Overview: Fallen Angels By Walter Dean Myers

Access to knowledge is a right that is being slowly, but surely, restricted among readers across the globe. The book I chose, Fallen Angels, by Walter Dean Myers, is one of the textual pieces that is receiving criticism for the use of “graphic and disturbing language,” as well as “derogatory” terms. Fallen Angels is a story describing the life of the Vietnam war of a young teenage kid, Richie Perry, using a collection of journal entries that were tied together with dialogue, forming a coherent story. This book shows all sides of the fight for life and livelihood through transparent and descriptive writing, leaving some readers astonished at the atrocities of war. These exact atrocities, however, argue for the book's historical relevance and

The content that this parent is referring to are the atrocious acts of war that both the North Vietnamese and United States military committed in the Vietnam War. There are many depictions of these actions including descriptions of soldiers being tortured, dismembered, and as you would expect in war, shot. In one journal entry, Perry describes a pacification tour through a village when suddenly an explosion happens, writing, “The GI’s arms and legs flung off from the impact of the blast. A kid had been mined and exploded in his arms.” (Myers, 231). Perry continues his description of the account, revealing that the mother attached the explosive to the kid, with intentions of detonating it near the American troops. It is the graphic description of these events that has raised questions for parents and teachers without taking into the consideration the importance of the description itself. We can not forget that the writer of these experiences, Thomas Wayne Myers, the author’s brother, purposely recorded these accounts to describe some of these malicious acts of war. Whether or not his intention was for it to be told to middle and highschool kids may never be known, but we do understand that he inscribed them for historical purposes. The educational value

In many places throughout the book you can find the members of Perry’s squad cussing or saying racial slurs. With the Vietnam conflict taking place in the late 1960’s, many Americans still had mixed feelings about the Civil Rights Movement that was taking place in parallel to the conflict. Perry was a part of a mixed unit that consisted of 5 white and 4 black soldiers, and as you could imagine when tensions rose, slurs and punches were thrown. This should not come to any surprise to parents or other school board officials that are trying to ban this book because, as seen in history, racism was a commonplace and is still brandishing its ugly face today. Other derogatory terms used in the book to talk about southeast asians were a formality of that time period to refer to the “enemy” and are kept in the dialogue of the book for historical accuracy. If we erase our malicious actions and words that were used against the people we fought, we paint ourselves as constant “hero” while in many cases we are closer to the