On Banning Books (Banned Books Week Manifesto)

Starting tomorrow, libraries across America (and my library in Thailand) will celebrate Banned Books Week.  It's a celebration of the American freedom of reading, a celebration of the right of people to read what is available.  This year's focus? YA books, a commonly banned or challenged genre, mainly because the content includes violence, or sex, or drugs, or some combination of the above factors.

As an avid reader of YA lit, I can appreciate that there would be challenges to these texts.  I know that challenging books comes from a good intention, from the desire to protect a child from something sensitive.  I understand that reading about sex (or whatever) may be difficult for an adult to condone.  In my role as a youth librarian, though, I can't imagine anything more important than stepping into another's shoes and practicing the empathy that books create in us.

I'm keeping books very vague on purpose, because I think that even silly content can teach empathy and understanding.  Even books with seemingly no value can help us understand something new about our world and the humans within it.  I am the perfect example of this.

When I was a kid, I liked books.  I still like books.  After I read the Lemony Snicket series, Goosebumps, and Dear America, I moved on to romance novels.  First, I read romances for teens, and then I moved on to romance novels for adults.  As a teenager in high school, I read through the entire library's romance section (in two towns).  I remember that the librarian in one of the towns was not remarkably supportive of my reading choices, but that my stubbornness overcame that challenge.  I collected romance novels.  My bookshelves were right next to my bed, and included titles stacked two deep, two tall, and on three shelves.

I have read thousands of romance novels, many that I can't remember, some with vague memories.  Johanna Lindsey, Diana Palmer, Nora Roberts, more and more.  I can stand in a store and read through a romance novel in a remarkably short amount of time.  I can read through a Harlequin Presents novel in an hour.  I'm only slightly embarrassed to mention my addiction to this genre.

I know that my choice of genre is not the most accepted in general populations.  I know that it is not a respected type of book.  But, they are not without value.  They transport me to different places, to other countries, to different times, to the minds of different people.  There are opportunities to learn new words, because even romance writers are trying to use their vocabularies.

Other things that I like are similarly disregarded as valid art forms.

Rap music and hip hop music, my favorite genre because of the beats and the rhymes and the rhythm in the music, is not a respected art form.  They are wordsmiths, but it isn't seen that way.

Graphic novels are not respected either, and in fact, are banned more often than traditional YA literature.  The genre isn't understood or respected.  I didn't like the books until recently, when I read American Born Chinese in graduate school.  We also read Maus I and II, in the break before the spring course begun.  I took several books home with me to Iowa for Christmas, with even more on CD.  After finishing Maus, I explained the premise to my mom, and she picked it up and read both texts cover to cover.  This is outstanding to me because I've rarely seen her read fiction.  The newspaper, sure, especially on the way to the crossword puzzle.  But a fiction book?  It wasn't the thing she wanted to do with her time.

She read both that day, and it opened up a conversation.  I also read books during that vacation about lesbians, high school secret societies, gossip, and vampires.  The reading brought questions that I wanted to ask my mother about, and I did.  I doubt I would have breached the subject of homosexuality without having a great book (Annie on My Mind) to spur me.

I think about this when it comes to books, particularly YA books.  There are many things that I learned from books... how to communicate when I generally preferred to observe, how to observe more deeply when I was only seeing one side, and how to read the emotions that I saw on faces.  My family didn't always want to talk about issues, as atypical things are rarely spoken about in small towns.  I explored in books issues that I didn't know existed and it brought me to where I am today.

It doesn't matter what a kid reads, as long as they are reading something.  They can read manga, or romance, or fan fiction, or John Green, or anything.  Whatever they are reading helps them to get into a story, helps them see a perspective that they may not have known existed.  If they read about drugs, maybe they see that they're not that interested, or that they should exercise caution.  They may read a book that features a normal boy who happens to be attracted to another boy, and realize that they are also attracted to boys.  They may read Harry Potter, where the main character has some serious issues with authority (seriously, did he ever follow the rules?).  Despite this, they may see that some things are worth fighting for, and that protagonists are rarely perfect.  Characters have flaws, but books help you realize that you can make those mistakes and find ways to have integrity and acceptance.

Most importantly, I think books help you think of questions that you hadn't considered.  These questions could be innocuous, or serious, but often new.  Anything from "how can I deal with a broken heart?" to "how far is too far when it comes to sex?"  That uncertainty unnerves adults sometimes, especially if they're part of the equation, with questions being asked of them.

Recently, some adults have said the same things to me.
"Well, how do we know a book isn't too advanced for a kid?"
"What if a kid checks out something that they won't understand?"
"What happens if there's violence in a book and they take it the wrong way?"

Kids get things.  Kids are sensitive little humans who instinctively know that the violence in this book is not the success in the story.  They know when they should ask something and when to keep their knowledge quiet.  Their online lives are full of things that we don't understand, things that they know to keep quiet because the adults will disapprove.  Trying to keep them in the dark does nothing for them, because they can find whatever inappropriate content they want with a simple Google search when their parents are asleep.  Banning the nuance that a text gives brings them just their simple search results with YouTube comments (which are generally harsh) or Tumblr posts (which are often un-researched, or researched quite well, but you're never sure what you're seeing) or whatever else they can find.

If it doesn't make sense, the kid will likely abandon it.  If they can't handle it, they'll put it down, or endure practicing the perseverance of getting through a challenge.  If it is sensitive, they'll talk about it with whoever will understand, or ruminate over it on their own.  Have a little faith in them, and let them surprise you.

I read romance novels, and I am still a functional member of society.  Other read manga, or comics, or ghost stories, or fanfiction.  Any book in a student's hand brings them that much closer to being the empathetic and sensitive adult you're hoping for.  Give them a little credit and let the kids read.