While I am not sure if “Happy” is the correct greeting, the last week of September, this year being September 27-October 3, is Banned Books Week and I encourage all to add it to your list of annual observances. We at LREI try to recognize this observance each year and to speak to your children about this important, thought provoking moment. For many, the idea of a book being “challenged” or banned is an old-fashioned notion. It is important to note that challenges to books in schools and libraries is on-going. To be clear about the issue, according to the American Library Association (ALA): A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those materials. Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others.
More simply put, a challenge is when one person or organization suggests that another organization (school, library, etc.) should restrict the rights of some to have, and to express, ideas. It is as simple as that, restricting expression. It may be in the best interest of certain organizations to restrict hate speech or speech that is threatening. I can hear this. However, this response to difficult ideas must be balanced with the fact that any restriction on the expression of ideas begins to chip away at freedom of expression for us all.
Many challenges happen when a parent has a concern about a text that is assigned in school. This child and her/his family have likely found themselves in a legitimately tough spot. The child has to read the book for class. The parent and/or the child have concerns about the book’s content or themes and are grappling with the conflicts said themes create with the family’s values. This is an understandably disconcerting situation. What is this family to do?
Even ideas that we oppose or find offensive present opportunities to learn. Discussions between parents and children about these ideas are generative and the child’s exposure to these ideas will rarely bring long-term harm. However, avoiding or banishing new ideas, even when repellent, will be of long-term harm, if it becomes habitual. Sometimes, ideas that come out of left-field, that make us uncomfortable, that seem outlandish, that push us, change the world.
I encourage you to read a banned book this week. Many of your children are doing so, as a number of the books on the lists linked below can also be found on LREI’s reading lists. Are these works on our lists because they are banned or challenged? No. Our students read these books because they open up the world, with all of its complexities, unvarnished and honest, for their readers. They do, quite simply, what good literature does for us all, they allow us to experience lives and events, places and people, times and cultures, that we might otherwise not have an opportunity to bump up against. So go ahead, read a book and, if you are lucky, it will challenge you, maybe even offend you, and, if you are very lucky, you will learn something about the world and about yourself.
I am off to read In the Night Kitchen, by Maurice Sendak, an oft-challenged book, to the Kindergarten,
You can learn more about Banned Books Week at:
An article on teens and banned books