It’s Banned Books Week, the American Library Association’s yearly event to spotlight attempts at censorship.
If you have a censorship story to tell, we want to hear it.
I come from a bookish people. My parents didn’t restrict my reading in any way and until I hit my tweens, I had never come across the concept of a book being “inappropriate.” At 12, I read well above my age group, within my age group, and was also a big fan of Clifford the Big Red Dog*. At 12 I also discovered that my friend’s new stepmom had opinions about what books were appropriate for young ladies. Initially I was thrilled to be considered a young lady by this woman who looked like she could be of the TV show Dallas. I remember sitting in the kitchen feeling like had entered The Twilight Zone while this woman served me cookies and told me Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret was too dangerous for me to read. I had read it many times, years earlier. I don’t remember how I responded. I’d like to think I defended Judy Blume, but I probably sat there, confused and polite, until I could escape. My mom confirmed that yes, there was an effort to ban the book from schools, though not in our city, or at my school.
My world view was shifted. Before that, I thought book banning was something that happened in history or in countries with dictators. Judy Blume’s books has been so important to me and people thought she was dangerous because she wrote about periods.
What is your banned books story? Did you have to sneak books? Have you read a book because it was banned or challenged? What is the dumbest reason you have heard for challenging a book? Post in the comments and share!
*Clifford the Big Red Dog has also been banned and challenged. The only reason I could find was because it promoted Communism. Because the dog is red and it teaches cooperation. This may be a scurrilous rumor.
That mom would have pooed herself over Speak… 😉
I don’t remember being really told I couldn’t read something, except Dr. Seuss as my mother really didn’t like him (ironically when my nephews came about, we had a copy of The Lorax.). I might have read a bit older than I should have but I know my sister did (she’s almost 4 years younger and read a Jackie Collins before I did). Our mom was tough but think the reading “thing” could be a little freer.
Silliest reason I heard of banning a book was Little House on the Prairie as it was derogatory towards Indians (not Natives but Indians. The 1980s were not as woke as they thought). Second silliest is “not appropriate for age” (but that’s because you gave your 8-year-old a book for 15-year-olds…). And third, Home for a Bunny just because a brown and white bunny lived together.
OH! And I believe that about Clifford. According to an article I read Ferdinand has been accused of being both pro and anti Fascists when the author said they wrote it to be a book for a friend to illustrate. People read all sorts of stuff into things.
As Angie Thomas tweeted this week, those banned book lists say more about the people doing the banning than about the authors
That mom would have pooed herself if she had any idea what my friend group was doing at 12/13. As an adult, I’m horrified. But it makes wishing for breasts, periods and musing about a supreme deity look tame.
I don’t think the book itself had ever been banned, but my grandmother loved reading Romance novels, and when I was 12 or 13, she gave me one because she knew I liked to read. My mom found it in my bag when I got home. All I really remember is her gasping “that’s a harlequin!” and confiscating it, saying that it was trash and I shouldn’t be reading stuff like that. She demanded to know where it came from, and I’m pretty sure my grandma got yelled at because she never gave me another book.
My mom was also not thrilled that I was obsessed with S.E Hinton’s books after reading “the Outsiders” in school. She never banned me from reading them, but I got a lot of judgemental looks, and huffs, and comments about inappropriateness when she saw them on my nightstand.
Oh, there were certain books I knew would get an eyebrow raise from my mom. When my dad and I were reading Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom series I think she gave up on trying to cultivate my taste.
My mom let me read whatever I wanted.
We’re reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks for Mocha Girls Read. I didn’t get why it was banned. IT’S EDUCATIONAL. Apparently, someone complained that it was pornographic because it talks about lady parts. Even in a medical science way, these people are afraid of the V.
The fear of women’s bodies is insane.
Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret was the first thing that jumped to my mind as well! I was friends with a girl from a super churchy family (they gave me pamphlets about how I should stop playing D&D), and her mom threw a fit about Margaret, so of course I had to run straight to the library to investigate (I had already read and loved other Blume books). Then I wished I had listened to her, because that book terrified me. I wanted to freeze time at 11 so I wouldn’t have to experience The Curse. But good grief, is there any way to get someone to read something faster than to tell them NOT to?
Oh no! I read Margaret when I was 8 or 9? But we also had a good friend of the family who ran the education programs for Planned Parenthood, so I knew a lot about what was going to happen when puberty hit.
My parents let me read whatever I wanted, mostly because they weren’t readers themselves any longer, and when they were they only read biographies of dead white guys and romance novels, so they probably just never thought that reading . I was severely restricted in what TV I was allowed to watch, but no one ever thought to check what I was reading. I read whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, and I turned out just fine. If I ever have kids, I won’t restrict their reading, either. If a kid wants to read a book, I will let them, we might just be having a discussion about it during or afterwards. Curbing natural curiosity over anything is harmful. It puts shame and fear in their place.
My only experiences with book banning have been vicarious. It really chapped my hide as a kid whenever I heard about libraries or parents banning Harry Potter. So much awkward teenage rage. A family I regularly babysat for told their three young boys that it promoted the devil. I am not ashamed to say that I told them it didn’t. One two minute exchange probably did nothing to change their minds and I didn’t get fired like I thought I might, so they probably didn’t even tell their parents. I have no idea what happened to those boys but I would bet a lot of money they vote very differently than I do.
Ugh, I never finished my sentence. That was going to be “they probably just never thought that reading could be dangerous because they didn’t do it themselves.”
Instead of church, my family read books. My mom actually clled reading the newspaper her daily sacrament, a thing that was noted in her eulogy. My paternal grandmother had been a school librarian and English teacher, including a few years in the Provo Utah school system. She wasn’t exactly a flaming liberal, but she got so tired of the local Mormon elders telling her what she couldn’t teach or let students read. She used to say that we would all get some dumb ideas from books, but if we kept reading we would get some great ideas too.
Omg, the Harry Potter bans. The church I grew up in was a hotbed of debate about Harry Potter, and my parents got a ton of flack from other parents because I’d been encouraged to read the series.
Also we had a couple of family members who were vehemently anti-Harry Potter (and Pokemon, apparently) because it ‘promoted anti-Christian ideals.’ They were mortified to find out how much I loved the books.
And if you actually questioned anyone about those “anti-Christian ideals” they would be hard pressed to actually identify them, let alone understand that the series actively promoted tolerance, kindness, forgiveness, love, and charity . . . all “Christian ideals.”
I wish I felt great about typing this comment what with everything going on with the author. I hate that I feel weird now when talking about one of my favorite series.
I don’t feel good about reading HP right now, myself, but I would never ban someone from reading it. One of my friends is thinking hard about how she’s going to talk to her kids about JKR. They’ve been working through the series together.
I’m going to give it a good long while before I get back to them. I’ve even moved most of my copies to my closet (I have, er, *multiple copies* of all the books). Maybe she’ll pull her head out of her ass in the next few years and start mitigating some of the harm she’s done. This seems unlikely but I can hope. It flabbergasts me how many of my GR friends continue to blithely read HP and the Strike books.
Me too. I feel exactly the same. It’s just awful.
I had a similar experience with my parents; they were super strict around TV, movies, and music but I could read anything (truly anything) I wanted.
As far as I can recall, my parents never ever told me what I could and couldn’t read. My father never really involved himself too directly in my life, as long as I got good grades and did my homework. My Mum was very supportive of my reading and for much of my adolescence, I was a member of a YA book of the month club . I don’t think my Mum ever said no when I asked to order one of the books (many of which I know have appeared on banned book lists for a number of reasons). I know now, as an adult, how much hardback books cost in Norway, and am astounded by her generosity. I probably got as many as 5 or 6 a year, not counting for Christmas and my birthday.
Frankly, it might have been good if my Mum screened my reading material a little bit. I was also a frequent visitor to the public library and started reading Stephen King books, many of which traumatised me, far earlier than I think was good for me.
To Kill a Mockingbird was the first one I was really aware of having been banned. Not by my parents, Mom gave me her much beloved and battered copy from college when I was about 10, but I remember seeing a display about banned books at the public library when I was in third grade. Mockingbird was the most prominently featured. I remember asking Mom about it and now that I think about it, she didn’t really give be a straight answer. She just said it was about a girl named Scout growing up in Alabama. We did talk about the map that showed where it had been banned. I remember that she was surprised that so many locations were outside of the South. (I haven’t thought about this in years.)
My mom made it pretty clear that the reason people kept trying to ban it was the racism.
Let’s just say that my parents (particularly my mom) have had a lot of personal growth about racism in the last 36 years. Some of the stuff they told me when I was a kid was pretty appalling.
::gleefully rubs hands together::
I have read so many books because they were banned! I feel its my own personal fuck you to those who would try to limit someone else’s exposure to the world. Its probably been close to 20 since I started Cannonball. The one that still flabbergasts me is This One Summer, how that beautiful book was the most challenged in 2016 I’ll never understand.
Like others my reading was never limited, although my television consumption was. There were certain channels which were not allowed when I was young, but that didn’t last for very long.
My favorite story about banned books is in high school. Twice in the same year I had a banned book offered to me as extra credit to make up for poor performance, by two different teachers. So, that year I read Slaughterhouse Five and Ordinary People. For Ordinary People I had to get a permission slip signed by my parents… my mom was so annoyed that she expressly told me to forge her signature.
Most ridiculous reason? That a book would that it would cause questions – that would be for George by Alex Gino. Books should cause questions.
I honestly don’t remember what we were assigned in high school and what I read on my own, except for Moby Dick, which I just could not get through. I suspect now that my English teachers had to fight for some of the books we read, because the principal was very conservative.
I read and watched Ordinary People when the movie came out in 1980 (I was 11/12). I reread it and rewatched it a few years ago and have a much greater appreciation for Mary Tyler Moore’s tour de force performance. Calvin wasn’t wrong, but he was a real dick about it. (I never get to talk about Ordinary People, it’s just not something anyone cares about).
It is something that doesn’t get discussed, which is sort of surprising considering it won the Oscar for Best Picture.
I was probably 15 when I read it, and very much not dealing with the facts of my own lurking depression, but I remember resonating with the feelings of isolation that are so prevalent in the book. I saw the movie a few years later and the performances all around were more than what was on the page, without overwhelming the story that I remembered.
In my only direct experience with censorship I was the person getting the book banned. Before you light me on fire, the book I succeeded in knocking off the shelf of my local library was tom kratman novel.
I still feel a little flicker of pride when I remember that.
I had to look up who Kratman was. I’m sure it burned that he came in third behind No Award when the Sad Puppies made their sad stand. Do you want to say more about why you wanted his book off the shelf (other than that he’s an ass who thinks “offending the libs” is a worthy goal).
And to clarify my position, there are definitely bad, even dangerous, ideas in books, but I’m not sure that banning them does anything more than make them more attractive to the wrong people.