We Celebrate the Freedom to Read
Haruki Murakami said, “If you only read the books everyone else is reading you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” This quote speaks eloquently to Banned Book Week. Some people only want us to think what they are thinking. They want only socially approved ideas making it on to the printed page in the hopes, I think, of producing a homogenous world where nothing threatens what they think the status quo should be. Banned Books Week stands firm against the tyranny of that mindset.
Banned Books Week began in 1982 after an increase in requests to libraries, bookstores and schools to pull certain books off the shelves. Lest you think this is a problem from the past check out this article. Since then, Banned Books Week has been an annual celebration of the freedom to read, sponsored/encouraged by schools, libraries, and bookstores determined to see our freedom of speech protected. More than 11,000 books have been challenged in the thirty years since the inauguration of Banned Books Week and that number grows every year. Banned books are an ongoing war in the censorship battle.
The ACLU says “Censorship, the suppression of words, images, or ideas that are “offensive,” happens whenever some people succeed in imposing their personal political or moral values on others.” They are quick to note that private pressure groups “can become dangerous in the extreme”.
It should be noted – and really, I shouldn’t have to mention – that there is a huge difference between warning someone to avoid a book that is poorly written and unenjoyable and trying to prevent people from reading/selling/endorsing a book with ideas/issues you find problematic. Here is how the American Library Association defines challenged and banned books: A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those materials. Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others.
Books come under target by all sorts, from parents trying to protect their kids’ delicate minds to the politically correct. Mostly the book banning, while possibly done with good intentions, seems to be about infantilizing the reader. It seems to say that while the banner understands the issues they are much smarter and better equipped to deal with it than the rest of us. Therefore, the book should be banned before it somehow damages those of us not smart enough to handle it. To that I say phooey!
I’ve been reading banned books before there was ever an official list of them. Huckleberry Finn (race issues, racial slurs, slurs against the poor) was probably my first. I have to chuckle when I see books like this or To Kill a Mockingbird on the list as a result of race issues because it is clear the banners either didn’t read the book or didn’t understand the book. Yes, there is racist language but neither book advocates the racism. Rather, they call attention to the injustice of a society which allowed that language and attitude to flourish in the first place.
Some bans are even more ludicrous than the above. Summer of My German Soldier and Anne Frank’s Diary have both been challenged/banned because the endings are sad. Really?
A lot of the books on the list are banned because they deal with difficult subjects. One such novel is The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier. This is the story of Jerry Renault, who refuses to participate in a school fundraiser and thus causes a mountain of problems which end in violence. Protesters have asked to have it banned because it contains foul language, physical conflict and sexual situations, something which children over the age of 12 are never confronted with in real life.
This is one of the things that truly bothers me about many of the books being banned. They are banned for things that happen in real life. Sending your child to school and then being concerned they will pick up curse words from a book is like throwing them in a pool and being worried they’ll get their clothes wet. They are most likely saturated in curse words.
The sexual situations in the book seem entirely age appropriate to me. The issue of the boy who feels guilty for looking at naked women in a magazine and the one who feels excited about touching a girl’s fully clothed breast are also something that teens and even pre-teens deal with. Sexual desire is an urge nicely entrenched in our DNA. Long before this novel was published men and boys had a desire to see naked girls and touch women’s private parts. This book taught them nothing except that it was natural to feel both excited and embarrassed by the sensations.
But personally I think the complaints about the language and sexual situations are smoke screens. Kids know about these things long before they pick up these books. I think what is at issue is that many banned books are about outliers. People who either challenge authority, as Jerry in The Chocolate War or Patty in Summer of My German Soldier did, or folks who like Huck Finn make us feel uncomfortable because they remind us that not everyone gets to (or chooses to) live in a fancy house with a loving family.
Many of these books also challenge the idea of safe places. Unless you live under a rock you know that the bullying which takes place in our school systems has come under increasing scrutiny in the last several decades. Books like Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone or The Chocolate War bring that issue to the forefront. They also show that the bullies aren’t only children. Snape and Umbridge often made Harry’s life as uncomfortable as students like Malfoy did. Brother Leon is behind many of Jerry’s problems. These books bring the issue of bad/nasty teachers into full, glorious focus. That’s a scary premise for many adults who insist that “telling a grown up” will solve all of a child’s problems.
But mostly these books challenge us to think. Do parents always have our best interest at heart? Do teachers? Is there anywhere that is truly, perfectly safe? And should we conform at any cost?
In honor of this special week we have one copy of The Chocolate War to be given away. Entering is easy. All you need to do is comment to this post by 11:59 pm on Wednesday, September 30.
A few caveats apply: Due to high postage costs, this giveaway is only open to residents of the U.S. and Canada. The winner will be chosen at random and notified by email on Friday morning October 2. So, if you enter, please remember to check your email on Friday morning.
Here’s a list of a few banned books. How many have you read? Do you have any thoughts on book banning?
In closing, I leave you with a few words of wisdom from The Chocolate War:
They tell you to do your thing but they don’t mean it. They don’t want you to do your thing, not unless it happens to be their thing, too. Don’t disturb the universe, no matter what the posters say.
-Maggie AAR
For those interested, Slate magazine this week wrote an interesting overview on banned books in the U.S. and summarizes their perspective by stating, “”This Banned Books Week, instead of hand-wringing about a nonexistent wave of censorship, let’s celebrate the obvious: The books won.”” Essentially, the article details the sharp drop in banned books overall, though where we see small localized issues of banning is largely in children’s education where parental concerns around issues of violence and sexuality come up. Interesting article as a source of comparison: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2015/09/banned_books_week_no_one_bans_books_anymore_and_censorship_of_books_is_incredibly.html
No, I wouldn’t think the above scenario happens, or if it did it would be strange. But if all 11th graders are reading _The Color Purple_ except one or two students, students do know they are singled out. I taught _The Color Purple_ to high school students years ago when I interned and there are “”titilating”” scenes that the students discussed among themselves. I did feel badly for the very few left out and I think in the end, their exclusion probably caused more harm than good (i.e. heightened curiosity to know what others found so interesting, awareness of *difference* at an age where people are especially vulnerable to being stigmatized, etc.).
Great post about an important subject. I can understand concern about appropriately categorizing books, and even alerting parents to required reading books that might contain sensitive material. But it’s one thing to say,’please don’t require my first grader to read The Color Purple’ and quite another thing to say, ‘Don’t let anyone in this school read The Color Purple.’
And I’ll be checking out more of the banned books, too.
I agree. I can understand parents maybe not wanting their child to read a certain book but the need to tell everyone not to read it makes no sense to me.
And I do think schools can handle a child reading something different with sensitivity. If a parent says no to “”The Color Purple”” they can offer alternatives. The teacher doesn’t have to make a fuss about it or call the kid out about it in class. The material should simply be handed quietly to the parents or child and that be the end of the subject.
I hate to see books banned out of ignorance, fear or heaven forbid the fact they might set forth a different belief than what you have. That’s how Hitler and the Nazi’s got the idea to burn books. I’ve only read 5 of the books on the banned book list you chose…I guess I better get cracking and read some more. Great post.
I love to read Banned Books Lists. :0)
I also wanted to point out a pet peeve of mine. When my kids were in elementary school I was either the PTA President or an officer for about 7-8 years. I probably got a phone call about every two weeks from some parent wanting a certain book taken out of the library or the classroom. Not once had any of those parents actually READ the book they wanted banned. One mother was upset about her child having to read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Why? Because it had a witch in it. I asked her if she realized that the story was an allegory for the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. Don’t even get me started on the Harry Potter complaints. Please read any book before complaining!!!!
Words to live by :-)
I have always loved this Stephen King quote on banned books:
“”Don’t get mad, get even… Run, don’t walk, to the nearest nonschool library or to the local bookstore and get whatever it was that they banned. Read whatever they’re trying to keep out of your eyes and your brain, because that’s exactly what you need to know.””
I would never advocate banning books, but I remember when my kids were in school (my youngest is 22) being frustrated that EVERY BOOK on the summer reading list had an at best ambiguous and at worst tragic ending. I worried that kids (not my own, who were avid readers and knew better, but those kids who would never read a book except those required for school) were getting the message that reading is boring, all books are depressing, etc. So much of it seemed designed to teach kids to hate reading. :-(
Heh. The line in our house about the entire middle and high school reading list was “”… and the dog died too.””
Exactly! (I once told my daughter the theme of a book I hadn’t even read, based solely on the back cover blurb and what I knew of the school system’s apparent criteria for selecting titles for summer reading.)
I believe that the current book choices for high school and middle school students discourage reading.
I hadn’t thought about that but its a valid point. I encouraged my son to read whatever he wanted, even if it wasn’t to my taste. And of course there are books all over our house so he always knew that there are all kinds of books. But you are right – there should definitely be some reading thrown into the curriculum strictly for pleasure.
Literature is about conflict, and so that is a good conversation for teachers to have with students about any book they read.
As a child _Little Women_ was one of my favorite books and I experienced a strange pleasure in crying over Beth’s tragic death because it moved me emotionally and stayed with me for years. I would rather feel something for a book than be completely unmoved on an emotional level or not challenged to think about an issue on an intellectual level. In high school we read _Lord of the Rings,_ which is full of conflict, i.e. war, tragedy, death, destruction, etc. But it is a book series that I found very pleasurable and has many uplifting messages too. We read _MacBeth_ and _Othello_, which are tragic stories that express conflict, but I found them highly entertaining and thought-provoking because of the tragedies at the heart of them. Shakespeare’s comedies are no less thought-provoking and riddled with conflict, but more optimistic in their resolutions. We read _Heart of Darkness_ which is of course a very dark book, but again, one that is so thought-provoking and beautifully written that I loved it and still do. It imparts such important ideas about colonialism and the ideas resonate today with what is happening in our current global world. I guess I challenge the concept that tries to separate dark or tragic literary works from pleasure reading as the two are more often than not inseparable. I find pleasure in all sorts of things and not just ones that make me laugh.
I suspect most kids wouldn’t mind reading Lord of the Rings, because it’s cool. ;-D And it’s true that kids are sometimes drawn to tragic endings: my older sister laughs about hiding “”Love Story”” inside her history textbook back in the ’70s, and back when I was writing YA for Bantam in the ’90s, booksellers jokingly referred to the shelf containing Lurlene McDaniel’s books as “”death row.”” But I would worry about kids getting nothing but depressing books, like the nonreaders in my kids’ classes. You cite your own experiences with dark themes, but then, you’re a reader; I’m not surprised at your being able to enjoy a wide variety of reading material. As for teachers having this conversation with students, the books I mentioned were the summer reading list: therefore, no teachers available to have any kind of conversation about the material–only parents, many/most of whom were nonreaders themselves.
Well, but _Lord of the Rings_ is dark & cool, which is why I mentioned it as a book that really stands out for me from school reading. Lots of books are both, which for me suggests that dark books are not necessarily boring or depressing, as in an easy cause and effect relationship. Light-hearted books can be plenty boring, for that matter. Instilling reading habits into children, however, is a major endeavor among educators and parents, and there are lots of reasons why literacy is a problem in our country. Some students do not like reading period, no matter what you put in front of them, but that is an issue that can be addressed between teachers and parents. Part of the reason why I am a reader is because my mother read to me and made stories exciting, all kinds of stories, and I had reading time scheduled into my day. It became a pattern in my life at a very young age. I think lots of this is missing for many people, sadly. I just don’t really buy into the “”dark and depressing”” argument, though I’m sure some people do prefer lighter stories if given a choice. But, even as a romance reader I tend to like the angsty and emotional stories the best.
I think though that you are hitting on the dilemma some parents face when they send their child off to school. What happens when your child is not permitted to read _The Color Purple_, for instance, because you do not want him or her exposed to ideas about incest or depictions (celebratory ones, no less) of lesbian love, but your school requires your child to read those ideas? Homeschooling has partly been one reaction against school curriculum. Or, children can get exemptions to read something else, but that potentially stigmatizes them in front of their peers (and probably doesn’t stop a child from them from wanting to read what everyone else has access to). Is it the ideas people fear, or is it a concern that educators cannot handle the material with sensitivity? My own position, for what it’s worth, is to read it and reflect on it critically, but I’m very aware that many people do not even want to venture into the “”read it”” territory, much less engage in critically thought about the ideas.
There are a multitude of issues with the scenario here (and to clarify, not with your opinion, but with the actual scenario of literature and education):
1 – Schools really need to update and adjust reading lists for both the school year and any summer reading. There are far too many amazing YA books out now that are appropriate for middle and high school ages that are just ignored because they aren’t “”classics.”” As a lit major, and as a librarian, I value the classics, but they aren’t the only way, or often the best way, to teach literature and critical thinking.
2 – If a parent has a problem with an idea, there is still absolutely no way to keep your children away from that idea, especially when you are talking about major social issues like sexuality, or family dynamics, or poverty, or individual issues like swearing and depression. You can’t shield our children from everything, and the best way to prepare them for life is not to shield them from everything, but to educate them and teach them to think critically and independently about what they want and who they want to be. There are studies showing that toddlers are capable of critical thinking – why do we keep insisting as a society that teenagers aren’t?
3 – Piggybacking off of 2, fearing and avoiding ideas (which is what I think the problem is, not the sensitivity or lack thereof of the teachers) doesn’t actually do anything other than ensure that your children will carry on that same fear and avoidance. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to the Dark Side. Also known as bullying, violence, and, in my opinion (since I don’t currently have studies to back this bit up), long-term problems with success, fitting in, and furthering education as a college student/adult.
I agree wholeheartedly with your “”read it”” mentality. There are books I couldn’t get through, but I try to give things a fair shot.
I largely agree with you. I don’t though make much of a distinction between so-called “”classics”” and contemporary literature with respect to works of literature that can resonate with readers, as both offer wonderful choices for students. My 11-year old niece is now in middle school and has awesome reading choices that includes older and newer writings, as well as the first book in the Harry Potter series. From what I’ve seen, the book selections have been wonderful and she seems happy with what she’s been asked to read.
As far as your second point on how parents try to keep children away from ideas in books (or movies), I absolutely agree that it seems a pointless endeavor, and probably like celibacy education, likely to prompt even more curiosity. Critical thinking is my philosophy too in education, and I do think fear rather than knowledge drives too many people in their choices.
Before I became a college literature teacher I interned for a year at a high school and came in with completely unrealistic goals of what I could teach. I managed somehow to convince the board to allow me to teach _The Color Purple_, a book students seemed to love, but I could get no where with the proposal to teach _The Handmaid’s Tale_ (also on the banned books list) because reproductive rights for women is at the heart of the story. However, I saw many, many parents approve their child’s right to watch R-rated films in classes that had violence in them but utter fear around sexuality, which is such an interesting view into American mindsets. To me violence is more problematic, but parents seemed pretty nonchalant about their child watching violence.
I think books and movies very much shape people’s ideas, and vice versa since authors live among us and are as influenced by their culture, as all of us are. To me it’s a dialectic relationship that we constantly negotiate. That provides even more reason though to allow free thought and engagement with ideas represented in cultural products, even ones, or perhaps especially ones, that are troubling. Art is always politicized as much as anything else is in life. But there is a distinction for me between banning, which is a shutting out and silencing of the ideas of others, and free speech, which is an engagement with ideas that people embrace or oppose. I do not like the messages embedded in many of the Disney princess movies and am happy that my niece does not like them either, but I would not prevent her from seeing them. Instead, I do what my parents did for me, which is to allow access to ideas that I think she’s ready to understand, and then engage with her on the ideas and have a conversation about what we think is being represented in a particular movie or book and what those ideas can mean for her as a young girl.
Book banning seems to be much more of an issue in K-12 education or libraries where children remain a significant population. In college where I teach there is far more freedom to teach what you want if it fits the curriculum, though in some areas in the country books on Islam or Muslim culture have come under heavy scrutiny.
Book banning is a hyper vigilance around ideas, but beneath that are less ostentatious examples we still grapple with including how to define and understand what some call “”political correctness,”” or on the other end of the spectrum what some call “”hate speech.””
One of the things I love about ebooks is that it opens the door for more to be published. For example, I wonder if some of the current MC books would be published if they weren’t being published in e. I think the e market will open a lot of doors to books that would have had a hard time finding a publisher previously.
I think the biggest issue around censorship right now is our need to denigrate the thinking capacity of others. For my generation, I can remember parents being all concerned about the violence in cartoons. Studies have proved that they are in fact not harmful to kids. Now it seems the idea that the Disney Princess movies have people concerned that girls will abandon all hopes of a career while they wait for their prince. I would point out to them that women’s rights were fought for before women were exposed to these films and by women who were exposed to these films. Books and movies don’t shape a child’s ideas; living people do that. It’s time the control freaks limited their need to control people to their own friends and families.
My children haven’t been very influenced by books or movies. Maybe because e both are abundant in their lives and the subject matter of both is varied.
My son’s school and youth group were both run by people who are very green and through both example and conversation they influenced my son in regards to this subject. So I tend to agree with the people influence far more than art argument.
I go out of my way to read banned books. It wasn’t until the hoopla of The absolutely true diaries of a part-time Indian started that I went and picked it up. The offense? Having a high school teenager masturbate. Showing some of the problems with alcoholism and suicide rates on reservations. And apparently it’s “”culturally insensitive”” for a Native American who grew up on a reservation to write about Native Americans and the reservation. I don’t even.
What it boils down to for me is this: if you don’t want to read something, don’t read it. If you don’t want your kids to read something, don’t let them read it. If you want to decide what I read, or what my (hypothetical) kids read, then please fuck off.
I am not comfortable with the idea of banning books – it’s only a step away from burning them as far as I can see!
What you say about the things that kids are exposed at school to is so very true. I’m a teacher and was well aware, even when my girls were at primary school, that there would be words they would hear and perhaps even use at school that I might not think appropriate, but unfortunately, that’s what happens and one has to accept it. I’ve tried to be very open with my kids about language and sexual matters – making it clear that curiosity is natural, and have done the same when I’ve taught sex education (or whatever new-fangled thing they call it nowadays!). The idea of people wanting kids kept in ignorance of such matters scares the hell out of me.
And as for the recent round of wanting things expunged from books because they’re too sad or too nasty… it makes me want to spit. And then yell.
I think communication is key. I always talk to my kids about movies, books, whatever and how they agree or disagree with my worldview. It’s been a good launch pad for conversations about everything from vigilantism to dragons in reality (did they exist, could they exist etc.)
Guess I have my work cut out for me. I haven’t read most of these- now I am curious!
Over the years as a high school English teacher, I got complaints that some of the books in the curriculum were “”too sad.”” This included TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. I think the parents had good intentions (they didn’t want their kids sad from anything, let alone a book), but their philosophy came from the “”kids are fragile and must be protected from everything and never be allowed to grow up”” school, so common today.
I never have understood wanting to ban a book. It is the perfect opportunity for parents to open up dialogue with the tween or teen.
A Time to Kill by John Grisham?? That seems an odd choice of a book to ban.
And no, we should not conform at any cost.
I’ve always thought that telling people that a certain book must be banned makes everyone want to read that book, thus defeating the entire purpose of wanting to ban it.
Great post, Maggie. My mom was a children’s librarian for decades. In her career, it was never a teacher who asked to ban a book but parents or community members. She worked in a private school that had the ability to say no with relative ease.