There are absolutely no “book bans” in the U.S., contrary to claims by liberals such as Cynthia Tucker, whose column on the subject appeared in this newspaper last week. However, there are controversies about placing sexually explicit books in school libraries or in the children’s sections of public libraries.
And some parents do not want their children to be required to read books that include scenes of incest and sexual abuse such as “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison or “Push” by Sapphire. But the books in question are not actually banned because parents can always buy the book for their child, or check it out from the adult section of a public library.
“Lawn Boy” is in the top 10 of challenged books in U.S. public school libraries because it contains explicit descriptions of sexual acts. The author, Jonathan Evison, has said that the novel was written for adult readers, but since this coming-of-age story has a LGBTQ theme, it has been promoted as a book for teens. Parents also object to the language in the book, including a homosexual slur used 10 times and 97 instances of the “F-word.”
Librarians are responsible for curating a collection of materials appropriate for the users of their library. In school libraries, the ages of the readers drive book acquisitions because different grades are usually separated into elementary school, middle school, and high school. And elementary school libraries have separate sections with picture books for pre-readers, storybooks for beginning readers, and chapter books for more advanced readers.
Liberal activists claimed that Amanda Gorman’s poetry book “The Hill We Climb” was “banned” in a Florida school just because it was moved to a shelf reserved for middle-school students. But placing books in age-appropriate sections in the library is not “banning” books because it’s common practice in elementary school libraries to restrict students to books that they can actually read. Otherwise, they are just looking at the pictures and getting frustrated by not understanding the text.
Cynthia Tucker cited the “banning” of the books “1984” by George Orwell and “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury. Many high school libraries don’t have these two books in their collections because they can’t include every book that has ever been printed. Ironically, liberals want to ban another book by Ray Bradbury, “The Martian Chronicles,” because it includes the “n-word.”
And it’s debatable whether the subject matters of “1984” and “Fahrenheit 451” are appropriate for teenagers. These two books weren’t in my high school library in the 1960s, although they were both published before I was born. I read them for college classes because they were written for an adult audience. The actual reading level is not that high; “1984” is written at the 9th-grade reading level and “Fahrenheit 451” is written at the 5th-grade reading level.
Most written works intended for adults, such as this newspaper and this column, are written at about the 11th-grade reading level. So most high school students can literally read these two books, but the plots are allegories not easily understood by teenagers who don’t have the maturity or life experiences to fully grasp the deeper meanings.
Encourage school-aged children to read. Parents and grandparents should regularly read to little ones, and have older kids read out loud to them. Accompany children to public libraries, and buy the books if you want them to read “banned” books not available in school libraries. Reading is a gift that will benefit them for the rest of their lives.
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