Banned Book Week - How are you celebrating?

It's Banned Book Week - a week to celebrate the freedom of reading choice and keep people's attention on the everyday censorship that still happens all too frequently. This week is sponsored by the American Library Association, the American Booksellers Association, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, and a host of other organizations for publishers, authors, and educators.

Of the Top Banned Books of 2009, I know I've read 7 of the 10...this week, I will try to round out the list! How many have you read? I'm really curious to see the list for 2010 - will sorcery and vampire lust continue to be one of the bigger complaints, or will realistic, "issue" laden fiction like Speak (see below) be considered more objectionable?

What really surprised me was this Map of book censorship from the Banned Book Weeks website. Of course, I read on the news about schools, libraries, parents, professors, and so on, objecting to certain pieces of literature, and I know, in some part of my brain, that it happens. As ALA says, even more complaints happen than are reported nationally, and even taking this into account, looking at a visual representation of all the places - red states, blue states, everywhere - really drives it home. Censorship happens. But that sounds big, and ominous, and political - Censorship, capital C. What if I'm a concerned parent and I really don't want my middle-schooler exposed to the dog-eared chapters of Judy Blume's Forever? I'd rather tell her about first relationships myself...further on down the road. How do I extend my view of parenting into her school and extracurricular life? Where is the line between protecting your child in your home, and deciding what is right and safe for all children, everywhere? Once you determine that line, how do you enforce it?

I know it's been all across blogland, but in case you want to read up on the most recent cases of pulling "questionable" literature, here are some objections against teen books.

A Missouri State University professor wrote an article for the Missouri paper News-Leader calling Laurie Halse Anderson's novel Speak (and other current teen books) "soft pornography," warning parents to be wary of the kind of literature their kids are exposed to in school. Certainly, Speak and other books dealing with rape, violence, bullying, and other scary but very real issues, can be graphic and frightening - but how else do we as a society address their existence? I don't see that such books would incur instances of violence, anymore than I see that J.K. Rowling is endorsing pagan witchcraft and sorcery (not that paganism is even a bad thing in the first place).
Here is Laurie Halse Anderson's response to the article and the blogging hubbub it incited.

In a nearby neighborhood, Sherman Alexie's Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian was banned in a Missouri school, due to crude language and themes of violence, alcoholism, and racism. I do understand the point about swearing and crassness: kids may already be familiar with that way of talking, but we don't have to encourage it. However, I don't see how taking a book off the shelves will change anything for the better.

I'm not sure there's any one particular way to change things for the better. I wish there was a simple way to eradicate racism, violence, sexism, rape, hate crimes, bullying, et cetera, but until there's a Magic Wand of Love and Sparkly Ponies, I don't think ignoring their existence and shielding our children from discussion of them will make them disappear.

[Edit!]
Lauren Myracle, the author of the TTYL series which are at the top of ALA's top banned books list, wrote an article, "Banned Books Breakthrough: I Know You Are, But What Am I?" for Shelf Awareness about what it means to have faith, be a Christian, even, while fighting censorship and her own books being censored.


Read on!

Banning not just books, but their authors too.

According to the School Library Journal, two well-known YA authors have come under fire recently for the controversial topics of their novels -- right on the brink of Banned Books Week.

A few months ago, Laurie Halse Anderson won the ALA's Margaret Edwards Award, which "honors an author, as well as a specific body of his or her work, for significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature." (The three specific books honored were Catalyst, Fever 1793, and Speak.) When included in school curricula, though, some of these same books and Anderson's other YA works -- Twisted, Chains, Prom, and Wintergirls -- have upset parents with their content, which includes date rape, child abuse, suicidal ideation, and eating disorders.

Ellen Hopkins, author of Burned, Crank, Impulse, Identical, Glass, and Tricks, has herself been challenged; one of her upcoming middle school visits was cancelled when a parent objected to the drug addiction narratives Crank and Glass. (Technically, the books were still being reviewed by a school committee when Hopkins was asked not to come.)

If you haven't already read Jo Knowles's blog entries in response to a challenge to her novel Lessons From a Dead Girl, now would be a good time to do so... and it's also a great time to read Ellen Hopkins's poem "Manifesto."

In addition to reading some banned books this week (or when you can fit them in!), you might want to check out some books about burning or banning books and reading:
- Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
- Fly by Night by Frances Hardinge
- The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
- Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi (non-fiction)
- Libyrinth by Pearl North
- The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams
- The Book Thief by Marcus Zuzak