ALA LOVES its banned book list.
Wait, sorry, Banned & Challenged Book List.
We’ve gotten as far as the title, and already we’ve got a problem.
What’s a ban, what’s a challenge?
What is a challenge? Attempt to remove or restrict materials or services based on content
What is a ban? Removal of materials or cancellation of services based on content.
ALA defines the two things individually, so clearly ALA sees there’s an important difference between books that are challenged and books that are banned.
That difference is success.
Interestingly enough MOST materials that are challenged are not banned.
Does “most” mean 90% or 55%? Dunno.
But what’s really unfortunate is that although ALA recognizes this difference, challenge v. ban, they collapse the two things together in further statistics, so we aren’t able to really explore the problem.
Real Problem or Not?
Libraries are not in control of the population, nor should they be.
Any number of people can challenge any number of books for any reason. Consider that in your city, there is at least one nut who is going to challenge books. There’s someone who shoots road signs with a rifle. There’s someone who spray paints dicks all over the sidewalk at the park. These people are among us all the time.
It’s not our place to prevent them from making these challenges, it’s our place to A) select materials that we can defend from an intellectual freedom standpoint, and B) defend those materials that are challenged.
In recent news, we’ve seen a huge increase in the reporting on challenges, but that information is less important than the number of bans that result from successful challenges.
It certainly seems like library materials are being challenged a lot more right now, however, that just doesn’t disturb me. Weird as this sounds, challenging books is “in” right now. It’s a popular way to express a certain political viewpoint and/or to try and reclaim some power lost when we’ve got a progressive President.
But whether or not materials are challenged isn’t what this is about.
It’s about whether or not those challenged materials are retained. Which, for the most part, they are.
Popularity
One of the things we’ll come across is that “Pete, you’re a monster, lots of LGBTQIA+ books are on the list right now! Can’t you see where this is heading!?”
But the truth is, The Banned Books list always has and always will bear close resemblance to the bestselling books of the year and/or books that are being assigned a lot.
In 2020, the presence of books that espouse anti-racist views showed up on the list more frequently. One possible interpretation is that anti-racist books were being challenged because they were anti-racist, however, I think it’s highly likely that they were going to get the most challenges because they were being read in workplaces and book clubs, in high schools and middles schools. They were enormously popular, widely read, and therefore, they are going to be challenged.
Of Mice and Men is a very frequent placer on the list. Why? Because it’s a classic, it’s short, it’s an easy read, and therefore it’s assigned all over the place. It has nothing to do with its level of offensiveness, especially compared to other books, and everything to do with its frequent appearances.
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich, a book about how difficult it is to make it on minimum wage, was the 39th most-challenged book from 2010-2019 and is oft-forgotten these days. Now, one could look at these challenges as someone trying to suppress the information that would make people dissatisfied with minimum wage. But it’s more likely that this was frequently challenged because of its assigned reading status. When I look back at info from the time, it’s sometimes banned for “promoting economic fallacies,” but it seems more objections come from vulgarity, drug use, and for being anti-Christian.
When you assign a book that refers to Jesus as a “wine-guzzling vagrant and precocious socialist,” watch out.
The chances of a book being challenged go up a lot if people are reading it. That’s why you see Harry Potter on the list, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and so on. There’s nothing offensive about these books, but there they are. Because they’re popular.
This is why you NEVER see any of my books on the list, by the way. A tree that yells a bunch of swear words while it falls in the empty forest will offend no one. You hear that, trees? Go for it.
Let’s Look At Some Challenges
The Stupids Die (1985) A grandparent filed a request for reconsideration at the Hermiston (OR) Public Library objecting to the derogatory last name in the children’s humorous picture book. Retained.
So grandpa didn’t like that the word “Stupid” was the last name of The Stupids? If nothing else, it seems to me that if The Stupids were going to collapse society, they would’ve done so since 1985, perhaps in the movie version of the book starring Tom Arnold. If society can stand up to that, it can stand up to anything.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007) When this YA novel was used in an eighth-grade language arts class at the North Albany (OR) Middle School, a parent of a student in a different class (not the class reading the book) objected to the language and references to masturbation. The Reconsideration Committee voted to retain the book.
A parent whose child wasn’t even in the class?
The Handmaid’s Tale: This classic novel was included on a reading list before the beginning of a twelfth-grade advanced placement literature and composition class at a north Atlanta suburb’s high school in Georgia. A student’s mother forbade him from choosing the book. Alleging “porn and gore and cursing,” the mother wanted the book removed from the high school and held prayer circles outside the library while a committee of more than a dozen staff, administrators, and parents discussed the item. Retained.
The “Mom, You’re Embarrassing Me” award of the year goes to…
Shoot Your Shot: A Sport-Inspired Guide To Living Your Best Life (2018) The interim superintendent of a Providence, Rhode Island, school district directed the purchase of 16,510 copies of the basketball-related motivational book as mandatory reading for all middle and high school students. Following concerns by district teachers that the books were overtly religious, the superintendent withdrew the requirement. The books remain, but reading them is voluntary.
I mean, yeah, requiring kids in a public school to read a book that’s overtly religious seems like a misstep. I like this one because we need to remember that some challenges are NOT wrong, and in some cases, challenges can be about expanding rights, not restricting them. Challenging this book in the curriculum, but retaining it in the library, is a great example of making something available, but not forcing students to read something that espouses a specific belief system.
Travels of Babar (1932) A patron objected to the “racist depictions of Africans” with “stereotypical features” in this children’s book. Retained.
Well…they’re not wrong. I’ll let you google for yourself on that one, but I think it’s pretty fair to say there are some depictions that ain’t so hot. I think this is a good one for the “application of contemporary community standards.” I DO think historic materials like this have their place, but I don’t necessarily think that place is in among the children’s picture books where someone is likely to just happen upon it.
Hubbard, L. Ron All titles by author A patron submitted a statement of concern about the library’s collection of Scientology materials written by L. Ron Hubbard, stating “more books give the cult the appearance of legitimacy.” The materials were retained, and the library notified the patron.
The problem here is that the patron equates having a material on the shelf with endorsement of that material’s contents, which is not how libraries work as most libraries will present multiple versions of something as being equally true, especially in the case of religion. There are lots of people who think along these lines, and I get it, but we need to remember that this is not the right way to view a library’s collection.
Twiss, Jill A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo (2018) A person defaced this parody of Marlon Bundo’s A Day in the Life of the Vice President, writing in the book that “Girl bunnies marry boy bunnies. This is the way it has always been.” Then the person added, “because science.” No formal request for reconsideration was filed. The director announced that typically people are asked to pay for books they have damaged.
Now, c’mon. Is someone defacing a book seriously being considered a “request for reconsideration?” It’s bad, bad behavior. BAD PATRON! But calling this a “challenge” is a stretch, if you ask me. If we’re going to call this a challenge, literally every piece of library furniture in existence since time immemorial has been “challenged” by a drawing of a dick, a marijuana leaf, or a misspelled swear word.
Well, there you have it.
Should we be panicked about the rise in challenges? No.
We should only panic when and if a larger percentage of them are successful.
Yes, it’s likely that a larger total number of challenges will result in bans this year. If you have more challenges, you’ll have more bans.
But this is why I’m let down by ALA: We should be looking at the number of challenges, the ratio that are made into successful bans, and whether that ratio is increasing, decreasing, or remaining steady. That’s how we can really tell whether intellectual freedom is endangered or is just a hot topic at the moment, which will fade once people get bored and move on.