IGF CultureWatch

As an appropriate follow-up to last week's column about a New Jersey school district that dropped a gay-inclusive video about different kinds of families, Banned Books Week (BBW) is coming right up, Sept. 29 to Oct. 6.

BBW is a project of the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom designed to draw attention to the number of formal challenges to books in school and public libraries lodged by parents or patrons urging that the books be removed from the shelves.

In 2006, there were 546 known attempts to remove books from libraries--and those were just the ones reported. Most book challenges were reported by school libraries--71 percent; most of the rest were reported by public libraries--24 percent. Parents lodged 61 percent of the book challenges, library patrons 15 percent, and administrators 9 percent.

As the ALA's Office of Intellectual Freedom points out, 546 challenges is more than one per day. Considering the 380 or so challenges to books in school libraries alone, that amounts to more than two a day during the typical 180-day school year.

The challenges were typically lodged on the basis of a small number of objections: sexual content, homosexuality, occult or satanic content, violence, drugs, offensive language, rather vague claims of being "anti-family," of "insensitivity," and the all-purpose "unsuitable to age group."

Not surprisingly, I suppose, given the number of "pro-family activists" around these days, four of the 10 most frequently challenged books drew objections in part because of "homosexuality." As I mentioned last week, the single most frequently challenged book was the children's picture book "And Tango Makes Three," about two male penguins who brood and hatch an egg and begin raising their baby penguin.

"Tango" (and again I urge you to read it) drew objections for homosexuality, anti-family content and unsuitability for age group. Never mind that there is not a hint of homosexuality in the book. Anti-family? The two males with their chick seem more like a traditional family than any single parent household. And since the story is true, Nature appears to have a broader understanding of "family" than the religious right--but some people must not want children to know that.

The other three books that drew challenges in part because of homosexuality were "Athletic Shorts" by Chris Crutcher, "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky, and books in the "Gossip Girl" series by Cecily von Ziegesar. (Other Top 10 challenged books are listed at the BBW website.)

A year or so ago for a different project I began reading gay-themed children's and "young adult" books. There are quite a number by now--upwards of 200, maybe. I have not read the "Gossip Girl" books but "Athletic Shorts" is a collection of six short stories about young athletes, one of whom has two gay fathers, and another of whom meets a young man dying of AIDS.

"The Perks of Being a Wallflower" is a sort of omnibus of problem situations high school students might encounter, one of which is the presence of two gay students. Considering all the other things in the book--rape, child abuse, etc.--the two gay youths come across as perhaps the most decent and least troubled characters in the book. Maybe that is what the challengers really objected to. To be honest, I found parts of "Perks" uncomfortable reading, but that is not to say that the book shouldn't be in libraries. It may actually help young people be better prepared if they encounter some of the things included in the book.

Fortunately, not all the challenges to library books are successful. Most are rejected by librarians and library boards--and the books stay on the shelves. In many ways, librarians are real heroes of the First Amendment, dedicated to keeping materials with a variety of social and political viewpoints available for readers.

Many people don't seem to grasp this point. They think that if they and their children use the library and their taxes help pay for the book, they should be able to determine what books the library offers. But they ignore the fact that other people might want to read precisely the books they object to and that their taxes also help pay for the books.

Putting that another way, what they want is to control not only what they and their children take out from the library and read, but what everybody else and their children can take out and read. In other words, they have no regard for individual freedom or respect for the working of other people's minds. I think we know where that can lead.