Here's the last random post from the Banned Books Week map:
To read the letter, click here.
It's been interesting posting these: more because of the memories that they've brought up for me, since most of these cases involve books in schools, where people have the impression they should be able to control what other people read. Parents that don't want their children reading books with dragons in them think that they have the right to tell all the other kids in the class that they shouldn't read books with dragons in them. And there are whole committees and procedures that school boards set up in order to validate those parents and "give it due consideration." There is a complaints process, and therefore there are complaints. Chicken and egg? Who knows?
I'd like it if the ALA's map covered other cases outside the schools and libraries - like what about books stopped at the border between Canada and the USA because of content (as happened to Little Sister's bookstore in Vancouver, which had a shipment of books held at the border, because of charges that the books were pornography)? I think that counts.
As a parting note - look for an article coming out in a couple of weeks by Cory Doctorow about sex in teen novels. (Google it, I don't remember the title or where it's being printed.) He mentioned it at one of the schools we visited this week, when someone asked if he'd ever had complaints about his book Little Brother. He told them that yes, he had - a parent had complained because the main character loses his virginity (and "nothing bad happens as a result.")
Oh, yeah, that's what you want to be teaching kids: that sex inevitably ends in suffering. That'll arm them for their future lives and relationships. Personally, I think Marcus and Ange (the kids in Cory's book) are a great model of a healthy, functional, equal, respectful, mature partnership.
