Banning books in schools: Part 2 - the internet responds

sassymonkey — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 20:20:34 -0500

On May 1 author Maureen Johnson called her readers to action after finding out that not only had her book been banned but only two people in the meeting to ban it had read the book.

If students fought against banning, you would really rattle a lot of people. If you demanded to know what books had been removed from your library (if any), if you demanded their return, if you showed up at a school board meeting, if you spoke to the local press . . .
People would listen to you. Not all the time, and not everyone . . . but I think youâ€™d be surprised. Your rights are exactly the same as everyone elseâ€™s. You are born with them. They are yours to exercise.

And let me tell you there was an absolute FLURRY of blog posting all over the internet.

From Once Upon a Bookshelf on why she never liked book banning and why this one made her so upset:

Yes, one of the protagonists is a lesbian. Yes, some of the characters kiss. A lot YA books have characters kissing, and compared to a good number of other YA books, The Bermudez Triangle is extremely tame. So we know WHY exactly this book got challenged, and quite frankly I find that rather disturbing. And Iâ€™m going to stop now before this turns into a full blown rant.

From the Westbury Library Teen Space: Book banning is one of the most awful and irresponsible things so-called educators can do.

Edge of the Forest made it their feature story for May.

It sounds as though the mainâ€”if not onlyâ€”objection some people have to this book is the fact that two people of the same gender have romantic feelings towards one another. I have to ask: If the name Mel was short for Melvin, if the people dating were of opposite genders, would that be okay in the eyes of the school board? Would this book be challenged if it were about a boy and a girl who start dating and do nothing more than kiss? Probably not.

What do Johnson's fellow authors have to say?

Meg Cabot wrote a very tongue-in-cheek post about how jealous she is that Johnson got banned. But she made sure to follow it up with this:

Contrary to what you might have been led to believe from reading the above, censorship is a totally serious issue. I was completely blown away when I was in Poland by the stories I heard about people who were willing to risk jail time in order to read books the government had banned (this was back before they got all democratized in 1989)! I know you think â€œThat could never happen here,â€ but seriouslyâ€”there are some Angry Moms (and politicians) who wouldnâ€™t mind if it did. Donâ€™t let them! Learn about why censorship is wrong, and how you can report acts of censorship in your community .

Neil Gaiman blogged about it too.

This one made me shake my head at the ease with which someone got a book pulled from a middle school library, when the people overseeing it are pusillanimous twerps.

Her writing buddy John Green and fellow YA author posted the very polite email he sent the committee.

E. Lockhart, another YA author, posted a letter written to the local school board.

By taking a book like The Bermudez Triangle off the shelves, you are sending a message to the young people of your community that if they have questions about sexuality, they should not come to you -- or to their parents who support the ban. When you remove a book because you object to its content, you tell the children who look up to you that those topics are unspeakable, and deprive yourself of a chance to impart your values in a discussion. You set up a situation in which a teenager going through adolescence can not confide in his or her elders.

Part 3 of this series will look at some twists and turns and some committee backtracking.

Contributing Editor Sassymonkey also blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.

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Banning books in schools: Part 2 - the internet responds