It seems to be that time of year, or an election year, or yes. “The heroic fight against the book banners …” “Modern Day McCarthyists …” Librarians and teachers bravely standing in the breach, holding off the forces of censorship and ignorance so that children and the general public can read [whatever]. The book banners are blind, benighted, [something]ist, and ignorant of the importance of access to all knowledge. And the library budget needs to be larger.
What does it mean to ban a book? If it means that the book may not be published, and copies are banned from being brought into the country, that’s one thing. People are denied any access to the book, no matter their age or interest or ability to buy a copy for themselves. I am generally opposed* to that, no matter the book. If it means “restricted access for scholars and/or people over a certain age,” then I’d like more information about the subject of the book and why the restriction.
If “banning” means that books with sexually explicit illustrations or other content, or graphic violence and sado-masochism are not purchased for use in public schools, then I’m quite fine, so long as everyone agrees on what is literary merit vs. shock for shock’s sake. Shakespeare, the Bible, and a few other books do have violence and bad behavior, generally as the horrible warning. I’ve recounted here before about my dismay in finding a book about sexual slavery that was deemed appropriate for a middle school classroom because the protagonist was 12 years old. I left a note for the teacher (I was a sub) and asked if she’d read it, and what she thought about a certain chapter that I’d skimmed. She told me later that she’d moved the book to a different shelf and out of the “free to read” section. It had been part of a package, and she hadn’t read all the titles all the way through. Was that banning? I’d say no. Was it entirely appropriate for the grade level? Probably not.
I guess my take is that what adults read is an adult’s business, so long as the book’s contents are otherwise legal. What kids read … is a little different. What public funds are used to purchase for kids, and what kids are required to read is different again. The US Supreme Court said that community standards could be used as part of deciding what is obscene speech not appropriate for the public sphere. I’d argue that applies to school and public libraries as well.
Can you still buy the book? Is it available for people over a certain age, but not stocked in the grade school library? Then it’s not banned. Your mileage may vary.
*If the contents are things that are illegal anyway, then I’m less opposed to the book not being available. Child pornography being the classic example.
Mad Genius Club 
18 responses to “Oh, Here We Go Again: What is Banned?”
I agree with you. A library is a curated selection of books chosen for a specific audience. What I choose for my library is not what I chose for my kids or now, my grandchildren.
Of course, we don’t hear about the books that are “banned” because Lefties dislike the author.
But in those cases, those books aren’t “removed” from Libraries. The Libraries just don’t purchase them.
Note, Alma’s comment on the definition of “banned” applies here.
People adore banning books they disapprove of.
They just can’t agree on which books.
And yeah, if my tax dollars are paying for books for kid’s libraries, perhaps there should be standards.
When authors want their books to be banned, because it boosts sales and attention… banned no longer means anything.
Yep. I remember Larry Correia pointing out that every time someone condemned his books or demanded that they be removed from sale For Reasons, he got a sales boost. (I still wonder about the people who thought reading Harry Potter would cause children to embrace the occult and evil.)
Ban the ‘Republic of Texas Navy’ series! That guy Brock is a traitor for writing about an imaginary world where Texas never joined the U.S.! 🤪🤣
Most of the “banned books” lists don’t have books that have been banned, just age restricted. There have been a few that were truly banned, but even those have become available to the general public over time. At this point if I hear about a “banned book” I assume it’s a marketing ploy until proven otherwise.
With the rise of eBooks, and how inexpensive they’ve become, pretty much all text is available. And with a VPN books not officially released in your country are still available.
Of course, there are the Lefties that demand that Amazon (and other ebook stores) remove ebooks that they hate.
I strenuously object to many books. Some of them, I have copies of. In order to know what certain sick, twisted minds have in mind if they ever come to power.
So far as my experience has gone, the only one of those books that I couldn’t have acquired through Amazon was “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”
Sometimes it feels weird to see what books get banned by schools and which ones don’t. When I was a boy, my high school library had an extensive collection of the DAW Gor books! Try and imagine them being put on the shelves in a modern high school library.
For some reason I never did read any, despite them being aimed at a, well, an audience that teenage boys would probably be included in. I was more of an Anderson-Norton-Wellman fan.
Gor in high school. The mind boggles.
Has a long moment envisioning Gor or Conan turned loose in some high schools I’ve been acquainted with. No, not really OK reading for most teenagers.
Well, not “defending” the Gor books, but I wondered how many teen-aged boys reading them imagined the Mean Girls getting their “just” rewards. [Twisted Grin]
They wouldn’t have needed the help at that school. Place was nasty. I’m not talking ‘tripping over the bodies on your way in’ bad, but bad enough.
As an illustration, and maybe as something that someone here can use one day in a story of their own, a year or so before I want up there, so late 70’s to maybe 1981 or so, a slight and skinny but rather intellectual lad, call him A, answered a question properly after one of the school football jocks didn’t get it. Said meathead was then asked by the teacher why they couldn’t be more like A. Football Jock and his pals were mad. They waylaid the kid after school and beat him like a rug. A’s angry parents demanded that the principal do something about it. His response? “Oh, come now, boys will be boys!”
The parents didn’t let it rest there. They called the parents of the jocks and told them what happened. The parents yank said jocks off the football team and the school is told they’re not getting back on. Meaning the school football team just lost three of their best backs or whatever you call them. Meaning the school lost the best football team they’d had in years because ‘Boy will be boys!’ And everyone knew who to blame for it. Guess how much fun A’s school year was after that.
Conan’s not that bad for the age group (that was when I discovered it). I wonder what would happen if you introduced Howard and Burroughs into high school libraries now? Probably real book bans.
Conan’s better written than some of the stuff that’s sold as “young adult” books. Heck, I’d wager 50% of the pulp writers were better than 85% of the [Redacted] Publishing company’s kids’ and teens’ books.
Having recently looked at what was on the shelves at my local Barnes & Noble, and considering the depressing sameness of everything in the plots* and the writing just feeling so dull and lifeless, I have to agree.
They had a lot of the DAW yellow spine books period. I wish I’d read more of them.
And in all honesty I’d rather people took the Gor books for all their horrible flaws than some of the tripe I had shoved off on me back then as being ‘socially uplifting SF and fantasy’. Basically it was all ‘Get Whitey’ except the murderous racist terrorist ‘heroes’ are killed in the end because the universe sucks and honkies are gonna ruin everything. Belly Dancers of Gor isn’t so bad after that.