I’ve never forgotten my first experience with book banning. When I was 10 years old I learned about the publication of Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, the sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I really wanted to read that book, so when the public library Bookmobile, which came to my street every Saturday, showed up, I asked the librarian for it. He pointed me to a notice posted on the wall, explaining that the book had been banned from the library. Apparently it was considered inappropriate for children who had enjoyed the first book because it dealt with adult themes. I remember being totally shocked by the idea that they could just decide that I couldn’t read a book I wanted to read. I asked my father to explain this terrible injustice to me, but he didn’t have much of an answer. Even at 10, I thought there was something horribly wrong with banning a book.
Eventually I read The Great Glass Elevator and didn’t like it very much. But it still has a special place in my heart because it was banned.
Although we’re talking about banned book week, the lists are actually a compilation of book challenges. I am both an author and owner of an independent bookstore, and I go around to local schools during banned book week and speak to the kids about it. Obviously, there are many challenges–and even successful bans–that the American Library Association never finds out about. Their list only shows the ones they know of. If you see a book on the banned book list, that doesn’t mean it was banned all over the place, or even that a successful ban ever happened.
I love to get the kids thinking. I ask them, for example, whether they think book banning is worse than book burning. Most of them think burning is worse. There’s something visceral about it. Something evocative of the Salem witch trials. It brings to mind the famous picture of Hitler in front of the massive book bonfire. As we discuss it, though, they realize that book burnings actually help an author. All of those books got purchased somewhere. It generates free publicity for the books. Libraries and bookstores will order more copies to replace those that were burned.
A ban, of course, can be a good thing for an author, too. I would love to have one of my books banned! Would we have ever even heard of The Satanic Verses if the Ayatollah hadn’t put out a hit on Rushdie? How many people would have bought Franken’s Lies and the Lying Liars… if Fox News hadn’t sued him?
I carry a fine selection of banned books in my bookstore, from Little Black Sambo to I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. Do I carry all of them? No. Part of the reason is obvious. I’ve only got so much space. Part is economics. I’m not going to stock anything that doesn’t sell. But there are also books I choose not to carry.
I don’t have The Anarchist’s Cookbook because much of what is in it is wrong. If you try that stuff, you could get hurt, and I don’t want it on my head that some kid bought a book from me and blew himself up following its advice.
I’ll special order pretty much anything an adult asks for, though. If you’re 18 or over, it’s your decision what you read, and I’m there to help.
That’s the same justification used for banning every book. How is that any different from using Final Exit to kill yourself or I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings to understand pedophilia? Something is objectionable in nearly everything printed.
You do bring up a good point, though, in that there’s a librarian’s version of the “conscience clause” in health care. If there’s a librarian who doesn’t want, say, Anne Frank or The Turner Diaries, on the shelves, it can be not purchased, lost, or destroyed. More insidious, and more effective, than a public outcry.
Thank you, InvisibleWombat. These are challenged books, not necessarily banned books.
Their definition of challenge was a little difficult to find, but I finally found it on their Reporting a Challenge page:
However, buried in some FAQs, I found this:
I think this “positive” message is very disingenuous: they clearly want people to think the list is of books already banned–Dopers are generally pretty smart, and most of you were taken in by what the list was. How could you not, when they tie it so closely to Banned Book Week?
As much as I dislike the idea of banning books for adults, I dislike the idea of not even allowing people to suggest that certain books be banned–it all falls under a freedom of thought umbrella.
I’m black, and I have to say, Huckleberry Finn is one of my favorite books of all time, ever. I read it every few years and, even though I sometimes cringe at the use of the word nigger, etc. and the depiction of the casual cruelty of slavery and the hypocrisy of its practitioners, I get something new from it each time.
The language used is entirely appropriate and accurate for its historical and cultural context. And the beauty and skill with which Mark Twain shows Huck’s development and growth through his journey from ignorance to enlightment always brings tears to my eyes. Why this “truth” should be banned (as in made unavailable wherever), is beyond me.
Another favorite is Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison. I have also read it several times, but it wasn’t until I recently adapted it into a screenplay, that I really thought deeply about its issues and themes, which may have caused it to be considered for the banned list. I put these in a spoiler, just in case.
[spoiler]1) It depicts two relationships that could be considered a quasi-incestuous. A) The main character becomes romantically involved with the granddaughter of his aunt (whether that’s a second or third cousin, I’m not sure). Question: how is that different from royalty practicing intermarriage? So far as I know, books containing those histories are not banned. B) The main character’s mother makes him suckle at her breast well past the age of 5 or 6, partly out of loneliness and a need for intimacy. Again, quasi- but not outright incest or molestation.
It is defiinitely a violent book. No fewer than three characters are murdered in the course of the book itself. Additionally, the antagonist (and best friend of the main character) is a member of a radical group committed to retaliating against whites for the senseless killings of blacks, literally an “eye for an eye”. From that viewpoint, I could see it might be banned; it shows blacks taking some control and power (albeit in a misguided way).
Additionally, the mother of the main character is physically, verbally and emotionally abused by his father.[/spoiler]
Again, a beautiful and wondrous book about growth, self-discovery and enlightment through a journey that I was able to take with the protagonist and come out all the better for it myself. What’s wrong with books that can do this, I ask?
Banning books is just wrong. If any books are bothersome, stock them and simply keep them in a place in the library (school or public) with restricted access. If a child wants them, the question can then be put to his parents as to whether the child should be allowed access.
Who’s saying otherwise? Free speech is free speech. People can try to get books banned all they want. God willing, they will always be unsuccesful, but no one is arguing that they should be prevented from trying.
Of course, I reserve the right to make fun of the tiny-minded folk who do try, because it’s just a really stupid idea. But that’s entirely different from not allowing them to express their opinions.
Not at all. Please re-read my message. Most bans and/or challenges are because the material is objectionable (a subjective issue), not because it is inaccurate (an objective issue). Note that I’m not advocating a ban of The Anarchist’s Cookbook–I’m just saying I won’t stock it in my store because it has information in it that’s wrong. I’ll still special order you a copy if you’d like.
You don’t see the difference between someone killing themself on purpose and someone getting killed by accident?
Final Exit tells you how to kill yourself. As far as I know, it does so accurately. It is exactly what it says it is.
The Anarchist’s Cookbook purports to give accurate information about building bombs and such. Much of the information is wrong. You could get badly hurt or killed by following these instructions.
I wouldn’t have a problem with a student of that age reading the book. I think I’d just like them to know what they’re reading. I’d hate to see the awkward situation when a student picks up *Forever *thinking that it is Fudge or Sheila the Great.
That is the problem with students in that 6-8th grade age range. They’re entering puberty at different times. I guess, if it came down to my call, I’d allow 6th grade and up to borrow the book from the library.
If I ran that library, I would make SURE every clerk in that library knew about Forever. Not because of anything that is wrong about the book, but Judy Blume is one of the very few extremely popular children’s authors who has also written a book such as Forever.
I’ll never forget a friend of mine in high school who read somewhere that you’d get a cool reaction mixing some household chemicals. One of them was Drano, and I forget the rest. Not only did he mix them, but he did it in a glass container. He had chemical burns all over his face and glass embedded in the skin. Luckily for him, he closed his eyes in time.
Go Ask Alice was crap, but its crappiness isn’t what rankles. What rankles is the fact it was presented to a generation of kids as a true story. People retch when they find they’ve swallowed a pious lie.
In other words, the quality of the story is not that relevant when it comes to judging the book in the eyes of most people.
Miller: The Anarchist’s Cookbook is dangerously wrong in places. Some think it was ‘planted’ by the FBI/CIA/etc. in order to kill off the kinds of people who would try the recipies.
Because of that, I can’t see why it should be in libraries. (That is, any book so stupidly wrong shouldn’t be wasting space and money.) A decent chemistry text should provide a much better alternative.
(Side note: I read a certain amount of this thread in reverse, while composing this post. That means I lost some of the context in the sub-thread about Charley raping/not raping/getting it on with his teacher.
You can’t imagine how I felt when I discovered it was referring the Charley from Flowers for Algernon, as opposed to the one from Charley and the Chocolate Factory.
THE BIBLE is frequently cited as a book which “should” be banned. It deals with sin, filth, degredation, and violence. Evil sometimes triumphs over good, good people suffer while evildoers flourish like grass. Yes, let’s keep that BIBLE away from our impressionable kids.
The author of “Moll Flanders” defended his work with “not an evil thing is mentioned but it is condemned”. The author of the BIBLE makes no such claims.
I could cite you passages from the BIBLE which are sexually explicit (song of songs), which deal with masturbation, and don’t get me started on violence(!),the book is practically dipped in blood from the battles fought, the wrath of an omnipotent diety, and the misery people inflict on each other. Yes, if we’re gonna ban a book, start with the BIBLE.
Feeling inspiration from this thread I read a few passages out of Judy Blume’s Forever and I can understand (not condone, but I can understand) why someone would want it restricted from children.