Banning children's books: When is it justified?

[brandon]

The Higher Power of Lucky is a children's novel that won the 2007 Newbery Medal. You'd think it would be in school libraries and in the children's section of every public library. It would be, except it contains the word "scrotum". Some people don't think that word is appropriate for the book's intended audience of 9 to 12 year olds.

see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_Power_of_Lucky#Controversy

I don't have a problem with tweens being exposed to the word "scrotum", but I'm not going to say that no book should ever be banned from children's libraries. I might question the appropriateness of a book written for 9-10 year olds that contains explicit sexual language or themes. I don't think anyone would write such a book for children, and if they did, it probably wouldn't get published in the United States. Perhaps it would be published in Europe. It is very unlikely that it would win the most prestigious children's book award.

Where would you draw the line?

In some counties around here, there are very aggressive church-sponsored groups that have taken over or have attempted to take over library boards because they object to certain books and other materials in libraries. (I think their biggest goal has been to remove books written for teenagers worried about their sexual orientation.)

Who should decide what belongs in a library? State/provincial/county legislators or officials? Judges? Publishers' associations? Librarians? Teachers? Principals? Committees of parents? Children and teenagers themselves?

[mejor-desnudo]

what's next... burning books?
scrotum is not a bad word... it's in the dictionary... I wonder if this people have a dictionary at home? are they going to banned them from the children's section too? because the library I used to go when I was a child had dictionaries too... .
I wonder which rule they follow to ban a word: is "body" a word to be banned? "finger"? "nose"? "penis"? "ear"?

I just reminded something similar... not in books... but in paintings. Once, I saw an announcement at the entrance of a painting exhibition saying that "children or teenagers (below... I don't remember which age) must be accompanied by their parents because there were nude paintings". It was in a campus of an US University... and I couldn't believe it... everytime I have been in El Prado, Ufizzi or any museum in Europe... where also children normally go... I have never seen anything like that

[little_man]

Isn't the whole point of reading books to expand one's knowledge?  If you don't want to learn about it, don't read it.  To ban something because of content or language in a book seems ridiculous to me.

Oh no, a nine year old might see the word "scrotum".  At least he will know that part of his body has a real name. Yet, by nine he's watched countless hours of TV and video games in which worse things happen to characters.  If he's watched any medical TV drama, he's seen and heard much worse than the word "scrotum".

[hjmartin]

It's all about context.  You could have a book with only the nicest of words, but put them together in the right way and they say something horribly inappropriate.  Just saying "blah" is a good word or a bad word is pointless.  It's the idea being expressed that should be considered appropriate or not.

[Eric]

I don't have a problem with tweens being exposed to the word "scrotum", but I'm not going to say that no book should ever be banned from children's libraries.

No book should ever be banned from libraries, period. With the caveat that there's finite shelf space and a librarian has to decide what to carry and what not to carry.

I might question the appropriateness of a book written for 9-10 year olds that contains explicit sexual language or themes.

I think it would be perfectly appropriate for children to be exposed to stories about loving sexual relationships between consenting adults.

Such themes strike me as highly preferable to the kind of themes which dominate children stories and libraries. Many are thinly veiled metaphors for rape (Little Red Riding Hood). Many prominently feature abuse (Cinderella) as plot elements. Even the disney-fied picture book versions of these stories contain some rather grotesque depictions of slavery, racism, and subjugation of women. And lets not forget that virtually all childrens stories are loaded with images of violence - murder, torture, and the use of force to solve problems reign supreme.

Not that I'd advocate for the censorship of these stories either - but it just seems absurd to me that our cultures shields children from depictions of healthy sexual relationships while we hardly raise an eyebrow when we expose them to themes of abuse, rape, and violence.

[Dan]

Many are thinly veiled metaphors for rape (Little Red Riding Hood).

You can't have more thin than that. Perreault wrote it explicitly in a note at the end of the story for those who'd be too stupid to get the metaphor. The man wanted to carry a message: "Follow strangers and you'll get raped." Telling a story was secondary.

[brandon]

I might question the appropriateness of a book written for 9-10 year olds that contains explicit sexual language or themes.

I think it would be perfectly appropriate for children to be exposed to stories about loving sexual relationships between consenting adults.

I don't think any 9-12 year-old would be interested in those stories. Unless one of the consenting adults was a vampire.

I was thinking more about stories involving non-loving relationships, sexual abuse, sexual relationships between children, sexual relationships between children and adults or between children and animals. I'm not sure those would always be appropriate. I realize any ten year old would be able to find plenty of visual pornography on the internet that would be far worse than anything ever published in a novel, but I still think there could be some instances where books with mature themes might not have a place in children's libraries.

I certainly read some weird stuff when I was ten, and watched some R-rated movies, but I didn't find any of that in the children's section at the library.

[Eric]

I don't think any 9-12 year-old would be interested in those stories. Unless one of the consenting adults was a vampire.

Perhaps. But I'd point out that kids - young kids - consume love stories all the time. I don't really buy the idea that they're interested in stories about love the emotion but not love the act.

I was thinking more about stories involving non-loving relationships, sexual abuse, sexual relationships between children, sexual relationships between children and adults or between children and animals. I'm not sure those would always be appropriate.

I'll just point out that there are parents who read their kids Bible stories about all of the above and more from a young age, for better or for worse. I'm also quite sure that there are many children's libraries which stock versions of the Bible.

But putting aside what I personally think is healthy for kids to read or not read... Now, also keep in mind that there are a lot of levels here:

1. Whether some organization should ban books from libraries.
2. What books libraries independently choose to fill their finite shelf space with, or not. Presumably this mostly relates to market demand, cost considerations, etc.
3. What books children show an interest in reading.
4. What books parents want their kids to read.

I think any parent that's worried about that have more than enough adequate tools to stop their children from reading something they don't want to read without banning the book entirely - they can accompany the kid to the library, tell the kid not to go to a certain section, talk to the librarian to make sure their kid doesn't check it out, etc. And I also think that any halfway decent parent is more than capable of preparing their kid for what might accidentally be found at the library, or dealing with it should the kid accidentally find.

I think those that feel the need to escalate it all the way to the level of book banning aren't really doing it for the kids - they find the content so offensive that they don't think anyone should be able to read it, even kids of parents who approve and kids who can handle it. And that's what I'll always have a problem with.

[brandon]

I largely agree with you, but, hypothetically speaking, I think there could be some books that are not appropriate.

I'm certainly not with the book banners around here:

Montgomery County Texas had a divisive string of book challenges. In August of 2002, a group of citizens attended a meeting of the Commissioners' Court* to push for the removal of Robie Harris' It's Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health due to complaints that the title was inappropriate. Commissioners voted unanimously to ban the book. Despite the Commissioners' vote, the book was required to go through the review of a committee first. The Republican Leadership Council (RLC) pushed for a change in policy on how the committee was devised. Previously, it was 5 librarians; however, it was ammended to include 5 citizens as well. The RLC also started a campaign to combat a bond issue to raise $10 million for library expansions...

Wikipedia

*our equivalent of a city council

[Stuart]

Can we define here what we mean by "banning"?

[Dan]

Can we define here what we mean by "banning"?

I believe Brandon means for a library to pull a book from its shelves following pressure to do so.

I'm not sure what he means by Children's Library, I never saw any library dedicated to kids beside those within the walls of an elementary school.

[Jann]

Can we define here what we mean by "banning"?

I believe Brandon means for a library to pull a book from its shelves following pressure to do so.

I'm not sure what he means by Children's Library, I never saw any library dedicated to kids beside those within the walls of an elementary school.

Maybe things are that different in Québec after all, but I doubt it.  I haven't visited there yet.  But every public library I've seen in Britain, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia & Maine has a children's section and that is what he means by Children's Library.  I would venture that is common across the continent.

[Jann]

. . . but it just seems absurd to me that our cultures shields children from depictions of healthy sexual relationships while we hardly raise an eyebrow when we expose them to themes of abuse, rape, and violence.

If there is going to be a general ban on books containing graphic images of violence, incest, murder, lust, torture, masturbation, genocide and betrayal I would like to point out that the Bible contains all of these.  In this light I note that in earlier times in the US (maybe elsewhere) young unmarried women were prohibited from reading the Song of Solomon.  Maybe the whole book should be banned.

[genxnaturist]

In USA, many schools ban The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Its one top banned books in School.  So if they ban such books as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, imagine what other books can be banned.  Normally all it takes is one parent to make big deal because in book there is wrong word, or it mentions something they think is inmoral in their own views.

Michael

[hjmartin]

There are certainly a lot of books kids shouldn't be reading.  And someone has to decide which books the library will have.

There are books out there that are truly pornographic, and I have no problem with whoever is in charge of my school's library opting not to stock them.

The problem is that different people draw the line at a different place.  But the line absolutely does have to be drawn.