff, and they were like, ‘Yeah, we get about three or five a year.’ And I was like, ‘Are you serious?’” McGinnis said. “I walked away, I was like, ‘Man, I really want to write something about the opioid epidemic.’”

Another of her books is nominated for the 2022-2023 Missouri Gateway award. “Be Not Far From Me” focuses on a girl who gets lost in the Great Smoky Mountains. McGinnis, who has written a dozen young adult books as well as short stories, finds writing isolating.

“You are by yourself. And you shut down completely while you’re working and nothing is around you, and you know nothing except the inside of your own head,” she said. “So I like to be around people as much as possible outside of my writing time. And so I do still substitute in the district that I used to work at because I miss the kids.”