Ellen Hopkins’ New York Times bestseller “Tricks” has become the latest book — and the author’s third — to land on Utah’s growing list of titles banned from all public schools in the state.
The young-adult novel follows five troubled teenagers who fall into prostitution.
“But it really is about five young people whose lives fracture, and they are brought to this place through, not choice, but through things that happen in their lives that create a place where they need to survive — and so they are forced into prostitution as a means of survival,” Hopkins explained in a 2009 interview with the book’s publisher, Simon & Schuster.
One character, Eden, is from a “very religious” family. There’s also Whitney, a “kind of upscale young woman,” along with Seth, who is gay and from rural Indiana, which Hopkins said was “not necessarily a good place to be gay.” The two other teens are Ginger, whose mother is a prostitute, and Cody, from Wichita, who ends up in Las Vegas — where all the characters converge — and develops a gambling problem.
“Las Vegas has a very successful teen prostitute rescue,” Hopkins said at the time. “And so I wanted that resource to be available for those kids, and also for — I want readers who may be in a place like this to know that they can also be taken out of this place successfully.”
The addition brings the total number of books banned from all Utah public schools to 17. Women wrote all but two of them.
(Simon & Schuster) The cover design of Ellen Hopkins' young-adult novel "Tricks," which has become the 17th book to be banned from Utah public schools.
The state released its initial list of banned titles on Aug. 2, in accordance with a law passed by the Utah Legislature last year. That law went into effect July 1.
The law requires a book be removed from all public schools in the state if at least three school districts (or at least two school districts and five charter schools) determine it amounts to “objective sensitive material” — pornographic or otherwise indecent content, as defined by Utah code.
Since the law applied retroactively, school districts and charters were asked last year to reevaluate the books that they had already decided to ban before July 1, using the state’s new “objective sensitive material” criteria, a standard that did not exist before.
[Read more: She’s one of the most banned authors in Utah schools. This is what she has to say.]
The Utah State Board of Education also issued guidance recommending that schools prohibit students from bringing “objective sensitive material” onto campus.
“These titles should not be brought to school or used for classroom activities, assignments, or personal reading while on school property,” the USBE’s guidance reads.
A USBE spokesperson told The Salt Lake Tribune that the recommendation is not legally binding or an official administrative rule, allowing schools to implement it at their discretion.
“Tricks” was officially banned March 6 after the Davis, Tooele County and Washington County school districts removed the title.
