Read a banned book! Library observes Banned Books Week
Earlier this summer, an irate mother phoned the News Bulletin and declared, “Do you know they are allowing kids to check out pornography at the library?”
As it turned out, her son, a young teen, had removed a comic book of Japanese “manga” from the adult section of the Crestview Public Library, concealed it and walked out of the library without checking it out.
(Manga is a vivid graphic style, akin to “anime,” used in comics and generally has themes of action/adventure, romance, fantasy, horror or science fiction. It is named from the Japanese word for “whimsical pictures,” according to an entry in Wikipedia.)
As is sometimes the case of manga oriented toward mature readers, the book the boy liberated from the library had several depictions of sexuality, generally in the background of individual panels. Because of these scenes, the mother felt the library should have kept the book in a “restricted” section of the library.
“Restricted section” is a phrase that curdles librarians’ blood, as it goes against the principles of the American Library Association’s belief in “free and open access” to the printed word. It is precisely because of situations such as the irate mother who phoned the local newspaper that throughout the country, libraries and bookshops are celebrating Banned Books Week beginning today.
“Intellectual freedom—the freedom to access information and express ideas, even if the information and ideas might be considered unorthodox or unpopular—provides the foundation for Banned Books Week,” the ALA said on its Web site.
“Imagine how many more books might be challenged—and possibly banned or restricted—if librarians, teachers, and booksellers across the country did not use Banned Books Week each year to teach the importance of our First Amendment rights and the power of literature, and to draw attention to the danger that exists when restraints are imposed on the availability of information in a free society,” the ALA said.
How, then, should the mother have handled her son’s selection of literature?
“Parents are responsible for what their children check out,” explained reference librarian Sandra Dreaden. “They should be with them when they check it out or should look at it as soon as their child gets it home.”
Sadly, Dreaden indicated, some parents think of the library as a babysitting service and drop off their kids without supervision. In many instances, they do not know what their children are reading at the facility.
Among the stacks at the Crestview Library, patrons can find many books that less enlightened communities tried to remove from their own libraries’ shelves. Among them are such innocuous tomes as J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” books, the poetry of Maya Angelou, and classics ranging from Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” to Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” and the Bible.
To draw attention to the dangers of banning or restricting access to books, the library will have an exhibit this week of books from its collection that have been challenged in some communities.
“Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States,” the ALA declared.
More eloquently, the author of our Declaration of Independence had this to say about censoring what our neighbors want to read:
“Shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as the rule for what we are to read?” asked Thomas Jefferson. “It is an insult t our citizens to question whether they are rational beings or not.”
