[bookshare-discuss] Re: Banned Books Week
- From: Karen Lewellen <klewellen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2007 17:30:22 -0400 (EDT)
Monica,
I can respect your stance, but you are making two major assumptions here,
sadly you are not alone.
You are working from the idea that there is a uniformed homogenized
group known as children, who can all only understand things at the same
level, and who are all brought up in such similar environments that the
result of putting a book in their hands would be exactly the same. the
second assumption is that libraries do not for example make an effort to
put books in a grouping such as grade level.
I feel sure you see the folly in both assumptions.
What might be too difficult for one child to manage might be liberating
for another, even if the same age. Plus children reading beyond their
assumed grade level is a very common occurrence.
of course this concept of Banned books seems to be an American one only.
at least I have not seen such a list circulate in other countries.
That speaks volumes. There are far many numbers that demonstrate how good
it can be to let a child learn and explore with the support of explaining
challenging ideas to them, and far too many such numbers that indicate
what happens when they are left in the dark about issues that interest
them, or worse yet, are made to feel bad for asking questions an exploring
through reading. One of the fundamental concepts of this country is that
an individual can if exposed to different ideas discover the one that is
true for them, making the marketplace of ideas important.
In the most uniform of worlds, your stance would be true perhaps. Still
we live in a world of unique individual children, all with individually
rich imaginations that should be honored as
such.
Karen
On Sun, 30 Sep 2007, Monica Willyard wrote:
I think I'm in the minority on this one. I'll speak up anyhow. I think some
of these books should be reserved for adult library collections and that it
is appropriate to remove them from school libraries. Many of them discuss
topics that are not meant for children. While I agree that adults should have
access to the books they want to read, it seems to me that some restraint is
necessary with children in a school library. Several of you have said that
it's the parent's job to screen books and discuss them. I agree with that
sentiment. Have you stopped to consider the practical implications of this in
regard to a school library? A parent cannot physically accompany a child to
their school library since that is done during school hours. Our school's
library closes 10 minutes after the final class lets out. Furthermore, many
public schools require parents to get a special pass to gain access to the
school. This makes a parent's job more difficult since it would be seen as
disruptive for a parent to spend each day at school with her child in order
to make sure she picks age-appropriate books from the library. It would also
prevent that parent from earning a living while the child is in school.
Because of the limited access parents have, I believe the schools do bear
some of the burden of putting age-appropriate books on their shelves and
clearly marking or separating books that are for mature audiences only. I
don't want an 8-year-old to have access to a book about the joy of sex, gay
or straight. Nor do I think a 10-year-old is ready to handle The Handmaid's
Tale. I would feel the same way about a child reading Tim LaHaye's The Act Of
Marriage which is a Christian book about marital sex. All of these books deal
with topics that are best handled by adults who have the ability to
understand and respond to their content in a mature way. I do think book
banning in a public library is a problem since parents can access that
collection with their children. When it comes to schools though, I think
banning books on adult topics makes sense since children don't have their
parents' input and can check out whatever they find on the shelves.
Monica Willyard
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