Soapbox: Banned Books Week

Next week (October 8th) "Howl" is coming to the Angelika in Dallas. I thought it was only fitting to go ahead and get on my soapbox and tie this movie into Banned Book Week, which is going on right now.

Banned Books Week is this week, September 25th through October 1st. This is a week where awareness is raised for books that have been challenged in some way in the past. Therefore, I've taken my freshmen down to the library so our librarian can talk to them about what all that means. I know that most students don't think about their right to read the books they want (assuming that any of my 150 students, indeed, would enjoy reading for pleasure), but I think it's important that they are at least aware that people are trying to censor and control that. The funny thing to witness is their turn from indifference or ignorance about this issue, to getting fired up about the the thought of someone taking away their choice to read a certain book, even if they aren't interested in the book. A lot of times, they don't care about their rights until someone tells them that their rights are being threatened.

While sitting and watching my librarian talk about the books that have been challenged, I can't help but squirm just a little bit. The reasons that people have challenged books are so petty and ridiculous in most all cases. For example, Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstine was challenged because in one of his silly poems he mentions eating the baby and that encourages cannibalism. In Where's Waldo, there are ladies in bikinis, even though it is because they are on a beach. Madeline L'engle's Wrinkle in Time was challenged because it promoted evil and witchcraft, even though she is a well-known Christian author. Even Little House on the Prairie was challenged... I mean, mostly that book is about hugging your family and sewing dolls.

Now, do I think that each family has the right to choose what topics/subject matter they allow to be read within their own household? Of course, that right is reserved for parents to make for themselves and their children. But, do I believe that that choice should be made for every family in the US by one group who doesn't agree with a book's content? Absolutely not. I think it should be an individual decision, not something that is forced onto anyone. Don't take books off of shelves and deprive those of us who want to give it a try the chance to do that. 

As the presentation ends each class period, I find that my students are more interested in these banned books now that they know some of these titles are taboo. Perhaps if none of them had seen this presentation and were never informed of this censorship, they would have never wanted to read these books. My guess is, they wouldn't have. But because these books were challenged or banned, they in turn became much more interesting to my students than they ever would have been before. Which brings me around to my point, when people decide to complain and boycott most things, it usually has the opposite effect that they want. It just draws more attention to it and will eventually cause interest and awareness to rise. If it's a book you want no one to ever read, raising heck about it isn't the way to go about it. 

This reminds me of a situation that happened just a few years ago surrounding the release of The Golden Compass to movie theaters. There were all kinds of controversies with that, and a few groups (who most had never even read the book, so this was completely out of ignorance; many didn't even know the movie was based on a book!) thought it was a great idea to rally and boycott the movie. And what happened? It was on the news everywhere, raised more awareness than any marketing the film could have produced, and got some people interested in it that never would have seen it otherwise, had it not been for all the controversy.

I guess, with that in mind, I should be thanking those groups who have gone up against some of my favorite books and tried to get them censored and taken off shelves. If it wasn't for them, the controversy and hype surrounding them wouldn't exist and therefore the interest in them wouldn't continue to peak like it does. My students wouldn't be interested in reading these classic books now, that early today, before it was talked about in the Banned Books Presentation, they would never have thought twice about. Movies, such as "Howl" wouldn't exist. There wouldn't be anything interesting enough to write a script without it! So thanks censorship! I'm glad that a lot of the time, it back fires.