“Banned Book Week” is September 18-24, and my local public library (the Morse Institute Library) has let its freak flag fly and got out ahead of the curve by starting its promotion early. The display was promptly praised on a local Facepalm™ group, where it received an overwhelmingly (though not entirely) positive response. I had to admit to finding it rather embarrassing. “Freedom is reading a banned book” sounds like the philosophical musings of an over-indulged 14-year old planning a coup out at the vacation house to overthrow the patriarchy, just as soon as the Che Guevara sneakers and t-shirt show up from Amazon Prime. It also smacks of disingenuity. Neither the sample books on the pre-fabricated display nor the entries being filled in by the engaged public seemed to me to be very “banned”, and I had my doubts the folks driving the campaign have in mind overturning the decades old decisions remove the Bible from public school curricula.
Between the QR code printed on the display and the library network’s webpage for “Books Under Threat”, I was let to two different lists of suppressed works. The first list was topped by a New York Times #1 bestselling book, which has not only generated immense sales, but has explicitly been promoted for curricula use in public schools, despite having been filleted by historians of all political stripes for being riddled with serious falsehoods, some of which have been surreptitiously edited by the publisher!
The second list was topped by a work of social science fiction written almost 40 years ago that has subsequently been adapted as a movie, a television series, and an opera, and which is widely used in AP English curricula – in other words, it is often required reading for top high school students. This despite the work being nakedly bigoted against Christianity, and being pornographic to boot.
These books are neither “banned” nor “under threat”. They are propaganda vehicles used to hawk worldviews and values that many people object to and do not want their children being required to read. This should not be controversial, and public libraries should not be in the business of undermining the authoritative roles of parents in the lives of their children.
What book is banned?