The books described are not by Morris Gleitzman but by Melvin Burgess, a UK writer for later teens. They are in order of description titled -
Junk (about teen heroin users and addiction) - which is a pretty decent book
Lady: My Life as a Bitch - which is possibly the book I would not ban but would sincerely hope that anyone under 15 wouldn't read it. It is well written but it has not a jot of guiding tone about the sexual behaviour of the main character. She has a whale of a time screwing (as a dog) with as many dogs as she can, enjoying it all, with no consequences and the end of the book has her choosing to stay a dog (rather than become a girl again) so she can essentially fuck to her heart's content. Now if there is some way in which it can be read that Burgess is making a comment about freedom and lack of responsibility, fair enough but most teens reading this book are not going to see anything but a book advocating the no-strings freedom and fun of having as much sex as possible with as many people as possible. The book does not close with any sense that the main character made a choice which will have consequences and her family are so ill-drawn and unpleasant that there is no sense of her missing out on anything that way. It is possibly the only moral-free fiction book I can think of that left a really nasty impression (and I've read American Psycho and a range of other controversial books, including a few hundred teen books);
Doing It - is the book about four teens and their sexual adolescence as well as their emotional journey. I found it difficult in part because the objectification of females in it as sexual objects. Obviously it is looking at girls and their sexual appeal and in the language of crude sex-obsessed teens. That boys talk and think of these things is correct (I have teen boys myself) but again, it's pretty graphic in the way it depicts the sex in crude terms and it's not a book I would want my younger teen to read because of the *ways* sex is described - it almost justifies the language and I wouldn't think it was a good thing for 13/14 yr old boys to think that fantasizing about "eating a teacher's wet dripping c*** out" is an actual good way of talking or a normal way of talking.
I think Burgess is a very very good writer for teens but those last two books are not ones I would deliberately offer to them. He is good at depicting a brutal world (his sci-fi versions of the Norse myths - Bloodtide and Bloodsong - are superb and amongst my top teen reads) - in Junk and Sara's Face and his latest, which is, I understand, a re-write of Oliver Twist for today, complete with paedophilic attention in the children's home.
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Junk (about teen heroin users and addiction) - which is a pretty decent book
Lady: My Life as a Bitch - which is possibly the book I would not ban but would sincerely hope that anyone under 15 wouldn't read it. It is well written but it has not a jot of guiding tone about the sexual behaviour of the main character. She has a whale of a time screwing (as a dog) with as many dogs as she can, enjoying it all, with no consequences and the end of the book has her choosing to stay a dog (rather than become a girl again) so she can essentially fuck to her heart's content. Now if there is some way in which it can be read that Burgess is making a comment about freedom and lack of responsibility, fair enough but most teens reading this book are not going to see anything but a book advocating the no-strings freedom and fun of having as much sex as possible with as many people as possible. The book does not close with any sense that the main character made a choice which will have consequences and her family are so ill-drawn and unpleasant that there is no sense of her missing out on anything that way. It is possibly the only moral-free fiction book I can think of that left a really nasty impression (and I've read American Psycho and a range of other controversial books, including a few hundred teen books);
Doing It - is the book about four teens and their sexual adolescence as well as their emotional journey. I found it difficult in part because the objectification of females in it as sexual objects. Obviously it is looking at girls and their sexual appeal and in the language of crude sex-obsessed teens. That boys talk and think of these things is correct (I have teen boys myself) but again, it's pretty graphic in the way it depicts the sex in crude terms and it's not a book I would want my younger teen to read because of the *ways* sex is described - it almost justifies the language and I wouldn't think it was a good thing for 13/14 yr old boys to think that fantasizing about "eating a teacher's wet dripping c*** out" is an actual good way of talking or a normal way of talking.
I think Burgess is a very very good writer for teens but those last two books are not ones I would deliberately offer to them. He is good at depicting a brutal world (his sci-fi versions of the Norse myths - Bloodtide and Bloodsong - are superb and amongst my top teen reads) - in Junk and Sara's Face and his latest, which is, I understand, a re-write of Oliver Twist for today, complete with paedophilic attention in the children's home.