It’s Banned Books Week, and with books, authors, and libraries under more pressure than ever (usually from the people who claim to be champions of free speech…), there’s no better time to celebrate the challenged, banned, and censored literature we love.
With reasons for challenges as nebulous (and as bullshit) as DEI content (aka “there was a Black person in it”) and indecent material (aka anything the complainant doesn’t like…), we must continue to fight hard for books and the people who write, share, and read them.
Some people are going to pretend that their reasons for wanting this or that book taken off the shelves are in good faith rather than based in their bigotry.
“I’m all for free speech,” say the so-called free speech warriors while they try to stifle free speech. “I just don’t think this is appropriate for kids,” they say, of books they haven’t read but have heard second hand that something in them conflicts with their personal beliefs (which obviously need to be foisted upon everyone else, because everyone knows that’s what free speech is all about).
And look, it’s true that not everything is appropriate for all ages. Even if it is a time-honored tradition for every kid to read a book (usually by Stephen King) that is extremely age-inappropriate for them. Mine was King’s The Dark Half when I was probably 12, although I’m sure others didn’t come long after.
But for folks who claim they want small governments and people to mind their own businesses, they sure don’t want to take responsibility for their own kids.
When I had to do an elementary school project on an aspect of colonial America, I had to get a permission note from my parents to be allowed to research the Salem Witch Trials (another formative event for me, I’d say). I wasn’t barred from it, and the books wouldn’t have been taken off the shelves if my parents had objected to my reading them; the school just wanted to be sure they were aware (aware of what? That they had a weird kid, probably).
With thousands of books challenged every year, you can be sure that almost every possible topic has been deemed offensive and inappropriate by someone out there (and I thought we were the snowflakes?). It’s particularly ironic to see classics like Fahrenheit 451, 1984, and The Handmaid’s Tale on the lists of most-banned books year after year, but we can’t forget about the many new and emerging authors for whom book bans and challenges can really damage.
And while reading is not activism (and let’s be real, neither is posting), I think it’s still good to stand in opposition to the folks trying to ban these books, who often admit to not having read them when they’re pressured to provide evidence of their claims, by reading and promoting banned books (and buying them to support those authors!)
Or, as the author that PEN America reports is the most banned in US schools, Stephen King, puts it:
“When books are banned from school libraries, run to your public library, or the nearest bookstore, and read what it is your elders don’t want you to know”
thebestpossibletime 