Mundie Moms

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Banned Books Week Guest Author Post by Christine Johnson

So, during banned books week, there’s always a lot of discussion about how banning is a form of censorship and how terrible that is. That books are a commodity that should be available to everyone. I’m going to go out on a limb here. I’m going come right out and say that I think censorship is okay. Banning books is absolutely fine.

But not in schools. Not at libraries.

Book banning belongs in individual homes.

Listen, I’m the first one to get my back up at the suggestion that someone else can tell me what to do or what to read/not read. And because I try *very, very hard* not to be hypocritical, I recognize that this means that I don’t get to tell other people what to read, either. If someone’s offended by the language in a book, or the content, they shouldn’t have to read it and neither should their kids. If parents have particular religious values or moral codes that preclude their kids from being exposed to certain materials, then they should monitor their family’s literary diets to make sure they’re appropriately wholesome.

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to see this issue from the point of view of the book banners. As infuriating as I find their actions, they *genuinely* seem to feel that they’re doing good work. That they’re protecting the innocent from something harmful by keeping them from reading books that contain material they deem “inappropriate.” But I just can’t manage to digest their position that they somehow have the right to dictate the moral standards of entire schools. Entire library systems.

Why? Why isn’t it enough for them to tell their own children not to read SPEAK, or TWENTY BOY SUMMER, or pretty much anything Kurt Vonnegut’s ever written? Do they have so little control over their own kids that the only way to prevent them from reading this “smut” is to have it eradicated completely from their environments?

Book banning is - at it’s core - an issue of control. Controlling the information that’s available. Controlling what kids experience, literarily and otherwise. And that’s fine. I welcome ANYONE to control what their own kids read. If they are so deeply concerned that their child might stumble across something retina-searing in the public school library . . . all 50 states allow a child to be home-schooled. There are private, religious educational institutions whose literary selections are likely to be less controversial.

I disagree with those sort of strict reading standards, largely because I think the world is built with as much ugliness as loveliness and most of the banned/challenged books are at least trying to make sense of that ugliness. And teens most definitely need a way to make sense of the world’s horrors if they’re going to be expected to face them as adults. But I’m digressing. That’s *my* opinion. That’s why I’ll let my kids read without qualification, though I’ll be watching carefully and talking extensively with them about books that contain difficult topics.

If I don’t want anyone telling me that I *can’t* do it that way, then I realize that I have to suck it up and let other parents lock away those same books I’ll let my kids read. I have to let them hide their children from the ugliness even as I take my children’s hands and walk them through it.

So - message to the book banners, the censors, the zealots - HAVE AT IT. Go nuts. Redact GOODNIGHT MOON if you want to. I’ll even smile and wave as you do it. But keep that crap behind your own doors, please. Because the second you try to take my kid’s copy of HIS DARK MATERIALS or HARRY POTTER, you’ve gone too far. The second that you come into a *public* school and try to impose your *private* standards on the kids in those classrooms - that’s when those of us on this side of the issue will push back. And we’ll keep pushing until you’re safely locked inside your own homes, where your censorship belongs.

----------
Christine Johnson is the author of Claire De Lune. You can find out more about Christine and her writing by visiting her website here http://www.christinejohnsonbooks.com/

Thank you Christine for taking the time to share with us your thoughts about Banned Books Week!!

11 comments:

  1. Thank you so much for this post!! I have nothing to add except- "YEAH, WHAT SHE SAID!" I agree 100%!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well said. I thing the whole problem with the education in the US is that parents don't take interest anymore.

    There are some books which should be banned in schools though. I've read one book this year which is has hard core pornography & extreme violence in it, I can't see anyone under 18 reading it (didn't care for the book either). The book was billed as an extraordinary story of redemption, or something like that.

    http://www.ManOfLaBook.com

    ReplyDelete
  3. I completely agree! I'm reminded of the Clare Boothe Luce quote: "Censorship, like charity, should begin at home, but, unlike charity, it should end there."

    ReplyDelete
  4. WELL DONE! I couldn't have said it better myself.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks, everyone!

    And Man of La Books - the thing is YOU thought it was pornographic and unnecessarily violent, but that doesn't mean *I* would label it that way. It's not okay to ban it based on *your* definitions when *I* am the one seeking to read it (hypothetically.)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Ms. Johnson,

    yes, I was thinking that same thing a second after I pressed "submit".

    http://www.ManOfLaBook.com

    ReplyDelete
  7. Well said. I whole-heartedly agree! :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Well said Christine Johnson, agree totally.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Fantastic post Christine. A big thank you to the Mundie Moms for your continued support of banned books week and all the wonderful guest posts you've had about it. I'm linking to this post on Scribe Sisters blog today!

    ReplyDelete

Labels