Banned Books Week

Banned Books Week
2009

“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” – Ray Bradbury, author

Censorship
What does it mean to ‘censor’ something?
In general, it means you get rid of something that offends you. However, it doesn’t only apply to you. It means that just because you don’t like something, you have removed that content for EVERYONE.

Here’s an example:
When you were in elementary school, you might have read In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak.
It’s about a little boy named Mickey who wakes up in the middle of the night to a loud noise. He suddenly starts to float up out of his bed and eventually enters a bakers’ kitchen where he has adventures.

The problem?
Mickey falls out of his clothes as he enters the kitchen, and thus runs around naked for parts of the story.
Parents, teachers, and librarians have been so embarrassed and upset by this that they have taken to drawing shorts on Mickey or gluing stickers over his “private area.”

For the record, author Maurice Sendak said he wasn’t trying to be controversial. He just thought it would be easier for Mickey to be naked when he falls into a bowl of cake batter so that he didn’t have dirty clothes!

Censorship has occurred throughout history. One of the most famous censors was Hitler. The Nazis held bonfires and burned many, many books. They did this so that the German people would not be able to hear and think about ideas that conflicted with Nazi ideas.

Yeah, but that was 60 years ago. That doesn’t happen now…

Even if you’ve never attended a book-burning rally (I hope not!), you still experience small forms of censorship all the time. Can you think of any?

Movies
Movies have ratings:
G, PG, PG-13, R

Television
TV shows have ratings too.
Sometimes the content of movies on television is edited

How can censorship happen in the school library?

Last year, this was the most “dangerous” book in libraries:

Crazy, right?
Tango is based on a real-life story. In a zoo in New York City, a baby penguin egg was abandoned. Rather than let it die, two male penguins “adopted” the egg and took turns sitting on it until it hatched!
Aww…

What’s so “dangerous” about that?
Some of the complaints against the book:

It has homosexual “undertones”
It goes against everything the Word of God speaks of in The Bible
The book promotes homosexual adoption
Reading this book will encourage students to become homosexual

So what does it mean to censor this book?

In 16 elementary schools in Virginia, the book was taken off the fiction shelves and moved to a section just for teachers and parents.
A parent in Iowa filed a complaint with the school board asking for the book to be

completely taken out of the school

Similar complaints occurred in Ohio, California, Maryland,

and Minnesota

What are the most common reasons for challenging books?

Of the 10 most controversial books of the 21st century, we have 5 of them here at the library. Can you guess what they are?
#9: Captain Underpants
#8: Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
#4: Of Mice and Men
#3: Alice series
#1: Harry Potter

The policy at LISD is:
A parent is allowed to make an objection about a resource in the school
The parent’s objection is ONLY allowed to apply to his or her own child
Students’ freedom to read will be defended as much as possible
No material will be pulled from the library solely because of the ideas it presents

What should you do if you or a parent doesn’t approve of something in the library?

Intellectual Freedom Statement
Reading is a joy, a privilege, and the right of every patron.
As you select the library books you will read, please understand that every book is not the best choice for every patron.
If a book is unappealing or offensive to you in any way, please return it and select another.
You, our most valued patron, know better than we, the library staff, what reading materials best serve you and your family’s standards and beliefs.

Are you ready to read something “dangerous”?
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