| From
the May/June 2007 issue of The Horn Book Magazine
Editorial
Here’s Why It’s Censorship
“ hen
we do it, it’s selection.” That’s what
one librarian said on NPR twenty-five years ago in defense of her
decision not to purchase Margot Zemach’s Jake and Honeybunch
Go to Heaven, a picture book criticized for what some saw as
a stereotyped depiction of African Americans. The book was banned
or restricted in the public libraries of Chicago, Milwaukee, and
San Francisco, actions defended as “selection decisions”
rather than censorship.
But it was censorship, and when, today,
a librarian chooses not to add Susan Patron’s Newbery-winning
The Higher Power of Lucky to a collection because of the
presence of the word scrotum on the first page, that’s
censorship, too.
There is no law of libraryland that says every
library has to include every Newbery winner. But there is
a law saying you can’t exclude a book because you don’t
approve of one of the words it uses. It’s in article 2 of
ALA’s Library Bill of Rights: “Materials should not
be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.”
Proscribed means, in this context, “not
allowed in the collection in the first place.” To not buy
The Higher Power of Lucky because, say, the only hardcover
fiction you buy is Harry Potter is a selection decision. To not
buy it because you think the word scrotum is inappropriate
— or because you think some parents or other authority figures
will find it, and thus you, inappropriate — is proscription.
(And to not buy it because “it’s not good enough”
or “we only have so much money” when, really, you’re
not buying it because it has a scrotum is just underhanded,
and still censorship.)
Anyone who has a problem with scrotum
or other “objectionable” words might as well put this
issue of the Horn Book down now, as it is chock-full of . . .
aw, nuts. Especially in Patty Campbell’s column (page
311), which takes a good, thoughtful look at the eternal problem
of what we euphemistically call “realistic language”
in books for the young. This issue also marks Patty’s final
“Sand in the Oyster,” and I’d like to thank her
for her many years in service to the good fight. Thanks, Patty,
and we’ll keep trying to give ’em hell.
From the May/June 2007 issue of The
Horn Book Magazine |
