Banned Books Week
Terry Odell
We’re smack dab in the middle of Banned Book Week—Sept 22-28.
I think the Kill Zone is a “Banned Free Zone” but it never ceases to amaze—and frustrate—me that people are determining what others can read.
My parents were liberal when it came to my reading choices, although they had a friend who wrote porn under a variety of pseudonyms, and they’d buy his books to support him. Those, I discovered later, they’d kept off the house’s bookshelves. Had I found one and read it, I’m not sure what they’d have said.
Barnes and Noble has a Banned Book section on its website, as well as in some stores. Titles include:
Animal Farm, by George Orwell
Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak
1984, By George Orwell
The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
The Giver, by Lois Lowry
The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, by John Benedict—
And the list goes on.
The American Library Association, ALA, documented 4,240 unique book titles targeted for censorship in 2023—a 65% surge over 2022 numbers—as well as 1,247 demands to censor library books, materials, and resources. Pressure groups focused on public libraries in addition to targeting school libraries. The number of titles targeted for censorship at public libraries increased by 92% over the previous year, accounting for about 46% of all book challenges in 2023.
According to PEN America:
“This 2022–23 school year, efforts to remove books expanded to sweep up a wide swath of literature and health-related content. Of the 3,362 instances of books banned in the 2022–23 school year, certain themes, formats, and identities recur:
- 48 percent include themes or instances of violence and abuse (n =1,620). Of note, within this category, 834 instances are books that include episodes of sexual assault, which is 25 percent of all instances of books banned.
- 42 percent cover topics on health and wellbeing for students (n = 1,402). This includes content on mental health, bullying, suicide, substance abuse, as well as books that discuss sexual wellbeing and puberty.
- 33 percent detail sexual experiences between characters (n = 1,110).
- 30 percent include characters of color or discuss race and racism (n = 1,003)
- 30 percent LGBTQ+ characters or themes (n = 997). Of note, within this category, 205 instances are books that include transgender characters, which is 6 percent of all instances of books banned.
- 29 percent include instances or themes of grief and death (n = 980). This includes books that have a character death or a related death that is impactful to the plot or a character’s emotional arc.”
Facebook is full of graphics, or “memes” protesting banning books. Is it doing any good? Judging from the rising numbers of challenged books, I have my doubts. I haven’t seen any reports of actual book burnings, which might be the only positive piece of information I can include today.
If I may be so bold, I have a new release dropping on October 3rd, and I don’t think anyone will find cause to challenge or ban it. It’s available for preorder now. Read more about it here.
The floor is yours, TKZers.
**New! Find me at Substack with Writings and Wanderings
How can he solve crimes if he’s not allowed to investigate?
Gordon Hepler, Mapleton’s Chief of Police, has his hands full. A murder, followed by several assaults. Are they related to the expansion of the community center? Or could it be the upcoming election? Gordon and mayor wannabe Nelson Manning have never seen eye to eye. Gordon’s frustrations build as the crimes cover numerous jurisdictions, effectively tying his hands. Available now in ebook, paperback, and audio.
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Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.”
Public libraries have always had books that are a bit advanced for some readers. Sometimes these are the very books that advance those readers. I particularly recall finding “London After Dark” in my local library. It was educational and didn’t turn me into a “prevert,” as “Joe” (1970) called them. Another very educational book was Brill’s “Fundamental Conceptions of Psychoanalysis,” which I found in my father’s nightstand, under several back-issues of his AMA Journals. My primary reaction to both of these books was “Ewwwww!” I read much of them, anyway.
Sex is a difficult subject, a trade-off between distant poles sometimes as far apart as degeneracy and repression, neither extreme being optimum. We now live in a world in which many people deny the existence of degeneracy. Others refer to normal sexual behaviors as “unnatural acts.” There is no perfect strategy for raising every child in this situation, even if you live out in the country, far away from neighbors, and home school them. The most important thing is timely communication.
I believe in a rather conservative approach, but I know many who are much more liberal, without being exploitative. I’m not 100% sure which is best.
“The most important thing is timely communication.”
If only parents would talk to their children instead of handing them electronics. Back in my college days, Harry Harlow’s experiments with monkeys were in the forefront. But one other thing he found was that if he put the monkeys with their real mothers for as little as 20 minutes a day, they did okay.
My wife and I allowed our son to read most everything. As a teen he read Mein Kompf and The Communist Manifesto. No argument from his mother or me—but we did discuss them after. And guess what—he is neither a communist nor a fascist twenty years later. Kids don’t need to be as sheltered as people think—what they do need is permission to explore with the safety net of parents to help them understand what they’re reading.
Books should open channels of discussion. Good job, Douglas (and your wife).
Parents I talk to don’t object as much to book content as they do to having their children exposed to certain books at an age they consider too young. When I was a kid, the library divided books into “adult” and “juvenile.” However, alarms didn’t go off when kids entered the adult section.
“Banned in Boston” was a catch phrase for books through the mid-1960s that were considered too racy. Here’s a list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banned_in_Boston
Movies had a rating system: G for any age, PG for 13+, R recommended kids under 17 be accompanied by parent/guardian, and the dreaded X rating, then considered the kiss of death for box office returns. How things have changed.
I believe parents, not schools, have the right to determine what their children read at what age. Sadly, like so much of our society, the issue polarizes people to the extreme ends on both sides. There’s no room for rational discussion or reasonable compromise. Sigh.
Terry, I couldn’t agree more with your statement: “If only parents would talk to their children instead of handing them electronics.” Any healthy relationship requires communication.
Well said, Debbie. Parents can choose what their kids read. Not what other kids read.
Thanks for highlighting Banned Books Week, Terry. There has indeed been a huge increase in what we in library land call “challenged books,” mostly driven by a very small group of people.
That said, throughout my career in public libraries I encountered patrons concerned about certain books. Way back when Madonna’s “Sex” was released, there was objection, but there was far more interest, and my library system was forced to buy more copies of an expensive, large format book that didn’t survive long in circulation before falling apart. There was outrage over Brett Easton Ellis’s “American Psycho,” when that became available.
More often I would encounter a patron who asked me why we had trashy books (i.e. Romance novels) on the shelves, and I had to say that we provided books for all reading tastes. The same for SciFi, but mostly romance, which of course is beloved by many readers.
Then there were parents who wanted us to prevent their children from borrowing or reading certain books. I always encouraged them to talk with their kids about what they felt was appropriate.
I worked with conservative home schooler parents and I worked with liberal ones, sometimes on the same day. Conversation between parent and child is key. What is inappropriate to one parent might be very appropriate for another.
Thanks for chiming in, Dale. I was hoping to get your take on things from the librarian’s side.
I was a precocious reader and picked up anything and everything my tiny local library had on the shelves. I read In Cold Blood when I was around 12 and it didn’t turn me into a serial killer. This book banning stuff makes me slightly crazy. Yeah, there’s a lot of porn out there (I read a bunch of it when I was 17), but banning some of the classics? No. I could rant but I won’t.
Alas, I fear ranting will do little, if any, good, Jane.
The banning of books continuously shocks me. Parents should be the only ones allowed to police what their children read. Judging by the reasons for banning books, almost all thrillers could fall under “violence.” Many mysteries, as well. Unless they don’t consider murder violent. LOL
Murder and mayhem seem to be acceptable. But diversity? Not so much.