Opposition Towards Banning Children’s Books

Today, children are growing up in a world that is becoming as foreign to their parents as day is to night. What is happening right before our eyes is nothing short of a societal transformation. What does it entail when a society is transforming, or shifting from old values to a new set of values in terms of education, which inevitably culls much of its tenets from literature? Further, how does literary awareness help children navigate through a universe that we may never know? Through reading various articles that approach the censorship of children’s literature from many different angles, it is clear what most of the authors I will discuss in this paper believe. They believe that a shift in the way we interact with one another starts at a young age and is deeply dependent upon attributes that ultimately govern common sense as well as emotions. These attributes are tolerance, intelligence, and empathy. People who oppose the nurturance of these attributes in our children through literature and art will be at a loss when globalization really takes root, as it surely will. Tightly interconnected, these three attributes listed above prepare children who will inevitably face challenges as they traverse through multitudes of ethnically and culturally different practices and beliefs—no matter where on the planet they were raised.

Various authors noted the historical contexts in which any controversial issue must first be placed in order for it to be debated or discussed with any amount of objectivity. Macleod pointed out the remarkable and often forgotten truth that, at least in this country, there was very little concern over what children read because there was a certain amount of homogeneity among those who were able to secure printed material and who encouraged reading and literacy (Macleod 26). This complacency with children’s literature began to abruptly change during the Civil Rights Movement, which really began in the 1950s in America, continuing into the 1960s and 1970s (Macleod 31). This was a significant stage in our country’s development when the dominant culture began to take notice of other subcultures and what contributions they had made.

The most pressing issue of the entire debate for Macleod is not so much about which particular books should or should not be read by children but is about what constitutes intellectual freedom and to whom it is really intended. This brings into question the aptitude by which we anoint certain groups of people “rights.” Are children considered people with full rights? Macleod raises this thought-provoking question throughout her article and focuses on the interesting fact that death, violence, rape, child abuse, and any number of horrid scenarios were “white-washed,” ignored and hidden from children and young teenagers until the 1960s (Macleod 32). She does not end her discussion with that hypocrisy. Instead, she draws the entire thread of taboo subjects out further and examines why the 1960s, historically speaking, was the specific time, and America, the specific place, whereby these taboo subjects were brought out, necessarily, into the light (MacLeod 33). She asserts that this act of subversive civil strategy was not meticulously thought-out, but neither was it a conspiracy to tear through the fabric of our country. The battleground, hypothetically speaking, was not streaked with blood until the 1970s; it was during the early part of the 1970s when race riots reached their peak.

Though Macleod published this paperback in 1983, it is pertinent still to this day, because the questions about rights and who they belong to have not yet been objectively answered. Cook also delves into the historical significance of childhood. However, she begins with the first recognition of children being instructed for the sake of perpetuating a particular set of values (Cook 2). Cook then observes the fact that children became a commodity and their minds basically a playing field for market value in the late 18th and early 19th centuries (Cook 3). From there, everything slides quickly toward what Cook believes is the authentic period of time when censorship as it is recognized today was birthed: the 20th and 21st centuries (Cook 4). Though there is enough room in the world for nearly every culture to perpetuate its own values, people still seem threatened by what they define as “the other.”

Beginning with the philosophical underpinnings of what defined childhood in the past, Cook means to reorganize the reader’s sensibility to include the clarity of what was deliberately left out of that definition. What unfolds, is the markedly visible and disturbing trend, worldwide, to only see life through the lens of the white male, and in particular, the white male who has money and power. This then, inevitably, moves into the much needed and refreshing perspectives of all the other people in the world whose voices have not been heard, most often because these people did not have access to the same educational and occupational arenas wherein books were published and distributed.

So here we have the matter of distribution and what it can do if the strategy of its movement can be better implemented. What better way than through children? Though this is once again “using” the child as an agent of a particular marketing plan, it is at least honest and modest in proposing that books reflect what was not created by marketers but simply reflect what is already happening in society. Here, winding back to the beginning of this paper is relevant. What is reflected? Tolerance, intelligence, and empathy. And how are these things manifested? They are championed by small press distributions in books, most often children’s books that have logical parameters. But what are the logical parameters that are being distributed? They are that all people should be treated equally; that humans are capable of intelligence and empathy toward one another, and most especially, that being told what they can and cannot bring (that is, censorship) to their children should not be tolerated.

Mark West brings the sad state of affairs that censorship can draw down over everyone. In his work, he relates a story of a terrified educator whose every word carried the heavy weight of self-censoring (West 7). This then is the last and perhaps the most disturbing aspect of banning books. The act of banning carries so much power, it can and does wreak havoc on the human psyche.

To be told one cannot do something because it impinges on the “self-absorbed” and irrational thinking of either a proclaimed liberal thinker or conservative thinker is neither ethical, logical, nor empathetic. This is why children’s books should not be banned. What I paraphrased in my own words was, of course, a rudimentary portion of the first amendment. If for no other reason, as a country moving quickly toward globalization, we need to keep examining this amendment from every perspective, just as literature, even that of children, continues to do.

Works Cited

Cook, Hope Marie. The History of Censorship in Children’s Literature. From The Teaching Excellence Seminar. Spring 2006. Powerpoint presentation. Web. 23 March 2014.

Macleod, Anne Scott. The Library Quarterly, “Censorship and Children's Literature”

The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy, University of Chicago Press Vol. 53, No. 1 (Jan. 1983), pp. 26-38 (item consists of 13 pages) Print.

West, Mark I., Trust Your Children, Voices Against Censorship in Children's Literature, 1997. Palgrave Press. Print.