Banning, challenging, parental control… Call them what you want, there’s a lot of people out there upset about a lot of books in schools and libraries lately.
The United States has a long history of vocal parents being offended/upset by a variety of content in either teaching materials or library books. Enough so that the American Library Association has a list of the most banned or challenged books in the United States, categorized by year.
If we go back 20 years ago to 2002, this is what the list looked like:
Top 10 Banned/Challenged Books for 2002
Out of 515 challenges recorded by the Office for Intellectual Freedom
- Harry Potter, by J.K. Rowling
Reasons: occult/Satanism, violence - Alice (series), by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Reasons: homosexuality, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group - The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier
Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group - I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, violence - Taming the Star Runner, by S.E. Hinton
Reason: offensive language - Captain Underpants, by Dav Pilkey
Reasons: offensive language, unsuited to age group - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
Reason: offensive language - Bridge to Terabithia, by Katherine Paterson
Reasons: occult/Satanism, offensive language, violence - Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, by Mildred D. Taylor
Reason: offensive language - Julie of the Wolves, by Jean Craighead George
Reasons: unsuited to age group, violence
An interesting mix, to be sure – ranging from the Harry Potter series for satanism to I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, for essentially clear discussing what it was like for Angelou to grow up in a culture of racism.
By 2020, the list had changed quite a bit:
Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2020
The ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom tracked 156 challenges to library, school, and university materials and services in 2020. Of the 273 books that were targeted, here are the most challenged, along with the reasons cited for censoring the books:
- George by Alex Gino
Reasons: Challenged, banned, and restricted for LGBTQIA+ content, conflicting with a religious viewpoint, and not reflecting “the values of our community” - Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds
Reasons: Banned and challenged because of author’s public statements, and because of claims that the book contains “selective storytelling incidents” and does not encompass racism against all people - All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely
Reasons: Banned and challenged for profanity, drug use, and alcoholism, and because it was thought to promote anti-police views, contain divisive topics, and be “too much of a sensitive matter right now” - Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
Reasons: Banned, challenged, and restricted because it was thought to contain a political viewpoint and it was claimed to be biased against male students, and for the novel’s inclusion of rape and profanity - The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Reasons: Banned and challenged for profanity, sexual references, and allegations of sexual misconduct by the author - Something Happened in Our Town: A Child’s Story About Racial Injustice by Marianne Celano, Marietta Collins, and Ann Hazzard, illustrated by Jennifer Zivoin
Reasons: Challenged for “divisive language” and because it was thought to promote anti-police views - To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Reasons: Banned and challenged for racial slurs and their negative effect on students, featuring a “white savior” character, and its perception of the Black experience - Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Reasons: Banned and challenged for racial slurs and racist stereotypes, and their negative effect on students - The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Reasons: Banned and challenged because it was considered sexually explicit and depicts child sexual abuse - The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Reasons: Challenged for profanity, and it was thought to promote an anti-police message
The 2020 list is characterized by being primarily objections to discussions of race.
It is worth noting, however, that most of “challenged” books are not banned. Instead, they are subject to complaints from a few concerned parents, for whom they might get removed from a required reading list. Or perhaps a school district will send a consent note home with students. But that is the extent of most of the attempts to “ban” books in the United States. As an example, in 2019, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird was removed from a Mississippi junior high reading list because of complaints that the book’s language “makes people uncomfortable.” The book was not removed from the school district’s libraries, however.
The idea that books make children or their parents uncomfortable has been a big part of why certain books have been attracting controversy this year.
The most noteworthy was the removal of Art Spielgelman’s Pulitzer-Prize winning graphic-novel portrayal of the Holocaust with mice as Jews and cats as Nazis from the McMinn County School District in Tennessee. Some parents had objected to the presence of curse words in the book along with a single portrayal of female nudity. (It shows a woman who has committed suicide.) Spiegelman’s parent survived the Auschwitz concentration camp, but his mother committed suicide.
A page from Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel “Maus.”
Spiegelman, who in addition writing and drawing Maus, is well known for his many New Yorker covers. The NY Times quotes Spiegelman as saying he was baffled by the removal:
“This is disturbing imagery,” he said in an interview on Thursday, which is Holocaust Remembrance Day. “But you know what? It’s disturbing history.”
As I was digging into material about the attempts to control what middle-school students learn about the Holocaust, I was struck by the following comments from Jewish graphic-novel artist/writer Sophie Goldstein:
As a Jew, the idea of someone having NOT heard about the Holocaust by the age of 13… or 10… or even remembering a time ~before~ they knew about the Holocaust boggles my mind.
— Sophie Goldstein (@RedInkRadio) January 29, 2022
And I'm fine! Learning about the Holocaust at a young age did not break me–or any of my other Jewish friends and Hebrew school classmates. We survived.
And you know what? Your goyish children will too.
— Sophie Goldstein (@RedInkRadio) January 29, 2022