Books, Then, Are A Light That Can Dispel the Darkness Of Ignorance

There Are Many Paths to the Same Place.

Alanis Morissett's song "Isn't It Ironic" & The Banning of Ray Bradbury's "Farenheit 451"

are all the proof you need that

 most people really do not understand the definition of the word "irony!"

I realize That BANNED BOOK WEEK is Over, but the Dialogue never ends . . .

Censorship is not just a phenomenon which occurs by one group against "others." It is also one which occurs within groups, vastly controlling and curtailing their own expression and understanding.

Since a lot of you have asked, (and in the spirit of Banned Books Week,) I thought I’d let you know that I recently received word that Lifeway has decided not to carry A Year of Biblical Womanhood in stores, presumably in the wake of the “vagina” controversy over the summer. ...

... I think the notion that Christians should dance carefully around reality, that we should speak in euphemisms and only tell comfortable, sanitized stories, is a destructive one that has profoundly affected the evangelical culture as a whole. ...

- Rachel Held Evans. 

Please take a moment and READ the STORY . . .

Why PIPA/SOPA is a BAD Idea

More information from:  

LIFEHACKER.

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT . . .

Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh

Alabama Representative Gerald Allen (R-Cottondale) proposed legislation that would prohibit the use of public funds for the "purchase of textbooks or library materials that recognize or promote homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle." The bill also proposed that novels with gay protagonists and college textbooks that suggest homosexuality is natural would have to be removed from library shelves and destroyed.  The bill would impact all Alabama school, public, and university libraries. While it would ban books like Heather Has Two Mommies, it could also include classic and popular novels with gay characters such as Brideshead Revisited, The Color Purple or The Picture of Dorian Gray (2005).


Animal Farm, by George Orwell

A Wisconsin survey revealed in 1963 that the John Birch Society had challenged the novel's use; it objected tot he words "masses will revolt." In 1968, the New York State English Council's Committee on Defense Against Censorship conducted a comparable study in New York State English classrooms. Its findings identified the novel on its list of "problem books"; the reason cited was that "Orwell was a communist." A survey of censorship challenges in the schools, conducted in DeKalb County for the period of 1979 to 1982, revealed that the novel had been objected to for its political theories. Banned from Bay County's four middle schools and three high schools in Panama City, FL by the Bay County school superintendent in 1987. After 44 parents filed a suit against the district claiming that its instructional aids policy denies constitutional rights, the Bay County School Board reinstated the book, along with sixty-four others banned.

 - ALA

I SAW THE BEST MINDS OF MY GENERATION DESTROYED BY madness, starving hysterical naked,

 

Fifty years ago, on October 3, Judge Clayton Horn ruled that Allen Ginsberg's  great epic Beat-era poem HOWL was not obscene but instead, a work of literary and social merit.

Fifty years later, with draconian FCC fines for language infractions, you still can't hear HOWL on the radio.

- Pacifica.org

You can, however, see it below and read the full text of HOWL here.
Go ahead, read along with the clips.

THIS STORY TITLE READS LIKE SOMETHING FROM A JOHN GRISHAM NOVEL

Pentagon destroys war memoir,
releases 

censored 
version

Shaffer said he worked with the Army to ensure the information in the book was in line with the required procedures. He said he was careful to ensure the information in the book would not endanger US troops. During the process over the past two years he did remove items from the book when asked by the Army. Shaffer described the whole process as “collaborative”.

 - RT.

* Pentagon buys, destroys memoir 
* Publisher destroys first edition of US spy memoir
* Government muzzles officer, censors key information about terror attacks 

* Pentagon destroys thousands of copies of Army officer's memoir

Books are dangerous! Protect your kids from subversive ideas!

Nine leading national organizations have joined forces to protest the way Common Sense Media rates books.   

(National Coalition Against Censorship, American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, American Library Association Office for Intellectual Freedom, International Reading Association, Association of American Publishers, PEN America Center, National Council of Teachers of English, Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators, Authors Guild)

- National Coalition Against Censorship.

Why, you might ask?

Because ratings oversimplify material 

and take it out of context. 

The letters written to Common Sense Media 

by the National Coalition Against Censorship explain it so much better than I.

Follow (the link) for Common Sense Media's rating for 

Walter Dean Myers' historical fiction Fallen Angels.

I have reproduced the first letter here 

because it is a cogent and important argument against

reducing literature to a mockery of itself, barren of ideas, imagination, and life,

in a misguided attempt to "protect" children from exposure to "dangerous" ideas.

May 7, 2010
 
James Steyer, CEO
Liz Perle, Editor-in-Chief
Common Sense Media
1550 Bryant Street, Suite 555
San Francisco, CA 94103

Dear Mr. Steyer and Ms. Perle:

We represent national organizations that promote reading and literature. We are writing to you because our organizations share many of the same goals as CommonSenseMedia.org—in particular, the desire to guide young people to the best sources of information and entertainment and to keep parents informed about the educational value of books, even those that some may find controversial or offensive.

While we think that Common Sense Media provides a great deal of useful information, we have serious concerns about the ways CSM rates books. Our concerns fall into three general areas: 1) the implication that certain kinds of content are inherently problematic, 2) the negative attitude towards books, and 3) the potential that the ratings will be used to remove valuable literature from schools and libraries.

1) The implication that certain kinds of content are inherently problematic.
Under “What to watch out for,” the reviews rate books for violence, sex, language, consumerism, and drinking, drugs, & smoking. By focusing on these categories, the ratings imply that young people need to be “protected” from such material, and they encourage parents and students alike to avoid literature containing this kind of content, regardless of its merit. By quantifying content using a few emoticons that focus on only a small part of the content of the book, the ratings take material out of context and deny the message, intent, and value of the book as a whole.

Instead of encouraging people to view books through such a negative and value-laden lens, we urge a focus on the positive things books bring into the lives of young people. Reading enriches, educates, and entertains readers, and challenging literature can play an important role in a child’s learning and development. People select books based on their own values, needs, and interests. Parents can make better and more informed decisions if they have information about the age appeal of a book, its literary merit, topical interest, thought-provoking potential, and entertainment value. Kids read not only to learn, but also to have fun.

2.) The negative attitude towards books.
Reading has intrinsic educational value. Children become discerning learners and thinkers by reading broadly. There are many positive aspects of reading, even in the context of complex and challenging books. However, the positive aspects of reading are rarely noted and, even when they are, they are often obscured by the site’s list of things to “watch out for.”

For example, Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson is the story of a slave girl in 1776 who is confused when she discovers that both the Loyalists and Patriots support slavery. The review features two frown faces, four bombs, and three martini glasses, but says nothing about the book’s educational value. Not until the very end of the summary, after the ratings and warnings, does the review note that the novel “brings history to life with unforgettable power.”

The review of Beloved, by Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Toni Morrison, is likewise silent on the question of educational value, but states that “[s]ensitive readers of any age might find this material too disturbing to make the book worthwhile.” This statement is inconsistent with virtually all professional reviews of the book. Publisher’s Weekly wrote: “This novel is a milestone in the chronicling of the black experience in America. . . . [I]t should not be missed.” Other reviews called it “a masterpiece,” “brilliant,” “a triumph,” and “dazzling.”

The idea that a book might not be worthwhile reading because it contains disturbing material would disqualify a vast quantity of great literature, including Shakespeare, the Greek tragedies, and the Bible. We doubt that your intent is to discourage the reading of books of unquestionable value because they may upset some readers, but that is precisely the message conveyed.

3) The potential that the ratings will be used to remove valuable literature from schools and libraries
The age ratings in the reviews are frequently inconsistent with the ages at which the books are commonly taught in schools. For example, CSM rates Chains, discussed above, as “iffy” for 12 – 14 year olds, even though it is widely taught in 8th grade. Slaughterhouse Five, a classic work, is rated “iffy” for 14 to 18 year olds yet widely taught in high school. Judy Blume’s novel, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, is widely read by 4th and 5th graders but rated “iffy” for 11 – 13 year olds. The fact that the age ratings are inconsistent with the opinions of educators and librarians not only casts doubt on the validity of the ratings, but also creates a serious potential that they will be used to remove valuable, age-appropriate materials from schools and libraries.

Book censorship is a major problem in schools and libraries all over the country. Books are challenged because they contain something that someone - a parent, religious leader or elected official - considers “objectionable” or “age-inappropriate.” Challenges run the gamut, from objections to books that contain profanity, violence, sexual content, racial language, and religious references, to those depicting “bad” role models, non-traditional families, unhappiness, or death. It only takes one person to file a challenge and launch a battle that can last for months and disrupt an entire school system.

Unlike requests for alternative assignments, which most schools offer to parents who object to a particular reading assignment, most book challenges seek to have a book removed from the curriculum, library, or reading list, limiting access by all students. When they succeed, these challenges impose one set of views and values on everyone, including parents who don’t want to have the book removed. More importantly, the students are deprived of the opportunity to read important literature under the guidance of a teacher.

While your mission statement denounces censorship, we believe that your selection tools can easily be used by censors. This is a predictable consequence of the focus on sex, language, violence, etc., removed from their narrative and literary context, rather than on the mind-expanding and life-altering potential of challenging literature. Beloved, for example, is a classic American novel of unquestioned worth, yet it is frequently challenged for language and sexual content. It was among the American Library Association’s list of the ten most censored books in 2006, and not long ago it was removed from an advanced placement English class in a high school in Kentucky. Catcher in the Rye is on the ten most censored list for 2009 – also because of complaints about sex and violence.

CSM reviews endorse and encourage this blinkered view of literature and will ultimately undermine the very goals you purport to promote. If anything, parents need help understanding how reading widely helps prepare their kids for life, not scare tactics about exposure to books depicting sex, violence or bad role models. Children are rarely, if ever, harmed as a result of reading a book, but they can be disadvantaged for life by ignorance.
We do not believe this is what you had in mind. We assume we share important goals – providing information to parents, helping them understand the value of literature, respecting the right of children to read and their need to explore the world through books, and opposing censorship. We hope we can engage in a productive discussion about how to achieve these goals and would like to arrange a meeting to consider how we might proceed towards that end.

Sincerely,

Joan E. Bertin, Executive Director, National Coalition Against Censorship
Christopher M. Finan, President, American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression
Barbara M. Jones, Director, American Library Association Office for Intellectual Freedom
Richard M. Long, Director of State Federal Relations, International Reading Association
Judith Platt, Director of Freedom to Read & Communications/Public Affairs, Association of American Publishers
Larry Siems, Director of Freedom to Write & International Programs, PEN America Center
Kent Williamson, Executive Director, National Council of Teachers of English
Lin Oliver, Executive Director, Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators
Paul Aiken, Executive Director, Authors Guild

FOR THOSE WHO CLAIM THAT CENSORSHIP DOES NOT HAPPEN TODAY (And Many Do)

 

A QUICK DEFINITION:

cen·sor·ship (sen′sər ship′)

noun

1. the act, system, or practice of censoring
2. the office or term of a Roman censor
3. the agency by which unpleasant ideas, memories, etc. are kept from entering consciousness

SUCH AS BY REMOVING BOOKS FROM A LIBRARY

If you'd like to double check:

merriam-webster.com

dictionary.reference.com

definitions.net

  

EXAMPLE:

 

NJ Library Removes LGBT Book After Complaint From Member Of Glenn Beck's 9/12 Movement

A public library in Burlington County, New Jersey has ordered all of the copies of "Revolutionary Voices: A Multicultural Queer Youth Anthology" removed from circulation, after a member of Glenn Beck's 9/12 Project complained about the book's content.

JUST A THOUGHT

about this.

Come on folks.

You have every right to limit what your children read, but you have no right to limit the reading choices of other people's children.

The first is responsible parenting. The second is censorship.

DURING THIS PAST "BANNED BOOKS WEEK"

a commenter claimed:

"No books have been banned in the USA for about a half a century. See "National Hogwash Week." It's sad to see American Library Association propaganda so willingly rebroadcast."

Note the helpful link to a website heavy on rhetoric, but light on verifiable fact.

I do so wish she was correct; but unfortunately, happenings like this have been occurring regularly for the entire time frame she notes (follow link for full story):

Indiana district pulls 

Toni Morrison book 

from hands of students  

Censorship is Censorship

(Other Banned book posts here, here, here, here, here, and here.)

SOME HINTS FROM THE BOOK WHISPERER

FROM THE BOOK WHISPERER:

"While I denounce censorship, I realize that teachers and school librarians must use discretion when offering books to young readers. As public servants, we must acknowledge the personal beliefs of the families we serve. Parents have the right to determine what books their child may or may not read. I dislike protests where a few parents' values potentially limit every reader's access to controversial books, though. To prevent book challenges and parent complaints before they occur, consider these criteria:

• Provide above level books on a case-by-case basis. Every year, I have sixth grade students who read significantly beyond their grade level. Finding appropriate, interesting books for advanced readers is challenging. I keep a small shelf of young adult (YA) titles behind my desk and only offer these books after speaking with a child's parents.

• Familiarize yourself with books and authors before placing titles in your library. I try to read every book before I provide it to my students, but this is not always reasonable. If a book is labeled as YA, I insist on reading it first. With grade level titles, I read reviews before purchasing books. I prefer to know when a book contains questionable content before a parent or student tells me.

• Avoid assigning specific books. I believe that the main reason I have received few complaints from parents or administrators about books over the years, is that I never require students to read a particular book. I expect students to read books from specific genres, but students control which titles they choose to read. If a child's parents express concern over any book their child selects, I help the student choose another one.

• Read every book you plan to read with students before using it. Before adding books to recommended or required lists, assigning titles as whole class novels, or sharing a book as a read aloud--READ IT FIRST!

• Select books for your library that receive favorable reviews from industry sources. In some cases, showing parents the literary merit of a book alleviates concerns about the content and provides evidence that the book is well-regarded in educational and literary circles.

• Decide now what you will do if anyone questions a book in your library. What support can you expect from your campus administrator? If a parent challenges a book, what policies does your district employ for responding to complaints? How important is that controversial book to your classroom instruction? What will you say to parents if they express concerns? Do not wait until a complaint occurs before creating a plan.

"While public schools and libraries must consider the needs and values of our local communities, we also bear responsibility for representing the values of American democracy. During Banned Book Week (and every week), we honor two foundational beliefs--our rights to speak freely and make our own choices. We must safeguard these rights for children until they can exercise and demand these rights for themselves.

**In serious cases of censorship, teachers, librarians, and booksellers can receive help from The Kids' Right to Read Project, which provides resources and public support.

JUDY BLUME TALKS ABOUT CENSORSHIP

CENSORSHIP

"They want to believe that if their children don't read about it, their children won't know about it. And if they don't know about it, it won't happen."

WHAT TO DO IF IT HAPPENS TO YOU

~ Kids
~ Teachers and Librarians
~ Writers

KIDS, KNOW YOUR RIGHTS: A Young Person's guide to Intellectual Freedom

[UPDATE] Judy Blume: "I Was Margaret" : An interview with the YA Writer Who Couldn't Wait For Puberty. -

"Though Blume wrote her best-loved novels in the 1970s, they endure today because they deal frankly and compassionately with the fears, relationships, and sexuality of young people."

INSPIRATION AND ROLE MODEL

Toni Morrison Burn This Book

"BURN THIS BOOK is a collection of essays about censorship; written by some of today’s most talented writers, and edited by Toni Morrison. The book was published by HarperCollins in May 2009. . . . It was born out of a speech last April that Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison gave at the PEN International Festival dinner. Morrison observed that night, “A writer’s life and work are not a gift to mankind; they are its necessity.” As she paid tribute to the difficulties and challenges writers face in many parts of the world, she also reflected on the steep price we all pay when voices are silenced. This powerful, incantatory talk sparked a notion for a book of essays that would explore the issue and impact of censorship in the world.

Qtd. She Is Too Fond Of Books …

IRONY AND CENSORSHIP

Fahrenheit 451, (1953)

Ironically, Bradbury's indictment of censorship has itself been repeatedly censored. Fourteen years after its initial release, some educators succeeded in persuading its publisher to release a special edition. This edition modified more than 75 passages to eliminate certain words, and to "cleanup" two incidents in the book (a minor character, for example, was changed from "drunk" to "sick").

When Bradbury learned of the changes, he demanded that the publishers withdraw the censored version, and they complied. Since 1980, only Bradbury's original text has been available.

As a result, some schools have banned the book from course lists. Through all these attempts to sanitize or banish it completely, Bradbury has remained diligent in his defense of his masterpiece, writing in a coda that appears in some editions of the book:

"There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist / Unitarian, Irish / Italian / Octogenarian / Zen Buddhist, Zionist / Seventh-day Adventist, Women's Lib / Republican, Mattachine / FourSquareGospel feel it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse….Fire-Captain Beatty, in my novel Fahrenheit 451, described how the books were burned first by the minorities, each ripping a page or a paragraph from this book, then that, until the day came when the books were empty and the minds shut and the library closed forever. ..."

"Only six weeks ago, I discovered that, over the years, some cubby-hole editors at Ballantine Books, fearful of contaminating the young, had, bit by bit, censored some 75 separate sections from the novel. Students, reading the novel which, after all, deals with the censorship and book-burning in the future, wrote to tell me of this exquisite irony."

Do not insult me with the beheadings, finger-choppings or the lung-deflations you plan for my works. I need my head to shake or nod, my hand to wave or make into a fist, my lungs to shout or whisper with. I will not go gently onto a shelf, degutted, to become a non-book.