Far too often, it seems like people's first response to things they don't like is to let loose screams to ban it. With the recent start of the school year, children received school reading lists for their classes. Invariably, some parents somewhere are going to find a book on a list that offends them, and will decide they need to protect not only their child but all of the children in the community by marching down to the school and library to demand it be removed from the shelf. Since there is never anything too stupid if it allows certain government officials to get before a camera or send out a press release claiming they're "protecting children" from the horrors of the world, you end up with school boards and administrators that give in to pressure. And since no one wants to be against protecting children, that leads to the other set of government officials: those too chicken shit to speak up and oppose something they know is wrong.
In his dissenting opinion in Ginzburg v. United States, Justice Potter Stewart wrote that censorship reflects "a society's lack of confidence in itself," and is the "hallmark of an authoritarian regime." All censorship is done in the name of protecting and defending society from ideas or truth that are deemed dangerous, harmful, or inconvenient. You can cut pages out of a book. You can blacklist it. You can even burn it to ash. But you can't really burn an idea. And God knows, some have tried.
Since this is the American Library Association's Banned Books Week, I thought I would look at some of the books that are most frequently challenged for removal, as well as the reasoning behind those challenges. Follow beneath the fold for more ....
"We all know that books burn, yet we have the greater knowledge that books cannot be killed by fire. People die, but books never die. No man and no force can put thought in a concentration camp forever. No man and no force can take from the world the books that embody man's eternal fight against tyranny of every kind."
—President Franklin D. Roosevelt
This is an issue that can take on weird permutations, given the arguments are usually based in societal perceptions of morality, tolerance, and a claimed defense of innocence. And in many ways it's an extension of the culture wars that have defined domestic politics over the past half-century. And like some of those battles of the culture war, things can get really strange and silly.
For example, in 1990 Little Red Riding Hood was banned from a Culver City, California, school because Little Red Riding Hood took her grandmother a piece of cake and a bottle of wine.
"It gives the younger ones the wrong impression about alcohol. If they should refrain, why give them a story saying it's OK?'' said Vera Jashni, assistant superintendent for instruction.
Jashni, who ordered the ban, said it was the final paragraph of the story that sealed her decision - the part after the woodsman kills the Big Bad Wolf. "The grandmother drank some of the wine, and . . . after a while, the grandmother felt quite strong and healthy, and began to clean up the mess that the wolf had left in the cottage.''
The version of the story, written by Trina Schart Hyman, won a Caldicott Honor Award for children's literature.
Back in 2011, a
revised edition of Mark Twain's
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was released. It removed all mentions of the "n" word and replaced it with "slave." The move was very controversial and likened to a "sanitizing" that misses the point of Twain's novel. The revised edition was put forward by Alan Gribben, a professor of English at Auburn University, who said his intention was to alleviate some of the controversy from the book, which has been banned from some reading lists and school curriculums because of racial insensitivity.
“The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that's what an army is--a mob; they don't fight with courage that's born in them, but with courage that's borrowed from their mass, and from their officers. But a mob without any MAN at the head of it is BENEATH pitifulness.”
From Gregory Roberts at the
Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 2003:
"Huckleberry Finn," first published in 1885, chronicles the journey of a rough-hewn, 13-year-old white boy and a runaway slave down the Mississippi River on a raft through the antebellum South. What's wrong with the book, [Beatrice] Clark, [Calista] Phair and numerous other critics have said, is its use of the notorious "n" word -- not once, not a few times, but more than 200 times.
"It's not just a word," said Clark, the guardian for her granddaughter. Both are African American. "It carries with it the blood of our ancestors. They were called this word while they were lynched; they were called this word while they were hung from the big magnolia tree. That word, in the history of America, has always been a degrading word toward African Americans. When they were brought to America, they were never thought of as human beings in the first place, and this word was something to call a thing that wasn't human. So that's what they bring into the classroom to talk about. I just think it's utterly unconscionable that a school would think it's acceptable."
Clark, who was president of the Parent-Teacher-Student Association at Renton High last year, took up the battle against "Huckleberry Finn" after Phair reported in April that her 11th-grade language arts teacher had assigned the book.
"I was humiliated and horrified that this book was being taught, when it has the word 'nigger' 215 times," Phair said.
And there have been some more recent examples of book controversy. About six months ago, South Carolina's House of Representatives
cut funding to universities because of books with LGBT themes in their curriculum. The College of Charleston was targeted for removing $52,000 in funding because Alison Bechdel's
Fun Home, a memoir about how she came out to her parents, was included in a summer reading program.
Last year in Chicago, Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis was challenged for removal from Chicago Public Schools (CPS). The graphic novel, as well as the film based on it, have been critically lauded. However, parents have tried to get both the graphic novel and movie banned from being used in schools, with the complaints centered on language, violence and a vague claim the story is “sexually charged.”
“In life you'll meet a lot of jerks. If they hurt you, tell yourself that it's because they're stupid. That will help keep you from reacting to their cruelty. Because there is nothing worse than bitterness and vengeance... Always keep your dignity and be true to yourself.”
From Alison Flood at
The Guardian:
Chicago Public Schools (CPS) later backtracked on the move, saying that the memoir was only to be removed from seventh grade classrooms ... and not from libraries, because "it contains graphic language and images that are not appropriate for general use in the seventh grade curriculum" ... "We are also considering whether the book should be included, after appropriate teacher training, in the curriculum of eighth through tenth grades," said Barbara Byrd-Bennett, CPS chief executive, in a letter to principals.
"We want to make sure that the message about inhumanity [is what] kids walk away with, not the images of someone with exposed body parts urinating on someone's back or someone's being tortured. We are not protesting the value of this book as a work of art. We just want to make sure that when we put this book into the hands of students, they have the background, the maturity to appreciate the book," CPS office of teaching and learning chief Annette Gurley explained to Publishers Weekly.
But Chicago Teachers Union spokesperson Stephanie Gadlin dismissed the backtracking as "Orwellian doublespeak", pointing out that "unfortunately 160 elementary schools don't have libraries – and they know that". CTU's financial secretary Kristine Mayle added that "the only place we've heard of this book being banned is in Iran".
Episodes like this pop up all over the country from time to time, and with some works of literature that are considered classics of the medium. Mostly because the books are argued to be either racially, religiously or sexually offensive.
The American Library Association keeps records of challenges to books in schools and libraries across the country. The 10 most challenged books of 2013 were:
- Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey
Reasons: Offensive language, unsuited for age group, violence
- The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison
Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, violence
- The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, offensive language, racism, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
- Fifty Shades of Grey, by E.L. James
Reasons: Nudity, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
- The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
Reasons: Religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group
- A Bad Boy Can Be Good for A Girl, by Tanya Lee Stone
Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit
- Looking for Alaska, by John Green
Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
- The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
Reasons: drugs/alcohol/smoking, homosexuality, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
- Bless Me Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya
Reasons: Occult/Satanism, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit
- Bone (series), by Jeff Smith
Reasons: Political viewpoint, racism, violence
The most challenged authors in 2012 (the most recent year compiled):
- Dav Pilkey
- Sherman Alexie
- Jay Asher
- E.L. James
- Ellen Hopkins
- Jimmy Santiago Baca
- Patricia Polacco
- John Green
- Luis Alberto Urrea
- Alvin Schwartz
- Dagberto Glib
The top 25 from the ALA's 100 most frequently challenged books between 2000 and 2009:
1. Harry Potter (series), by J.K. Rowling
2. Alice series, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
3. The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier
4. And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell
5. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
6. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
7. Scary Stories (series), by Alvin Schwartz
8. His Dark Materials (series), by Philip Pullman
9. ttyl; ttfn; l8r g8r (series), by Lauren Myracle
10. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
11. Fallen Angels, by Walter Dean Myers
12. It’s Perfectly Normal, by Robie Harris
13. Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey
14. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
15. The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison
16. Forever, by Judy Blume
17. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
18. Go Ask Alice, by Anonymous
19. Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
20. King and King, by Linda de Haan
21. To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
22. Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily von Ziegesar
23. The Giver, by Lois Lowry
24. In the Night Kitchen, by Maurice Sendak
25. Killing Mr. Griffen, by Lois Duncan
Among the other notable books on the list:
26. Beloved, by Toni Morrison
36. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
46. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
49. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey
69. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
88. The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
90. A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeline L’Engle
94. Goosebumps (series), by R.L. Stine
99. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, by Judy Blume
In 2006, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury was challenged for removal in Conroe, Texas.
Alton Verm, of Conroe, objects to the language and content in the book. His 15-year-old daughter Diana, a CCHS sophomore, came to him Sept. 21 with her reservations about reading the book because of its language.
"The book had a bunch of very bad language in it," Diana Verm said. "It shouldn't be in there because it's offending people.....If they can't find a book that uses clean words, they shouldn't have a book at all." Alton Verm filed a "Request for Reconsideration of Instructional Materials" Thursday with the district regarding "Fahrenheit 451," written by Ray Bradbury and published in 1953. He wants the district to remove the book from the curriculum.
"It's just all kinds of filth," said Alton Verm, adding that he had not read "Fahrenheit 451." "The words don't need to be brought out in class. I want to get the book taken out of the class."
“There must be something in books, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing.”
Back in 1979, Ray Bradbury added a "Coda" to
Fahrenheit 451, in which he discussed attempts by people to get him to make his stories "better."
"About two years ago, a letter arrived from a solemn young Vassar lady telling me how much she enjoyed reading my experiment in space mythology, The Martian Chronicles. But, she added, wouldn't it be a good idea, this late in time, to rewrite the book inserting more women's characters and roles? A few years before that I got a certain amount of mail concerning the same Martian book complaining that the blacks in the book were Uncle Toms and why didn't I "do them over"? Along about then came a note from a Southern white suggesting that I was prejudiced in favor of the blacks and the entire story should be dropped. Two weeks ago my mount of mail delivered forth a pip-squeak mouse of a letter from a well-known publishing house that wanted to reprint my story "The Fog Horn" in a high school reader. In my story, I had described a lighthouse as having, late at night, an illumination coming from it that was a "God-Light." Looking up at it from the viewpoint of any sea-creature one would have felt that one was in "the Presence." The editors had deleted "God-Light" and "in the Presence." ... Do you begin to get the damned and incredible picture? How did I react to all of the above?
By "firing" the whole lot.
By sending rejection slips to each and every one.
By ticketing the assembly of idiots to the far reaches of hell.
The point is obvious. There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches."