Writer's Block: Book review

[apocalypsos]

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Banning books is WRONG.

Banning books is WRONG.

Banning books is WRONG.

Now whoever came up with this question can go write it on the chalkboard another 999,997 times until it sinks in.

Comments

[girlwiththebook.livejournal.com]

Funny that you post this while I'm doing research for a paper on "the pros and cons of censorship in public and school libraries". My paper will pretty much be "EVERY PART IS A CON. EVERY PART."

[wrenlet.livejournal.com]

I'm going to pretend that the other 895 (current) answers to this question all look pretty much like yours, because any other possibility is too depressing.

[smallcaps.livejournal.com]

Aw, but you've got to allow for the few that say something like this:

I would ban all classics, because the idea that they cant read it would make them want to. Then i would pay shady looking students to wear trench coats and give out copies of moby dick, and to kill a mocking bird...and so on.

Then a whole classic book club would start in the underground... secret meetings at lunch, ditching class to meet under the stage to discuss dickens. It would be awesome!
(nobodywonder)

:D

[swingangel.livejournal.com]

That is an entirely acceptable answer.

[aclevermoniker.livejournal.com]

There are books that upon seeing them I would say do not belong in a public high school's library, but there is no immediate need to ban something if they aren't being considered to be added to library, yes?

[fox1013.livejournal.com]

Well, but that's its own form of censorship, isn't it? I mean, obviously selection has to be involved in picking/not picking ANYTHING, but picking intentionally because of content IS saying that certain things are/are not objectionable.

[aclevermoniker.livejournal.com]

There is a finite amount of space in libraries. You can't put anything in there. Choosing not to put Dr. Seuss in a library is not really something I would consider censorship. Could you say there is anything objectionable in Green Eggs and Ham? It does not belong in a library with high school students, other than for people with handicaps or do not speak or read english well at all.

[girlwiththebook.livejournal.com]

Also the school's responsibility in selecting materials is to build a library based on the curriculum that is being taught there. Saying "we're not getting this simply because there are better materials for our students out there" isn't wholly censorship. Saying "we're not getting this because it has THIS in it and we find it objectionable" can be, especially if there is someone in your community that might in fact need that book.

[anne-jumps.livejournal.com]

At least they didn't ask what books we would burn?

[pekover.livejournal.com]

How about if it's something that encourages racism, or sexism or homophobia?

Sure, we can say that the right thing to do is to discuss the book, and fight bad ideas with better ideas, but students sign books out independently, without the same opportunity for discussion that we have in a classroom. So maybe we could put the 'questionable' books in a separate section, and say that students can only sign them out if they agree to discuss their reading with an adult, but isn't that it's own form of censorship? Why should the library have to jump through all those hoops in order to include books that are encouraging ideas that 'right thinking people' find 'morally objectionable'?

Teenagers, as a group, are vulnerable to bad ideas. They're still exploring and playing with their identities, and a lot of that is great, and valuable to their growth. But they're also social creatures, and one student's exploration can have a huge influence on another student's sense of self worth.

I'm a high school librarian. I don't believe in society-wide censorship, but there are books that I will not buy for my library, and there are books that I have found in my library and thrown out. (The most recent was a book called 'Why So Many Gods?' that on the surface was an exploration of world religion; on closer examination, I found that the subtext was that the question in the title was being answered in terms of 'because there are people out there who are misguided and lost, and have not yet found the joy of traditional Christianity." I believe that this is a book that has a right to be published, sold, and bought; I don't think it's a book that has any place in a public school library.)


I think that when I think of censorship, I think of people banning ideas that I find interesting, if not accurate, but I find the argument a bit harder to dismiss when it involves ideas that I find reprehensible.

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

I would think that selection is rather different to censorship, though - no library contains every book in the world, and every library serves a purpose. You wouldn't ban that book if a class was discussing it - you're applying appropriate professional filters to a limited collection. Unfortunately, not everyone is so professional!

[pekover.livejournal.com]

I think it's a fine line. Especially when it comes to throwing things out. Because somebody, some other librarian, selected that book and included it in our collection. I'd like to think that it was a decision based on reading the cover rather than the content, but I don't really know that for sure, and yet I've decided that my judgment is better than his or hers.

I mean, I'm not in charge of more than one library, and I'm not trying to impose my judgment on other librarians, but I am controlling the material that students have access to, at least within the sphere of my influence.

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

I agree that it is a fine line - but that's the case in a lot of professions that involve being gatekeepers. Some doctors/librarians/whoever are judgemental assholes who really think they're better than everyone else and the peons should be told what's good for them. Many are responsible and thoughtful people who want to share knowledge and experience, and that's what needs to be encouraged.

[azurelunatic]

I think it's a very good thing that you have doubts and self-examination on this. Keep up the good work.

[aclevermoniker.livejournal.com]

I agree somewhat...I can see merit in both sides. It is not a black and white issue in my opinion. Just as high schools have rules against hate speech and sexual harassment already, I find little wrong with not including books solely to promote racism, etc. But at the same time, Mein Kampf, although probably very vile, has some historical significance. Just as we look at history without agreeing what all and probably most that happened, we can read something without quite agreeing with it. But the library does not have infinite space, so you may as well include books of toleration and moderateness.

[pekover.livejournal.com]

It's funny that you used Mein Kampf as an example, because we DO have a copy of that in the library. And last year, a German exchange student found it and was fascinated, because apparently it's banned in Germany. Which seems odd, as I don't know how you'd really understand modern German history without it.

But, yeah, anecdote aside, it's a good example of a book where there is enough significance to overcome the moral issues. It's also dense and academic enough that only the strongest students will tackle it, which serves as a sort of auto-censorship.

[etoilepb.livejournal.com]

In my experience, the only kids who are ever going to bother going to a library and checking out a book on their own, independently of an order from a teacher or parent to do so, are probably going to be the ones who are clever enough to think about what they're reading and respond do discussion.

And those kids will probably use the public library or go buy books rather than use the school library, heh. (My school's library was 95% encyclopedias.)

[pekover.livejournal.com]

Damn, that sucks about your library! I just finished doing an inventory, and we have about 6500 fiction books, 6000 non-fiction, about 200 of which are encyclopedias. So, not a huge collection, but definitely not encyclopedia-based!

Where I am, at least, there's a real move to make the library the heart of the school. We have a reading area with couches, lots of plants, an aquarium, etc. - and we get a LOT of students in, not just the ones you would traditionally expect. So, no, it's not just the academically inclined who are taking out books independently. And honestly, I'm not sure there's a strong correlation between a student being academically inclined and being a good critical thinker. Some of our strongest students are total followers, and some of our weaker students really enjoy talking about ideas.

[etoilepb.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see. My high school was also less than a quarter of a mile down the road from the town's main library branch, maybe even less than a fifth of a mile, so I'm guessing they just didn't think it was much use to invest too much money in the school's library when we all had access to the town's by crossing the street, hehe.

And I didn't mean specifically academically inclined, I meant bookish -- and the bookish ones do tend to be at least marginally critical thinkers. That's cool about actually investing in the library, though. I wish ours had done with the couches; we had no-where to go during free periods in winter (courtyard was closed and locked due to feet of snow).

[girlwiththebook.livejournal.com]

Your library sounds awesome! I'm going to school for library sciences and I'm leaning towards working in university library, but sometimes I wonder if maybe I'd rather work in a high school library. Ack, decisions!

[pekover.livejournal.com]

You might feel a bit overqualified for work in a high school library (I only have a three-course certificate in librarianship, and I rarely feel like I'm unprepared to do the job), but I've really enjoyed it. I've never worked in a university setting, but my impression is that it would be more non-fiction based? Whereas I spend probably a third of my student-based time helping kids with not-strictly-library-based assignments (how to write an essay, etc.), a third helping kids work with non-fiction (including the internet, databases, etc.) and the remaining third in the glorious land of fiction, recommending books, etc. It's generally fun!

Good luck!

[agent-mimi.livejournal.com]

Teenagers, as a group, are vulnerable to bad ideas.

Human beings are vulnerable to bad ideas. Age (or gender or race or nationality) has nothing to do with it. It's not anyone's job, not even a librarian's, to decide that certain people shouldn't be allowed to see books because it might give them the wrong idea, because it's based on your criterion/criteria of what constitutes wrong.

Religious books in a public school are problematic, I will give you that, but your reasoning that teenagers need you to protect them from ideas which you disapprove of is not a particularly good thing.

[pekover.livejournal.com]

Well, I think there are a lot of other laws in our society that are based on the idea that teenagers are extra vulnerable. I'm thinking of statutory rape laws, child abuse laws, contributing to the delinquency of a minor laws, driving age limits, alcohol consumption limits, voting limits, etc. And, yes, some of these are probably overly-paternalistic, and some are misused as ways to control rather than protect teenagers, but, in general, our society seems to have accepted the idea that teenagers are not yet fully adult, and their judgment is not yet fully formed. I'm not saying that adults are paragons of reason, just that teenagers are a special case.

And I agree that it's not a good thing for me to want to 'protect' them from ideas of which I do not approve, but I'm not sure it's a good thing to expose them to those ideas, either. If there was a teacher who was saying racist or sexist or otherwise objectionable things, that teacher would be stopped (hopefully). And that's not just because the teacher has the students in an environment they can't escape (a classroom) - that teacher would not be allowed to say these things as a coach or the leader of an extra-curricular activity. I think students have a right to learn in an environment that is free of unreasoning hatred, and I think that should apply to the written word as well as speech.

Believe me, my knee-jerk reaction is anti-censorship, but I think I've had to start seeing shades of grey since I started this job. One argument that I've found is that I'm NOT deciding "that certain people shouldn't be allowed to see books," because they can find them in the public library, or, if they're more controversial, in the bookstore or on-line. I'm just trying to keep from in any way endorsing the ideas; if I buy a book filled with hate, my money (the school's money, and therefore the community's money) has just gone to support the creator of that hatred, and I won't do that. And if I put it on the shelves of my library, next to books that I use as examples of brilliant thinking, I'm in some way legitimizing the ideas, and I won't do that either.

I understand your perspective, because it used to be mine, but things really shifted for me when I started working in a school library. I don't think it's a simple issue.

[scary-being-me.livejournal.com]

You've started down the slippery slope.

You disagreed with the message in a book (personally, I disagree with it too); so you threw it away.

This could lead to more censorship. Yes, what you did was censorship.

We both probably disagree with Nazi philosophy; so let's throw that book away too. Then there's the book espousing communism, we're capitalists in this country; so that needs to go.

Soon, you're left with empty shelves, or worse, a library full of one ideology.

The censor never says "destroy this book; reading it could harm me." They always think they are protecting other people from dangerous ideas.

[strippedpink.livejournal.com]

ACTUALLY I would ban this.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

That is the best thing EVER and should be handed out at the New Moon premiere. Wank about how it makes SMeyer look like a butterface ... aaaaand GO! :D

(As much as I dislike her writing, I do think she's actually really pretty. Not so much in that awful artwork, though. HEEEEEEE.)

[strippedpink.livejournal.com]

Isn't it amazing? In that LOL MY EYES kind of way. And I agree...she is pretty. I actually thought she was a better actress in Twilight than a few of the mains, too. HA.

JENN IT'S NARRATED BY DRACULA.

[musyc]

This is a toughie for me. While on the one hand, I am staunchly against banning books for any reason, on the other, I do feel that there are certain titles that children (and as grown up as they want to be, teenagers are still children) do not need exposure to without guidance and explanation. I have little faith in the majority of parents to take that effort, and most teachers/librarians simply wouldn't have the time, as much as they'd wish otherwise. So I could agree to having certain titles in a Restricted Section, and I wouldn't call that censorship.

[girlwiththebook.livejournal.com]

The thing about having a "restricted section" is that I wonder why a student would have to justify wanting to read a book. Like, what kinds of books/subjects are you thinking about?

I would worry that if I put books in a restricted section that some students wouldn't ask for permission to read them because they'd feel uncomfortable asking, they'd feel judged, or it's a topic that they want to know more about but what if they have parents who are very narrow minded (my mind immediately went to 'what if a student is questioning his or her sexuality and wanted to find books about it, but the books were in teh restricted section and the parents were homophobic?').

I was a heavy reader as a kid, and once I was thirteen and had read everything in the childrens and young adults sections that interested me, I went straight into the adult section. Some members of my family thought I was definitely reading books that were "too old" for me but my parents had no problems with it, even though we didn't really talk about what I was reading.

It's a hard issue because yes, there are probably kids that do need guidance and then there are kids who will definitely feel like you are holding them back because dammit, they ARE ready to tackle those difficult subjects even if you think they aren't. This is why I have a hard time selecting books as gifts that would interest my younger cousins because I remember what I was reading at their age (10 and 13) and then I remember what kind of person my aunt is and how she would definitely not approve.

[musyc]

Unfortunately, I don't have an answer for that. It's a subject that's sticky on multiple planes. I know that when I was a youngin, I was thoroughly pissed off at the idea that a librarian might report my reading habits to my parents - which they'd do around here, if they thought a kid was picking up "unsuitable" material. My parents would probably have signed a "let the kid read whatever the hell she wants" permission slip, but I can't begin to claim that everyone's parents would. :\

[cacahuate.livejournal.com]

WTF.

[azurelunatic]

It's not attributed, so I have a pretty good guess.

[allthelivesofme.livejournal.com]

*applause and such*