Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
Banned Books Weeks 2011 will be observed September 24-October 1.
Jonah Goldberg claims that Banned Books Week (BBW) is nothing but hype. In a column he penned for USA Today in early September, Goldberg wrote that BBW “is an exercise in propaganda.” He continued, “For starters, as a legal matter no book in America is banned, period, full stop (not counting, I suppose, some hard-core illegal child porn or some such out there). Any citizen can go to a bookstore or Amazon.com and buy any book legally in print — or out of print for that matter.”
Evidently, Goldberg thinks that books which have been removed from the shelves of public and school libraries “due to pressure from someone who isn’t a librarian or a teacher” don’t count as “banned books.” He appears to believe they can only be considered banned books if they have been banned on a national level. So what if books are removed from school and public libraries? One can always get a copy at a book store or from Amazon.com. Right?
Goldberg got into the numbers of challenged books to demonstrate how “overhyped” stories about banned books are. He wrote that reported challenges had dropped from 513 in 2008 to 348 in 2010—and that the “historic norm is a mere 400 to 500 bans or challenges” a year. He said there are almost 100,00 public schools in this country educating approximately 50 million students—as well as 33,000 private schools and 10,000 public libraries. According to Goldberg’s math—if there were “500 parent-driven ‘bans or challenges’ in a given year in public schools, that would mean for every 200 public schools, or every 100,000 students, at least one parent even complained about an age-inappropriate book. What an epidemic!”
Reported challenges…a mere 400 to 500 bans or challenges…only one book challenge per 100,000 students. What’s the fuss all about? Why should people be concerned? Maybe the American Library Association, public libraries, and schools in this country should only begin to worry when the censorship, challenging, and banning of books becomes an epidemic. Why address the problem when the numbers are so small?
Well, one could conclude that many book challenges aren’t reported. As noted on the ALA website: “We do not claim comprehensiveness in recording challenges as research suggests that for each challenge reported there are as many as four or five that go unreported.” And I have little doubt that there are many librarians, teachers, readers, and defenders of the First Amendment who feel that an historic norm of 400 to 500 challenges a year are a few hundred too many.
I have to wonder at Goldberg’s motives for writing his column. Was it so he could get in a dig at teachers’ unions? Here’s what he wrote about them:
“These days, teachers unions are fond of claiming that apathetic parents deserve more of the blame for the woeful state of education today. Maybe so. But a national policy of bullying parents interested in what their kids are reading hardly seems like the best way to encourage them. Indeed, from these numbers, the real scandal might be that so few books are “banned or challenged.’”
I’m not sure how Goldberg drew the conclusion that there is a “national policy” of bullying parents who are interested in what their children read. He didn’t provide any proof that there was. And why would Goldberg suggest that the real scandal is that so few books are being banned or challenged? Does he think that more books should be banned and challenged every year?
Molly Raphael, President of the American Library Association, responded to Goldberg’s column. She wrote:
“When a library removes a book from its shelves because someone disapproves of the ideas or opinions contained in the book, that is censorship. When it is done by publicly funded schools and libraries — government agencies — it is a violation of the First Amendment.”
Raphael said we should remember that when a book is removed from a library it is an act of censorship that affects an entire community—not just one individual or one family. She also said that public libraries “serve everyone, including those who are too young or too poor to buy their own books or own a computer.” She added that the reason librarians and library users celebrate BBW is as “a testament to the strength of our freedom in the United States. We celebrate the freedom to read because we all know that we are so fortunate to live in a country that protects our freedom to choose what we want to read. If you doubt this, just ask anyone from a totalitarian society. That is why we draw attention to acts of censorship that chill the freedom to read.”
Do not feel safe. The poet remembers.
You may kill him — another will be born.
Deeds and words shall be recorded.
~ Czeslaw Milosz, Poland
The lives of artists are more fragile than their creations. The poet Ovid was exiled by Augustus to a little hell-hole on the Black Sea called Tomis, but his poetry has outlasted the Roman Empire. Osip Mandelstam died in a Stalinist work camp, but his poetry has outlived the Soviet Union. Federico García Lorca was killed by the thugs of Spain’s Generalissimo Francisco Franco, but his poetry has survived that tyrannical regime.
We can perhaps bet on art to win over tyrants. It is the world’s artists, particularly those courageous enough to stand up against authoritarianism, for whom we need to be concerned, and for whose safety we must fight.
~ Salman Rushdie, 19 April 2011
Top Ten Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2010 (Out of 348 challenges as reported by the Office for Intellectual Freedom)
- And Tango Makes Three*, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
Reasons: homosexuality, religious viewpoint, and unsuited to age group - The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
Reasons: offensive language, racism, sex education, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and violence - Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
Reasons: insensitivity, offensive language, racism, and sexually explicit - Crank, by Ellen Hopkins
Reasons: drugs, offensive language, and sexually explicit - The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
Reasons: sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and violence - Lush, by Natasha Friend
Reasons: drugs, offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group - What My Mother Doesn’t Know, by Sonya Sones
Reasons: sexism, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group - Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich
Reasons: drugs, inaccurate, offensive language, political viewpoint, and religious viewpoint - Revolutionary Voices, edited by Amy Sonnie
Reasons: homosexuality and sexually explicit - Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer
Reasons: religious viewpoint and violence
(*And Tango Makes Three is a picture book.)
Sources and Further Reading
Column: Banned Books Week is just hype (USA Today)
Banned Books Week celebrates freedom to read (USA Today)
Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read (ALA)
Frequently Challenged Books (ALA)
Banned Books Week 2011 (Amnesty International)
The 11 Most Surprising Banned Books (PHOTOS, POLL) (Huffington Post)
Letter re: Slaughterhouse Five Ban in Republic, MO (National Coalition Against Censorship)
First Lady Laura Bush Cancels Poetry Gathering Fearing Anti-War Poems: Democracy Now! Hosts Its Own Poetry Slam with Def Poetry Jam Stars Staceyann Chin, Suheir Hammad and Steve Colman (Democracy Now, 2/7/2003)
Other Turley Blog Posts on the Censorship, Challenging, and Banning of Books
Publisher Announces Intention to Edit Huckleberry Finn To Remove N-Word
On the Banning, Censorship, and Challenging of Books
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?—I See Anti-Marxists Looking at Me!
Elaine M,
Yes, that’s a ban.
But the issue is a selection policy, not banning.
Schools have selection policies. If the book does not meet the selection policy, then, as Judith Krug said, “get it out of there.” That has nothing to do with banning. It’s simply inappropriate for that school under that school’s selection policy. Selection is used to exclude huge numbers of books on a nearly daily basis. Do you want to argue a school bans huge numbers of books, so all schools ban millions of books each year? The word is selection, not ban.
I’ll likely not respond further to you because I sense you will never see the difference between a ban and the application of a selection policy that every school has.
Dan,
“That’s what the ALA wants you to believe. It does not comport with Judith Krug, SCOTUS, other courts, and common sense.”
What doesn’t comport with Judith Krug, SCOTUS, other courts, and common sense?
*****
From The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language:
ban (tr. v.) 1. to prohibit, especially by official decree. See synonyms at forbid.
Synonyms: forbid, ban, enjoin, interdict, prohibit, proscribe. The central meaning shared by these verbs is “to refuse to allow.”
*****
I think we have a different understanding of the word “ban.”
@Elaine M,
What can I say. That’s what the ALA wants you to believe. It does not comport with Judith Krug, SCOTUS, other courts, and common sense.
Redefining language is one way the ALA misleads people. For example, the ALA says every single one of the hundreds of people who bring challenges are censors. Now we all know that is not true, but by changing the language, you have already half won the battle. Apparently, the ALA has won that battle with you. Apparently, you don’t even know it.
The ALA’s definitions are wrong. “A banning is the removal of those materials.” That means Judith Krug, SCOTUS, and other courts who allow the removal of inappropriate books from public schools are book banners. Certainly that is not true. Besides, the last USA book banning occurred about half a century ago. Therefore, “A banning is the removal of those materials” is not true.
Dan,
Notable First Amendment court cases
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/oif/firstamendment/courtcases/courtcases.cfm
*****
The Right to Read Freely
Evans v. Selma Union High School District of Fresno County, 222 P. 801 (Ca. 1924)
The California State Supreme Court held that the King James version of the Bible was not a “publication of a sectarian, partisan, or denominational character” that a State statute required a public high school library to exclude from its collections. The “fact that the King James version is commonly used by Protestant Churches and not by Catholics” does not “make its character sectarian,” the court stated. “The mere act of purchasing a book to be added to the school library does not carry with it any implication of the adoption of the theory or dogma contained therein, or any approval of the book itself, except as a work of literature fit to be included in a reference library.”
*****
Rosenberg v. Board of Education of City of New York, 92 N.Y.S.2d 344 (Sup. Ct. Kings County 1949)
After considering the charge that Oliver Twist and the Merchant of Venice are “objectionable because they tend to engender hatred of the Jew as a person and as a race,” the Supreme Court, Kings County, New York, decided that these two works cannot be banned from the New York City schools, libraries, or classrooms, declaring that the Board of Education “acted in good faith without malice or prejudice and in the best interests of the school system entrusted to their care and control, and, therefore, that no substantial reason exists which compels the suppression of the two books under consideration.”
*****
Todd v. Rochester Community Schools, 200 N.W.2d 90 (Mich. Ct. App. 1972)
In deciding that Slaughterhouse-Five could not be banned from the libraries and classrooms of the Michigan schools, the Court of Appeals of Michigan declared: “Vonnegut’s literary dwellings on war, religion, death, Christ, God, government, politics, and any other subject should be as welcome in the public schools of this state as those of Machiavelli, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Melville, Lenin, Joseph McCarthy, or Walt Disney. The students of Michigan are free to make of Slaughterhouse-Five what they will.”
Minarcini v. Strongsville (Ohio) City School District, 541 F.2d 577 (6th Cir. 1976)
*****
Minarcini v. Strongsville (Ohio) City School District, 541 F.2d 577 (6th Cir. 1976)
The Strongsville City Board of Education rejected faculty recommendations to purchase Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 and Kurt Vonnegut’s God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater and ordered the removal of Catch-22 and Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle from the library. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled against the School Board, upholding the students’ First Amendment right to receive information and the librarian’s right to disseminate it. “The removal of books from a school library is a much more serious burden upon the freedom of classroom discussion than the action found unconstitutional in Tinker v. Des Moines School District.”
*****
Right to Read Defense Committee v. School Committee of the City of Chelsea, 454 F. Supp. 703 (D. Mass. 1978)
The Chelsea, Mass. School Committee decided to bar from the high school library a poetry anthology, Male and Female under 18, because of the inclusion of an “offensive” and “damaging” poem, “The City to a Young Girl,” written by a fifteen-year-old girl. Challenged in U.S. District Court, Joseph L. Tauro ruled: “The library is ‘a mighty resource in the marketplace of ideas.’ There a student can literally explore the unknown, and discover areas of interest and thought not covered by the prescribed curriculum. The student who discovers the magic of the library is on the way to a life-long experience of self-education and enrichment. That student learns that a library is a place to test or expand upon ideas presented to him, in or out of the classroom. The most effective antidote to the poison of mindless orthodoxy is ready access to a broad sweep of ideas and philosophies. There is no danger from such exposure. The danger is mind control. The committee’s ban of the anthology Male and Female is enjoined.”
*****
Case v. Unified School District No. 233, 908 F. Supp. 864 (D. Kan. 1995)
When the Olathe, Kansas, School Board voted to remove the book Annie on My Mind, a novel depicting a lesbian relationship between two teenagers, from the district’s junior and senior high school libraries, the federal district court in Kansas found they violated the students’ rights under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and the corresponding provisions of the Kansas State Constitution. Despite the fact that the school board testified that they had removed the book because of “educational unsuitability,” which is within their rights under the Pico decision, it became obvious from their testimony that the book was removed because they disapproved of the book’s ideology. In addition, it was found that the school board had violated their own materials selection and reconsideration policies, which weighed heavily in the judge’s decision.
*****
Campbell v. St. Tammany Parish School Board, 64 F.3d 184 (5th Cir. 1995)
Public school district removed the book Voodoo and Hoodoo, a discussion of the origins, history, and practices of the voodoo and hoodoo religions that included an outline of some specific practices, from all district library shelves. Parents of several students sued and the district court granted summary judgment in their favor. The court of appeals reversed, finding that there was not enough evidence at that stage to determine that board members had an unconstitutional motivation, such as denying students access to ideas with which board members disagreed; the court remanded the case for a full trial at which all board members could be questioned about their reasons for removing the book. The court observed that “in light of the special role of the school library as a place where students may freely and voluntarily explore diverse topics, the school board’s non-curricular decision to remove a book well after it had been placed in the public school libraries evokes the question whether that action might not be an attempt to ‘strangle the free mind at its source.'” The court focused on some evidence that school board members had removed the book without having read it or having read only excerpts provided by the Christian Coalition. The parties settled the case before trial by returning the book to the libraries on specially designated reserve shelves.
*****
Sund v. City of Wichita Falls, Texas, 121 F. Supp. 2d 530 (N.D. Texas, 2000)
City residents who were members of a church sought removal of two books, Heather Has Two Mommies and Daddy’s Roommate, because they disapproved of the books’ depiction of homosexuality. The City of Wichita Falls City Council voted to restrict access to the books if 300 persons signed a petition asking for the restriction. A separate group of citizens filed suit after the books were removed from the children’s section and placed on a locked shelf in the adult area of the library. Following a trial on the merits, the District Court permanently enjoined the city from enforcing the resolution permitting the removal of the two books. It held that the City’s resolution constituted impermissible content-based and viewpoint based discrimination; was not narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest; provided no standards or review process; and improperly delegated governmental authority over the selection and removal of the library’s books to any 300 private citizens who wish to remove a book from the children’s area of the Library.
*****
Counts v. Cedarville School District, 295 F.Supp.2d 996 (W.D. Ark. 2003)
The school board of the Cedarville, Arkansas school district voted to restrict students’ access to the Harry Potter books, on the grounds that the books promoted disobediance and disrespect for authority and dealt with witchcraft and the occult. As a result of the vote, students in the Cedarville school district were required to obtain a signed permission slip from their parents or guardians before they would be allowed to borrow any of the Harry Potter books from school libraries. The District Court overturned the Board’s decision and ordered the books returned to unrestricted circulation, on the grounds that the restrictions violated students’ First Amendment right to read and receive information. In so doing, the Court noted that while the Board necessarily performed highly discretionary functions related to the operation of the schools, it was still bound by the Bill of Rights and could not abridge students’ First Amendment right to read a book on the basis of an undifferentiated fear of disturbance or because the Board disagreed with the ideas contained in the book.
Dan,
From the ALA website:
About Banned & Challenged Books
What’s the difference between a challenge and a banning?
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. Due to the commitment of librarians, teachers, parents, students and other concerned citizens, most challenges are unsuccessful and most materials are retained in the school curriculum or library collection.
***
Often challenges are motivated by a desire to protect children from “inappropriate” sexual content or “offensive” language. The following were the top three reasons cited for challenging materials as reported to the Office of Intellectual Freedom:
– the material was considered to be “sexually explicit”
– the material contained “offensive language”
– the materials was “unsuited to any age group”
Although this is a commendable motivation, Free Access to Libraries for Minors, an interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights (ALA’s basic policy concerning access to information) states that, “Librarians and governing bodies should maintain that parents—and only parents—have the right and the responsibility to restrict the access of their children—and only their children—to library resources.” Censorship by librarians of constitutionally protected speech, whether for protection or for any other reason, violates the First Amendment.
http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/aboutbannedbooks/index.cfm
@Elaine M.
No. Removing a book after application of book selection policy is not banning. If it were a banning, then the creator of BBW would be a banner:
“On rare occasion, we have situations where a piece of material is not what it appears to be on the surface and the material is totally inappropriate for a school library. In that case, yes, it is appropriate to remove materials. If it doesn’t fit your material selection policy, get it out of there.”
As to the reading lists, same thing. Courts allow schools to remove inappropriate materials, including the US Supreme Court. If it were a banning, then the SCOTUS and other courts would be banners.
Is it your intention to argue that Judith Krug and the courts are book banners for legally removing inappropriate materials from public schools?
FYI, I was just on the air discussing this issue. Perhaps you should give it a listen. For the next 2 weeks only, you can hear what I said on a local NPR affiliate radio station about Banned Books Week, Judith Krug, and the ALA here:
http://www.kunm.org/twoweekarchive.html
And set the date to Thurs Sep 22 and the time to 8:00 AM before clicking the button. Then, in four minutes, you’ll start to hear the music then the show. I am on for 1/2 hour. You’ll hear her say goodbye to me later.
If you happen to listen for an additional half hour, others talk about me, including the IF head at the NMLA who agrees with me!
Dan,
You didn’t answer my question.
@Elaine M., let it put it this way, and I’ll simply need to quote from a former ALA Councilor at librarian.net:
“It also highlights the thing we know about Banned Books Week that we don’t talk about much — the bulk of these books are challenged by parents for being age-inappropriate for children. While I think this is still a formidable thing for librarians to deal with, it’s totally different from people trying to block a book from being sold at all.”
Totally different.
I just learned of Otteray Scribe’s great loss and I send my sympathy to OS and his family. Although I have never met OS, he is my friend. I feel very sad tonight. I hope he will rejoin us soon.
Massachusetts library lifts 1906 ban on Mark Twain book
By Daniel Lovering | Reuters
http://news.yahoo.com/massachusetts-library-lifts-1906-ban-mark-twain-book-225525966.html
Excerpt:
CAMBRIDGE, Mass (Reuters) – A Mark Twain book with nude illustrations, added to a Massachusetts public library after a century-old ban was lifted, was plucked from the shelf within hours on Thursday.
Trustees of the Charlton Public Library lifted the 1906 ban earlier this week of “Eve’s Diary,” Twain’s satirical version of the Adam and Eve story, said Cheryl Hansen, the library’s director.
Two paperback copies were made available at the library in central Massachusetts on Thursday and, within hours, one of them was in a reader’s hands, she said.
“I think there’ll be a lot of interest in taking it out,” Hansen added, saying the unanimous vote to lift the ban came just in time for Banned Books Week, which begins on Saturday.
A library trustee learned about the ban from a local newspaper article and last year tracked down a first edition of the book, which will be on display through next week, she said.
The book, published in 1906, was banned when the library’s then-trustees took issue with illustrations by Lester Ralph that showed Eve naked. Adam appears covered up in the pictures, she said.
“They’re not what we would consider inflammatory at all, and I’m even surprised they were considered (inflammatory) then,” Hansen said.
Dan,
“The truth is, no book has been banned in the USA for about half a century. Fanny Hill got that honor a long time ago. Challenged books in schools that are removed is something completely different from book banning.”
If a librarian is told that she/he must remove a book from a school or public library or a school is told a particular book must be removed from a reading list, isn’t that book–in effect–banned from the library or school? What would you call a book that is not allowed to be kept in a school library or read at a school–a removed book? Smoking is banned in restaurants and public buildings in the state where I reside. Would you say that smoking is not actually banned here because people can smoke in places other than restaurants and public buildings?
“On rare occasion, we have situations where a piece of material is not what it appears to be on the surface and the material is totally inappropriate for a school library. In that case, yes, it is appropriate to remove materials. If it doesn’t fit your material selection policy, get it out of there.”
“Marking 25 Years of Banned Books Week,” by Judith Krug, Curriculum Review, 46:1, September 2006.
See also: “Banned Books Week Propaganda Exposed by Progressive Librarian Rory Litwin; ALA Censors Out Criticism of Its Own Actions in a Manner Dishonest to the Core.”
The truth is, no book has been banned in the USA for about half a century. Fanny Hill got that honor a long time ago. Challenged books in schools that are removed is something completely different from book banning.
“In 1955, a U.S. citizen could not buy or legally bring into the United States books by D.H. Lawrence, Henry Miller and other noted authors. Mickey Spillane novels with sexual innuendos were readily available but authors writing about honest human behavior, feelings, actions and language were banned — not allowed in this country in which the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives freedom of religion and speech to citizens and the press.”
Great point Elaine and worth reiterating. Add James Joyce, William Burroughs and others to that list. It was all done in the name of protecting children’s sensibilities. Lo and behold more than 50 years later the book banners still use that specious reasoning.
Those challenging books find strength in numbers
By Didi Tang and Mary Beth Marklein
USA Today
12/6/2010
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-12-01-bookbans01_ST_N.htm
Shortly after the fall semester began this year, Wesley Scroggins, a parent of three in Republic, Mo., publicly criticized the local school district for carrying books that he described as soft pornography.
“We’ve got to have educated kids, and we’ve got to be a moral people,” Scroggins said then. “I’ve been concerned for some time what students in the schools are being taught.”
Parents have long raised concerns about school and library books — children’s and young adult books, and sometimes dictionaries — often for inappropriate content. The number of reported challenges in the past 30 years has hovered between about 400 or 500 each year, says Deborah Caldwell-Stone, an attorney with the American Library Association.
Whereas challenges once were mostly launched by a lone parent, Caldwell-Stone says she has noticed “an uptick in organized efforts” to remove books from public and school libraries. A number of challenges appear to draw from information provided on websites such as Parents Against Bad Books in Schools, or PABBIS.org, and Safelibraries.org, she says.
And the latest wrinkle: A wave of complaints around the nation about inappropriate material in public schools has stirred emotional argument over just how much freedom should be extended to students in advanced courses.
Earlier this year, a California parent objected to sex-related terms in a collegiate dictionary placed in a fourth- and fifth-grade classroom to accommodate advanced readers. And the American Library Association and other groups say they have seen a noticeable rise in complaints about literature used in honors or college-level courses.
“This is a relatively recent phenomenon, and it’s spreading,” says Joan Bertin, executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship, a New York-based group.
More high schools are offering Advanced Placement or similar honors courses, in part to help students earn college credit and to give them a leg up in college admissions. Nearly 12,500 U.S. high schools offered Advanced Placement English literature this year, up 30% since 2000, and the number of students taking the national exam is up 86%.
This year, high schools in Hillsborough County, Fla., Easton, Pa., and Franklin Township, Ind., were asked to review books being read in Advanced Placement English courses.
Judith John, an English professor at Missouri State University, suggests book bans might have become more noticeable these days because of an uncertain economy and concerns about terrorism. “When people are afraid, they become more conservative and reject changes,” she says.
Candi Cushman, education analyst for Focus on the Family, a Christian ministry in Colorado, says it’s “healthy and normal for parents to want to weigh in on what their kids are exposed to at taxpayer-funded schools, especially when we talk about materials that are sexually explicit.”
Sex is not always the primary concern. A Seattle high school recently dropped Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World from its 10th-grade required reading list after a parent objected to the book’s depiction of American Indians as savages.
Cushman’s group encourages concerned parents to start with school officials. “We trust the democratic process to weed out illegitimate complaints,” Cushman says.
The American Library Association urges schools to keep challenged books on the shelves until a review committee can read the material and make a recommendation to key decision-makers.
Sometimes the decision is questioned:
• In Plano, Texas, last month, the school district collected a textbook, Culture and Values: A Survey of the Humanities, from classrooms after a parent voiced concern, then reissued the book after former students launched a social-media campaign to object. “This decision was made behind closed doors without discussion,” says Ashley Meyers, 22, a 2006 graduate who had used the book.
• After the school board in Stockton, Mo., voted in April to ban The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, English teachers who assign the book said they should have been consulted about its educational value. “We expected a more thorough, well-developed process before a book was banned,” English teacher Kim Chism Jasper said during a public forum in September.
• A chapter of Glenn Beck’s 9.12 Project, a conservative watchdog network, was a force behind the removal of Revolutionary Voices: A Multicultural Queer Youth Anthology from the school library at Rancocas Valley Regional High School in Burlington County, N.J. The ACLU of New Jersey requested documentation from school officials regarding how the decision was made.
Such controversies make headlines, which helps the library association and other anti-censorship groups track book bans. John, who has been studying book bans since 1993, suggests many library books simply disappear from circulation.
“It’s more prevalent than people think,” she says.
Book battles heat up over censorship vs. selection in school
By Natalie DiBlasio, USA TODAY
August 18, 2011
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2011-08-22-book-ban-schools_n.htm
U.S. schools have banned more than 20 books and faced more than 50 other challenges this year, the American Library Association reports, and many more are expected this fall.
“By far our busiest time is the early fall,” says Angela Maycock of the association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. “When students go back to school, we see a real upswing in complaints.”
There is intense debate over whether those challenges involve censorship or are just parents seeking age-appropriate reading material.
“It is not a banning when some school decides to remove a book,” says Dan Kleinman, who in 2004 started the website SafeLibraries.org . “They are just following their selection policy.”
” Districts are dependent on budgets, and politically motivated school boards try to determine what we read, what we think and what we teach,” he says.
The number of book challenges, usually initiated by parents, fluctuates yearly, says library association spokeswoman Jennifer Petersen. Reported challenges have declined from 513 in 2008 to 348 last year, but Petersen says there are many that her group never learns about.
Last month, Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s Slaughterhouse-Five and Sarah Ockler’s Twenty Boy Summer were removed from Republic High School in Republic, Mo.
Ockler called the ban “extremely disheartening.”
The top reasons for challenges are sexually explicit content, offensive language and violence, the association says.
“That’s not what our kids should be reading and learning,” says Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition of America .
Virginia’s Albemarle County School District removed the Sherlock Holmes mystery A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle from a sixth-grade reading list this summer after parents said the book portrays Mormons in a negative light, says Matt Haas, executive director of the county’s schools.
In Channelview, Texas, The Adventures of Super Diaper Baby, by George Beard, Harold Hutchins and Dav Pilkey, was removed from grade schools after parents complained when their 6-year-old was suspended for calling a classmate “poo-poo head,” Maycock says.
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My Note: Forced removal of a challenged book from a library is not part of a library’s selection policy.
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Banned books
Books banned by various schools in the past six months include:
1. Athletic Shorts, by Chris Crutcher
2. Big Momma Makes the World, by
Phyllis Root
3. The Bonesetter’s Daughter, by Amy Tan
4. Burn, by Suzanne Phillips
5. Great Soul, by Joseph Lelyveld
6. It’s a Book, by Lane Smith
7. Lovingly Alice, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
8. The Marbury Lens, by Andrew Smith
9. Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris
10. Mobile Suit Gundam: Seed Astray Vol. 3, by Tomohiro Chiba
11. My Darling, My Hamburger, by Paul Zindel
12. The Patron Saint of Butterflies, by Cecilia Galante
13. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
14. Pit Bulls and Tenacious Guard Dogs, by Carl Semencic
15. Push, by Sapphire
16. Shooting Star, by Fredrick McKissack Jr.
17. The Short and Incredibly Happy Life of Riley, by Colin Thompson
18. Vegan Virgin Valentine, by Carolyn Mackler
19. What My Mother Doesn’t Know, by Sonya Sones
20. “What’s Happening to My Body?”: Book for Boys, by Lynda Madaras with Area Madaras
Source: Jennifer Petersen, the American Library Association
Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, says he believes the challenges are increasingly influenced by politics and the economy.
Great link Elaine!
History lesson needed
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2011/09/20/1648278/history-lesson-needed.html
I do not know how old Jonah Goldberg is, but his recent column, “Banned Books Week is just a lot of hype,” was written, I believe, by someone who does not know his U.S. history. In 1955, a U.S. citizen could not buy or legally bring into the United States books by D.H. Lawrence, Henry Miller and other noted authors. Mickey Spillane novels with sexual innuendos were readily available but authors writing about honest human behavior, feelings, actions and language were banned — not allowed in this country in which the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives freedom of religion and speech to citizens and the press.
If you still believe banning books is all hype, get a copy of The Monumental Decision of the United States District Court Rendered Dec. 6, 1933 by Hon. John M. Woolsey Lifting the Ban on Ulysses. James Joyce, Hemingway and countless other great literary writers were banned in the U.S, and no bookstores sold their literature. Freedom doesn’t just happen. Banning books infringes on your and my right for free, honest expression in print and speech.
Vivian Martin, Kennewick
Elaine M. 9:45 am : “Student Runs Secret Banned Books Library from Locker
Excerpt:
A Catholic school student who identifies herself by the avatar name “Nekochan” started an unofficial library of banned books that she runs out of her locker at school. She began to lend books to her classmates when her school banned a long list of classic titles, including The Canterbury Tales, Paradise Lost and Animal Farm.”
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My first nominee this year for a Medal of Freedom.
(Didn’t I read a book about something like this? Books were banned and people had to hide them if they wanted to read them, it was dangerous to do so…) 🙂
AY,
I think the Berkshire-Hathaway stock price will survive!
My favorite from the “Banana Man” link, AY:
“In May, two Ohio seventh-graders were suspended for alleged flatulence on a school bus.”
Alleged flatulence???
(Regarding, “Have we gone totally bananas?” Yes. Yes we have.)