Banned Books WeekSeptember 21-27, 2014

BY ORDER OF THE HIGH INQUISITOR OF HOGWARTS

Any student found in possession of the magazine The Quibbler will be expelled.

The above is in accordance with Educational Decree Number Twenty-seven. Signed: Dolores Jane Umbridge, High Inquisitor

For some reason, every time Hermione caught sight of one of these signs she beamed with pleasure.

“What exactly are you so happy about?” Harry asked her.

“Oh, Harry, don’t you see?” Hermione breathed. “If she could have done one thing to make absolutely sure that every

single person in this school will read your interview, it was banning it!”

And it seemed that Hermione was quite right. By the end of the day, though Harry had not seen so much as a corner of

The Quibbler anywhere in the school, the whole place seemed to be quoting the interview to each other.

J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Chapter 26 Seen and Unforseen

What

does

it

mean t

o b

an a

book?

Banning a book is

when a person or

group decides that a book is so inappropriate in some way that NO ONE should read the book. Then the person or group has the book removed from the shelves of libraries.

How does a book get banned?An individual or group files a formal

challenge with a school or library, requesting that a book or material be removed

The school or library forms a committee to review the material

The committee votes on if the material should be removed or retained

If the material is kept on the shelf, the person filing the complaint may file another complaint with the court system, which then will review the case

How often are books banned?In 2013, there were 307 (464 in 2012)

REPORTED challenges. “A challenge is defined as a formal, written complaint, filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness.”

A book is challenged if someone requests that it be removed from library shelves.

A book is banned if the library or school agrees to remove it from circulation.

More challenges are filed against schools than against other institutions.

Why are books challenged or banned?

Books usually are challenged to protect others, frequently children, from difficult ideas and information.

Most librarians see challenges as grounded in good intention and pure in conviction, but they are ultimately illegal and restrictive.

Why are books challenged?

Why are books challenged or banned?—The ISSUES

Family values

Political values

Intellectual freedom (Former President Ahmadinejad, of Iran, insists that the Holocaust did not happen—and he thinks that is his lasting legacy)

Does Banning a

Book Protect People?

Why not ban books?1st Amendment rights--

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

What’s wrong with Banning Books?

Books provide education on a wide variety of subjects and the opportunity to have an experience vicariously

Without a wide variety of views, change cannot occur within a society

It is not possible to experience events such as the Holocaust or life in Puritan society but these events helped shape the world we live in today and it is important to have knowledge of those events.

Effects of Banning BooksWithout examples such as Maya Angelou’s experiences in her childhood (I know why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou), how would people who have not experienced racism learn about racism?Without The Scarlet Letter, how would we understand Puritan society and how it operated?Without Fahrenheit 451, how would you understand what effect burning books could have on a person and how the desire for banned items increases their interest and mystery?

In other words, reading is an opportunity to experience an event without actually living through it.

Should other people decide what YOU read?

Parents and teachers are responsible for helping you select reading materials while they are still responsible for you. But as an adult, you have the freedom to read books of your choice and to decide what your own children may or may not be allowed to read.

According to the Library Bill of Rights…..

Parents—have the right and the responsibility to restrict the access of their children—and only their children—to library resources.” Censorship by librarians of constitutionally protected speech, whether for protection or for any other reason, violates the First Amendment.

Challenges by Year

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 20120

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

762

661

595

478 472

646

448

515

458

547

405

546

420

513

460

348326

464

What books have been banned?

Banned from public libraries in Wisconsin, Gwinnett County, Georgia, and Leon County Florida

Objections: semi-pornographic, poorly written, does not suit community standards, erotica against policy

(Will not be ordered by CCHS—does not fit our collection policy because it does not support or enrich the school curriculum. While it might encourage some of you to read, the books we choose are to be notable and those books that are controversial are to be carefully selected, with information on opposing sides made available. Also, the recommended audience is adult and teenagers –whether you like it or not-do not fit that audience demographic.)

What books have been banned?

Offensive language, religious questions

Johnny Wheelwright lives in New Hampshire with his mom who “chose to have me and to never explain a word about me or to her mother or to her sister”. Johnny never knew who his dad was, and was rather scrawny and wimpy so it was only natural for him to find a friend in Owen Meany. Owen was small for his age – and has damage to his larynx which leaves his voice very squeaky and needless to say, the blunt of many jokes. But – Owen is wise beyond his years and knows more about life at the age of ten than most people do well into their later adult years. When a tragic accident happens at a baseball game involving Owen… Owen feels this was foreseen by God, therefore – Owen is an instrument of God.

What books have been banned?

Offensive language (Banned at the time of publication in many places in the South because of it’s anti-slavery theme and in Russia because it was considered to undermine religious ideals)

What books have been banned?

Ordered BURNED in East St. Louis for indecency and obscenity—it actually was restricted to adults only instead of being burned

What books have been banned?

Banned in a number of places over the years because of objections to the language used and the perception that the book promotes racism.

What books have been banned?

Fahrenheit 451 is about book burning and the effect that banning or censoring books has on a society.

What books have been banned?

Many have objected to the “magical content” in this book, claiming it promotes witchcraft and evil content. (Katherine Paterson’s degree is in Christian education and she is the daughter of Christian missionaries.)

What books have been banned?

Many have objected to the “magical content” in this book, and the other Harry Potter books, claiming it promotes witchcraft and evil content.

What books have been banned?

This book was banned because there is a wine bottle in the basket on the cover of the book. Some people believed the book promoted drinking alcoholic beverages.

What books have been banned?

This book was banned for encouraging inappropriate behavior: eating worms and gambling

What books have been banned?

Banned for inappropriate content, promotion of cannibalism (The poem Dreadful)

What books have been banned?

Banned in some schools and libraries because of ‘inappropriate pictures’ (beach page—some of our English students found it one year)

What books have been banned?Banned in some

schools and libraries in California and because of content about the logging industry— “criminalizes the forestry industry”

Top Books Challenged in 2013

Captain Underpants / Pilkey

The Bluest Eye / Morrison

The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indiana / Alexie

Fifty Shades of Gray / James

The Hunger Games / Collins

A Bad Boy Can be Good for a Girl / Stone

Looking for Alaska / Green

The Perks of Being a Wallflower / Chbosky

Bless me Ultima / Anaya

Bone series / Smity

Other books challenged--

Black Beauty / Anna Sewell

Hop on Pop / Dr. Seuss (violence to parents-Toronto, 2014)

The Bible

Animal Farm / George Orwell

Catcher in the Rye / J. D. Salinger

Goosebumps books / R. L. Stine

Scary Stories / Alvin Schwartz

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary

--and many more…..

Court Cases(Foundations of Free Speech)Evans v. Selma Union High School District of Fresno County, 222 P. 801 (Ca. 1924)

The California State Supreme Court held that the King James version of the Bible was not a "publication of a sectarian, partisan, or denominational character" that a State statute required a public high school library to exclude from its collections. The "fact that the King James version is commonly used by Protestant Churches and not by Catholics" does not "make its character sectarian," the court stated. "The mere act of purchasing a book to be added to the school library does not carry with it any implication of the adoption of the theory or dogma contained therein, or any approval of the book itself, except as a work of literature fit to be included in a reference library."

Court Cases (Foundations of Free Speech)

Rosenberg v. Board of Education of City of New York, 92 N.Y.S.2d 344 (Sup. Ct. Kings County 1949)

After considering the charge that Oliver Twist and the Merchant of Venice are "objectionable because they tend to engender hatred of the Jew as a person and as a race," the Supreme Court, Kings County, New York, decided that these two works cannot be banned from the New York City schools, libraries, or classrooms, declaring that the Board of Education "acted in good faith without malice or prejudice and in the best interests of the school system entrusted to their care and control, and, therefore, that no substantial reason exists which compels the suppression of the two books under consideration."

Court Cases (Foundations of Free Speech)Minarcini v. Strongsville (Ohio) City School District, 541 F.2d 577 (6th Cir. 1976)

The Strongsville City Board of Education rejected faculty recommendations to purchase Joseph Heller's Catch-22 and Kurt Vonnegut's God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater and ordered the removal of Catch-22 and Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle from the library. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled against the School Board, upholding the students' First Amendment right to receive information and the librarian's right to disseminate it. "The removal of books from a school library is a much more serious burden upon the freedom of classroom discussion than the action found unconstitutional in Tinker v. Des Moines School District."

Court Cases(Freedom of Expression in Schools)

Zykan v. Warsaw (Indiana) Community School Corporation and Warsaw School Board of Trustees, 631 F.2d 1300 (7th Cir. 1980)

A student brought suit seeking to reverse school officials' decision to "limit or prohibit the use of certain textbooks, to remove a certain book from the school library, and to delete certain courses from the curriculum." The district court dismissed the suit. On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled that the school board has the right to establish a curriculum on the basis of its own discretion, but it is forbidden to impose a "pall of orthodoxy." The right of students to file complaints was recognized, but the court held that the students' claims "must cross a relatively high threshold before entering upon the field of a constitutional claim suitable for federal court litigation."

What do authors say

about banning books?

Stephen King(author of Carrie, Cujo, and

others)

•  ”When a book is banned, a whole set of thoughts is locked behind the assertion that there is only one valid set of values, one valid set of beliefs, one valid perception of the world. It's a scary idea, especially in a society which has been built on the ideas of free choice and free thought.” AND “ Do I think that all ideas should be allowed in school libraries? I do not.”

Laurie Halse Anderson(author of Speak)

A guy named Richard Swier in Florida thinks that SPEAK is "child pornography."

I wish I were making that up.

SPEAK is cautionary tale about the emotional aftermath of rape. It tackles bullying, depression, rape, sexual harassment, and family dysfunction. It teaches children that when bad things happen, they need to speak up, even when it's hard. It has given hope to tens of thousands of readers since 1999. It is a standard in curriculum across the country.

Jeff Smith(author of Bone series)

• “The point, is that they are trying to take away someone else’s ability to choose what they want to read, and you can’t do that.”

Cory Doctorow(author of Little Brother)

• I think that it's a pity that I'm not going to get a chance to do that (discuss the novel) with your whole school," Doctorow said on YouTube. "And it's not because I think you all should read my book or because I was hoping to sell you a lot of copies. ... I was doing this because I think this whole discussion is important, and I think talking about it in schools is important.“

• (On his book being removed from reading lists in Pensacola, Florida—he sent 200 copies of his book to the school and made it available for a free download.)

Neil Gaiman(author of Nevermore)

• “Well-meaning adults can easily destroy a child’s love of reading. Stop them reading what they enjoy or give them worthy-but-dull books that you like—the 21st-century equivalents of Victorian ’improving’ literature—you’ll wind up with a generation convinced that reading is uncool and, worse, unpleasant.”

In the news…September 10, 2014

Wilmington, NC: Brunswick County education officials have decided to keep a challenged book partially hidden behind the middle school library shelves. In a 4-1 vote Tuesday night, the school board voted to require written parental permission before students can check out Sherman Alexie’s “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian.” Only one school board member dissented.

“You must respect all religions and point of views when it comes to the parents and what they feel is age appropriate for their young children to read, without their knowledge,” Kimiyutta Parson wrote in her complaint. “This book is freely in your library for them to read”. Person also objected to the book’s language and sexual content…

“Invisible Man” is a first-person narrative by a black man who considers himself socially invisible. It was originally published in 1952.

September 26, 2013“Last night in Asheboro, NC, the Randolph County Board of Education voted 6-1 to rescind its ban on Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and return the book to local high school library shelves, the Courier-Tribune reported. On September 16, the board had voted 5-2 to ban the book, but the decision sparked a wave of international attention, especially because it occurred just days before the start of Banned Books Week.

Chris Brook, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina Legal Foundation, said that the board “righted a wrong”. The freedom to read is just as essential to a healthy democracy as the freedom of speech and all other rights protected by the US Constitution…This episode should serve as a valuable reminder to students, teachers, aprents, and school officials across the state of our ongoing duty to promote academic freedom, ensure the free exchange of ideas and information, and reject the always looming threat that censorship and suppression, for any reason, pose to a free society.”

June 10, 2014

Cory Doctorow’s book, Little Brother, was pulled from summer reading assignments at Booker T. Washington High School in Pensacola, Florida because the principal felt it endorsed hacker culture and questioned authority. The book is available in the library, but not as an assignment.

What to do about banning books?

Exercise your rights! Read a banned book today

Talk to your neighbors about why everyone should be allowed to choose for themselves and their families what they read

If you want to know more, visit the ALA website on challenged and banned books

Sources:• Poster Images from: American Booksellers Foundation for Free

Expression,• http://www.abffe.org/bbw-posters.htm

• Book Cover Images from: Alibris www.alibris.com

• Court Case citations from The American Library Association, Notable First Amendment Court Cases website: http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/firstamendment/courtcases/courtcases.htm

• Images from: Esquire <http://www.esquire.com/blogs/books/Banned-Books-Week-Blog>, Freedom to Read Foundation <http://www.ftrf.org/?page=BBW>