Banned book week is underway. The event actually received some coverage in our local paper. In the student union at our nearest university, professors are taking time to read aloud from several banned/challenged books. I have also seen some neat posters celebrating the week on facebook.
We did a display in our local library a few years back and created paper chains to wrap up the table where we had placed copies of the banned books. It was quite impressive and garnered several comments.
I had only one book challenged during my two years on the library staff. It was a YA title, one of the few ones geared to boys, that had some 'locker room' language in a scene set in a locker room. Oy vey. The book stayed put as it was clearly geared towards older YA audiences. This week also reminds me of the set of parents at a local middle school who tried to ban Harry Potter. Then of course there is the whole incident of when our then middle school aged daughter checked out every copy of "The Golden Compass" so the kids who wanted them banned couldn't get to them. I did get her to return them so kids could check them out and see for themselves what the issue was or wasn't.
Happy Tuesday. Be a rebel, go read a banned book!
1 comment:
In our school library, we have to be careful what is purchased. What we don't want is the negative media attention that comes with some parent raising Cain about one of our books. Usually, our librarian has teachers read books he's unsure of, then, if they're a bit too likely to get us into trouble, he sends them over to the high school library or even the public library instead.
As a teacher, I've had parents upset over books before, either fantasy books or Shakespeare. And the parents are always uber-religious, usually either Jehovah's Witnesses or else one of those unidentified Bible-banging Protestant groups that thinks the term "Christian" applies only to them.
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