Media statement on the banning of Into the River by Ted Dawe from Storylines Children’s Literature Trust of New Zealand

                                     

The Storylines Children’s Literature Trust promotes quality literature for young readers and supports New Zealand authors, illustrators and publishers through an annual national festival, author events, publications, and awards for lifetime achievement and new literary works.

The Trust’s chair, Dr Libby Limbrick, says that its Board and twelve-member management committee, all publishing and educational professionals, are in agreement with the statements on the general attitude towards censorship and freedom of speech put out by the New Zealand Book Council, the New Zealand Society of Authors, The Publishers Association of New Zealand and the International Publishers Association.

“Storylines does not support the unjust and puzzling ‘interim restriction’ which has been placed on Into the River by Ted Dawe,” says Dr Limbrick. “It unequivocally supports the permanent lifting of any R14 or R18 age restriction.”

Storylines’ recent submission to the Office of Film and Literature Classification Board notes that Into the River is not unique or even ground-breaking: a considerable number of YA novels published internationally by respected authors, freely available in shops and libraries, are equally ‘hard-hitting’ in their treatment of drugs, sex and bullying among disaffected young males.

How much Into the River is read in high school classrooms is impossible to determine, as the English curriculum allows teachers to make their own choice of novels to be studied. Whether young readers may be shocked or disturbed by Into the River is also impossible to gauge; the range of responses will always be influenced by their background, experience and maturity.  What may disturb one might be seen by another merely as ‘a good story’, or even change a young person’s world view in positive and life-enhancing ways. A major function of literature is to open doors onto different worlds, to provoke thought and put different points of view.

Without making any other judgement on Into the River, Storylines endorses any literary works for children and young adults which espouse these attributes, and urges extreme caution before any censorship is placed on literature.