Tuesday Tales (on Wednesday): My ‘Banned Books Week’ Slogan

Celebrating the Freedom to Read, Recognizing the Power of Reading

Anyone who has spent significant time reading will have experienced, at some point, the way a reading experience can seep into you on a cellular level, changing how you think and feel and walk around in the world.

For me, “Doctor Zhivago” was a book that forever changed how I understand the Bolshevik Revolution. For the first time, facts, dates, ideas, and long-term consequences could retreat to the background, and I could experience the pull of these revolutionary ideas in the moment as they might have been lived. Reading Jane Austen’s novels lodged the words “alacrity” and “sanguine” onto my list of favorite words, which I obnoxiously try to use whenever possible. I could go on and on. Maybe you can too.

Having experienced the transformative power of books has led me to have certain misgivings about ‘Banned Books Week,’ the American Library Association’s (ALA) annual celebration of “ the freedom to read.” Currently marking its 30th anniversary, the event highlights challenged and banned books* across the nation to bring readers together “in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular,” according to the ALA website.

There’s no use pretending banning books is like killing unicorns. While both books and unicorns are magical, books can also be dangerous. Not just 'unorthodox' and 'unpopular' but also insidious. One of the most sobering repudiations of a book I have ever encountered was Anthony Burgess’ about his own novel “A Clockwork Orange” (number 49 on the ALA’s list of banned and challenged classics).

"The film made it easy for readers of the book to misunderstand what it was about,” he said in an interview. “And the misunderstanding will pursue me til I die. I should not have written the book because of this misrepresentation."

Put another way, he seems to be advocating banning his own book because of the damage it caused. Which reminds me: freedom of speech is conditional. We limit hate speech and speech that incites violence or terror.

To be clear, it’s not the concept of Banned Books Week that makes me uncomfortable nor do I advocate banning books nor do I believe we should not celebrate the freedom to read. What concerns me is what I perceive to be a lack of complexity in how we talk about and understand language, reading, and books. What concerns me is when we do not acknowledge that a free society, to such an extent as it is possible, entails risk and responsibility and that these are both individual and shared.

Earlier this year, I ‘banned’ “The Hunger Games” from my 10-year old son’s reading list on the grounds that I did not feel the content was appropriate for a child. Whatever redeeming value a book about children murdering each other might have, I do not believe it is accessible to a 10-year old, and I believe the risk that he would become desensitized to violence and that he would miss the point entirely outweighs my impinging on his freedom to read.

“Aren’t you worried he’ll want to read it even more because you said he can’t?” a woman in my book group asked me (she disapproved).

Here’s the thing: I’m not going to offer my son a gram of cocaine out of fear that he will otherwise be even more attracted to drugs because I say they are bad. If I believe something, it’s my responsibility to stand up for it. In the case of “The Hunger Games” (which has made it onto the ALA's list of  'challenged' books) I recognize that he can find the book at his school’s library and read it there without me knowing, and I recognize that I cannot stop him from doing this.

At the same time, it would never occur to me to challenge his school library’s freedom to carry this book. Several of his peers, lovely children with mothers for whom I have deep respect, have read the book. However, if the school or parents of one of his peers encouraged my son to read a book that I have explicitly withheld for the time being, I would find this troubling.

It is possible to disagree respectfully. Though it can be uncomfortable (and sometimes difficult not to feel threatened), public debate in which we actually listen and hear each other and the sources of our disagreement seems like it could go a long way in clarifying—and perhaps in some cases modifying—our own positions not only to others but most importantly to ourselves.

Looking over the top challenged book titles of the past few years, I can’t help but notice that a majority are of young adult novels. Instead of just listing the reasons they have been challenged—“offensive language; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group”—and taking offense or being dismissive or defensive, how wonderful it would be if we could debate, in a thoughtful and respectful way, the appropriateness and potential consequences of particular content for particular audiences. What if we celebrated not just the freedom to read but also the power of reading and made that part of the conversation? I would hasten to such a discussion with alacrity!

How do you feel about banned books week?

*In case you are wondering, ‘challenged’ books refer to those books individuals or groups have sought to restrict access to, and ‘banned’ books are those that have been removed.

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Submitted by Westport, CT

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