Eve's Fan Garden

Every time I hear about book banning, I can’t help thinking about book burning. Which immediately makes me think about scary men in starched uniforms: You know, Nazis. And Stalin’s henchmen. And Mao’s cultural revolutionaries. It’s such a short leap from banning to burning, not just in sound and spelling but in the philosophy behind the thing. And I always think: Do we really want to be going there?

And when I think about the kids’ books that get banned, it’s a real head scratcher. The list of most challenged children’s books of the last decade includes Harry Potter (presumably for all that satanic witchcraft; Christine O’Donnell must be a fan), Lauren Myracle’s TTYL series (for overuse of emoticons?); Junie B. Jones (for sheer annoyingness, perhaps) and of course, Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell’s And Tango Makes Three, a story of a pair of boy penguins in the Central Park Zoo who hatched their own adopted baby penguin chick (because a story of gay penguins is a threat to straight marriages everywhere!) Even chaste Twilight has been getting challenged, for what? All that kissing! Or the occult! Or making us wait till the fourth book for sex to happen and then fading to black when the action went down!

Sex. That’s what seems to really get the banners all hot under the pages. As evidenced by the fact that the latest book to get the banners in need of cold showers is Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak. Apparently, the rape scenes in the book are just too…pornographic? Dude, anyone who finds a scene in which a teenage girl gets drunk—and yes, this happens, at parties, a lot. Parents, you might not want to believe this will ever happen to your child but banning a book with such activity will not make it not so. Anyhow, after she gets drunk she is shoved to the ground, has her hands pinned behind her, her mouth covered and then raped. Anyone who finds this titillating…well, it says a lot more about the you than the book, I think.

Really, it reminds me of those series of right-wing congressman who yelped and yelped about the evils of gay marriage and gay rights and then were found on their knees in the men’s bathrooms at various airports and parks, soliciting or paying for, um, what is the non-bannable, non pornographic way to say this? Oral relations. Perhaps Mr. Scroggins (the leader of the ban-Speak brigade) might better spend his time investing in some actual pornography. Sounds to me like he might have some, you know, proclivities, which is fine, to each his own. But maybe he needs a better outlet than scouring a YA classic for the (un) sexy parts.

(Goodness, I have a feeling this blog post might get banned.)

In general, book banners need to relax. They need to realize that in this wonderful capitalist country of America, there is no need for a ban. We vote with our dollars. If you don’t like a book, if you don’t feel it’s appropriate, don’t buy it. Don’t buy it for your child. You can even tell all your friends that you don’t think they should buy it either. Blog about why you won’t be buying it. Free speech, baby! It’s a fine thing.

And yes, I know, I know, you can’t control your kids every step of the way. They have pocket money. There are libraries that offer books for free. But what I think parents fail to recognize—but what we authors fully understand—is how many layers of gatekeeping a book goes through before it ever hits a shelf. Librarians and booksellers—particularly at the indies—often handpick which books they stock and hand-sell (i.e. match a book to a patron or customer). If a librarian thinks a book is too sexy, too violent, too anything for patrons of a school library, they won’t stock it. If an indie bookstore thinks a book is BAD FOR KIDS AND WILL INCITE THEM TO MASS VIOLENCE, trust me, chances are they won’t likely stock it. And they’ll certainly steer loyal customers away from it. (Another reason to make friends with your local indie bookseller!)

Librarians and booksellers are smart. They are weeding books, choosing what to stock, before a book is even a twinkle in a banner’s eye. Trust them to do their jobs.

But most of all, trust your kids. I mean, really, has there been an upswing in evil witchcraft since Harry Potter? A spate of Quidditch accidents? I don’t think children raised on Tango have run off to join gay-penguin colonies, though studies show that teenagers today overwhelmingly support gay marriage, but I’d blame (credit, actual) that on Will & Grace more than Tango and nobody wanted to ban them. Well, maybe Jack. I do know that teen sex rates have actually gone down since Judy Blume’s perennially banned Forever was published. And I highly doubt that Speak is going to incite any young people to have sex, or to rape.

But it may just inspire someone who has been through Melinda’s harrowing ordeal to speak about it.

This is what books are supposed to do. Inspire. Offer comfort. Show people—especially young people—that they are not alone in the world. Let books do their job. Let librarians and booksellers do their jobs. Let kids do their jobs. Trust me, books aren’t the Big Bad out there that will hurt your children. Ignorance on the other hand….

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