A Look at Book Banning

#SOL23. Day 18 Thanks to twowritingteachers for providing this opportunity to write, share, learn, and grow.

I bet many of you have read The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chobsky. What about Dear Martin by Nic Stone or Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson? How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi? The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini? Beloved by Tony Morrison? All on the top 50 banned books list. And the list of banned books continues to grow longer.

Seeing books like The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, A Splash of Red: The Life and Art of Horace Pippin by Jen Bryant, The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, and Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown all being banned and challenged demonstrates how far these machinations have spiraled out of control. Censorship is neither a new concept nor a well-defined ethical principle applied with specific criteria. To quote another banned writer, Aristotle, we should “seek first to understand, then be understood.” Here are some thoughts about book banning.

 Book banning is a form of censorship. It occurs when private individuals, government officials, or organizations remove books from public and school libraries, school reading lists, or bookstore shelves because interest groups object to their content. Book banning in the Western World is usually associated with three activators – morality, religion, and politics. The objections often include offensive language, sexual activity, or gender identity and (especially in the current debate) ideas or themes that make readers uncomfortable or ashamed. Often, parents and school board members who advocate a ban of certain books from school and classroom libraries as well as use in the curriculum complain that the book in question contains graphic violence, expresses disrespect for parents and family, is sexually explicit, praises and promotes “evil” such as witchcraft and occult practices, lacks literary merit, is unsuitable for a particular age group, or includes offensive language.

According to the American Library Association, a challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials based on the objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those materials. Challenges do not simply involve a person raising a concern or expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby preventing its access within the learning environment. As such, they are a threat to freedom of speech and choice.

Book banning is the most widespread form of censorship in the United States, and recently children’s literature has taken center stage. Supporters of banning a book or certain books are afraid that children will be swayed by its contents, which they regard as potentially dangerous. They fear that these publications will present ideas, and raise questions or incite critical inquiry among children that parents, political groups, or religious organizations are not ready to address or that they find inappropriate.

In July 2022, book banning in the U.S. hit its highest level in 40 years. Books about race, gender, diversity, and inclusion are being targeted and removed from schools and libraries in every state. Research by PEN America has found that in 2022 “state legislators are introducing – and in some cases passing – gag orders to censor teachers, proposals to monitor teachers and mechanisms to facilitate the banning of boos in school districts. At the same time, the scale and force of book banning in local communities is escalating dramatically.” (https://pen.org/banned-in-the-usa/)

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A selection of most-challenged books featured at PEN America

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The ALA promotes the freedom to choose and the freedom to express one’s opinions, even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular, and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those viewpoints to all who wish to read them. Can we find a middle ground in which educators, librarians, parents, students, school board members, and communities at large can agree?