Banned+Books+lecturette


 * Lecturette: Challenged and Banned Books **

By now most of you are accustomed to hearing your parents and teachers urge you to read. “Turn off the video games and read something!” “Read chapters 1 through 4 by tomorrow.” We have all heard commands such as these. But have you ever been told not to read something? Believe it or not, it happens more often than you might think.

Many of you have experienced censorship in one way or another. Perhaps when you were younger you recall your parents demanding that you leave the room so they could discuss “grownup things” or telling you to turn off a television program because you weren’t old enough to watch it. Or maybe some of you even grew up with a V-chip in your TV that prevented you from accessing certain channels or programs or had access to certain web sites restricted. We have probably all experienced censorship at school in trying to access certain web sites that may be blocked for various reasons.

Book challenges and bans one form of censorship, and it is important to understand the difference between the two and why they happen.

A book **challenge** occurs when a person, very often a parent of a school-aged child or teen, asks that a certain book be reviewed for appropriateness either within a library or classroom. Frequently, the person does not want his or her child reading a particular book and asks that his or her child not be required (in the case of a class assignment) or allowed (in the case of a library) to read the book in question. Almost every school and library has a process in place for dealing with book challenges, and the parent, teacher, librarian, administration, and board members all have different parts of the process to complete before any action may or may not be taken. If after due process, the conclusion is reached that the book in question is not appropriate for anyone in the library or class, it can be removed from the shelf or from the curriculum. This challenge has then resulted in a **ban** on this particular book at this particular institution. Anyone may challenge a book, but only the administration or board of education (or directors in the case of a public library), may decide to ban a book.

There are people who believe that censorship is necessary to preserve a decent society, and many parents wish to have more control than others over the ideas to which their children are exposed. There are also people who believe that censorship in any form violates certain freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution. It is a never-ending battle that continues to rage here and all over the world. These battles have caused many casualties - including a death sentence inflicted upon Salman Rushdie by certain Muslim groups that strenuously objected to his book, //The Satanic Verses//, (Rushdie is still alive and publishing), as well as the deaths of many ideas and brilliant writing to which some people are never exposed.

There are a number of reasons why people do not think their children (or sometimes anyone for that matter, but the law says parents can control what their children read and don’t read, but not what other children read and don’t read) should be reading certain books. These reasons can be grouped into four main categories - political, social, sexual, and religious objections. Some books defy all four categories, and there are some grey areas where certain content might be classified in more than one category. As you read your “controversial” book, look for examples of these different categories:


 * Political ** - A book may present ideas which some perceive as threatening existing laws, ideologies, or patterns of thought within a system of government. Often government officials or school officials will remove the book in question or pressure other governing bodies to remove it with little resistance possible. This type of censorship has been more prevalent in totalitarian states, such as Nazi Germany, but has occurred in the United States (//Uncle Tom’s Cabin// was widely censored or banned here after its publication in 1851 because of its frank depiction of the horrors of slavery) and still occurs in other countries today.


 * Social ** - A book may be deemed as containing bad examples of thoughts, ideas, or behavior for young people. The book in question is believed to lead young people to question the status quo, or act in rebellious ways or, heaven forbid, think independently and thus question the world in which they live. A prime example of this is J.D. Salinger’s 1951 novel //The Catcher in the Rye//, in which the young protagonist is frustrated and disgusted by the adults in his world, and is not afraid to share his controversial opinions with the reader. This could also include perceptions of gratuitous violence (violence for the sake of violence) or simply disobeying laws or commands of authority figures.


 * Sexual ** - This one requires little explanation. Books that fit this category depict some degree of explicit sexual activity or thoughts of sexual activity, including masturbation and rape. Many parents wish to keep their children from learning about such practices as long as possible, or they may believe that some books encourage their children to participate in these acts or indulge sexual urges or fantasies.


 * Religious ** - This category features objections based on the perception that a book contains or encourages thoughts, language, and/or behaviors that violate the prescribed moral code of a given religion. This could include impure thoughts, obscene or blasphemous language (like taking the name of a deity in vain), or behaviors that are seen as immoral by a certain religion (fornication, homosexuality, acts of violence against a fellow man, stealing, or disobeying any range of religious orders, commands or models of correct thought and behavior).

Again, there are examples that may not fit perfectly into one category, but these are the most common. Feel free, as you read, to add a category you think is necessary to classify potentially objectionable material you may find. The book you are reading is on the list of most frequently challenged books, so you will be able to find many examples of content that some people will find objectionable. The bottom line is that people who object to ideas and language found in books are afraid that ideas and language can change the world for the worse. If this is true, then it stands to reason that ideas and language can also change the world for the better. Ideas and words truly are powerful and, if knowledge is indeed power, then it makes sense to be as knowledgeable (and thus as powerful) as we can possibly be in dealing with such powerful elements as ideas and language in order to be equal to the task of changing the world.