By Lilian H. Hill
Some
of my favorite books when I was growing up were Call of the Wild (Jack
London, 1903), Are
you there God? It me,
Margaret (Judy Blume, 1970), and A Wrinkle
in Time (Madeleine L’Engle,
1963). They have all been banned or challenged. Other banned books include
classics we read in high school including Of
Mice and Men (John Steinbeck, 1937), The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Mark
Twain, 1876), To
Kill a Mockingbird (Harper
Lee, 1960), and Lord of
the Flies (William Golding, 1954). Many have read In the Night Kitchen (Maurice
Sendak, 1970), Where’s Waldo? (Martin Handford, 1987), or the Junie B. Jones series
(Barbara Park, 1992-2011) to their children, and their children may have
read the Goosebumps (R.L.
Stine, 1992-1997) or the Captain
Underpants (Dav Pilkey, 1997-2015) series. However, you
may never have realized the
books were so “dangerous” that they would be banned.
All of these books are on the Top 100 Banned Books
list. There are several lists of the Top 100 banned books. The
American Library Association has been keeping track through their Office of
Intellectual Freedom (American Library Association, 2019), but they have only
been doing so since 1990. Other lists such as the one found
on Wikipedia contain some of the older books I mention
here.
Why are these
books being banned?
As
of 2020, reasons for banning books include:
Sexual
content (92.5%)
Offensive
language (51.5%)
Unsuitable
for age group (49%)
Religious
viewpoint (26%)
LGBTQIA+
(23.5%)
Violence
(19%)
Racism
(16.5%)
Use
of illegal substances
“Anti-family”
content (7%)
One
of the silliest reasons for banning a children’s book was for encouraging poor
spelling because it used
silly spellings. (American Library Association, 2019)
The reason
these percentages don’t appear
to make sense is that books are often challenged for multiple
reasons. The American Library Association (2019) estimated that more
than 82% of challenges remain unreported.
They compared results from several independent studies of third-party
Freedom of Information Act requests documenting school and library book
censorship with the information in its database.
What is the difference between a challenge and a book ban?
A book
challenge occurs when a book is questioned. In response,
portions of a
book’s content may be redacted, its circulation restricted,
or relocated to an adult section of a library. When a book that was
available is removed from the collection completely, it would be considered
banned (Haupt, 2022). It means a book is removed from school curricula and
possibly public libraries because someone has objected to its content
(VanDenburgh, 2022).
Where do these challenges come from?
Many
of these challenges come not
from concerned parents, but instead from advocacy organizations with a
political intent. These advocacy organizations have made censorship of certain books
and ideas in schools a
large part of their mission. Unfortunately, many of the book challenges are by authors that have had to fight hard to be published including
books by and about people of color, people who are LGBTQIA, and people who
have suffered violence or abuse. Even books that provide clear and medically appropriate sex education are under attack. In other words, these are
books that can help normalize human experience, represent the full range of
human experience, and
answer people’s questions. Friedman
and Johnson (2022) comment
that these actions are deeply undemocratic and
that it is:
having multifaceted, harmful
impacts: on students who have a right to access a diverse range of stories and
perspectives, and especially on those from historically marginalized backgrounds
who are watching their library shelves emptied of books that reflect and speak
to them; on educators and librarians who are operating in some states in an
increasingly punitive and surveillance-oriented environment with a chilling
effect on teaching and learning; on the authors whose works are being targeted;
and on parents who want to raise students in schools that remain open to
curiosity, discovery, and the freedom to read. (para. 8)
How many of these organizations exist?
Estimates
indicate that there are more than 700 of these organizations, and that more are
being created. The
proliferation of advocacy organizations responsible for book bans and
challenges is a very recent phenomenon (Friedman & Johnson, 2022). The
organizations operate at the regional, state, and national levels and are loosely
coordinated in sharing lists
of books to question and
attack. Some organizations' members use tactics like appearing
in large numbers at school board meetings, creating arbitrary rating systems for libraries,
accusing school officials of providing books
that are “pornographic” or that “groom” students,
filing criminal complaints, or in extreme cases
harassing librarians online, in public, and in their
homes. There have been instances of people filing the complaints who did
not have children enrolled in school.
Are these organizations acting
alone?
Approximately
40% of these actions are connected to legislative initiatives or enacted
legislation (American Library Association, 2019). Legislation is being enacted
in multiple states including Utah, Missouri, Mississippi, Michigan, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Florida. Politicians are
actively condemning critical race theory and the idea of wokeness, although there is doubt that they
fully understand these concepts. The politicians are against books that center
racism or discuss sexuality and gender identity.
Recent Mississippi legislation would affect a
ban on digital books that are “sexually
oriented.” It references another bill that provides an
extremely broad definition of what sexually oriented
means. The new bill is intended to protect minors from
“sexually illicit material”; however, because it will control school and public
libraries, it will also deprive adults of content. Apparently,
the inclusion of adults will be fixed but now Senate Bill No. 2346 was approved
82-32 (Pittman, 2023). Legislators argued that adults can still purchase the
books they desire, but this statement ignores people without the means
do that. And Mississippi has a lot of rural, low-income, and poor people.
So
far, the bill only references digital material, but it is easy to imagine that
it won’t take long before
print books are on the radar. The legislation has gone so far that one
Mississippi legislator wondered if they had effectively banned the Bible
(Pittman, 2023). Protestors, including the Executive Director of the Human
Rights Campaign, registered concerns about any initiative that would limit
information for young people (Pittman, 2023).
How do these initiatives relate to politics?
These
actions do not stand alone. Instead, they are part of a larger social
phenomenon of
polarizing politics known
as culture wars. The American
Library Association
reported that the challenges were targeted at “the voices of the marginalised… books and
resources that mirror the lives of those who are gay, queer or transgender, or
that tell the stories of persons who are Black, Indigenous or persons of colour.” The
challenges are becoming much more frequent and Suzanne Nossel, the CEO of the
free-speech organization PEN America, comments that it
is “part of a concerted effort to try to hold back the consequences of
demographic and social change by controlling the narratives available to young
people.”
Art
Spiegelman, author of Maus, the only graphic novel to
win a Pulitzer Prize in
1992, believes that anyone should be able to read anything. He would prefer that children read
a book in a classroom or library with informed adults who can provide guidance than read the book by themselves if they
found them on their parents' bookshelves. His graphic novel was
threatened with being removed from a school library in Tennessee. A local comics shop
learned of the ban and sought donations to purchase remaining
copies of the book to students in the U.S., shipped with a study guide written
by a local teacher.
Actions
of this nature should spur us all into action.
References
American Library Association (2019). Top 100 Most Banned and
Challenged Books: 2010-2019. Retrieved https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/decade2019
Armistead,
C. (2022, March 22). ‘It’s a culture war that’s totally out of control’: the
authors whose books are being banned in US schools. The Guardian. Retrieved https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/mar/22/its-a-culture-war-thats-totally-out-of-control-the-authors-whose-books-are-being-banned-in-us-schools
Friedman & Johnson (2022, September 19). Banned in the USA: The growing movement to censor books
in schools. Retrieved https://pen.org/report/banned-usa-growing-movement-to-censor-books-in-schools/
Haupt,
A. (2022, June 19). The rise in book bans, explained. Washington
Post. Retrieved https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/06/09/rise-book-bans-explained/
Pittman,
A. (2023, March 9). Ban On Library Books Depicting ‘Homosexuality,’
‘Lesbianism’ Passes Mississippi House. Mississippi Free Press. Retrieved https://www.mississippifreepress.org/31797/ban-on-library-books-depicting-homosexuality-lesbianism-passes-mississippi-house#:~:text=Mississippi%20could%20ban%20digital%20books,Bill%20No.%202346%20on%20Wednesday
"Top
10 Most Challenged Books Lists", American Library Association, March 26,
2013. http://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/top10 (Accessed March 16, 2023) Document ID:
8417fa9e-ceff-4512-aca9-9fbc81b8bd81
VanDenburgh,
B. (2022, June 29). Book bans are on the rise. What are the most banned books
and why? USA Today. Retrieved https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/books/2022/06/29/banned-books-explained/7772046001/
Wikipedia (n.d.). List of most
commonly challenged books in the United States. Retrieved https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_commonly_challenged_books_in_the_United_States
