BookBlog [dot net]: Book Banning, Again

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October 06, 2006

Book Banning, Again

Typical. I wrote a post the other day dissing Banned Books Week, and then Edward Champion finds this article on a hearing to remove two graphic novels from a public library in Missouri. The titles in question are Blankets by Craig Thompson and Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel.

I’m not really against having a Banned Books Week; I just don’t go for its overemphasis on challenges in schools. Parents should question what their children are taught and have every right to voice their opinions on required reading. Pointing fingers, as if their concerns are akin to book burning, can easily turn into a means of intimidating them out of speaking up. Isn’t fighting the suppression of ideas exactly what Banned Books Week all about?

But there is an enormous difference between a school and a public library, a place where adults should be allowed access to what they want to read.

Although Ed’s post focuses on the definition of pornography and whether or not the graphic novels’ challenger is qualified to determine the difference between art and the obscene, what’s gotten under my skin are several irrational jump-to-conclusions statements in the article:

"'We may as well purchase the porn shop down at the junction and move it to Eastwood. Some day this library will be drawing the same clientele,' Mills said."
"'I don't want seedy people coming into the library and moving into our community,' Aulgur said."
"'It's not a matter of censorship,' John Raines of Marshall said, 'but a matter of looking out for our kids.'"

I can already see the future headlines: PORN SHOP PATRONS GET THEIR FIX FOR FREE, SEEDY PEOPLE CHECK OUT GRAPHIC NOVELS THEN CHECK INTO TOWN, and COMICS DRAW KIDS TO A LIFE OF SERIAL MASTURBATION AND SEX.

Oh, please.

Looking out for kids should not necessitate taking books away from adults. Especially since most kids, including those in Marshall, Missouri, already know so, so much more about sex than you or I ever will. Our kids’ kids will know even more. Banning two graphic novels from a public library is not going to stop that train from rolling into town.

comments

re: banned books week

I've been working in public libraries for eleven years now. At the library system I work for, we have a policy of allowing access to all books and magazines to anyone who wants them. It is not our place, nor our right, to determine what is or isn't fit reading for children. That's part of a parent's job, not a librarian's or a library clerk's or any other library employee.

At our library system, the information concerning banned books week isn't "aimed" at school boards or parents who are afraid their kid is going to see something about sex. It is simply there to make people aware that books have been banned in the past, are banned in many places in the world today, and that there is a danger in that. The danger is that it erodes people's freedoms.

I don't want to get off onto a political diatribe here, but banning books can be just the tip of the iceberg. And as hard as it may be to believe, there are people who come into the library and are amazed that the banning of books takes place anywhere in this country. They are the ones our displays are "aimed" at. We feel it is important for people to know that it happens.

Exactly. If parents don't want their kids having certain books, they should keep track of what they read. But they shouldn't give public libraries a hard time about what books are available there. Parents should monitor their own children and not expect a librarian or society to do it for them.

And yet, many of these towns that don't want smutty books are MAJOR consumers of smutty tabloids, available in every grocery store. Should Piggly Wiggly be responsible for keeping impressionable youth from reading about Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan?

Oh, and wait -- do any of these watchdog parents have cable TV?

Smut is all a matter of taste.

Some parents also think society is supposed to do their jobs for them. They actually want to take the smutty thing away from everyone because they can't keep track of what their kids are doing.

I don't want to get off onto a political diatribe here, but banning books can be just the tip of the iceberg. And as hard as it may be to believe, there are people who come into the library and are amazed that the banning of books takes place anywhere in this country. They are the ones our displays are "aimed" at. We feel it is important for people to know that it happens.

AS you think?

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