[Censored]

I'm a big fan of Banned Books displays in libraries and bookshops around this time of year (Banned Books Week is coming to a close on Saturday). They are by nature provocative, another thing I enjoy--especially in books. When we put together these displays we are provoking a conversation about censorship and intellectual freedom (a big deal to librarians) that we need to keep having, year after year. Book challenges in the United States continue, with the same books popping up on the lists over and over. They are removed or attempted to be removed from public and school library shelves and from course curricula. A number of book challenges have made the news this year, including a proposed (and vetoed) bill right here in Virginia, and while we see a lack of diversity in the publishing industry, the list of book challenges year to year are rather diverse.

How many of your youthful favorites on this table?

"Criminalizes the Foresting industry"?!  

This year the official Banned Books Week Facebook page posted a poll asking people to vote on which character from a banned book they would most like to have lunch with.

Willy Wonka won by a substantial margin. I personally find him to be too unsettling to dine with.

2015 saw a lot of challenges to books with LGBT themes. From the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom, the top ten most frequently challenged books of 2015 are:

Looking for Alaska, by John Green

• Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited for age group.

Fifty Shades of Grey, by E. L. James

• Reasons: Sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and other (“poorly written,” “concerns that a group of teenagers will want to try it”).

I Am Jazz, by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings

• Reasons: Inaccurate, homosexuality, sex education, religious viewpoint, and unsuited for age group.

Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out, by Susan Kuklin

• Reasons: Anti-family, offensive language, homosexuality, sex education, political viewpoint, religious viewpoint, unsuited for age group, and other (“wants to remove from collection to ward off complaints”).

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon

• Reasons: Offensive language, religious viewpoint, unsuited for age group, and other (“profanity and atheism”).

The Holy Bible

• Reasons: Religious viewpoint.

Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel

• Reasons: Violence and other (“graphic images”).

Habibi, by Craig Thompson

• Reasons: Nudity, sexually explicit, and unsuited for age group.

Nasreen’s Secret School: A True Story from Afghanistan, by Jeanette Winter

• Reasons: Religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group, and violence.

Two Boys Kissing, by David Levithan

• Reasons: Homosexuality and other (“condones public displays of affection”).

*Note the burning books

A little history*: The Decameron, a 14th century Italian collection of short stories, was one of many books (see also Candide by Voltaire, and The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer) banned from US mail under the Federal Anti-Obscenity Act (Comstock Law) of 1873, which banned the sending or receiving of works containing "obscene," "filthy," or "inappropriate" material.

*Thanks, Wikipedia.

I thought I'd share with you my top ELEVEN (I will not be oppressed by this global obsession with round numbers) favorite challenged books. These come from the ALA OIF list of the top 100 challenges of the past 25 years (as long as they've been keeping track).

Scary Stories (series), by Alvin Schwartz
*I was devastated when the new edition of this series came out a few years ago without Stephen Gammel's haunting, disturbing, creepy as anything illustrations.
The Witches, by Roald Dahl
A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle
Go Ask Alice, by Anonymous
Julie of the Wolves, by Jean Craighead George
The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton
Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes
Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou

Many more of my favorites are on these lists, most of them childhood favorites from the hours and hours spent hiding in a corner of my neighborhood branch captivated by a stack of picture books. I can't imagine my life without them.

What's your favorite banned book?

Today's recommended reads come from lists of banned and challenged books. For more information about banned and challenged books, please visit http://www.ala.org/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks

Toni Morrison's first novel, The Bluest Eye, was challenged in a Fairbanks, Alaska high school in 1994 because it was a "controversial book; it contains a lot of very graphic descriptions and lots of disturbing language." Also challenged at West Chester, Pennsylvania schools as "most pornographic".

The Island Trees (NY) School District School Board removed Slaughterhouse-Five and eight other books in 1976 because they were “anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic and just plain filthy.”

Originally published in 1951 and still one of the most frequently challenged books, in 2001 The Catcher in the Rye was removed by a Dorchester District 2 school board member in Summerville, SC who believed it to be “a filthy, filthy book.”

In 2012, under threat of violating state law and losing state funding, the Tucson (AZ) Unified School District voted to cut its Mexican American Studies (MAS) program. “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” and numerous other books affiliated with the MAS program were found in violation, removed from the curriculum, and stored in district storehouses.

In 2007 The Golden Compass was challenged by schools in Kentucky, Texas, and Wisconsin for "anti-religious" and "anti-Christian" messages.

In The Night Kitchen was first challenged in 1985 in a Wisconsin elementary school because of fears it would "desensitize children to nudity."

My personal favorite challenged book from my childhood? It's tough to choose just one. There's The Giver by Lois Lowry, Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, The Witches and James and the Giant Peach, both by Roald Dahl, Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George, The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton (written by a teenage girl!), A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein, and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark which was challenged in 1990 because it was "too scary".

You know what is really scary?

Censorship.

Banned Books Week reached a lot of folks here at RPL. Awareness was raised, censorship was discussed, and the freedom to read was celebrated. Even Mr. Taft here got into the action. It's not too late to stop by participating branches and play the trivia challenge.  You can win tickets to the Byrd Theatre! 

WANTED for Reading Dangerous Books!

The outstanding offspring of Natasha the Artsy Librarian

This year National Banned Books Week is raising awareness about banned and challenged comics and graphic novels. Comic books and graphics novels are loved by people of all ages. Celebrate your freedom to read the week of September 21-27 at participating branches: Belmont, Ginter Park, Broad Rock, North Avenue and the main library. Enter the Banned Books Week Trivia Challenge for a chance to win two free Byrd Movie Theater tickets courtesy of the Byrd Theater, check out our creative displays of the most frequently challenged books, and pose with your favorite challenged book for a Wanted Poster Picture!

Pictured below are just of a few of the graphic novels and comics most frequently challenged: The Color of Earth by Kim Dong Hwa, Maus by Art Spiegelman, Sandman by Neil Gaiman, The Watchmen by Alan Moore, Tank Girl by Alan Martin and Jamie Hewlett, Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, Blankets by Craig Thompson, Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey, and Bone by Jeff Smith. For more information visit The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and The American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom.

Banned Books Week | Celebrating the Freedom to Read

American Censorship

You may have heard in history class about Nazis burning books in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s.  Teachers and textbooks like to include that information to illustrate the repressive nature of the Nazi regime.  But did you know America has a long history of institutionalized censorship?

Many of the books that are now considered classics were challenged by censors for years after their publication, and many books are challenged today.  The Scarlet Letter, now required reading in many American middle and high schools, was censored heavily in its day and through the 20th century for being "pornographic and obscene."

Ernest Hemingway, now considered to be part of the vanguard of 20th century American literature, faced heavy censorship of his works during his lifetime.  Many of Hemingway's novels were banned by booksellers and schools.  The United States Post Office considered For Whom the Bell Tolls unsuitable to send through the mail because it contained “propaganda unfavorable to the state.”

Why is censorship dangerous?

Censorship in the United States highlights a fundamental contradiction of American society.  Though the country was founded on classical liberal ideals like freedom of expression and the marketplace of ideas, a deeply conservative vein also courses through America and demands that defined values be respected, promoted and protected.  Often, challenges to printed materials are motivated by good intentions: to protect people, and especially children, from potentially harmful material.  However, this need to protect our values becomes censorship if it becomes a call to ban books, or to otherwise silence voices.

The problem is this: the notion of established, accepted values that must be protected is typically a way to protect the viewpoints of the majority and the opinions of persons with power.  Censoring or silencing minority voices, controversial opinions, or unpopular views because they do not fit in with normative values not only deprives persons of free expression, but nullifies the freedom of the marketplace of ideas, excludes the values systems of minority groups and deprives minority groups of opportunities for empowerment through information.  Censorship can also have what is known as a "chilling effect," whereby persons begin to voluntarily censor their expression and information seeking because of a climate of restriction and fear.  Censorship based on values is an obstacle to social and political change, artistic advancement, intellectual freedom, and the right to information. 

Libraries, Values, and the Right to Information

Libraries are charged with providing communities with access to information.  Librarians are trained to select books for collections, preserve materials, and assist library users with information requests while remaining as neutral as possible toward materials and their contents.  Libraries provide access; they do not restrict it.  In the words of the American Library Association, while it is encouraged for people to "restrict what they themselves or their children read... they must not call on governmental or public agencies to prevent others from reading or viewing that material."

Values are important.  In libraries, we value neutrality, access, and intellectual and informational freedom.  Values held by individuals to guide their choices for themselves and their families are important.  But we cannot publicly mandate what individuals' values ought to be.  That is why public libraries emphasize neutrality  - so persons of all belief and value systems can access information of interest to them.  The goal is to exclude nothing, and therefore include everyone.

Banned Books Week is an annual awareness campaign from the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom.  More information can be found online at:  http://www.ala.org/bbooks/ and http://www.bannedbooksweek.org/

Banned Books Quiz (a week late, but too good to waste)

Clay Dishon, Library Community Services Manager at RPL's Westover Hills branch, created this challenging quiz for Banned Books Week.  Although the week is over, we think it deserves a spot on the blog.  How many can you answer?

1.  On January 14, 1920, the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice presented publisher Robert M. McBride with a warrant “calling for the seizure of all plates, copies, and sheets” of a novel written by Richmond author James Branch Cabell.  What was the title of this novel?

a. The Line of Love

b. The High Place

c. The Cream of the Jest

d. Jurgen:  A Comedy of Justice

e. The Soul of Melicent

2.  This dramatist, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1936, once said that “censorship of anything, at any time, in any place, on whatever pretense, has always been and always will be the last resort of the boob and the bigot.”  (Hint:  The original production of All God’s Chillun Got Wings received a bomb threat).  

a. Tennessee Williams

b. John Millington Synge

c. Maria Irene Fornes

d. August Strindberg

e. Eugene O’Neill

3.  Guy Montag is the main protagonist in this author’s 1953 novel.

a. Pearl S. Buck

b. John Steinbeck

c. Ray Bradbury

d. Daphne du Maurier

e. Richard Wright

 

4.  Four Wisconsin men belonging to the Christian Civil Liberties Union (CCLU) sought $30,000 each for “emotional distress” they suffered from the West Bend, Wis. Community Memorial Library (2009) for displaying a copy of this book by Francesca Lia Block.

a. Baby Be-Bop

b. Girl Goddess #9

c. Weetzie Bat

d. Pink Smog

e. Ecstasia

5.  This novel by Stephen Chbosky was removed from Portage, Indiana high school classrooms in 2008 for topics such as homosexuality, drug use, and sexual behavior.  (Hint:  Its usage was also restricted in Roanoke, Virginia at William Byrd and Hidden Valley high schools.)

 a. An Abundance of Katherines

 b. Boy Meets Boy

 c. The Perks of Being a Wallflower

 d. ttyl

 e. Rubyfruit Jungle

Clay says, "All of the books listed for question 1 are actually James Branch Cabell books. All of the authors listed for question 3 actually had books on the NY Times Bestseller list during 1953, and all of the choices for question 4 are actually books by Francesca Lia Block."

Answers: 1. d. 2. e. 3. c. 4. a. 5. c.

Banned Books Week: Sept. 30−Oct. 6, 2012

Banned Books Week celebrates our freedom to read and draws national attention to the harms of censorship.  Listen to readers from across the country and around the world celebrate banned books at the Banned Books Virtual Read-Out.
Over the years, some of the most highly acclaimed and award winning classics in literature have been repeatedly challenged, such as, The Catcher in the Rye, The Grapes of Wrath, The Color Purple, Beloved, The Lord of the Flies, Of Mice and Men, Catch-22, Animal Farm, Slaughterhouse-Five, A Farewell to Arms, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Song of Solomon, and  Native Son.
This from President Dwight D. Eisenhower at the Dartmouth College commencement address on June 14, 1953:

"Don't join the book burners. Don't think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book, as long as that document does not offend our own ideas of decency. That should be the only censorship." 

Out of the 326 challenges reported by the American Library's Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom in 2011, the top ten were:

1. ttyl; ttfn; l8r, g8r (series), by Lauren Myracle
2. The Color of Earth (series), by Kim Dong Hwa
3. The Hunger Games trilogy, by Suzanne Collins
4. My Mom's Having A Baby! A Kid's Month-by-Month Guide to Pregnancy, by Dori Hillestad Butler
5. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
6. Alice (series), by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
7. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
8. What My Mother Doesn't Know, by Sonya Sones
9. Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily Von Ziegesar 
10. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

Read a banned book today!

52 Ways to use your Library Card: Week Four "Banned Books Week and Our Choice to Read What We Want"

To Kill a Mockingbird was recently on local TV and it made me think about writing this blog post. The book is by Harper Lee and was first challenged in 1977  and was temporarily banned for the use of inappropriate words to minors. The book would be challenged in other libraries and schools years later.

I really enjoyed reading To Kill a Mockingbird when I was a child and I am glad I had the opportunity to read it when I was in school. As I go through the list of banned books, I noticed that most of the books I enjoyed reading as a child were either banned or challenged.

 Another one of my favorite books growing up was Bridge of Terabithia by Katherine Paterson. This book was placed number eight on the American Library Association's list for 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books between 1990-2000. The reason the book has been challenged was because of death being the plot and one of the character's use of the word "lord" outside of prayer. This book was very powerful for me at a young age and I would recommend it to any child to read.

There are many more great books that can be found at the American Library Association (ALA) website and check out more information at this site as well, Banned Book Week. Reading is very important for young minds and as a librarian, I feel we should encourage people to read these wonderful books.

Banned Book Week is a nationwide movement to promote free expression with reading. To help with this movement of non-censorship, the Richmond Public Library is participating in Banned Book Week by displaying banned and challenged books. More than 11,000 books have been challenged since 1982. This is the 30th annual celebration of Banned Book Week and the celebration starts September 30 and ends October 6.

Go to your local branches to see how they are celebrating Banned Book Week.

Also, please share with us the challenged books that impacted you by going to this site: ALA most commonly challenged books. We would love to hear about it.