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 deemed 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 chickenshit to speak up and oppose something they know is wrong.
In his dissenting opinion in Ginzburg v. United States, Supreme Court 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. These challenges range from being based in decades-old controversies which have plagued our culture, to abject busy-body stupidity promulgated by assholes.
From the American Library Association (ALA):
The ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom tracked 354 challenges to library, school and university materials in 2017. Of the 416 books challenged or banned in 2017, the Top 10 Most Challenged Books are
1. Thirteen Reasons Why written by Jay Asher
Originally published in 2007, this New York Times bestseller has resurfaced as a controversial book after Netflix aired a TV series by the same name. This YA novel was challenged and banned in multiple school districts because it discusses suicide
2. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian written by Sherman Alexie
Consistently challenged since its publication in 2007 for acknowledging issues such as poverty, alcoholism, and sexuality, this National Book Award winner was challenged in school curriculums because of profanity and situations that were deemed sexually explicit.
3. Drama written and illustrated by Raina Telgemeier
This Stonewall Honor Award-winning, 2012 graphic novel from an acclaimed cartoonist was challenged and banned in school libraries because it includes LGBT characters and was considered “confusing.”
4. The Kite Runner written by Khaled Hosseini
This critically acclaimed, multigenerational novel was challenged and banned because it includes sexual violence and was thought to “lead to terrorism” and “promote Islam.”
5. George written by Alex Gino
Written for elementary-age children, this Lambda Literary Award winner was challenged and banned because it includes a transgender child.
6. Sex is a Funny Word written by Cory Silverberg and illustrated by Fiona Smyth
This 2015 informational children’s book written by a certified sex educator was challenged because it addresses sex education and is believed to lead children to “want to have sex or ask questions about sex.”
7. To Kill a Mockingbird written by Harper Lee
This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, considered an American classic, was challenged and banned because of violence and its use of the N-word.
8. The Hate U Give written by Angie Thomas
Despite winning multiple awards and being the most searched-for book on Goodreads during its debut year, this YA novel was challenged and banned in school libraries and curriculums because it was considered “pervasively vulgar” and because of drug use, profanity, and offensive language.
9. And Tango Makes Three written by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson and illustrated by Henry Cole
Returning after a brief hiatus from the Top Ten Most Challenged list, this ALA Notable Children’s Book, published in 2005, was challenged and labeled because it features a same-sex relationship.
10. I Am Jazz written by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings and illustrated by Shelagh McNicholas
This autobiographical picture book co-written by the 13-year-old protagonist was challenged because it addresses gender identity.
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.
- 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.
- Last October, the Biloxi, Mississippi, school district removed Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird from an eighth-grade English class after a mother told a superintendent her son was uncomfortable with the N-word within it. After the incident made headlines, the book is available, but only to be taught as an optional assignment with parental permission.
Kenny Holloway, vice president of the Biloxi School Board said, “There were complaints about it. There is some language in the book that makes people uncomfortable, and we can teach the same lesson with other books.
“It’s still in our library. But they’re going to use another book in the 8th grade course.”
- 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 critics argued it was 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.
"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.
Many librarians were not so thrilled when Sendak's In the Night Kitchen emerged in 1970. In it a small boy named Mickey ends up naked as he explores the city work that goes on at night. According to Sendak this development is only sensible since Mickey goes romping through great vats of dough and milk – that is, skinny dipping is the pleasant alternative to slogging about in soggy, dough-sodden clothes. But a number of librarians and booksellers of the period promptly rejected the book. And a number of others accepted it only to turn around and deface it, giving Mickey little marker drawn shorts -- or possibly, says Sendak, taped on paper diapers.
Curiously, while Sendak admits the book is, in part, about a small boy glorifying in his sensuality, some critics have taken interpretation of the book to a Freudian sexual extreme, seeing the nudity, free-flowing milky fluids, and giant (supposedly) "phallic" milk bottle as convenient symbols within a subversive tale about masturbation. Little wonder given such conflicts, real or imagined, that the book routinely appears on the American Library Association's listings of frequently challenged and banned books: even in 2004, the book made the top-ten. Despite this fact, the book continues to be celebrated by children and parents everywhere and has become a well-loved classic.
- Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach has been challenged for reasons ranging from expressing racism, supporting communism, and banned from a school system’s classrooms, library, and syllabi because the book contained the word “ass” (an English word which appears in many translations of the Holy Bible by the way). In 1986, a Wisconsin town banned the book because of a moment in the story where a spider licks her lips, arguing it could be construed in a sexual connotation (by the way Part II: real spiders don’t have tongues). A year later, a woman in Hernando County, Florida, objected to the book on the grounds of racism because a Grasshopper says: “I’d rather be fried alive and eaten by a Mexican.” This along with scenes depicting snuff, tobacco, and whiskey led to a banning from the local school’s reading list.
- In 2013, 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.”
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".
- Last year, a bill was introduced in the Arkansas legislature which would have banned A People’s History of the United States and all other works by Howard Zinn from any public or charter school in the state. In response, the Zinn Education Project, in conjunction with donations from individuals and publishers, offered to send a book by Howard Zinn and A People’s History for the Classroom to any Arkansas teacher who requested them. More than 700 Arkansas middle and high school librarians and teachers requested copies.
This is not the first time that the works of Zinn have been targeted for censorship. Former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels sought to ban Zinn’s works from that state’s classrooms and the Tucson, Arizona, school district banned “A People’s History” from all classrooms in 2012.
Books such as “A People’s History of the United States” empower young people by bringing to light multiple perspectives they might not otherwise have considered. Through the process of comparing the book with other mainstream sources, such as traditional textbooks, students are able to better understand how history is constructed and for whom, and to develop invaluable media literacy skills.
[The Wizard of Oz] was widely banned in 1928 for "depicting women in strong leadership roles," an argument that held on for several decades, and in 1957 the Detroit Public Library banned the series for supporting "negativism and [bringing] children's minds to a cowardly level."
One prominent case, initiated in Tennessee by several Christian Fundamentalist families, concerned the book's theology. Arguing that all witches were evil, the group claimed that the presence of Glinda the Good Witch was a "theological impossibility." Parents also publically worried that their children would be seduced by "godless supernaturalism."
- In 2006, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury was challenged for removal in Conroe, Texas. The father of a 15-year-old girl objected to the language Bradbury used in the story. The book was removed from a high school reading list in Mississippi because it contains the words "God damn."
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."
- Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five has been challenged many times. The tale of a man slipping through time has been at the center of controversy over profanity and sexuality (e.g., mention of "magic fingers" in the protagonist's motel bed was the reasoning behind one such mark against the book). In 1973, the head of the school board in Drake, North Dakota, Charles McCarthy, demanded all 32 copies of the book be burned in the Drake high school's furnace, after an English teacher used it as a reading aide. Vonnegut wrote McCarthy a letter explaining he was a real person and a “good citizen.”
November 16, 1973
Dear Mr. McCarthy:
I am writing to you in your capacity as chairman of the Drake School Board. I am among those American writers whose books have been destroyed in the now famous furnace of your school.
Certain members of your community have suggested that my work is evil. This is extraordinarily insulting to me. The news from Drake indicates to me that books and writers are very unreal to you people. I am writing this letter to let you know how real I am … We are angered and sickened and saddened. And no copies of this letter have been sent to anybody else. You now hold the only copy in your hands. It is a strictly private letter from me to the people of Drake, who have done so much to damage my reputation in the eyes of their children and then in the eyes of the world. Do you have the courage and ordinary decency to show this letter to the people, or will it, too, be consigned to the fires of your furnace?
I gather from what I read in the papers and hear on television that you imagine me, and some other writers, too, as being sort of ratlike people who enjoy making money from poisoning the minds of young people. I am in fact a large, strong person, fifty-one years old, who did a lot of farm work as a boy, who is good with tools. I have raised six children, three my own and three adopted. They have all turned out well. Two of them are farmers. I am a combat infantry veteran from World War II, and hold a Purple Heart. I have earned whatever I own by hard work. I have never been arrested or sued for anything. I am so much trusted with young people and by young people that I have served on the faculties of the University of Iowa, Harvard, and the City College of New York. Every year I receive at least a dozen invitations to be commencement speaker at colleges and high schools. My books are probably more widely used in schools than those of any other living American fiction writer.
If you were to bother to read my books, to behave as educated persons would, you would learn that they are not sexy, and do not argue in favor of wildness of any kind. They beg that people be kinder and more responsible than they often are. It is true that some of the characters speak coarsely. That is because people speak coarsely in real life. Especially soldiers and hardworking men speak coarsely, and even our most sheltered children know that. And we all know, too, that those words really don’t damage children much. They didn’t damage us when we were young. It was evil deeds and lying that hurt us … Again: you have insulted me, and I am a good citizen, and I am very real.
Kurt Vonnegut
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 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
2012: 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
2011: Lauren Myracle, Kim Dong Hwa, Chris Crutcher, Carolyn Mackler, Robert Greene, Sonya Sones, Dori Hillestead Butler, Sherman Alexie, Suzanne Collins, Aldous Huxley, Harper Lee, Eric Jerome Dickey, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Dav Pilkey, Cecily von Ziegesar
2010: Ellen Hopkins, Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson, Sonya Sones, Judy Blume, Ann Brasheres, Suzanne Collins, Aldous Huxley, Sherman Alexie, Laurie Halse Anderson, Natasha Friend
2009: Lauren Myracle, Alex Sanchez, P.C. Cast, Robert Cormier, Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson, Stephen Chbosky, Chris Crutcher, Ellen Hopkins, Richelle Mead, John Steinbeck
2008: Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson, Philip Pullman, Lauren Myracle, Jim Pipe, Alvin Schwartz, Chris Crutcher, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Rudolfo Anaya, Stephen Chbosky, Cecily Von Ziegesar
2007: Robert Cormier, Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson, Mark Twain, Toni Morrison, Philip Pullman, Kevin Henkes, Lois Lowry, Chris Crutcher, Lauren Myracle, Joann Sfar