The Horn Book » Censorship

O Come All Ye Faithful?

Roger Sutton — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 18:37:34 +0000

Don’t miss Leonard Marcus’s latest column about picture book covers, and speaking of that, SLJ stalwart Rocco Staino reports on a gallery of ‘em that would make Judy Blume blush. Or would they? The pictures were created by several well-known picture book artists in service of raising money for the National Coalition Against Censorship.

They are hilarious (see the link for the gallery), far funnier than the lists of “fake dirty children’s books” that periodically meme their way around the Internet, but I wonder about the, um, blowback. At least in regard to intellectual freedom for children, the argument promoted by the American Library Association is less about the freedom of expression than it is the freedom to read. And the reason for the freedom to read is that reading itself has value, and that those who seek to ban or restrict Forever, Harry Potter, or Goosebumps are misunderstanding (or misrepresenting) the fundamental good of these titles: Forever speaks honestly about sexuality, Harry Potter celebrates the power of the imagination, Goosebumps provides safe thrills and encourages reluctant readers to take up the habit. I don’t think the ALA has ever met a book for kids that didn’t have redeeming social value.

But what if Holiday Hummers were real? Would we still stick up for it? I put the question to NCAC Executive Director Joan Bertin and she responded (entirely sensibly) that “the whole thing is completely hypothetical and unlikely in the extreme. However, in general our position is that we defend the right to publish legal non-obscene content of any kind. It’s up to individuals to decide if they want to buy/read it.” That makes perfect sense when you approach intellectual freedom from the First Amendment rights of writers, but I wonder if when we defend books for their case-by-case value to readers (which is what ALA does), what we do when a book seems indefensible? A lot of fifth-grade boys would find a book called Holiday Hummers (not to mention Blow Me: A Book About Whistles, not to mention the real-life Go the Fuck to Sleep) irresistible, so we can’t argue that such a book would not be of interest to kids. My point is that a defense of books on the basis of their worthiness will only take you so far and is ultimately thin: “IS worthy!” “Is NOT!” A fair percentage of the population already thinks Daddy’s Roommate IS Holiday Hummers without the choir robes, anyway; are we prepared to defend both?

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When librarians do stupid things

Roger Sutton — Thu, 10 May 2012 01:09:24 +0000

Sometimes we really are our own worst enemy. Somebody take away this lady’s library card.

And has anyone read these Fifty Shades of Grey? How is it?

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Don’t shoot the messengers

Roger Sutton — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 19:05:07 +0000

Richard just sent me a link to Julie Bosman’s report in the NYT Arts Blog about the digitalization of Judy Blume:

“Beginning on Mar. 21, 13 of Ms. Blume’s books, including “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” “Blubber” and “Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself,” will go on sale, published by Random House Children’s Books. With their frank discussions of sex, class, divorce and puberty, Ms. Blume’s books carried a universal appeal among younger readers, but were often dismissed by librarians and teachers, keeping them on banned books lists for years.”

HOLD UP. Yes, Judy Blume books have generally been enjoyed more by children than by librarians, but the latter are responsible for “keeping them on the banned books lists for years” only in the sense that it is largely librarians who compile such lists, from actual book challenges, IN THEIR ATTEMPT TO STOP PEOPLE FROM BANNING BOOKS. Some credit where it’s due, please.

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>Come to the movies

Roger Sutton — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 14:19:00 +0000

>On June 25th at 8:00PM at the ALA conference in New Orleans, ALSC is presenting a free screening of The Library of the Early Mind, a documentary about contemporary children’s literature including interviews with many authors and illustrators. I think my favorite segment is the coverage of an attempt to ban Annie on My Mind, although the shots of Jack Gantos on an automated walkway at Logan Airport give the whole thing a nicely nouvelle vague frisson.

Sponsored by Media Source (just like this blog) and the children’s book groups of Little, Brown and Macmillan, the movie will be followed by a brief q and a with the director, Edward Delaney, and three of the stars: Grace Lin, Jack Gantos, and Daniel Handler (I’ll be moderating). Then there are free snacks and a cash bar. Please come! At the convention center, Auditorium C, 8:00 P.M.

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>Gratuitous or essential?

Roger Sutton — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 18:31:00 +0000

>Watching the Grammys the other night and finally succumbing to the hook they seemed to be playing over and over (reminding me of the night, now and forever, the Tonys would not let go of “Midnight . . . all the kitties are sleeping . . .”), I became curious about the apparently runaway success of “Need You Now.” (The original is fine but I love this tribute even more.) I was interested to discover that the label had some concern about the line “It’s a quarter after one, / I’m a little drunk, / And I need you now.” Luckily, the band and wiser heads prevailed, as I think the song became the ubiquitous hit it is because its slight whiff of realism gives those who disdain “adult contemporary” or “smooth country” permission to go ahead and enjoy the song. I wonder if the inclusion of what we used to call swear words do the same thing in books for kids. That even if a sentence would read perfectly well without the fuck thrown into the middle of it, does the use of the offending word gives readers permission to trust the book?

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>Shoulda stuck to their guns

Roger Sutton — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 16:44:00 +0000

>Colleen has a great post up summarizing the drama that’s been going on around Bitch Magazine’s publication of “100 Young Adult Books for the Feminist Reader.” The comments on the magazine’s site are the best–incensed that Margo Lanagan’s Tender Morsels (among others) had been removed from the list because it might “trigger” victims of rape, other writers who have books on the list (Maureen Johnston, Ellen Klages, Scott Westerfeld, etc.) are demanding that their books be removed, too.

But these “triggers.” I dunno–while I don’t deny that subsequent experiences can unpleasantly or even horrifically cause a previous trauma to reemerge, who knows what is going to do what to whom? It seems like the ultimate drama queen trump card: you can’t say/write/show/do anything that might cause somebody/somewhere/sometime to have a panic attack? Shoot me now.

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>Take it from the old stage manager

Roger Sutton — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 17:46:00 +0000

who’s seen ‘em come and go . . . . When I heard about the new edition of Huck Finn that cleans up Mark Twain’s pesky use of the word nigger, deja vu of a very real sort came over me. A similar bowdlerization happened at least once before, more than 25 years ago, and I reported on it in my guise as YA columnist for School Library Journal. Courtesy of Mark Tuchman at SLJ who graciously found and scanned the thing for me, here it is again. From the August, 1984 SLJ:

In the YA Corner

Roger Sutton

Children’s Librarian

North Pulaski Branch

The Chicago Public Library

“Sivilizing” Huck Finn

Despite Mark Twain‘s notice that “Persons attempting to find a moral in this narrative will be banished,” the woods surrounding his Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are thick with thieves; the only thing being banished is this book. While in a gentler time Louisa May Alcott could remark, “If Mr. Clemens cannot think of something better to tell our pure-minded lads and lasses, he had best stop writing for them,” the issue today is not coarseness, but racism.

My interest here is in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Adapted, published by John H. Wallace, (John H. Wallace & Sons Co., 1983). A letter accompanying the review copy states, “Very little has been changed. The term “nigger” has been exorcised, as have the stereotypical assumptions that blacks steal, are not intelligent, and are not human.” Wallace, who is black, had attempted to ban Twain‘s book from the Mark Twain Intermediate School in Fairfax, Virginia. “I don‘t care about the First Amendment. I care about children,” he was quoted in the Chicago Sun-Times (April II, 1982).

Now, we care about the First Amendment, precisely because we care about children. But Wallace believes that children—particularly black children—are hurt and humiliated by this book. Since his unsuccessful attempt to ban it, he wrote a “sivilized” version.

But given Wallace’s premise that the book is racist, can we say that his “edited” version has rendered it less so? I don‘t think it has. In fact, I believe he has taken Huckleberry Finn, a book containing some strong anti-racist sentiment, and turned it into a very different book, one that is racist “by omission” (to borrow a phrase from the Council on Interracial Books for Children). Wallace’s changes are of several kinds. Most prominent is the complete expurgation (Wallace calls it “exorcism”) of the word “nigger,” replacing it most often with “slave,” and occasionally “servant” or “fellow.” Sometimes he omits phrases or sentences containing the offending word.

Wallace says, “Very little has been changed”—”nigger” is a word occurring countless times in Twain’s book. It is (and was in Twain’s time) an ugly word. “Slave,” on the other hand, is only descriptive, carrying no value judgment or emotional freight. For the most part, changing “nigger” to “slave” doesn‘t distort the literal, narrative sense of Twain‘s book. For example, Wallace changes “By and by they fetched the niggers in and had prayers,” to “By and by they fetched the slaves in and had prayers.” Despite the change, readers still know, nominally, to whom Twain is referring.

Twain, however, used “nigger,” not “slave,” and he used it on purpose. Remember, Huck tells the story, and “nigger” is the word he would use. The point of the story is that Huck is an ignorant, uneducated racist who, when faced with a choice between his racism and helping a slave escape, says, “All right, then, I’ll go to hell,” choosing to aid his friend Jim, a “nigger.“

By changing “nigger” to “slave,” Wallace rewrites not only Twain but history, fashioning Huck‘s society to appear less racist than it really was. Whites of that time did believe “Give a nigger an inch and he’ll take an ell,” but not in Wallace’s book—he deleted that sentence. With Wallace’s removal of the “nigger,” and his softening of white bigotry in Twain‘s book, readers can conclude that life wasn’t so bad for blacks in the South. Indeed, they can conclude that blacks scarcely existed. By simply referring to them as “slaves,” readers can forget why they were enslaved to begin with.

Wallace also changes Huck’s relationship with Jim. Huck, by Wallace, doesn’t believe “He was a mighty good nigger, Jim was.” Instead, “He was a mighty good man, Jim was.” In Twain‘s book, Huck, expressing approval of Jim, says, “I knowed he was white inside.” In Wallace’s, this becomes “I knowed he was good.” Why is Wallace so eager to let Huck Finn off the hook? What was, in Twain, a telling exposure of how racism infects even the most sympathetic of characters becomes, in Wallace, just a coupla guys sitting around on a raft, talkin‘. Huck is no Simon Legree. He does love Jim, but cannot escape his own racism entirely. That’s the point. The world would be a lot simpler if we had bad guys and good guys, but what we do have is a whole lot of mixed-up, uneasy people positively bustling with ignorance. And that’s Huck—us—the good guys.

Look at how Wallace sweetens up Aunt Sally. When Huck tells her a fabricated story of a steamboat accident, the old dear replies, “Good gracious! Anybody hurt?” And when Huck replies “No’m,” she’s relieved. “Well, it’s lucky, because sometimes people do get hurt.” Let’s see this same exchange in Twain:

“It warn‘t the grounding—that didn‘t keep us back but a little. We blowed out a cylinder-head.“

“Good gracious I Anybody hurt?“

“No‘m. Killed a nigger.“

“Well, it‘s lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt.“

Different, isn’t it? Aunt Sally, sweet Aunt Sally, doesn‘t care if it “killed a nigger” so long as “people” didn’t “get hurt.” It is as if she didn‘t hear Huck‘s response; like Wallace, she ignores the “nigger‘s” existence. Wallace reduces Twain’s neat irony to a pointless exchange, like Aunt Sally, complacently ignorant.

I can say what I do about these two Huckleberry Finns only because (unlike the intended audience of Wallace‘s book) I have both books in front of me. I can see that in Twain‘s book the angels “hoverin’ round” Huck’s father are black and white, the ones in Wallace‘s are white and “yaller.” (The white angel is still the good ‘un.) I can see that Jim calls Huck “Honey” in Twain, but not in Wallace (and that change begs more questions than it answers). What I can‘t see is what Wallace expects students to get out of his book. Twain‘s stern moral vision, his irony—the reasons this book is taught—are gone. What’s left?

What’s left is ignorance. Wallace, who has called Twain‘s book “the most grotesque example of racist trash ever written” (Chicago Sun-Times, May 25, 1984), has revealed his own; and through his “sivilizing” of Huck, seeks to pass it on.

“I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can‘t stand it.” Me neither, Huck. Have a safe trip.

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>Yes, it’s a book, but . . .

Roger Sutton — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 14:35:00 +0000

>Lane Smith’s It’s a Book got into hot water on Boston’s North Shore when a literacy foundation tried to donate copies to 340 first graders via their schools. While I don’t buy into the harrumphing that has plagued this book’s final page I do have two cautions. One, first-graders? I think It’s a Book is better for third. Two, foundations (and Scientologists and Baha’is and Bible-thumpers) should know that gifts do not trump selection policies in public institutions. Just because you want to give something away, it doesn’t mean that somebody has to accept it. If this were true, the nation’s public libraries would be swimming with copies of National Geographic, and the nation’s public schools would be swimming in Coke®.

I’m also bothered by the concept that one book suits all. Unless the publisher unloaded copies on the foundation, somebody had to pay for these books. Even at Amazon’s suspiciously deep discount of 57 percent, that would come to more than 1800 dollars, money that could have been spread around to give the kids some choice.

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>Jokers to the left of me, jokers to the right

Roger Sutton — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 18:05:00 +0000

>Leila pointed me to this case in Seattle of Brave New World being yanked from the curriculum for being insensitive re Native Americans. The Prez has already gotten in trouble (per usual) with Fox News for the inclusion in his new picture book of Sitting Bull (http://nation.foxnews.com/media/2010/11/15/obama-praises-indian-chief-who-killed-us-general); I’m wondering if that same spread is going to get him in trouble from progressives as well, as illustrator Loren Long chose to depict Sitting Bull as a sort of landscape, with buffalo for eyes, hills and cracked earth for nose and mouth, and some pine trees placed so they form eyebrows (and, dare I say, boogers). It’s the old one-with-nature stereotype, which wouldn’t be so bad had all of the other subjects of the book not been depicted realistically. If you’re there, Debbie Reese, what do you think?

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>Did she just say what I think she did?

Roger Sutton — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 16:15:00 +0000

>Sparked by the Speak drama, the Tea Cozy asks the question, “what would you do if someone used your review as ‘proof’ that a book shouldn’t be in a library or a classroom?” and there’s a good discussion in the comments.

My own touchstone for this question is Judy Blume’s Here’s to You, Rachel Robinson, in which the word fucking appears once. I know that there are school and public libraries that would not want this book on their shelves because of that single vulgar utterance (by a troubled character, by the way, in case you thought Blume was cussing out her readers or something). But should a review mention it? On the one hand, I can’t think of a review reader who would mind having that pointed out, whether because it stopped them from buying the book, made them aware of potential controversy, or made them even more eager to read it. On the other, in a two-to-three-hundred word review, would quoting that word give its presence in the book undue weight? Or, by omitting any mention, am I trying unfairly to get people to buy the book? (This also happens when a reviewer substitutes the word meditative for the word boring when reviewing a book by a friend or admired author.) In the Blume case, I decided not to mention it because it did not seem fair to the book as a whole. Any book review has responsibilities in two directions–to the book in hand and to the audience of the review. Sometimes these interests can conflict and you have to come down on a side.

On the way to work today I was listening to Shirley Bassey’s latest recording, The Performance. I do love Dame Shirley–have you heard her cover of Pink’s “Get This Party Started?” Majestic. I’m listening to the second track, “The Apartment,” and start chuckling at its work-related (and beautifully enunciated) lyric:

I’m running away from Cinderella
don’t want to go to Rapunzel´s hairdresser
Get me outta this
This, this here fairytale
According to me dreams are hell

Set to a catchy Latin beat, it’s fun, right? But then I hit the second verse:

I don’t want to kiss that faggot froggy
don’t want to fall in love . . .

WHAT? It kind of put me off the whole thing. Even after (actually I suppose I mean to top it all off) I discover it was written by super-gay Rufus Wainwright, the levels of irony, unreliable narration, etc. in the usage just make me work too hard to enjoy the fucking song.

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