Americans have a reflexive resistance
to the idea of censoring literature and the banning of books. This is the land of
free speech, after all. Certainly we’ve wrestled with it in the past, but we’re
generally accustomed to titles being verboten
in other, more repressive societies – the Bible in Saudi Arabia, Animal Farm in North Korea, The Da Vinci Code in Lebanon, to name
three – while here we take for granted the availability of even the most historically
controversial material, from Mein Kampf
to The Story of O. And yet the threat
of censorship still looms surprisingly near.
Recently a California charter
school decided to pull
Corrie ten Boom’s Holocaust memoir The
Hiding Place from its library because, according to the report of
a parent at the school, library staff were told to “remove Christian books, books
by Christian authors, and books from Christian publishers.” The superintendent defended
the removal because at the school, “we do not allow sectarian materials on our
state-authorized lending shelves.”
Yes, this is one incident in one
school, but it is censorship in its purest form, and the motivations for it – anti-Christian
bigotry and a misguided determination to purge the state of anything to do with
religion – are national in scope. Written material that proselytizes might – might – be one thing, but a sweeping ban
on Christian books, authors, and publishers? There go St. Augustine’s Confessions, C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, and anything from
the more than 200-year-old Thomas Nelson firm (publishers of the bestselling Heaven is for Real). How does this
benefit the students?
The ten Boom book is the inspiring,
harrowing tale of a family heroically saving the lives of about 800 Jews by hiding
them from the Gestapo. The family paid the price for it in concentration camps.
The book openly states that what motivated the family’s sacrifice was their
Christian faith, and for that, the school has deemed the book objectionable.
Last week, appropriately, also
happened to be Banned Books Week, an annual event organized by the American
Library Association (ALA) to bring together the entire “book community –
librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers of all
types – in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas.”
The event brings national attention
to the ongoing threat of censorship. The books featured during Banned Books
Week have all been targeted with bans or challenges in libraries and schools
(as the ALA explains,
“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”).
The ALA maintains a list of
challenged books and authors, where the challenges occur, and what the reasons
are for them. Most of the books have remained available “thanks to the efforts
of librarians, teachers, students, and community members who stand up and speak
out for the freedom to read.”
The Corrie ten Boom example
notwithstanding, the vast majority of challenges were initiated
by parents, as you might imagine. According to these helpful Huffington Post infographics, the most commonly cited reason for challenging a
book in 2013 was “sexual explicitness” – as in, for example, Fifty Shades of Grey (no surprise there,
although I would prefer to see that book challenged on the basis of its
offensively poor writing). “Offensive language” (such as in Captain Underpants) was a distant second,
and then “unsuited for age group” (Hunger
Games).
While the “unsuited for age group”
category is perfectly valid – some material is simply too adult for kids, so
save it for a more appropriate age of students – controversial books should be
read and debated, not forbidden or destroyed. Fahrenheit 451, anyone?
(This article originally appeared here on Acculturated, 9/30/14)