By Michelle Mears, Rolling Hills Library Director
If you want to know the power of literacy and reading, just look at how hard some people work at stopping someone from reading a book.
Our region is just now experiencing the book banning trend that has been cresting in other communities across Missouri and across the nation. The problem lies with singling out individual works for removal from public access so that no one can read them, based on the opinion of a minority of community members and the reasons they cite for wanting a book banned.
The freedom to read is closely tied to the freedom of speech, one of the freedoms we hold most dear in our democracy. If schools or libraries (“the government”) were to decide what speech was allowed or not allowed, they would be in violation of the Constitution. There are some limits to the freedom of speech, and this is where book banners tend to operate. They read salacious passages taken out of context and label the entire work as obscene. Or they think the topic is too mature for certain readers. Or they wish to shield children from what they think are radical world views. The instincts to want to keep children safe are not what we object to, but the blanket nature of book challenges that make assumptions about the value of a work as seen only through the eyes of rejection.
School libraries often get more book challenges than public libraries because they have a captive audience and there is this impression that every child is in contact with all the books in a school library. (Don’t we wish!) Just like the public library, school libraries work hard to connect kids with books and to develop a collection that will support the curriculum and allow for reading for pleasure. However, schools have a responsibility to protect children in ways that public libraries do not, so book banners don’t think anything controversial should be in schools.
The problem is many of these books speak to the real-life experiences of young people: They are being raised by two daddies or know someone who is. They have a big sister, or cousin, or aunt who got pregnant before they finished high school. They see violence on television and in the videos they watch on their mobile devices.
While none of us in the library community want to spend our careers dealing with book banning on a regular basis, it’s actually a good sign when we see so many community voices rise up in opposition to censorship. It means we aren’t alone in the fight for the freedom to read. Ultimately, it is parents who should decide what their children are allowed to access. We believe that everyone should be able to read stories they can relate to, so we stand with the banned.
