PLACES I NEVER MEANT TO BE

YA writers Norma Fox Mazer, Julius Lester, Rachel Vail, Katherine Paterson, Jacqueline Woodson, Harry Mazer, Walter Dean Myers, Susan Beth Pfeffer, David Klass, Paul Zindel, Chris Lynch, and Norma Klein contribute a short story and brief essay on censorship to this collection. They have all written books that have been banned in libraries by adults who "were afraid of exposing their children to ideas different from their own." In her foreword, Blume addresses the topic of parental hysteria and censorship that has increased since the 1980s when "censors crawled out of the woodwork, organized and determined." The stories are varied and topical: an unsuspecting teenager is taken to a gay bath house by a best friend unsure of his own sexuality; a house fire is attributed to a teen arson; a girl mugged at knife point learns to appreciate parental rules; a black boy from a militant family falls in love with a white girl; a girl has to decide whether or not to steal money from her mother to give to her penniless father; and more. Every story shows teens experiencing life unvarnished, growing up through tragedy and difficulty; the collection is candid, even blunt, in its desire to "tell it like it is." Readers will come away with an appreciation for every writer's struggle, and the realization that at one time or another, all of their favorite authors have come into the censor's sights. (Fiction. 12+)