Defending Books Is a Daily Struggle

By Chris Finan, President of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression

Something unusual happened at a recent meeting of the Richland, Washington, school board.

In June, the board voted 3 - 2 to ban Sherman Alexie’s Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which was required reading in freshman English classes. There was nothing surprising about the banning. The American Library Association counted 348 book challenges last year, including 53 bans. Alexie’s book is one of the most challenged titles in the country because it touches on so many hot buttons – domestic violence, drug abuse, racism, poverty and sexuality. The novel also includes profanity and “crude” sexual talk.

What was surprising was that on July 11 the school board voted 4 - 1 to lift the ban.

The controversy in Richland is the latest battle in the fight against book censorship that is being waged around the country every day.

Our schools have always been targets of the censors. In the early 20^th century, there were efforts to purge the schools of “radical” literature, including magazines like The Nation and New Republic, and books by Upton Sinclair, Henry George, and Jane Addams. The American Legion pressed for the adoption of its own two-volume history of America because it believed textbooks weren’t patriotic enough.

In the 1980s some parents began to express new concerns about the books that were available in classrooms and school libraries. Literature for young readers had become increasingly realistic in its depiction of sex and violence and other subjects that they believed were inappropriate for “children,” including 17-year-olds bound for college. Some objected to profanity; others raised religious objections to books that depicted magic. The growing number of challenges led the American Booksellers Association to join the American Library Association, the Association of American Publishers and others in launching Banned Books Week in 1982.

Many parents are still concerned. Meghan Cox Gurdon, the children’s book reviewer for the Wall Street Journal, recently spoke for the disaffected when she characterized contemporary young adult literature as “a hall of fun-house mirrors, constantly reflecting back hideously distorted portrayals of what life is.... [A] careless young reader – or one who seeks out depravity – will find himself surrounded by images not of joy or beauty but of damage, brutality, and losses of the most horrendous kind.”

Most of the challenges are filed by individual parents. However, some protesters have organized to fight bad books. In Richland, they created a website that reviews every book used in the local high schools. These reviews, which often draw on information provided by national groups like Focus on the Family, include a count of the times that offensive words are used and highlight objectionable passages and problematic subjects (alcoholism, “homosexuality in a favorable light,” “derogatory to Christianity/Christ”).

The concern about objectionable content is deep enough that some companies are offering to help protect children. There are ratings for movies and video games, warning labels on audio recordings and filters for the Internet. Now companies like Common Sense Media are offering ratings of books as well. Ratings are inherently problematic because they oversimplify a story, highlighting potentially objectionable features without providing a context for determining whether they are not only acceptable but necessary to accomplish the author’s purpose. Ratings become a free speech problem when librarians decide not to purchase books that have been labeled as “inappropriate” for children.    

But free speech advocates continue to push back against the censors. Some of the most articulate responses come from the authors of the books that are under attack. Laurie Halse Anderson has emerged as a leader in the fight. Her YA novel Speak was challenged in Republic, Missouri, by someone who called it “soft pornography” because it describes two rapes. Anderson believes most book banners are decent people who are unable to talk with their kids about difficult subjects. She strongly rejects the view that literature creates the problems that young people face. “Books don’t turn kids into murderers, or rapists, or alcoholics,” she wrote in reply to the Wall Street Journal article. “Books open hearts and minds, and help teenagers make sense of a dark and confusing world.”

Sherman Alexie also answered the Journal. “I write books for teenagers because I vividly remember what it felt like to be a teen facing everyday and epic dangers,” he said. “I write to give them weapons – in the form of words and ideas – that will help them fight their monsters. I write in blood because I remember what it feels like to bleed.”

At the grassroots level, the battle against censorship is being fought by students, teachers, librarians, booksellers and even an occasional administrator and school board member. National organizations are also playing a role. In 2007, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) and the National Coalition Against Censorship launched the Kids’ Right to Read Project, which has sent hundreds of letters urging school boards to reject censorship. Our most recent letter urged the Richland school board to reverse its decision banning The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.

Even before our letter arrived, however, the controversy over the banning caused two board members to have second thoughts. Rick Donahoe and Mary Guay decided they had better read the book. Afterwards, Donahoe praised it as “outstanding.” He also realized that basic rights were at issue. “When I’m voting a book out of the classroom, I’m denying parents the right to choose to have that book read by their students,” he said. Guay promised not to make the same mistake again. “I will be getting every book we vote on,” she said.

Defenders of free speech and the rights of young readers didn’t have long to savor this victory for common sense and free speech. In Republic, Missouri, the school board has just banned Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five. “The language is really, really intense,” the school superintendent said. “I don’t think it has any place in high school.”

The battle against censorship is a daily struggle. With another Banned Books Week right around the corner (Sept. 24 - Oct. 1), this is a good time to remember that we possess free speech only as long as we are willing to fight for it.

(Editor’s Note: Booksellers play a key role in Banned Books Week, the only national celebration of the freedom to read. This year Banned Books Week will feature an Internet read-out on a special YouTube channel. ABFFE is encouraging bookstores to participate by creating videos of customers reading from their favorite banned books. More information about the read-out is available here. Booksellers can also consult the Banned Books Week Handbook on the ABFFE website for other easy and inexpensive ways to participate.)