It’s Not Obvious: A Post for Banned Books Week

It’s Not Obvious: A Post for Banned Books Week

Banned Books Week is almost upon us, and it’s made me think about censorship, and age-appropriateness, and what we let kids read and what we don’t, and when, and why. 

Whenever I think about censorship, I think of one parent who came into my school library a few years ago, brandishing a book that her child had checked out. “This picture,” she said, “terrified my son. He had nightmares. He hated it so much that he gave it to me and asked me to hide it away so he’d never have to see it again.” And she opened the book to the offending illustration, which depicted Goliath’s severed head after his battle with David.

I assured her that she’d done the right thing in listening to her son and bringing the book back, and thanked her for being so responsive to his needs, and offered to help her find another book for him, and said I’d remind him next time he was in the library that he didn’t like that kind of picture. 

But that wasn’t what she wanted.

“You need to label all the books in the library that have disturbing pictures,” she said. “That way, other kids who might be scared will know not to take them. Isn’t there a label you can put on the spine, or something?” 

I opened my mouth, and closed it again. I thought hard and fast, trying to remember everything I’d learned in library school about intellectual freedom and how to convey its importance to concerned library users. I tried to appear calm and unruffled (no librarian that I know of is truly calm and unruffled in the face of a book challenge).

Finally I explained as gently as I could that this was impossible to do for several reasons, one of which was that different images are disturbing—or not—to different people, and it would be impossible to guess what illustrations someone, somewhere in our school community, might find offensive. 

She looked at me as if I were not quite right in the head. “But everyone knows what a disturbing picture looks like,” she said. “It’s obvious!”

I looked at the illustrated page she still had open in front of us, considering the many kids who would’ve simply looked at it and said, “COOL!” and the religious parents who would just be glad that their kids were reading a Bible story (this was in a private religious school). I thought of the naked little boy in In the Night Kitchen, which illustration so offends some people (including some librarians) that they feel moved to draw a diaper over his private parts before allowing the book to circulate. I thought of the pretty pretty Disney princesses who so many people (including me) consider sexist and harmful to girls, and of the World War II books in the library’s collection that depict planes and buildings and entire cities getting blown up. 

“Well, no,” I said, “It’s not obvious. I’m afraid that’s just not something we can do.”

She left, promising to follow up with the administration about this. As soon as she was out the door, I sent an email to my supervisors, reminding them about the library’s Board-approved collection policy and the challenge procedure outlined therein. In the end, nothing happened—she didn’t go to the administration, and her son (who adored gory Bible stories even as they scared him) never, to my knowledge, checked out a book that terrified him in the same way.

But what’s stayed with me is that parent’s rock-solid certainty that surely everyone knows what’s offensive, that it’s so obvious—or should be—as to go without saying. I think that’s an attitude that many would-be censors share, and in my experience it’s simply not the case.

There are people who don’t want their children to have access to books about human reproduction like Robie Harris’s It’s So Amazing, and others who are grateful to the point of tears that their kids have a way to learn those facts from other sources besides their embarrassed parents. There are parents who find the whole idea of a series called “The Stupids” incredibly offensive, and those who think it’s as hysterical as their children do. There are librarians who won’t let the irreverent Captain Underpants books cross their threshold, and others who buy multiple copies for their reluctant readers. I’ve heard a parent object to a Curious George book because at one point George says he “wants to die,” and another explain that the first Harry Potter book was just too disturbing for her daughter to read, not due to any religious objections but because of how horribly the Dursleys treat Harry in the very first chapter.

I could cite dozens of other examples, and so could most librarians. The point isn’t that any of those people are wrong or right, it’s that their reactions are all different: there is no universal agreement on what’s offensive and what’s acceptable in a children’s book. 

Librarians and publishers accede to a general consensus about what’s appropriate for different ages—but even within that broad opinion you’ll find some dissenters, and that consensus itself changes over time. The Higher Power of Lucky, which won the 2007 Newbery award, might have undergone some controversy because of the word “scrotum” (in reference to a dog) on the first page, but fifty or sixty years ago that word never even would have made it past the editor’s first read-through, and the very subject of the book—a child abandoned by her parents, living on the edge of a desert town, listening in on 12-step meetings—might have been too questionable to be considered as children’s reading material.

I know that most censors—the people behind the ALA’s List of Most Frequently Challenged Books—are trying to protect their children and the children of the community from scary or harmful images or concepts, just as that mom was trying to do for her son. I feel passionately about protecting kids and parents, too: about protecting their ability to read different books, to have different opinions, to decide for themselves and their own kids what’s offensive and what isn’t.

Happy Banned Books Week, and may we always be able to celebrate our freedom to read.

September 26, 2008