1. Banned Books Week
Celebrating the Freedom to Read!
September 30 – October 6 2012
A Democratic Society
and the
Issue of Censorship
2. • Banned Books Week is the only national celebration of the
freedom to read.
• Launched in 1982 to sudden surge in number of challenges
to books in schools, libraries and bookstores.
• More than 1,000 books have been challenged since 1982.
• The United States take the acts of banning or challenging a
book as a serious matter, because these are forms of
censorship which strike at the very core of our freedom to
read.
Banned Books Week Begins
3. Deciding to get rid of something that offends you…
for everyone.
Censorship.
4. • When you were in elementary
school, you might have read In
the Night Kitchen by Maurice
Sendak.
• It’s about a little boy named
Mickey who wakes up in the
middle of the night to a loud
noise. He suddenly starts to
float up out of his bed and
eventually enters a bakers’
kitchen where he has lovely
adventures.
Here’s an example.
5. • Mickey falls out of his
clothes as he enters the
kitchen, and thus runs
around naked for parts of
the story.
• Parents, teachers, and
librarians have been so
embarrassed and upset by
this that they have taken to
drawing shorts on Mickey
or gluing stickers over his
“private area.”
The Problem?
7. FOR THE RECORD…
The author, Maurice Sendak, said he wasn’t trying to be controversial.
He just thought that it would be easier for Mickey to be naked when he
fell in a bowl of cake batter so he wouldn’t have dirty clothes!
8. • Secular and religious authorities have censored books for
as long as people have been writing them.
• In ancient times, when hand-scribed books existed in only
one or a few copies, destroying them (usually by burning)
guaranteed no one would ever read them.
• Invention of the printing press by Johann Gutenberg
around 1450 made it possible to circulate more copies of
books, essentially reducing the power of book burning to
disseminate texts.
History of Book
Censorship
9. Censorship Timeline
1933:
Frightening
1872: 1874-1915 views of Nazi
1933:
1535: 1559 - 1650 New York Anthony book burnings
1470: Comstock Law
1529: French king Censorship Society for the Comstock's in Germany
First popular broken.
Henry VIII Francis I issued followed Suppression of reign as special began to create
books printed outlawed all Vice founded
an edict European agent of the an anti-
and sold in imported by pioneer of
prohibiting the settlers to U.S. Post censorship
Germany publications. American
printing of America. Office. sentiment in the
books. censorship, United States.
Anthony
Comstock.
1450 1550 1650 1750 1850 1950
1490: 1490 - 1529: 1559:
Germany's first Henry VIII of Roman 1650:
1873: 1900’s:
official England Catholic First book
"Comstock Paul Boyer, 1920’s:
censorship established a Church issued burning in
Law" author of Purity Nationally
office licensing the first America.
established, in Print: Book publicized
established system published and
banning Censorship in court battles
when local requiring most notorious
mailing of America from over censored
archbishop printers to list of
materials found the Gilded Age books began to
pleaded with submit all forbidden
to be "lewd, to the erode the law.
town officials manuscripts to books, Index
indecent, filthy, Computer Age,
to censor Church of Librorum
or obscene." claims
"dangerous England Prohibitorum, i "Comstock
publications". authorities for n response to Law" merely a
approval. spread of 'gentleman's
Protestantism agreement'.
and scientific
inquiry.
12. • Tango is based on a
real-life story. In a zoo
in New York City, a
baby penguin egg was
abandoned. Rather
than let it die, two male
penguins “adopted” the
egg and took turns
sitting on it until it
hatched!
• Aww…
Most “dangerous” book of
2009
13. Author Laurn Myracle
wrote a whole series of
books starting in 2004
written entirely in instant
messages. Banned in
numerous places across
for “adult situations,”
“Flirtation with a
teacher” and sexually
explicitness.
Most “dangerous” book of
2011
14. Challenges to Books
• Challenges occur in every state
and in hundreds of communities.
• People challenge books based on
political, religious, sexual, or
social grounds.
• People target books that explore
the latest problems to beloved
works of American literature.
16. United States
Banning Books Challenging Books
• Old practice of restricting access. • Fair practice in a democratic
society.
• Forcing control or regulation
over First Amendment rights to • Invites questions, discussions,
free speech and free expression. learning, exposure of issues and
problems, raises awareness and
• Burning books to suppress stirs various viewpoints.
opinions, questions, and exposure
to new thoughts and practices.
• No restriction on First
Amendment rights.
• Create a like-mindedness—
control content to maintain
power (i.e. China and media • No centralized power or
censorship). authority.
18. Books are usually challenged with the best intentions—to protect
others, frequently children, from difficult ideas and information.
*It is important to note that books must be taken as a whole and not out of context.
Most challenges dispute certain parts of a written work without consideration of the
nature of the work as a whole.
However, challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a
point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from
the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others.
Most challenges are unsuccessful, and most books are retained in
the school curriculum and on the library and bookstore shelves.
Why are Books
Challenged?
20. Tabulating Most Challenged
Books
American Library Association (ALA) Office of Intellectual
Freedom collects challenge information from newspapers, from
reports submitted by individuals, and from those individuals
who use the Challenge Database Form.
Challenges are compiled in a database, and the full list is
released each year for Banned Books Week.
All challenges made to ALA are kept confidential.
30. “If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First
Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the
expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea
itself offensive or disagreeable.”
William Brennan
US Supreme Court Justice
First Amendment
31. Individuals may restrict what they themselves or their
children read, but they must not call on governmental or
public agencies to prevent others from reading or seeing
that material.
First Amendment
32. Fight Censorship
• Visit anti-censorship groups to join the fight!
The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE)
American Library Association
National Coalition Against Censorship
Book Censorship Toolkit
• Visit pro-censorship groups to learn about their issues.
Parents Against Bad Books in Schools (PABBIS)
Citizens for Literary Standards in Schools
Facts on Fiction
• READ A BANNED BOOK!
Freedom to read!First Amendment of the United States
What does it mean to ‘censor’ something?In general, it means you get rid of something that offends you. However, it doesn’t only apply to you. It means that just because you don’t like something, you have ntIn general, it means you get rid of something that offends you. However, it doesn’t only apply to you. It means that just because you don’t like something, you have removed that content for EVERYONE. for EVERYONE.
The purpose of the Index was to guide secular censors in their decisions as to which publications to allow and which to prohibit, since printers were not free to publish books without official permission. At a time when society was dominated by religion, religious and secular censorship were indistinguishable. The Catholic Church continued to print this Index, which grew to 5,000 titles, until 1966, when Pope Paul VI terminated the publication.In 1650, a religious pamphlet by William Pynchon was confiscated by Puritan authorities in Massachusetts, condemned by the General Court and burned by the public executioner in the Boston marketplace. The incident is considered to be the first book-burning in America.In 1873, using slogans such as “Morals, not art and literature,” he convinced Congress to pass a law, thereafter known as the “Comstock Law,” banning the mailing of materials found to be “lewd, indecent, filthy or obscene.Between 1874 and 1915, as special agent of the U.S. Post Office, he is estimated to have confiscated 120 tons of printed works. Under his reign, 3,500 people were prosecuted although only about 350 were convicted. Books banned by Comstock included many classics such as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and The Arabian Nights. Authors whose works were subsequently censored under the Comstock Law include Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Victor Hugo, D.H. Lawrence, John Steinbeck, Eugene O’Neill and many others whose works are now deemed to be classics of literature.Paul Boyer, in Purity in Print: Book Censorship in America from the Gilded Age to the Computer Age, claims that the Comstock Law merely formalized what had been a “gentleman’s agreement” among publishers, booksellers and librarians enforcing a Victorian “code” of literary propriety.Within a few months after the book-burnings in Germany, the landmark federal court decision in United States v. One Book Called "Ulysses" clearing Ulysses broke the back of the Comstock Law.
Censorship has occurred throughout history. One of the most famous censors was Hitler. The Nazis held bonfires and burned many, many books. They did this so that the German people would not be able to hear and think about ideas that conflicted with Nazi ideas.
Small forms of censorship are found in the here and now all of the time. Can you think of any? Movie ratings. TV ratings. What is actually in a library. Coursework.
Complaints? Some of the complaints against the book:It has homosexual “undertones”It goes against everything the Word of God speaks of in The BibleThe book promotes homosexual adoptionReading this book will encourage students to become homosexualClanApis example. Nonfictino Books. Depicting reproductive information about bees. Not to be shown in middle schools in PPS – that is here in Pittsburgh. Not looked at – just not allowed.
Interactive. Constantly updated. Find out more info about what has been banned near you and why.
Banned Book has been removed from the shelves of a library store of library. Historically banned books have been burned. What is a Challenged book?To arrive at a democratic decision, hearing those people for and against a challenge requires that challenges must be heard and reviewed by governing, and sometimes impartial, bodies including local and state courts, committees and school boards.Whatever you need to do to restrict ACCESS to an IDEA. A book is removed and stays lost to a school or community unknowingly, with or without review. Sometimes a parent, community member or even a librarian fearing controversy will quietly remove the book from the shelf. It is impossible to document and quantify this form of “stealth censorship.”Create like mindedness in a community by controling the content in order to maintain power. China and Google.
Bad Language, Sexually Explicit, Violence and Satanism are the top reasons that books are banned currently in the US. Some of these things are appropriate – just because something isnt OK to me doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be to anyone. Parents should be involved in what their kids read. Not what everyones kids read.
Ocean View School District Huntington Beach CAHigh SchoolContents Inappropriate for studentsAlso Banned in a high school because staff were deemed inapporpritate to teach something that has to do with africanamerican culture.
High School – Language is vulgar and racist
Deemed unsuited for a classroom discussion in a co-ed high school class
Public Library – harmful to minors under state law
High School – Easton PAPromotes economic fallacies and socialist ideas. Also promotes drug use.
Includes sexual material and homosexual themes
High School Library because a students was able to find the word “oral sex”
Restricted in 5 different places across the country this year. Novel is about a freshman year of college and depicts scenes of drug use and sex. Deemed as inappropriate.
Plans by german scholars to reprint as an academic treatise were rejected because a new publication of the book could fuel support for far right groups.
