In Which It Is Banned Books Week

 This is Banned Books Week, and, wow, it's amazing to reflect on the number of books that have been banned for a wide variety of reasons. Here's a partial list of books that have been banned in the U.S.

For the record, I've read 18 of the 25 on this list. A decent number of them hadn't yet been written during my childhood. The others I haven't read in some cases because they're not interesting to me and in other cases because I've heard good things about them but simply haven't gotten around to reading them. I read mostly middle grade fiction after all, and there's a lot on this list that's not in that category.

There are, of course, a lot more books that have been banned, either on a wide scale or just by a particular school library or city library system. 

I kind of sort of understand some of the rationale behind banning books. There are some books that really would be unhealthy for some kids to read at particular times in their lives. There are some books that kids don't have the maturity to understand. For instance, I wouldn't let my 9 year old read The Hate U Give or Lord of the Flies. Those are great books for an adolescent to read, but I don't think she's emotionally or intellectually ready for them.  Right at this moment she wants to read The Hunger Games, but I've told her she has to wait until at least middle school. I just don't think a 4th grader is ready to read a series centered around teenagers in a dystopian society being forced to kill each other on live television.

There are book on this list, such as The Handmaid's Tale, that I wouldn't even let my 15 year old read. I'll certainly recommend it to him when he's an adult, but I don't personally think it's something he needs to read before he's 18. Another parent might feel differently, and that's okay. 

That leads me to my point. I believe the only people who should normally have authority over a child's reading habits are loving parents. In the best case scenario, parents know their children, their maturity level, their life circumstances, and why or why not a book would be good for them to read.

Before you come at me for this, yes, I'm aware that this isn't always an ideal situation. Not all kids live in loving homes with parents who care about what effect the books they read have on their emotional health. Not all loving parents are equipped to determine which books would be good for their kids to read. Perhaps the parents are immigrants and don't read well in the language of the country they live in. Perhaps the parents were badly served by the educational system and don't read well themselves. Maybe the kid knows it, maybe they've done a stellar job of hiding it. But either way they may not feel qualified to decide what their child should read.

In these cases, I do think it's sometimes appropriate for a teacher or a school or community librarian to point kids toward books that would be good for them and recommend against books that wouldn't be good for them. I think this needs to be approached as gently as possible, saying something like, "You know, I think you'll appreciate The Hunger Games much more when you're in middle school. Maybe you'd like to try [insert adventurous middle grade book this kid might like here].

What I don't think is appropriate for parents, and especially not for librarians, is to say no to a book because someone somewhere finds it offensive, because they personally don't agree with the message, because they think it's gross or immature, and so on.

There are a lot of good books out there. No person is going to like all of them. You will undoubtedly find some of them really offensive. However, I don't think that gives you the right to play gatekeeper and stop everyone else from reading them.