Censorship

Website analysis

For this task I read through the material on the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week (ALA, 2014), including the lists of challenged books and the timeline of banning books from libraries. Not all of the books were children’s books but it does give an idea about the history of censorship in America.

The history of censorship in Australia is harder to obtain. However, the book: “The Censor’s Library” by Moore (2012) compiles a history of censorship in Australia during the 20^th century. Books in Australia are mostly banned because of obscenity, blasphemy or sedition. It is difficult to obtain data on books that challenged by patrons as there does not seem to be an authority collecting this information like there is in America. However, at Bayside Library service, previously banned books such as American Psycho (Easton Ellis, 1991) are placed into a category in the catalogue that prevents patrons from borrowing the item if under 18. At Oakleigh Grammar School the Harry Potter books were challenged and removed because they contain witchcraft when the school was still Oakleigh Greek Orthodox College, they are now however held behind the librarian’s desk and require parental permission to take out as the school is no longer religiously exclusive.

In America, books are not normally banned from the country as a whole due their Freedom of Speech laws. However, common reasons for books being challenged seem to be: offensive language, sexually explicit content, religious factors and drug references. From 2000-2009, the most frequently challenged books were the Harry Potter series by Rowling (1997-2007) because they contain witchcraft. Also among the top ten for that decade were: And Tango Makes Three by Richardson & Parnell (2005) for depicting homosexuality , His Dark Materials series by Pullman (1995-2000) for being anti-Christianity, ttyl series by Myracle (2004) for being grammatically incorrect and the Perks of Being a Wallflower (Chbosky, 1999) for homosexuality, sexual themes, drugs and alcohol usage. Whilst I can understand some of these books being challenged at school libraries, particularly those that are sexually explicit in content, I find it difficult to understand why a book would be challenged on the grounds of lack of grammar or being anti-Christian.

There is also a list of at least 46 novels that are classified as classics on the ALA site (2014) two of which I had to read for school. I have read four others on the list as well, some of which I am not sure why are on the list at all such as the Lord of the Rings by Tolkien (1954-1959). In some ways it says a lot about the over-protectiveness of American parents because a lot of these books were challenged as a result of being recommended reading for English literature classes prior to being challenged. 

It is important as a future librarian to be aware of censorship and the issues surrounding it as it is likely that it will come up at some point in my career, as well as being aware of any self-censoring that may occur.