Don't ask Alice

When my family moved to Indiana a little more than 10 years ago, the first thing my brother and I did was sign up at the local public library. One of the first books my brother (who was 14 at the time) checked out was a book that my mom recommended -- "Go Ask Alice."\nPublished in 1971, it was allegedly the diary of a teenage girl whose life is destroyed by drugs. She runs away from home, gets sexually abused, has a bad trip, winds up in a mental institution and later dies of what can only be purported to be a marijuana and LSD overdose (which might be somewhat difficult).\nThe draw of this book is that it's supposed to be the real thing -- a cautionary tale for kids who might be inclined to experiment, written by one of their peers. As time has worn on, it's been one of the more frequently banned books in school libraries and has been on required reading lists and summer reading programs nationwide.\nHowever, the woman who published the book (the so-called editor) has gone on to publish numerous other works. Their titles include "Kim Empty Inside: The Diary of an Anonymous Teenager," "Almost Lost: The True Story of an Anonymous Teenager's Life on the Streets," "Annie's Baby: The Diary of Anonymous, a Pregnant Teenager." She's an 88-year-old Mormon psychologist named Beatrice Sparks.\nIn 1973, a Pleasant Grove, Utah family gave Sparks the journal of their 16-year-old son who had recently committed suicide. Given her fame from "Go Ask Alice," Sparks might publish the journal for other troubled teens to read, they thought.\nWhat Sparks published was "Jay's Journal: The shocking diary of a 16-year-old helplessly drawn into a world of witchcraft and evil." She kept only 21 of the 212 journal entries -- the rest was an entirely fabricated story about how this family's son was a nightmarish Satanist who sacrificed animals, etc. You can imagine they were somewhat surprised.\nThe funny thing is, while reviewers have disparaged all of these later works, "Go Ask Alice" is still considered authentic. Never mind that it's entirely unrealistic (and the writing style is NOT that of a 15-year-old girl) -- high school students are still encouraged to read it.\nI'm not pro-drugs by any means, but I know that very few kids will be convinced to avoid drugs if you speak in hyperbole about how smoking a joint will turn you into a sloth, strike you blind or make you sprout tentacles. Kids may like songs like "My Humps," but they're not THAT stupid.\nMorality tales like "Go Ask Alice" are well-intentioned, condescending garbage that harm their cause more than they help it. Instead of making kids pause and contemplate, "Go Ask Alice" does nothing besides make reasonable readers roll their eyes. Were I 15 years old and required to read it in class, I think it would make me want to take drugs just to challenge it. I only hope the school would make accommodations for a blind sloth with tentacles.