It’s Banned Books Week, again? Well, Happy Banned Books Week! Wait, do you say that? Or is that like “Happy Yom Kippur”?
I shouldn’t joke — Banned Books Week is important, bringing attention to the plight of schools and libraries being forced to yank books off their shelves, perhaps pressured by glittery-eyed religious zealots and prudish church ladies (Look, the mice are nekkid!”).
Not that we need reminding. With thousands of efforts across the country, it seems every week is Banned Books Week. Banning efforts are on the rise. Pen America records 3,362 attempts to ban books across the country, a third more than the year before. Librarians who defend their collections are harassed.
At least nobody is piling the books in the Operalplatz and burning them. Yet.
We in Illinois of course can be proud to be the only state that passed a law against book banning — starting next year, any library that pulls books for “partisanal or doctrinal” reasons can become ineligible for state funds.
I’m sure some folks consider that oppression. What about their religion and their right to impose it on everybody else? Book banning is attractive because it doesn’t seem, at first glance, to be the same as, oh, demanding everybody in class be baptized. But that’s exactly what it is. Puff away all the underlined prurient passages and imaginary harm that book banners focus on, and what they’re doing is insisting everybody view the world through their keyhole.
What I want to know is, where are the victims of these dangerous books? The children plunged into emotional turmoil after reading a Judy Blume book? If only parents wildly indignant about edgy books could manage to get equally worked up about real problems that result in actual damage — school shootings come to mind. How come the same parents who shrug off the very real prospect of their kids being murdered at school line up at board meetings to scream about “Gender Queer”? It’s a puzzlement.
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Another amazing post! Thank you. An Immense World, Ed Yong about to be cracked open. Books are everything. Knowing What We Know, by Simon Winchester on audio...though right now the finale season of sucksession in dump world is hogging too much attention.
ReplyDeletelocal school boards are sometimes appointed sometimes elected. the board sometimes has a committee often an individual that selects new titles to be included old ones to be retired. most school libraries have limited space and there are millions of titles. times change books become archaic . certain ones just aren't read very often . they wear out. budgets are tight. its a chore to curate a library. sometimes its done by volunteers , sometimes its part of a larger county , state or even federal curriculum reform.
ReplyDeletepedagogie is a constant discussion among educators. what kids learn and how their taught. its someones job to choose the titles included in a library. the problem is when certain people , sometimes parents , sometimes not try to exert an outsized influence on what's included without following the proscribed system and try to get certain titles excluded.
for the most part books aren't "banned" , their just not in a school library. almost any title is available to almost anyone at anytime. sometimes you have to pay for certain books.
many schools have a mission. it always includes protecting children from harm.
not as sexy
So "Banning books" isn't the right term to use - since books are reviewed regularly and sorted by use, wear/tear, etc. So it should be "Books you can't get here week."
DeleteNor is the "harm" real — one of the important points you glided past, while dwelling on the distinction between a book being "banned" and it just not being there," which I would call a distinction without a difference. I'm sure your remark struck you as challenging and clever, setting it down. Not as sexy on the page.
DeleteIt would have been at least a little bit sexier had it been capitalised properly.
DeleteAll libraries go through a "weeding" process. Not the same as banning a book. Children have censors, their parents. ALL school libraries use discretion and are sensitive when building their book collections. Once we start limiting what books kids have access to we start limiting ideas. That is not what this world needs now, I believe the world needs more poets.
DeleteI have been reading books for 65 years and now read more than ever. It seems to me the question to ask book banners who are acting to protect the “children” is this. Don’t you have faith in your parenting skills? Either by outright telling your kids not to read certain books or better yet explaining to them why certain actions or ideas are bad, evil, or whatever. Surely if you hover over your kids as much as it appeats you can control what they see and hear..
DeleteRegarding your aside about book banning and baptism, the Mormon church has been busted repeatedly for posthumously baptizing non christians - including, incredibly, holocaust victims - https://apnews.com/article/992dd887f7b948d0a08055dff0363aa4
ReplyDeleteJeanne Ives is thinking: I’ll bring the brushes, you bring the paint.
ReplyDeleteIneligible for funds? Okay, we’ll just close the libraries. The state of Texas has dismissed Houston’s elected school board, and one of the first things they did was start closing school libraries. Guess what? The kids ‘love’’ the idea! This according to the state officials who have turned the libraries into ‘quiet rooms’, where students can sit and ponder what brought them…Does anybody really believe anything the state of Texas says?
Most of us were ‘indoctrinated’ beginning in kindergarten regarding those wonderful Pilgrims, who came to America to establish the concept of ‘religious freedom’. Also,
they invented Thanksgiving, Christian settlers and savage but nice ‘Indians’ enjoying a
Common meal in peaceful brotherhood.
Whoops! Brushed the publish prompt.
DeleteProceeding: Most children manage to figure out what’s wrong with that whole Pilgrim story is a fairy tale by the time they get to middle school. This is called ‘dangerous thinking’ aka ‘wokeism’ by some. I myself found Wednesday Addams Thanksgiving Pageant in ‘ADdams Family Values’ extremely delightful.
As things are turning out, right wing fundamentalist Christian’s have found a new ally in some cities that have large Muslim populations. Dearborn and Hamtramk, Michigan, most notably. This bizarre combination of ‘infidels and terrorists’ have turned school and library board meetings into near riots recently, with the few speakers who dare to testify against them in fear of their lives.
Locally, a school library board meeting saw nearly as many Proud Boys in attendance as local citizens (Downers Grove).
Unless and until they’ve been taught otherwise, very few children really care if the kid sitting next to them in class is Black, Asian, a girl with a crew cut or a boy with nail polish, whether they go to church on Sunday or temple Friday night, or if their parents belong to a mosque. For most, it’s all good. Maybe even interesting. Part of the joy of being in grade school is also the giggles brought on when someone shows you a ‘dirty book’, perhaps even the Bible or the dictionary. Or you might go ‘Ewww’. Then start giggling. This did often occur in the library, although now the internet is probably where they find out about the birds and the bees, and a whole lot more. A good librarian -that means ALL librarians- understands what is appropriate for an 8 year old and what a middle schooler can handle.
It’s some adults who spread the hatred and the fear that their child might hang out with an ‘N’, or marry a person of a different religion, or God help us, the same sex. Or read a ‘wrong’ book.
So yeah, are the rest of us going to let them?
I have read many banned books. When I think about the book I read that had the most turmoil in my mind, that affected me the most it was horrifying to me was “ A Child Called It.” But that book was based on a true story. So, if we banned that book, we would also be erasing history. True life is worse than any book I have ever read.
ReplyDeleteEvery day, I become a little more depressed over what this nation has become. What puzzles me is how can millions of people remain under the ether of Chump.
ReplyDeleteit is a puzzlement. Of course people have asked the same question about Germans and Hitler. Part of it is that that a lot of the working class think democrats have abandoned them. Trump promised them a lot and didn't deliver. But now it is like they are in cult. If you ask the people who show up at the rallies they really can't tell you what Trump has done for them. Ask them the right question and they have no answer.
DeleteThe Niles-Maine Township Library in suburban Niles has also had its board taken over by right wing nut jobs. They reduced the library hours & of course want to ban books.
ReplyDeleteI recently finished The Marlen of Prague, by Chicago writer Angeli Primlani. It’s a clever fantasy about Christopher Marlowe -- playwright, spy, and in this incarnation one of the mages who cast the spell that turned back the Spanish Armada.
ReplyDeleteNow just in time for Banned Books Week I’m onto Infinitesimal: How a Dangerous Mathematical Theory Shaped the Modern World by Amir Alexander. It’s about a mathematical theory seventeenth century conservatives regarded as subversive and did their best to suppress lest it overthrow what they deemed the natural order of society.
I’m a moderately heavy user of my library branch, but I don’t spend much time there. I only go to pick up the books I’ve put on reserve. During the worst of the pandemic I ramped up my ebook borrowing and those have remained a staple. I use the online databases, too -- especially the Oxford English Dictionary.
Thanks for the interior scenes of Chicago's main library, Mr. S. I watched it being built, from my office window in the Monadnock Building. When I left Chicago in the summer of '92, it was not yet finished. So I've only been inside once, on a return visit a few years later. I was somewhat impressed. It appeared to be well-used but not heavily so, or overcrowded. And I especially liked the winter garden on the top floor. A good place to hang out in January and February. But those rows of unused shelves bother me. They should be crammed with volumes. I have no idea why they are not.
ReplyDeleteThe patrons disguised as empty seats also bother me. Chicago being the dynamic place it is, those chairs should be filled with all kinds of human beings, from all walks of life, seeking all sorts of information. But maybe nobody goes to the library anymore. Everything is at their desk or in the palm of their hand. Books? How quaint. How unnecessary. How sad. Reading? Who reads? Pix or it didn't happen.
I visited in the main library in San Francisco in the mid-Nineties. It was a similar edifice, with similar interiors, but it had literally turned into a cesspool. The stench was overpowering. I had to whiz. I was advised to keep on truckin'--as the bathrooms were almost unusable. Homeless people...or are they called the de-housed and the un-housed now?... were camped out in the outer courtyards, sprawled at the study areas, lounging in the lobbies, and no matter where you walked, you had to watch where you stepped. I can't imagine what it's like now, almost thirty years later. Probably offal.
Looks like Chicago's library has not yet suffered the same fate, But maybe it was early in the morning, and the houseless hordes were still eating their breakfast somewhere. Or you chose not to show them. But thanks again, Mr. S, for showing me what I just missed
There is a prevailing sense within our culture that to be offended by something is one of life’s great traumas, like losing a limb or a child. This idea has always been a feature of fundamentalist bluenoses and right wing yahoos who sought to protect their delicate sensibilities by trying to suppress porn videos and flag desecration, as opposed to simply finding something else to turn their attention to, but unfortunately, the breadth of this impulse has spread far beyond their domain. Today’s younger generations have largely been honed to believe that encountering an image or idea that offends them is tantamount to actual physical harm. This idea is encouraged by college campuses that provide “safe spaces”, “trigger warnings”, and psychological counselling for offended students, and permitting mob action and violence to shut down speakers with whom they disagree. Clearly, the archaic notion that, if one is offended by something one reads, sees, or listens to, one should simply read, watch, or listen to something else has become anathema to our culture.
ReplyDeleteAs it happens, four days ago I finished reading Apropos of Nothing, the autobiography of Woody Allen, a book that encountered difficulty in even getting published due to the clout and suppression efforts of the author’s deified, apron strung son. For some reason, I didn’t expect much, so what a surprise to discover what a gem it was, a totally engrossing page turner that was candid, dark, enlightening, self deprecating, excoriating, and funny as hell. And the thought that kept recurring as I read it was, “there are people that tried to deprive me of this pleasure”.
Book banning comes in many forms. Be vigilant.