Censorship in the news....
Sep. 13th, 2000 12:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scottobearNEW YORK (AP) - Harry Potter made the list. So did The Catcher in the Rye and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The most popular children's books? No. The ones adults most wanted removed from library shelves in the 1990s.
"This just proves no book is safe from censorship attempts," said Judith Krug, director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom. The top 100 titles - including The Handmaid's Tale, by acclaimed Canadian author Margaret Atwood - were compiled and released in advance of the 20th annual Banned Books Week, which runs Sept. 23-30.
The ALA, the American Booksellers Association and the American Society of Journalists and Authors are among the sponsors.
The most disputed books were the popular Scary Stories titles, horror tales by the late Alvin Schwartz. Objections included violence, cannibalism and causing children to fear the dark. A complaint from the school district in Campbell County, Wyo., said the books made kids believe "ghosts are actually possible."
Also in the top 10 were such classroom standards as Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men and Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
"The fact that teachers assign them is one of the reasons there's so much concern," Krug said. "They deal with issues a lot of parents don't want to know about."
The Harry Potter series, which Christian groups have attacked because of its themes of witchcraft and wizardry, comes in at No. 48. It was removed this year from a public school in Bridgeport Township, Mich.
According to the ALA, more than 5,000 complaints were recorded at school and public libraries in the 1990s. Krug said that represents about 20 per cent to 25 per cent of all challenges, although she does note the annual number has declined slightly over the past years.
"A lot of people are now spending more time thinking about Internet content," she said.
"Sexually explicit" was the most common objection raised about books at libraries, followed by "unsuited to age group" and "occult theme or promoting the occult or Satanism." Others included violence, promotion of same-sex relationships, racism and anti-family values.
Krug said about 5 per cent of those complaints lead to a book being banned.
"Usually, when the rest of the community hears about a complaint it speaks out in support of keeping the book," she said.
But many books, even famous ones, do get removed. In 1997, Angelou's memoir was taken off the ninth-grade English curriculum in Anne Arundel County, Md., because it "portrays white people as being horrible, nasty, stupid people."
In 1993, Catcher in the Rye was removed from a California school district because it "centred around negative activity." Four years later, the superintendent of the Marysville, Calif., Joint Unified School District banned Salinger's novel "so that we didn't have that polarization over a book."
The list includes such children's favourites as Maurice Sendak's In the Night Kitchen and R.L. Stine's Goosebumps series. Acclaimed adult novels on the list include Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five and Nobel laureate Toni Morrison's Beloved.
Also cited are William Golding's The Lord of the Flies, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, removed in 1996 from an advanced placement English reading list in Lindale, Texas, because it "conflicted with the values of the community."
"This just proves no book is safe from censorship attempts," said Judith Krug, director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom. The top 100 titles - including The Handmaid's Tale, by acclaimed Canadian author Margaret Atwood - were compiled and released in advance of the 20th annual Banned Books Week, which runs Sept. 23-30.
The ALA, the American Booksellers Association and the American Society of Journalists and Authors are among the sponsors.
The most disputed books were the popular Scary Stories titles, horror tales by the late Alvin Schwartz. Objections included violence, cannibalism and causing children to fear the dark. A complaint from the school district in Campbell County, Wyo., said the books made kids believe "ghosts are actually possible."
Also in the top 10 were such classroom standards as Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men and Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
"The fact that teachers assign them is one of the reasons there's so much concern," Krug said. "They deal with issues a lot of parents don't want to know about."
The Harry Potter series, which Christian groups have attacked because of its themes of witchcraft and wizardry, comes in at No. 48. It was removed this year from a public school in Bridgeport Township, Mich.
According to the ALA, more than 5,000 complaints were recorded at school and public libraries in the 1990s. Krug said that represents about 20 per cent to 25 per cent of all challenges, although she does note the annual number has declined slightly over the past years.
"A lot of people are now spending more time thinking about Internet content," she said.
"Sexually explicit" was the most common objection raised about books at libraries, followed by "unsuited to age group" and "occult theme or promoting the occult or Satanism." Others included violence, promotion of same-sex relationships, racism and anti-family values.
Krug said about 5 per cent of those complaints lead to a book being banned.
"Usually, when the rest of the community hears about a complaint it speaks out in support of keeping the book," she said.
But many books, even famous ones, do get removed. In 1997, Angelou's memoir was taken off the ninth-grade English curriculum in Anne Arundel County, Md., because it "portrays white people as being horrible, nasty, stupid people."
In 1993, Catcher in the Rye was removed from a California school district because it "centred around negative activity." Four years later, the superintendent of the Marysville, Calif., Joint Unified School District banned Salinger's novel "so that we didn't have that polarization over a book."
The list includes such children's favourites as Maurice Sendak's In the Night Kitchen and R.L. Stine's Goosebumps series. Acclaimed adult novels on the list include Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five and Nobel laureate Toni Morrison's Beloved.
Also cited are William Golding's The Lord of the Flies, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, removed in 1996 from an advanced placement English reading list in Lindale, Texas, because it "conflicted with the values of the community."
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"conflicted with the values of the community."
Date: 2000-09-13 10:22 am (UTC)Paraphrase:
"Might open minds to other ways of thinking"
Damn.
If there had to be a list of required reading, I'd think Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale would be on top of the list. What a waste to ban such meaningful books.
I hear ya.
Date: 2000-09-13 10:25 am (UTC)Re: I hear ya.
no subject
Date: 2000-09-13 11:15 am (UTC)Censorship
News articles like that piss me off so badly, I just can't explain it. The ideas of America's educational system when dealing with dispensing information just absolutely baffles me. Banning books off library shelves does have one good side, however. All the resulting hullabaloo about it usually gets the kids to find the book and read it.
But really, haven't we debated some of these books anough? Yes, I understand that Huckleberry Fin has the word "nigger" in it quite a bit. So what -- that's how they talked back then. Let's raise ourselves up to the intelligence we are suppossed to possess as a species and get the hell over it. God forbid we should let our kids read books. God forbid they should expand their little minds by purusing the moral quandries fought and won in Huckleberry Fin, or come to terms with the dark side of Man in the Lord of the Flies. Jesus!
One of my teachers fought and won right in Beaverton, Michigan to keep several of these books on our library shelves and reading lists by using an old arguement presented very well. Mr. Locey, who will have my eternal respect for using this argument so well, sat in the school board meeting and agreed with having said books banned, then detailed exactly why they should be banned (insert stereotypical reasons here), and then added that the board had missed one book. He went on to detail the horrors in this book, ranging from human sacrifice, dealings w/ the devil, war, famine, anal sex, debauchery, and all kinds of horrors. Once he had worked everyone up into a frevor of book-burning lust over this mysterious tome, he revealed that the wretched book he was so distastfully speaking of was, in fact, called The Bible. Oddly enough, all of those disputed books are still on Beaverton's shelves, along with several copies of the Holy Bible. It was the finest debate I have ever witnessed. Mad props to Mr. Locey, defender of freedom of thought, everywhere!
censorship
Date: 2000-09-13 11:51 am (UTC)Re: censorship
Date: 2000-09-13 12:21 pm (UTC)I think it is the governments place
to legislate certain basic rights for children and to protect them from certain harms and to help their parents protect and educate them.
For example. I dont believe it should be a father's right to take pornographic pictures of his son or daughter and sell them on the web.
Nor do I believe it should be the parents right to decide that their children do not need anything beyond a second grade education.
But I do believe it is okay for adults/parents to be provided with guidelines similair to one they have at the movies for video games, music and even reading material so they can decide if they feel like their children should be subject to it. And when it comes to a school and what teachers will be teaching your children in a classroom then parents definitely have the right to disagree. Parents can then get together and make a decision based on what the majority wants.
Except when their decisions could be violating other students civil rights.
This might not be ideal for every student but it is how we can have all the students together in the same room learning the same thing. IF a parent is upset that the school has censored Huckleberry Finn (which I would be) then they need to speak out to the appropriate people and spend time making a compelling arguement (which I would).
Im not disagreeing that every bit of information available to an adult should be avaiable to a child. It just shouldnt nessecarily be available in a school nor taught to a child without a parents permission.
but personally
Date: 2000-09-13 12:28 pm (UTC)I am just upholding a parents right to have a voice and vote on what their children are being taught in a public school.
they'll be banning Winnie the Poo next...
Granted, it's different here in Austria - schools are a federal responsibility, so local communities have no say whatsoever in what's being taught at school; neither do parents - you don't like it, you pack them off to one of the few private schools...
Anyway - required reading in my highschool English class (1979-1982):
* J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye
* Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird
* William Golding's The Lord of the Flies
* Aldous Huxley's Brave New World
(amongst others)
Later, at university, those same books were on the list for the literature exam.
Those books gave us a hard time because they were in a foreign language but we loved them, even those of us who hated English. Those books were part of my decision to study English & Czech and to become a translator - for the love of literature (the second major influence was Jack Kerouac at that time). And they want to keep American kids AWAY from these books??? What a goddamn crying shame...
Re: but personally
Date: 2000-09-13 02:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2000-09-13 03:22 pm (UTC)I chose censorship.
Even at 13, I was so offended by the narrow-mindedness of some individuals who wanted to tell me what I could or could not read based on their personal beliefs, that I immediately began reading as many of the books on their "Top 100" list as I could find. And I hope that after reading articles like this one, thousands of other kids will do the same.
I still have the copy of "Slaughterhouse Five" that I purchased when I was 13, and I have probably read it at least once per year since then. That book totally changed the way I saw the world.
the end :)
Re: but personally
Date: 2000-09-13 03:24 pm (UTC):)
Date: 2000-09-13 03:53 pm (UTC)okay okay
Date: 2000-09-13 03:54 pm (UTC)I wasnt thinking about everything. I was more talking about books being removed from the class cirriculum rather than the school libary.
Imagine though if 2nd grade classes were still uses Little Balck Sambo to teach children to read?
I would just like to say that parents should always be able to have a voice and a vote. Not that I trust other parents to agree with me but I also dont trust the school board.
Re: okay okay
Date: 2000-09-13 04:12 pm (UTC)I think if you introduced the california rasins these days, folks would rebel... "That's a bruised testicle in blackface! I'm going to sue!"
I think folks are a little hypersensitive.