Banning books in schools: Part 1 - an author takes action

sassymonkey — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 19:39:23 -0500

It's no secret that I do not believe in banning books. While I fully appreciate a parent's right to screen their children's reading material I do not agree with one parent (or even a group of parents) blocking an entire school from reading a book. It makes every cell in my body scream in frustration. As a child my reading was not screened. At all. And the worst thing that happened, at least as far as I'm concerned, is that my mild fear of clowns was jacked up to the point where clowns freak me the heck out (thank you Stephen King). I read books with sexual content. I read books with violent content. I read books with homosexual content. I read books that were littered with profanities. Sure, I probably read books that were not for my age group but I don't think it warped me or damaged me in any way. I haven't committed any violent crimes. I don't curse like a sailor (well...most days at least). In fact, I think in the end that I turned out to be a well-rounded, educated, emphatic individual.

I've mentioned author Maureen Johnson here before. Her blog is funny and witty and we have her to thank for all the "in my pants" jokes going around the internet. A few months ago I started following a very interesting story on her blog. You see, one of her books, The Bermudez Triangle, was banned in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Well...sort of. It's complicated. On April 27, she received an email from librarian Susan Hunt.

For the past several weeks a committee headed by Mrs. Janet Vernon, Executive Director of Secondary Instruction for Bartlesville Public Schools, has been reconsidering the YA novel The Bermudez Triangle by Maureen Johnson. A challenge to the book was submitted to the school board on March 4, 2007. Yesterday, the Mid-High Principal and I appeared before the committee at 10:45. By 2:00 this afternoon, I was informed by [a BHS librarian and committee member] that the decision has been made to pull the book from the Mid-High library.

Disclaimer: I have not read The Bermudez Triangle. I requested and received it from the library but it appeared during a particularly busy time for me and I was unable to read it before I had to return it and the only thing keeping me from running out and buying it is that I am moving in 9 days and I'd have to pack it. So in the words of Maureen Johnson herself:

For those of you who donâ€™t know it (which is going to be a lot of you), The Bermudez Triangle is about three girls, all incredibly close friends, and what happens when one of them goes away for the summer and the other two begin a relationship. The story is really about what happens to friendship when you start dating. That two of the characters are female and dating is not the entire focus of the book, but it is a fun chunk of it. There is no sex in the book. There is kissing. And a lot of studying and student counsel meetings and working in chain restaurants.

That is from the April 27th post her that I linked to above. We all know friends who have started dating. It's always a complicated situation. The same-sex relationship adds another layer of complexity but is also the cause for it being challenged. I went back through the internet and looked for reviews pre-challenge. I wanted to find people's reactions to it before they were told it was a book that challenged. Fire Bad, Book Pretty

was conflicted by it but had this to say about it last December:

Itâ€™s still worth reading. If only for the fact that it deals with issues that I have never seen addressed in a YA book. Actually, I don't think I've ever seen in done so well in any book.

Not Acting My Age

wasn't blown away but it but believes "there is something to say about a novel about friendship that treats teen gays as really just normal teens (neither freaky nor unusually sophisticated)."

If you go the April 27th post you'll be able to see the objection that was filed. Basically it comes down to homosexual content and claims of sexual content. And well...that just made Johnson kind of angry.

Look, Iâ€™m not saying The Bermudez Triangle is the greatest book ever written. Itâ€™s not. I happen to like it, but if you donâ€™t, itâ€™s okay. If you want to criticize the writing, by all means do so. I can take it. Maybe Iâ€™ll even learn something. But this single person is trying to get it removed simply because it talks about homosexuality. Forget the sex thing. There isnâ€™t any.

She provided an update on May 1. And well...let's just say that she wasn't very happy with what she had learned.

"First of all, another twist, one that is depressingly familiar. I am told that of all the people in attendance at the meeting that banned Bermudez . . . only the librarian and one parent had read the book. The librarian fought for it. Iâ€™m guessing (though I do not know this) that the parent was the same parent who wanted to have it banned.
The other committee members? Nope. They totally pulled a Sandra. They not only pulled the book (bad enough), they pulled it without knowing what was in it. Apparently, they took the word of someone who seems to have massively misread it."

She called her readers to action. What happened? You'll have to wait for Part 2 (coming as soon as I can write it).

Contributing Editor Sassymonkey also blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.

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Banning books in schools: Part 1 - an author takes action