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North Carolina School District Bans Literary Classic “Invisible Man”

No, not that Invisible Man.

 Yes, we write about the horror genre here, but the book under question is this  one:

Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953 and is counted among the top 100 novels of the 20th century by the Modern Library, was just banned in Randolph County, North Carolina.

It’s a different kind of horrifying than what we usually talk about here, although the confusion is understandable, I guess– even Google Books makes mistakes (link here). Invisible Man addresses many of the social issues African-Americans faced during the middle of the 20th century, especially in the South. Rather than physical invisibility, Ellison’s narrator describes himself as socially invisible, and is a part of the “underground”. This is the book that the school board in Randolph County, North Carolina, voted 5-2 to remove from school libraries and reading lists (link here).

Banned Books week starts September 22. That’s Monday. This incident will, I’m sure, give Invisible Man some new visibility.

It’s been interesting following the news regarding banned and challenged books since last year’s Banned Books Week. Alan Moore’s graphic novel Neonomicon was removed from the library of Greenville, South Carolina in December of 2012; The Diary of Anne Frank was challenged in Michigan (it stayed); Marjane Satrapi’s incredible graphic novel Persepolis was removed from the Chicago Public Schools to public outrage (and restored); the anti-war manga classic Barefoot Gen was banned and then restored to libraries in a school district in Japan; and emails revealed that the former governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels, had attempted to influence the textbook adoption process to prevent A People’s History of the United States from being taught in Indiana schools (not that that ever would have happened here anyway) and teacher education classes; and an Alabama senator attempted to remove Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye from state reading lists. With this week’s removal of The Invisible Man from North Carolina schools, that makes seven times I’ve seen banned and challenged books make the news, and there are so many more cases out there that I’ve never heard of, or that haven’t been reported to anyone at all.  And none of that includes the many other cases of censorship around the world.

To learn more about Banned Books Week, visit the website for Project Censored here and the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week here. And to discover more about banned books and media visit our Pinterest board on Banned Books here. Trust me, I worked hard on it and it is awesome. As for the kids of Randolph County, I’ll quote them Stephen King:

Don’t get mad, get even… Run, don’t walk, to the nearest nonschool library or to the local bookstore and get whatever it is they banned. Read whatever they’re trying to keep out of your eyes and your brain, because that’s exactly what you need to know.

 

Well said, Mr. King.

Not everyone, everywhere, has that choice. This week is a great time to celebrate that in this country, you can, in fact, do exactly that.

Posted on September 20, 2013 by , Reply

Alan Moore’s Neonomicon Banned!

Alan Moore's NeonomiconWell, here we go again. Alan Moore’s graphic novel Neonomicon has been removed from the shelves of the Greenville Public Library in Greenville, South Carolina after a parent challenged it (The parent in question apparently thought from looking at the cover that it was a child’s murder mystery. WHAAT? In my wildest dreams I would NEVER guess this was the cover of a child’s murder mystery). But wait, there’s more to this story. The library’s internal review committee voted to keep it on the shelves. Access Manager Barbara Yonce was quoted as saying “it was purchased on the basis of being an award winner and on the reputation of the author, but then with further consideration, we decided that those qualifications were outweighed by some of the disturbing content of the item.” The library director, Beverly James, decided to overrule the committee’s recommendation based on her own personal reaction, and told the media the removal was based on the committee’s recommendation. Her words (from the Greenville Journal):

‘Neonomicon’ was added to the library’s collection based on the reputation of the author as one of the most outstanding writers in the genre and the fact that the book won the 2011 Bram Stoker Award from the Horror Writer’s Association in the graphic novel category. Nonetheless, had we known in advance about the disturbing material contained in the book, it is unlikely we would have added ‘Neonomicon’ to our collection. For that reason, we have withdrawn it from the library’s collection.

Winner of the 2011 Bram Stoker Award? Maybe that should have been a clue to possible disturbing content. The Stoker doesn’t go to graphic novels about adorable fuzzy bunnies, unless they have sharp knives and are chasing you (like our own Horatio) Taking it off the shelf in the adult fiction section? Not cool. A LIBRARY DIRECTOR overriding her committee’s recommendation to keep the book? I have no words for that.

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF), National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) and American Booksellers for Free Expression (ABFFE) have joined forces to advocate for the restoration of Neonomicon to the Greenville County Public Library System. For more information about that, and to see the letter they wrote, click here.

 

Posted on December 6, 2012 by , Reply

What Banned Books Week Really Means

It’s kind of interesting to look at the opinions, or lack thereof, of the authors of banned books on censorship. R.L Stine, author of the Goosebumps series and many, many other books both scary and funny, doesn’t seem to have much to say. The Goosebumps series was #15 on the list 100 Most Banned/Challenged Books,1990-1999, and was still in the top 100 for the list for 2000-2009, and just last year was challenged in Kirbyville, Texas. But in interviews, he’s rarely asked about censorship of his books, and the most I could find was a comment from him from a chat on CNN that attempting to ban the Harry Potter books was “silly”. Maybe when you’ve written as many books as he has, one person, or school, or library, taking one book from a series with 100+ titles seems pretty insignificant (I’d love to really know what he thinks).

Stephen King, whose book Cujo has been challenged and banned in the past, has made it clear that he opposes book banning, but he’s also said that he doesn’t see it as a major issue. A writer writes, and if he’s defending his books, then he’s not writing. I get that, but he also says he believes a defense should be mounted– but by whom? In a speech he gave titled ” I Want To Be Typhoid Stevie” in 1997 he said that when his books are challenged or banned, he tells kids this:

Don’t get mad, get even… Run, don’t walk, to the nearest nonschool library or to the local bookstore and get whatever it was that they banned. Read whatever they’re trying to keep out of your eyes and your brain, because that’s exactly what you need to know.

His philosophy hasn’t really changed too much. I don’t totally agree with him– I think it’s important for kids to stand up for their right to read, and while you certainly can find at least some of his books there (he’s written so many), not everyone has easy access to a library or bookstore where they can easily acquire a challenged or banned book, or owns an ereader (you can now buy his books online, and some of them are only available as ebooks). Maybe if you tear the house apart you’ll find that your dad has a secret stash (which is how I first tripped over King’s books). Or maybe not. If he doesn’t protest challenges to his books, and kids don’t, who in a divided community will provide that defense? A school librarian may be an amazing advocate who carries the day… but it scares me just to think about doing it myself.

But, he points out, and I think this is a point well taken, in the United States, we all have the right to protest a challenge to a book, or a book banning, to give copies of a banned book away openly (as the Kurt Vonnegut Library did in a recent controversy over Slaughterhouse-Five), or to acquire a banned book without persecution. There are parts of the world where that isn’t possible, and times in history when it has been vigorously enforced. Even though we aren’t living in one of those places, or through one of those times, and even though banning books is a serious issue here, he notes in a 1992 essay:

There are places in the world where the powers that be ban the author as well as the author’s works when the subject matter or mode of expression displeases said powers. Look at Salman Rushdie, now living under a death sentence, or Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who spent eight years in a prison camp for calling Josef Stalin “the boss” and had to run for the west to avoid another stay after he won the Nobel Prize for “The Gulag Archipelago.”

I discovered that Banned Books Week inspires defenders of human rights, who fight for freedom of speech and freedom of expression for writers and journalists who are witnesses to oppression and who live in or write about these places. In America, our right to stand up for the freedom to read resonates throughout the world. In the world of school librarianship, connectedness, collaboration, and social justice are essential concepts to share. Something for all of us to think about is the way Banned Books Week affects not just individual challenges here, but human rights around the world, and the courage to fight for freedom of expression in the face of danger. If you visit our Pinterest board on Banned Books, I shared links there to some organizations that contribute to continuing that fight, and I hope that you’ll check them out. And many thanks to Mr. King to providing quite a bit of food for thought.

 

Posted on September 30, 2012 by , Reply
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