Books for teenagers should reflect real life - and that includes sex and swearing

In Banned Books Week, Ted Dawe, author of Into The River, which has banned in New Zealand due to swearing and sexual content, on why banning wearing in teen books doesn’t make any sense

When I was about nine or 10 years old I was playing scrabble with my parents and my grandmother when I made this word. It made the other three catch their breath and a tense silence settled over them. I waited for my grandmother to add the score (it was a pretty modest one) to my total, and then move on. But they didn’t.

My grandmother looked at me with a fierce look on her face.

Continue reading...