Monthly Archives: September 2010

Banned Books Week: Intellectual Freedom

Posted on by
Reply

Graphics from ALA

Banned Books Week at ALA is supported by theirOffice for Intellectual Freedom. What is intellectual freedom? Well, according to the ALA it’s, “the freedom to access information and express ideas, even if the information and ideas might be considered unorthodox or unpopular.”

What does that mean on the ground? Well, it means that what people check out of the library, look at in the library, and access on library computers if private. I won’t willingly tell anyone what books my students have checked out. Maine law says I have to tell parents, but I would really encourage parents to talk to their students rather than to me.

It also means that if a student asks for a book on a subject I find unappealing, I do not tell them so. I happily help them to find it, because they have a right to that information.

It means I try to buy books covering all perspectives of a controversial issue, because, again, my students have a right to information. They have the right to sift through that information to discover bias — and hopefully I am teaching them the skills to do so.

So, instead of just being a week against censorship, lets think about this as a week celebrating our freedom to think for ourselves.

Banned Books Week: Before Books Get on the Shelf

Posted on by
Reply

Graphics from ALA

In February of 2009, Debra Lua Whelan published an article in SLJ about self censorship by librarians: “A Dirty Little Secret.” It’s a must read for librarians for sure, but also for anyone in the publishing business. In conjunction, SLJ surveyed it’s “Extra Helpings” readers about self-censorship. The results are shocking. Here are a few of the lowlights:

  • 70% said possible reaction from parents kept them from buying a book.
  • 87% said sexual content has kept them from buying a book.
  • 47% said homosexuality has.

Statistics like this make me reflect upon my own choices. While I pride myself on buying books about hunting and the military when I myself am an aquavorian pacifist, I do have my touch points, namely misogyny in general and violence against women in particular.

Case in point: more than one (male) student has asked if we have Tucker Max’s I Hope they Serve Beer in Hell. We do not. I can hide behind my collection development policy here: the only professional review I could find came from a humor roundup in Booklist which called it “foul and misogynistic.” On the other hand, The Gossip Girl books aren’t exactly burning up with positive reviews and I have those. Picked up secondhand usually, but still they are on my shelves.

So is this self-censorship or collection development? Am I letting what offends me get in the way of my decisions? After all, it seems inconsistent of me to chastise people for wanting to keep what they feel is offensive off the shelves, while I won’t purchase certain books that rile me. Librarians, have you ever kept something off the shelf because you disagree with its content or because you fear a challenge?

Banned Books Week: Things Books Make us Do

Posted on by
Reply

Graphics from ALA

Whenever the topic of book banning comes up, someone invariably makes the argument that banning books is silly because books can’t make us do anything. Reading Harry Potter goes the argument will not turn a child into a wizard. True, but you’ve got to know that thousands of children wanted to be wizards after reading those books.

Of course books are a safe place to work through emotions and experiences without having to go through them ourselves. But arguing that books don’t change us seems like an argument against books rather than for them.

So, in that spirit, here are some things that I did (and do) because I was influenced by books I read as a child:

  • I started addressing my journal to Kitty after reading The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank Later, after I lost a friend, I began addressing my journal to him, which is where, in turn, I got the idea of having Dara address her journal to Rachel as a child in Secrets.
  • I make little “x”s on my bug bites. I think I read this in one of the Soup books by Robert Newton Peck, though it might have been another book I read around that time.
  • I played in a magical land in the woods near my house, just like the kids did in The Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Patterson.
  • I joined the Peace Corps after reading Bryce Courtenay’s The Power of One. I really wanted to go to South Africa, where the book was set, but I was stationed in Cote d’Ivoire instead. It didn’t work out quite as planned, but that’s a story for another day.

Those are the just the first ones that come to mind. I would love to know how others were influenced by the books they read as kids. Please share in the comments.

Banned Books Week: Debs Speak Loudly

Posted on by
Reply

Graphics from ALA

Last week I blogged about Wesley Scroggins editorial in which he called for the removal of Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, “a book called Slaughterhouse Five” (’cause, yanno, you might not have heard of this Kurt Vonnegut guy) and Sarah Ockler’s Twenty Boy Summer from the schools and curriculum in his local schools. An editor’s note reported that superintendent of the Republic said that Twenty Boy Summer was under review, while Slaughterhouse Five had been removed from the curriculum.

I explained in my previous post why I think Ockler’s book is so amazing. Scroggins at best grossly misinterpreted it and, at worst, is purposefully misrepresenting it. Either way, we fellow Debs took this attack personally. But, organized by Saundra Mitchell, we are taking the high ground and we’re giving readers a chance to decide for themselves what they think about Sarah’s book. Debs Speak Loudly is a chance for you to win one of 100 copies of Twenty Boy Summer donated by us and Sarah’s publisher, Little Brown. So head over to the post and leave a comment — it’s as easy as that to enter!

Banned Books Week: They don’t ban books anymore do they?

Posted on by
Reply

Graphics from ALA

So, this week is Banned Books Week, which, according to the ALA’s website:

Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment.  Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.

Each year I celebrate BBW in my library. My favorite thing to do is to put paper covers over the books and write why they were banned on them. Inevitably, writing “Sexual content” or “Violence” or “explicit homosexual and heterosexual situations, profanity, underage drinking and smoking, extreme  moral shortcomings, child molesters, graphic pedophile situations and total lack of negative consequences throughout the book” makes teens pick them up. (That last one is for Augusten Burroughs Running with Scissors. Here’s the complete annotated list: Books Challenged and/or Banned – 2009-2010 (PDF))

My students often ask, “This was banned here?” and I explain that no, it was not banned in our school or library, but someone attempted to remove it from a school or library elsewhere. When they see books that they love and books that they are asked to read for school banned, it really makes them think.

Two things I probably don’t stress enough is that, although it is called Banned Books Week, in the United States it’s usually more about challenges. As the ALA site points out:

Fortunately, while some books were banned or restricted, in a majority of cases the books were not banned, all thanks to the efforts of librarians, teachers, booksellers, and members of the community to retain the books in the library collections.

However, book bannings do still happen in other countries, as well as the imprisonment of authors whose views don’t match those of their governments. The PEN’s Freedom to Write offers great information about how you can fight the silencing of writers worldwide.

Speak Loudly

Posted on by
Reply

Others who follow Laurie Halse Anderson’s blog will have read with dismay about the man in Missouri who equated her book, Speak, about a girl who is raped, with pornography. I am sure I cannot say as well as Laurie’s fans the power and impact of this book. She collected the responses into a poem which you can see her reading here:

I would also recommend you read Saundra Mitchell’s response to Scroggins opinion piece.

In addition to attacking Speak and classic Slaughterhouse Five (which he introduces as though his readers may not have heard of it), Scroggins sees fit to call filthy one of the more powerful books I read last year: Sarah Ockler’s Twenty Boy Summer. Ockler’s debut novel tells the story of Anna, who was secretly having a relationship with her best friend Anna’s older brother, Matt. After Matt dies, she is stricken with grief, but can’t speak about the depth of her pain. It is poignant and powerful, a thoughtful examination of grief and friendship. In his description, Scroggins gets some of the events right, but when he claims the book “glorifies” some of the things that go on — well, clearly he needs to learn how to read for nuance and tone.

Please support Laurie and Sarah. Please share your experiences as Laurie has asked. Let’s make our voices stronger than those who would silence us.

Music Monday: Lady Gaga v. Camille Paglia

Posted on by
1

Feminist critic and author Camille Paglia had an article over the weekend in the Sunday Times (London) Magazine about Lady Gaga. The Times charges for full access, but they do have a lengthy excerpt up.

American singer Lady Gaga, born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (Francois Berthier) Image from Sunday Times article

Certainly Gaga was ripe for this sort of critique. When someone puts herself — or a persona — out there as much as Gaga does, criticism and discussion is (or should be) the point. And, Gaga is less of an easy target to call out than say Taylor Swift.

I really like a lot of Gaga’s songs for a fun pop danceathon, but I do think she takes herself a little too seriously. The first interview I read with her she talked a lot about how it was all performance art. As Paglia points out:

There is a monumental disconnect between Gaga’s melodramatic self-portrayal as a lonely, rebellious, marginalised artist and the powerful corporate apparatus that bankrolled her makeover and has steamrollered her songs into heavy rotation on radio stations everywhere.

Where I wish Paglia hadn’t gone was to insult Gaga’s appearance. True, when one’s appearance is a big part of the act, it, too, should be up for critique. But Paglia goes beyond questioning the choices that Gaga makes (“For Gaga, sex is mainly decor and surface; she’s like a laminated piece of ersatz rococo furniture”), and insults her directly:

Drag queens, whom Gaga professes to admire, are usually far sexier in many of her over-the-top outfits than she is.

Gaga may indeed favor style over substance, but I would hope a leading critic would focus on substance and comment on that — or lack thereof.