Slashdot Mirror
'Banned Books Week' Recognizes 2016's Most-Censored Books (and Comic Books) (newsweek.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Newsweek:
The American Library Association's yearly Banned Books Week, held this year between Sunday September 24 and Saturday September 30, is both a celebration of freedom and a warning against censorship. Launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries, the event spotlights the risk of censorship still present... "While books have been and continue to be banned, part of the Banned Books Week celebration is the fact that, in a majority of cases, the books have remained available. This happens only thanks to the efforts of librarians, teachers, students, and community members who stand up and speak out for the freedom to read," the ALA stated.
"This Banned Books Week, we're asking people of all political persuasions to come together and celebrate Our Right to Read," says a coalition supporting the event. The ALA reports that half of the most frequently challenged books were in fact actually banned last year, according to the library group's Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF), which calculates there were 17% more attempts to censor books in America in 2016. The five most-challenged books all contained LGBT characters, and the most common phrase used to complain about books is "sexually explicit," the OIF told Publisher's Weekly -- perhaps reflecting a change in targets. He believes one reason is that most challenges now are reported not for books in the library but against books in the advanced English curricula of some schools. This change also represents a shift upward in the age of the readers of the most challenged books. "We've moved from helicopter parenting, where people were hovering over their kids, to Velcro parenting," LaRue says. "There's no space at all between the hand of the parent and the head of the child. These are kids who are 16, 17; in one year they're going to be old enough to sign up for the military, get married, or vote, and their parents are still trying to protect them from content that is sexually explicit. I think that's a shift from overprotectiveness to almost suffocating."
Three of the 10 most-challenged books were graphic novels, so the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is sharing their own list of banned and challenged comics.
Their list includes two Neil Gaiman titles, Sandman and The Graveyard Book , as well two popular Batman titles -- Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Strikes Again and Alan Moore's The Killing Joke -- plus Moore's graphic novel Watchmen, Maus by Art Spiegelman, and even Amazing Spider-Man: Revelations by J. Michael Straczynski and John Romita, Jr.
"This Banned Books Week, we're asking people of all political persuasions to come together and celebrate Our Right to Read," says a coalition supporting the event. The ALA reports that half of the most frequently challenged books were in fact actually banned last year, according to the library group's Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF), which calculates there were 17% more attempts to censor books in America in 2016. The five most-challenged books all contained LGBT characters, and the most common phrase used to complain about books is "sexually explicit," the OIF told Publisher's Weekly -- perhaps reflecting a change in targets. He believes one reason is that most challenges now are reported not for books in the library but against books in the advanced English curricula of some schools. This change also represents a shift upward in the age of the readers of the most challenged books. "We've moved from helicopter parenting, where people were hovering over their kids, to Velcro parenting," LaRue says. "There's no space at all between the hand of the parent and the head of the child. These are kids who are 16, 17; in one year they're going to be old enough to sign up for the military, get married, or vote, and their parents are still trying to protect them from content that is sexually explicit. I think that's a shift from overprotectiveness to almost suffocating."
Three of the 10 most-challenged books were graphic novels, so the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is sharing their own list of banned and challenged comics.
Their list includes two Neil Gaiman titles, Sandman and The Graveyard Book , as well two popular Batman titles -- Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Strikes Again and Alan Moore's The Killing Joke -- plus Moore's graphic novel Watchmen, Maus by Art Spiegelman, and even Amazing Spider-Man: Revelations by J. Michael Straczynski and John Romita, Jr.
Why is it not a rule that you have to actually read the book before you ban it? Or did the censor completely miss the message of the book?
This one is from a public library so I have no idea what the problem with the age group is. It also shows another complete lack of understanding of the material.
I read the internet for the articles.
...in other words, books?
Ezekiel 23:20
Mein Kampf is banned in many countries.
The way it was implemented is a bit uncommon because it uses the copyright law : Hitler's property was seized by the government of Bavaria, including Mein Kampf copyright, and it was used to block the sales.
I really think that no list of banned books should be without it. Because it shows that censorship is not just about LGBT stuff, it is also about what "progressives" find despicable. And if you really are against censorship, you should also fight for Mein Kampf to be available.
It also shows that copyright abuse is a form of censorship.
You might want to look at who's trying to censor speech these days. Shouting down speakers they disagree with, demanding web hosts take down customers they disagree with, demanding schools change their names, rewriting history in wikipedia, rewriting definitions in dictionaries, tearing down statues.
It's only a matter of time before these so-called progressives start burning books. They'll claim the books were written by racists, or nazis, or whatever villain de jure they are using, and therefore it is all just and good.
I know, right? Ever since they tore down the statue of Robert E. Lee, I can't remember who won the Civil War.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The summary says most of the challenges are NOT about public libraries, but about school curriculum. One example being ELEMENTARY school having kids read about a transgender child.
So yes, "appropriate for age group" is a very valid concern - there are certainly books that are available to adults, but we shouldn't force all third and fourth graders to read them.
Multiple books on the list were about transgender children, presenting that as normal. It could well be argued that parents shouldn't be putting their children through multiple surgeries and heavy doses of unnatural hormones to turn a boy into a girl or vice versa, in the vast majority of cases. That's the kind of thing a person ought to decide for themselves, making an informed decision when they are an adult, some would say.
One might reasonably think that having surgeries done on your little boy to turn him into a little girl may, in many cases, be child abuse, so forcing elementary school kids to read that is normal may not be appropriate.
I don't care to argue for or against on any of these issues, but they are certainly issues on which reasonable people may disagree. On such issues, perhaps the government schools shouldn't be forcing this stuff on grade-school kids. If you want to teach your kids that it's normal to chop off a little boys penis, you can do that, but I don't see that you have a need or a right to force that on every other family.
> I think most librarians and bibliophiles would find that suggestion offensive.
I've suggested that library funds ought NOT be used entirely to push a particular political agenda, that perhaps a library should buy an unabridged dictionary before it buys dozens of "transgender children" books. I'm sure that idea, that basic English is more important than their political ideology, offends some people, but I don't think MOST.
I also suggested that basic science books may, in some cases, be more important than having even more copies of each of Trump's books.
> Literature from opposing viewpoints is important.
Opposing what? 100% of Library Association leadership who donated in 2016 donated to Democrats only. ALA leaders think opposing Trump is important, important enough to spend their own money on. Assuming they are human, their biases will affect their ideas of which advocacy works are good and should be purchased for the library. They'd not be human if they weren't affected by their own bias.
Personally, I think that when presenting one side of a contentious issue, the other side should also be presented as well - "some people think this, other people think that". Even more important for a school or public library, I think, is the basic, non-contentious science, math etc which can be used to evaluate ALL arguments. I would start with reference works such as dictionaries, almanacs, an atlas etc, before getting into opinion pieces or advocacy works which should reference those reference works. For example, a reader can't make an informed evaluation of how a tax cut or tax increase may affect the federal budget unless they first know what mandatory spending and discretionary spending are. The school or library should have material for people to find out what the federal budget currently is, and how it's created and analyzed, before buying more stuff advocating what someone thinks the budget should be.
To be informed a issues relating to "transgender children", rather than merely progandized, it would be of great help to have books for people to learn about what chromosomes are, what hormones are and how they affect our bodies, etc.
In other words, I think government, both government schools and government-funded libraries, should seek FIRST to inform, before they advocate. Someone who has read about chemistry and other sciences can make up their mind about acid rain, presenting a lot of stuff about acid rain while refusing to stock chemistry books is propagandizing people, not educating them.
Additionally, advocacy groups already do a pretty good job of getting their message out. The tax payer doesn't need to be assisting the NRA and the MoveOn as much as we need to be helping people get informed on the objective facts, in my opinion. So when we're at the bottom of the list, we can afford one more book, I'd prefer a fact-based book about actual historic events over anything put out by either MoveOn or the NRA. The advocates can fight it out on CNN and Fox, in my opinion.