Crank by Ellen Hopkins, AI Sums Up Hitler

Top banned book #6 Crank; AI and authors; this week’s banned book news

Crank is #6 is the top banned books in the U.S.

Hello Friends,

I’m finishing up early again this week because I am going to go hang out with a friend whose mother died last week. I think I’m going to skip all that I feel about the world at large (and, boy, is it a lot) and just jump right into thoughts on books.

AI and stolen books

When I read this week that Meta used the illegal pirate site LibGen to train their AI, I knew my collection of short stories, Acts of Contrition, wouldn’t be among the pirated works because it was never available digitally. But I saw this article and decided, what the heck, I’ll put my name in the search engine:

Meta’s Massive AI Training Book Heist: What Authors Need to Know

The Atlantic published a search tool that allows authors to check if their works are in LibGen, an illegal pirate site AI companies copied for their AI systems. … [T]his new list has more than 7.5 million books that were copied, at least in part if not in full, by Meta and other AI companies for their AI systems. It is not clear whether Meta downloaded and used every book in LibGen.

I’d forgotten one thing. I have a short story in an anthology (Best Stories from the Saturday Evening Post Great American Fiction Contest) and it was published digitally. It’s on the list. Ugh. What a weird feeling it is when someone scoops up your work.

AI book summary

I’m thinking about what Bill Gates said this week about AI taking over lots of human work in the next ten years and that we will have the two-day work week.

As AI takes aim at the workplace, Gates admitted there will be professions that see much more change than others. In his conversation with Fallon, he singled out doctors and teachers as two pathways that will experience replacement—but to the benefit of society as a whole.

“With AI, over the next decade, (intelligence) will become free, commonplace—great medical advice, great tutoring,” Gates said.

That’s a very positive view of the situation. I’m far less sanguine about the advice we get from AI. Here’s an example. One of my sons sent the family this, which is Amazon’s AI-generated book summary.

“Customers find the book easy to read and interesting. They appreciate the insightful and intelligent rants. The print looks nice and is plain. Readers describe the book as a true work of art. However, some find the content boring and grim. Opinions vary on the suspenseful content, historical accuracy, and value for money.”

Another of my sons guessed Moby-Dick—a good guess, I thought. (Note: if you want to read Moby-Dick because it’s an American classic but haven’t been able to get into it, get the audiobook from Recorded Books narrated by the fabulous Frank Muller. Only that recording!)

The correct answer?

Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler.

I’m not so sure that AI is the teacher I want.

“That Librarian” Amanda Jones will be in Conversation (Online) with the LA Co. Library

Amanda Jones is going to be in an online conversation with the LA County Library. Although I have a library card, I didn’t need it to register. It appears to be open to all.

April 10, 2025 6-7 PM (PT)

https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13216324 to register.

Note : I wrote a post about Amanda Jones’s That Librarian.

Crank by Ellen Hopkins

I promised to discuss Crank this week. Here we go.

Crank is #6 on the top banned books list. I’m going to go ahead with lots of spoilers because you are probably an adult who has already read Crank or are into other kinds of books at this point.

Back in the day, I didn’t write anything down about Crank because it was immediately popular in the library where I worked. In other words, I didn’t need to ‘hand sell’ it. I concentrated on other good books that the students might not have heard of yet.

I think Crank was immediately popular for several reasons. The biggest is that it’s about a well-behaved high-school junior, Kristina, who becomes addicted to “the monster” very quickly after visiting her addicted (and incapable/zero parenting skills) father. Kristina’s mother doesn’t want her to visit her father because she fears what will happen when she is living in a drug-fueled environment. Her fears become a reality. Left without adult supervision, Kristina crushes on a neighborhood boy who introduces her to drugs.

While the relationship doesn’t work out, Kristina quickly finds the high school drug dealers when she gets home. She blames a lot on her mom and successfully hides her addiction for a while even as her grades slide and her behavior changes. She takes on an alter ego that she names “Bree.” Bree is bolder than Kristina. She flirts with boys and takes chances with new cliques.

Much of the book focuses on the unraveling of Kristina’s relationship with her mom and her stepfather. Her stepfather knows that Kristina is using, but her mom is unwilling to believe it until it is impossible to ignore. Her mom tries to take control with UFN—Until Further Notice—grounding. But Kristina is no longer obedient and steals away from the house whenever she thinks she can get away with it.

Eventually, Kristina is date-raped by a popular boy named Brendan (who knows her only as Bree). It’s a brief scene on the page (not ‘off camera,’ so to speak). Here’s the beginning of it.

While there are many things about this novel that the censors object to, including the drug use and the way Kristina talks about and treats her mom, this scene is also one that censors argue doesn’t belong in a teen book. Later, Kristina has consensual sex with a nicer (less popular/less cute) guy.

If you’re older and didn’t read Crank in high school, you might be thinking about Go Ask Alice as you read this now. The author of Alice claimed that it was a real teen’s diary, but this is a lie. It’s one of many fake diaries the author wrote. If you remember reading Go Ask Alice and didn’t know it was a fake, check out more info in this footnote.¹

However, Alice has been in libraries for decades and many adults see it as a warning against drugs and hanging out with people who are involved with drugs. Crank also feels like this sort of book although the writing is much better. Whatever reading Go Ask Alice did to your life (drugs, rape, runaway, prostitution all in that book), that’s kind of what Crank does for newer generations.

Wait—Go Ask Alice didn’t turn you into a drug-fueled prostitute living on the streets? Huh.

I want to make a few more arguments for Crank beyond the one I have made for many books, including Crank: reading about difficult life experiences and trauma is the best way to be introduced to those things.

Crank is also a book that can cultivate a habit of reading. A study of adolescents grade 6-12 showed that large print books increased their engagement in learning and enjoyment in reading. Now, I know Crank isn’t a large print book, but it has the same advantage: lots of white space on the page. Readers turn pages quickly and the reward of accomplishment comes quickly. That the books are heftier (Crank is well over 500 pages) gives readers a sense of achievement. They go on to read other books (often other Ellen Hopkins books, which are also challenged and banned at a high levels).

In addition, Crank is well written. The plot certainly engages the reader, but the poetic language also drives that reader forward.

In an afterword, author Ellen Hopkins discusses in what ways Crank is based on her family’s real life experiences. Her daughter became addicted after visiting her addicted father. The family descended into a sort of hell: a drug dealer comes calling for money owed him. Her daughter breaks into the house, steals from her family and forges checks in Hopkins’s name.

When her daughter lands in prison, Hopkins is glad she will finally get the help she needs.

“Six years, watching my daughter go from the talented, beautiful girl with big dreams to a meth-wasted, twice-convicted felon. Six years, expecting the phone call that would let us know self-destruction was total. Thank God, that call never came, and that eventually, we got the chance to try to rebuild our relationship. Largely, we have. But it has taken many, many years. Years that could have been better spent, had none of this ever happened.”

To round off the defense of Crank, I’ll add the author’s own words in response to the mass banning of her books:

So why my books? Some of the characters are queer, of color, and/or spiritually seeking, but the favored excuse is “sexual explicitness.” I have four novels for adult readers that could be termed steamy. My YA novels never approach that level, though they do have sexual situations, including assault and abuse, as well as young love. I write where my readers live, and teens experience those things every day. I write truthfully because I respect their intellect, curiosity, and sophistication. My goals, always, have been to bring broader perspective to their relatively narrow view. To show possible outcomes to choices they’ll likely face and help them make more informed decisions. And, for those who’ve already taken wrong turns, or had all choice stolen from them, to bring hope and give them a voice.

I’ve largely been successful. Over the years, I’ve received literally thousands of emails and messages from readers. A sampling:

“Crank saved my life, opened my eyes to the world I was exposing myself to and rapidly getting drowned in. And then, two years later it did the very same for my little brother . . . Thank you Ellen, you've touched our lives forever.”

…

When asked if books like mine should be readily available for teens, Travis Akers, who’s running for school board in Duval County, FL, commented that if we expect teens to drive safely, show up for work, and even have children, they are certainly capable of choosing what books to read.

As for parental rights, parents have always had the ability to counsel their own children’s reading. But no one has the right to decide for my kids or yours what they can or can’t read. For local governments to decide otherwise is a travesty.

What I’m Reading

In print:

Wild Faith: How the Christian Right is Taking over America by Talia Lavin

Audiobook:

The Andidote by Karen Russell

Part 2: Library news and book challenge/ban news

Utah and South Carolina Amp Up State-Sanctioned Book Bans From Book Riot

South Carolina has also been busy banning books across the state. Where Utah requires that books have been banned in 3 school districts to be banned statewide, South Carolina allows anyone who wishes to submit book complaints directly to the State Department of Education. This means that folks like Elizabeth Szalai, who didn’t get her way when books were challenged and retained in Beaufort County, can get the state to step in and make a decision (the “local control” argument book banners have been making for years has always been a lie). Four books have been banned in every school library in South Carolina this year, with 10 more on deck for the same fate as early as April 1.

Note: According to PEN, South Carolina has already banned 12 books statewide, so if they follow through with these ten they will have the dubious distinction of the most books banned in schools statewide.

St. Francis schools [Minnesota] sued over controversial book ban policy as students stage walkout from the Minnesota Star Tribune

Two lawsuits, one filed by parents and another by the American Civil Liberties Union, seek to end a ban on books that the suits say were based on the viewpoints or stories they conveyed.

Last fall, the northwestern Anoka County school district voted to update its library materials policy to primarily use ratings from the anonymous reviewer website BookLooks.org, which sought to warn parents of “objectionable content” in books.

BookLooks is associated with a former member of the influential conservative parental rights group Moms for Liberty.

As of Sunday, BookLooks said it was ceasing operation, according to a message posted on the site. All book reports have been removed from the site. …

“The St. Francis School Board fails its students by abandoning its duty to oversee the education of young people in service of a partisan, political orthodoxy,” said ACLU-MN Staff Attorney Catherine Ahlin-Halverson, in a statement.

Alabama board defunds local library in first action under new book ban law from the Guardian

The Alabama public library service board of trustees recently voted to withhold state funding from the Fairhope public library after complaints from conservative parents about books in the teen section. In the same meeting, the board voted to immediately dismiss the executive director of the state library agency, who had been planning to resign.

The board chairperson, John Wahl, who is also the chair of the Alabama Republican party, said board members believe the Fairhope library is in violation of state policies to protect children from inappropriate materials. The books that have been cited by the upset parents include Sold, a National Book Award finalist about a girl who is sold into sexual slavery in India. …

The Fairhope library’s defunding is the first measure taken under a new Alabama law and 2024 administrative code changes that say to receive state funding, local libraries must have policies to safeguard youth from “sexually explicit or other material deemed inappropriate for children or youth”.

Vic’s Note: I made an argument for Sold in a previous post—it’s a quick read. I encourage you to check it out. It will give you a good idea of what is happening in these book ban wars.

Texas Bill Threatens Jail Time for Teaching Books Like “The Catcher in the Rye” from Mother Jones

Identical bills in the Texas Senate and House would make it a crime for librarians and teachers to provide books or learning materials that contain sexually explicit content, punishable by up to 10 years behind bars—whether or not a book has educational or literary merit. …

[B]ooks that include sexual content have long been a valuable component of secondary education. Many classic works of literature, including “The Odyssey,” “Catcher in the Rye,” “Brave New World,” and “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest,” have sexually explicit scenes.

Under SB 412, which the Texas Senate voted to advance last week and now awaits approval by the House, teachers and librarians would no longer be able to argue that sexually explicit content can serve an educational purpose.

In the last few years, Texas teachers and librarians have faced an onslaught of criticism from conservative activists and lawmakers for offering well-regarded works of literature to students. Books that have come under fire in Texas include Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye,” “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood, and “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker.

Elizabeth [Colorado] School District defies federal order on book ban from 9 News

The order followed a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), arguing the district's book ban violated First Amendment protections.

Iowa law banning school library books that depict sex acts on hold again after a new federal ruling From KCCI Des Moines

Iowa cannot, for now, continue to enforce part of its book ban law, a federal judge said Tuesday, giving major publishers that sued the state the second temporary reprieve they requested.

1. I recently read in Ron Charles’ “Book Club” newsletter for the Washington Post that “a notice at the front of the Simon & Schuster paperback now plainly states: ‘This book is a work of fiction.’” I thought finally.

Charles also recommends: “For everything you’d ever want to know about this bizarre cultural artifact, listen to a two-part episode of You’re Wrong About, with host Sarah Marshall and special guest Carmen Maria Machado, author of In the Dream House.”

If you grew up affected by Go Ask Alice, you might enjoy: “The Book That Defined My Teen Anxiety Turned Out to Be a Lie” https://electricliterature.com/go-ask-alice-hoax-teen-anxiety-drugs/