Mass Communication: Living in a Media World, 6th edition
Ralph Hanson
Lecture Builders
Chapter 4
Lecture Builders
OMAHA AUTHOR RAINBOW ROWELL & BANNED BOOKS
Omaha author (and former newspaper columnist) Rainbow Rowell did not grow up well-off. She
grew up primarily in Omaha, Nebraska, but spent several years living in rural areas, getting by at times
without phone service, electricity, or gas. In an early column, she discussed having her family
circumstances improve:
We went from desperate to poor. And poor felt so good. My mother went on Aid to
Families with Dependent Children—welfare . . . We had food, real food. Milk and
oranges and yogurt. Pasta, apples, cheese. Hamburgers. Potatoes. Bread and cereals.
And beans.
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Rowell understood what it meant to grow up poor. She had to be talked into taking the ACT
college entrance exam by her high school principal because she didn’t think she could afford to go to
college.
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Rowell also understood what it meant to be teased, to be bullied. In one of her first columns
written for the Omaha World-Herald, she talked about growing up with the first name Rainbow. The
teasing wasn’t even always intentional. Adults would hear her say her name was Rainbow and reply,
“Isn’t that sweet. But what’s your real name?” Children could do more, chanting “Rambo, Rambo,
Rainbow Bright.” The final question that everyone eventually came to was, “So, were your parents, like,
hippies?” And, as much as she would like to deny it, she had to plead guilty. She was named after the
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