Defend the Freedom to Read: It's Everybody's Job

I'm back from the dead!  Okay, maybe not, but it feels like it after finally finishing up about 10 projects that I had on the go.  And now that I'm back, what better way to start than with a movie!!  This short video comes from the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom, which requests that we all do our part to bring attention to book challenges to Defend the Freedom to Read.  After all, it's everybody's job...

So, now that you've seen that (hopefully) enlightening little video, it's time to talk about specific book challenges.  In Borger, Texas, a book was recently removed entirely from the Borger Intermediate and Middle School Library.  The book in question?  Carolyn Mackler's Tangled.  The book follows four young people as they vacation in a Caribbean resort.  The reason that it was banned from the school district?  This passage:

"I looked up and my heart plummeted, I swear, into my colon. Because there, standing above me and ripping off his shirt was the guy. The guy from the diving board. The guy with the muscular calves and, oh god, the swimsuit riding low enough for me to conjure up some serious imagery."

Really, is this so bad?  I mean, okay, so a younger student might not be the best audience, but you can't tell me that middle school students are not thinking in these terms and that this passage is somehow so overly explicit that it's going to ruin a child for life.  As one commenter on the ConnectAmarillo article wrote:  "thats all the book said, pretty much? Newsflash, boys have penises and girls have vaginas. And I am about 99.9% sure that most middle schoolers know this."  Is this passage really enough to have books completely removed from libraries these days?  Apparently.  Are we so easily offended by sexuality?  Apparently.

It angers me that books are taken away from students for so little in this day and age when access to books should be celebrated and enjoyed.  Why is it that suddenly anything remotely sexual is too much for teens to handle?  Well, it's not, really.  It's parental discomfort.  Most of these concerns are from parents who, it seems to me, are much more afraid of sexuality than their children.  Please, parents, let your children read and ask questions!!  It doesn't help to shelter them when they already (probably) know more about sex than you do.

Anyway, thanks for listening.  Let me know what you think.  And keep your eyes peeled for challenges in your area, wherever you are!  Remember, defending the right to read is everybody's job!

posting pause

Apologies for the lack of posts recently!  I am just finishing up my current degree and trying to get a few other projects sorted out.  Until then, I am having to take a short hiatus from posting on this site.  I will be back, however... I promise!  Until then, keep reading those books!!

_rob

Books for Prisoners: What's allowed and what's not?

The American Library Association asserts:

When the prison gates slam behind an inmate, he does not lose his human quality; his mind does not become closed to ideas; his intellect does not cease to feed on a free and open interchange of opinions; his yearning for self-respect does not end; nor is his quest for self-realization concluded. If anything, the needs for identity and self-respect are more compelling in the dehumanizing prison environment.

An article in The Huffington Post the current problem is a disconnect between what is constitutional and what prisons and wardens feel is allowable for inmates in terms of reading materials and access to information sources.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons regulations state that publications can only be rejected if they are found to be "detrimental to the security, good order, or discipline of the institution or if it might facilitate criminal activity." That description is generally understood to include content such as explanations on how to make explosives, martial arts training manuals and books containing maps of the prison and its surrounding area. 

Yet according to a list compiled by the Prison Books Program, and seen by The Huffington Post, many correctional institutions censor materials far beyond these guidelines. Central Mississippi Correctional, for example, is stated as refusing to allow any books whose content includes anything legal, medical or contains violence, while Staunton Correctional in Virginia is claimed only to allow its inmates access to "non-fiction educational or spiritual books."

A 1980 US Supreme Court ruling states that "[p]rison walls do not form a barrier separating prison inmates from the protections of the Constitution," and that "a warden may not reject a publication 'solely because its content is religious, philosophical, political, social or sexual, or because its content is unpopular or repugnant.'"

Personally, I don't see books and access to general information as a problem, no matter what the crime committed.  I believe that there should be consequences for inmates depending on what they have done, but keeping them away from books and the internet should, again in my opinion, only be a short term punishment, like denying access to television for a child's misbehaviour.  Of course, this is me speaking from a restorative justice standpoint as opposed to a retributive justice model, such as is currently being utilized in North America.

In any case, I agree with the following guidelines from the American Library Association.  According to the ALA "these principles should guide all library services provided to prisoners:"

• Collection management should be governed by written policy, mutually agreed upon by librarians and correctional agency administrators, in accordance with the Library Bill of Rights, its Interpretations, and other ALA intellectual freedom documents.
• Correctional libraries should have written procedures for addressing challenges to library materials, including a policy-based description of the disqualifying features, in accordance with “Challenged Materials” and other relevant intellectual freedom documents.
• Correctional librarians should select materials that reflect the demographic composition, information needs, interests, and diverse cultural values of the confined communities they serve.
• Correctional librarians should be allowed to purchase materials that meet written selection criteria and provide for the multi-faceted needs of their populations without prior correctional agency review. They should be allowed to acquire materials from a wide range of sources in order to ensure a broad and diverse collection. Correctional librarians should not be limited to purchasing from a list of approved materials.
• Age is not a reason for censorship. Incarcerated children and youth should have access to a wide range of fiction and nonfiction, as stated in “Free Access to Libraries for Minors."
• Correctional librarians should make all reasonable efforts to provide sufficient materials to meet the information and recreational needs of prisoners who speak languages other than English.
• Equitable access to information should be provided for persons with disabilities as outlined in “Services to People with Disabilities.”
• Media or materials with non-traditional bindings should not be prohibited unless they present an actual compelling and imminent risk to safety and security.
• Material with sexual content should not be banned unless it violates state and federal law.
• Correctional libraries should provide access to computers and the Internet.

Nabokov Under Attack in Russia; Teenage Awkwardness Under Attack in Bakersfield

In Russia, there's trouble brewing for the works of Vladimir Nabokov and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, an article in the Globe and Mail states. "A senior Russian Orthodox official claimed Wednesday that novels by Vladimir Nabokov and Gabriel Garcia Marquez justify pedophilia and said they should be banned in the nation's high schools."  While I do not want to get into a church vs state discussion, mostly because those against and those for will practically never be convinced to abandon their views, I do want to point out an interesting fact about the Orthodox Church that is working so hard to ban these books.  According to the article, "polls have shown that only about 5 per cent of Russians are observant believers."  Moreover,

Church and state are officially separate under the post-Soviet constitution, but Orthodox leaders seek a more muscular role for the church, which has served the state for much of its 1,000-year history. 

Some nonreligious Russians complain that the church has tailored its doctrine to suit the government, which has justified Russia's retreat from Western-style democracy by saying the country has a unique history and culture.

If so many Russians do not observe the Orthodox Church's doctrine and there is a separation of church and state in Russia, then how is it that this group thinks it has the right to decide what books are appropriate for everyone on the country?  I understand the Russia has a very different social and political structure than Canada or the USA, and I do not claim that I know how to solve the problem, but at the core, freedom to read should be the same anywhere.

People deserve the right to read books and those who don't agree with the content can choose not to read the literature.  Granted there are certain texts that go beyond common decency (the Pedophile's Guide to Love, for example), but these books are the exception to the rule and should be treated as such.  Not every book about incest or pedophilia needs to be banned, because in the majority of cases, these themes are usually treated carefully by authors, and are usually not showing them as a "good thing."

In other news, a book in Bakersfield, CA is under attack by a few parents who believe the book is much too erotic to be on the shelves of school or public libraries.  The book is What My Mother Doesn't Know by Sonya Sones and she writes about her disappointment in these attacks in the LA Times this week:

"Our young people should not have to be exposed to your erotic thoughts and feelings," one irate parent from Iowa wrote. "Your book should be removed from all junior high media bookshelves. That's what we will attempt to do here in Algona. We strive as a community to keep high morals and values." 

And there were many other letters, including this one from a Texas woman: 

"I am a 6th grade teacher, and had the unfortunate experience this past week of having your book discovered by a student in my classroom library. On any given page, vulgarity and filth can be found!... Freedom of speech and press doesn't give anyone the right to corrupt young, impressionable minds! I feel sorry for your children. Please stop writing such filth!"

The part of the novel that is being attacked most is about a young girl who presses her newly grown breasts against a frosted window.  She is exploring her new body and feeling new sensations.  It may be unorthodox to some, but is this really enough to consider a book filth?  Sones writes about how she put such content in her novel because she wanted young girls to see that experiencing new sensations in a post-puberty body is normal and part of growing up.  Of course many parents seem to find this offensive, to which I say, "then don't read this book.  And don't push your boobs against frosted glass!"  Sones finishes up her article succinctly and with no real need for further explication, so here it is:

One mother of a 12-year-old daughter wrote me to crow about her success in having "What My Mother Doesn't Know" banned in Virginia. "I saw to it that the school took this book off the shelf, as well as all the others that you have written," she wrote. "I am not a book burner, but this book does not belong in middle school and maybe not even in high school!" 

I don't have a problem with her forbidding her daughter to read my book. But imposing her personal beliefs on every child at the school makes her no better than a book burner. As the playwright and journalist Clare Booth Luce once put it: "Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but unlike charity, it should end there."

Banned Books in the Huffington Post

Check out these words of wisdom and opinion from Molly Raphael, current President of the American Library Association.  She brings together serious topics on censorship and the restriction of access to books and looks at the differences and similarities between the two.  Well worth the read and definitely in the spirit of Banned Books Week!

[F]ar more often than we may realize, individuals and groups have sought to restrict access to library books they believed were objectionable on religious, moral, or political grounds, thereby restricting the rights of every reader in their community. For example, this summer the Republic (Mo.) school board voted to remove Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five and Sarah Ockler'sTwenty Boy Summer from the school library as a result of a complaint that the book "teaches principles contrary to Biblical morality and truth." More than 150 students and their families have lost access to those books; while a local and national outcry caused the school board to return the books to the library, the books are now on a locked shelf and unavailable to students absent the consent of a parent or guardian. 

It's become popular in the last few years to argue that this kind of book censorship is no big deal. Isn't the decision to ban the books just a way of helping parents protect their children? What does it matter if a book is banned from a school or library if kids can obtain books from online retailers? 

Such censorship is, in fact, a very big deal. Such censorship matters to those who no longer can exercise the right to choose what they read for themselves. It matters to those in the community that cannot afford books or a computer, and for whom the library is a lifeline to the Internet and the printed word. And it matters to all of us who care about protecting our rights and our freedoms and who believe that no one should be able to forbid others in their community from reading a book because that book doesn't comport with their views, opinions, or morality.

Click here to read the rest of this Huffington Post article.  It's worth taking the time to check out!

Two [More] Titles from "Books Banned and Challenged, 2010-2011"

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (Doubleday)

Mark Haddon

Removed from the Lake Fenton, Mich. summer reading program (2010) after parents complained about its “foul language.” The book is about an autistic child who investigates the death of a neighborhood dog. It was a joint winner of the 2004 Boeke Prize and won the 2003 Whitbread Book of the Year award. 

Source: Sept. 2010, p. 200.

The Dead Man in Indian Creek (Clarion Books; Sandpiper)

Mary Downing Hahn

Challenged at the Salem-Keizer School District, Oreg. elementary schools (2010) because of the drugs and drug smuggling activities in the book. The book was previously challenged in 1994 in the same school district because of graphic violence, examples of inappropriate parenting, and because it was too frightening for elementary students. The book has won awards from the International Reading Association, the Children’s Book Council, and the American Library Association. 

Source: May 2010, pp. 105–6.

Differing Perspectives on Banned Books Week 2011

"Banned Books Week is just hype." USA Today

The problem: None of this is remotely true. Banned Books Week is an exercise in propaganda. For starters, as a legal matter no book in America is banned, period, full stop (not counting, I suppose, some hard-core illegal child porn or some such out there). Any citizen can go to a bookstore or Amazon.com and buy any book legally in print — or out of print for that matter.  

When the American Library Association talks about censorship of books, it invariably refers to "banned or challenged" books. A "banned" book is a book that has been removed from a public library or school's shelves or reading lists due to pressure from someone who isn't a librarian or teacher. In practice, this means pretty much any book that's pulled off the shelves of a library can be counted as "banned." Even so, that's very rare, which is why the ALA lump "banned" and "challenged" together. Moreover, it's crazy. If the mere absence of a book counts as a "ban," then 99.99% of books have been banned somewhere.... 

[Follow this link to USAToday.com for the rest of the article] 

"'Banned Books Week' worth the hype." Peoria Journal Star

I winced this morning when I read Jonah Goldberg’s column about Banned Books Week, which takes place this year Sept. 24-Oct. 1. 

Titled “Banned Books Week Overhyped Propaganda,” the opinion piece pokes fun at the annual effort by the American Library Association to throw a spotlight on attempts to force school and public libraries to remove books from the shelves that some people consider controversial. 

For Goldberg, this effort is a bunch of lefty nonsense. There really is no danger of books being banned in the United States, he writes. This is just an effort to bully parents who are concerned about what books their kids may have access to....

[Follow this link to PJstar.com for the rest of the article]

"Banned Books Week celebrates freedom to read." USA Today

Librarians have always supported a parent's right to decide what his or her family should read. But in our democracy, other families should be able to make different choices for their own families, not dictated by a particular political or religious viewpoint. 

We need to remember that when one book is removed, this act of censorship affects more than one person or family. It affects the entire community. We need to remember that public libraries serve everyone, including those who are too young or too poor to buy their own books or own a computer. 

Contrary to commentary writer Jonah Goldberg's assertion, librarians and library users celebrate Banned Books Week as a testament to the strength of our freedom in the United States. We celebrate the freedom to read because we all know that we are so fortunate to live in a country that protects our freedom to choose what we want to read. If you doubt this, just ask anyone from a totalitarian society. That is why we draw attention to acts of censorship that chill the freedom to read.... 

[Follow this link to USAToday.com for the rest of the article]