Banned Books Week: thanks, but I’ll pass

It’s “Banned Books Week.” The American Library Association rolls out this observance every year to “highlight…the value of free and open access to information” and “draw… national attention to the harms of censorship.” As an American who prizes the First Amendment and who writes and reads what she pleases, I suppose I should be all in with the ALA on this. Something here doesn’t pass the sniff test, though.

I’m not all in, for the simple reason that the ALA conflates the banning of books with the challenging of books. 

color illustration of packed bookshelves
Image: Pete Linforth/Pixabay.

A government or school agency that prohibits the publication or ownership of a book, and is willing to back up the prohibition with threats of fines or loss of liberty, is in the banning business. Rights of publishers, owners, and readers are denied outright in such a situation.

On the other hand, my right to read isn’t undermined if someone objects to an item on my public library’s shelf. The rights of the kids in my neighborhood aren’t affected if someone challenges the inclusion of one book or another in the local public school’s curriculum. The challengers in those cases aren’t banning a book any more than the people who chose the book for the curriculum or library in the first place were banning alternatives. 

Such challenges might annoy me or amuse me or trigger an eye-roll. What they don’t do is amount to a ban. And that is apparently where I part ways with the estimable folk at the ALA with whom I share deep respect for literacy and the freedom to read.

Something else I respect is the power to question authority, including authorities who select media for libraries and schools. Why this book? Why not that one? What are you teaching? To whom are you offering or denying a platform? 

A community might be discomfited when a book is challenged. Better the challenge, though, than unquestioning acceptance of what the professionals decide ought to be on our school and library shelves.

Yes, people of all ages have a right to read. They also have a right to know that questioning authority does not amount to censorship.

Listen to “Hush”

A few months ago, I saw an advance screening of a documentary from what seemed to me an unlikely team. The “Hush” film’s producer and director take different views of abortion. They set out not to assert one side or another. Instead, they made a film about abortion’s effect on women’s health. The director was still pro-choice when she finished making the film, but she was troubled by her findings.

“Start a healthy conversation,” as the production team says in the film’s Twitter hashtag. A good goal, and an urgent one.

“Hush” went into formal release a couple of months ago. A library near my home is hosting a screening next week. A friend reported to me tonight that she’s getting online pushback for promoting the film, from people who dispute the film’s findings – without having seen the film.

Frustrating. Dismaying. Yet I hold out hope that the protesters will come to the screening. They might be surprised to discover that “Hush” isn’t a pro-life movie per se. It’s one woman’s search for answers to her legitimate questions about what, if anything, abortion does to women besides induce the death of a preborn child (a term with which the director might well take issue).

I’m grateful to the documentary’s director, Punam Kumar Gill, for asking questions and having the courage to follow the answers wherever they took her.

I hope the protesters in my area choose to come inside and watch the film. Let the pushback wait until we’re all working with the same information. Better yet, let’s work toward that healthy conversation the filmmakers are encouraging.

Read more about “Hush” and where to find it at hushfilm.com.

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Open Book: Betty Smith and Rumer Godden

The first Wednesday of each month brings #OpenBook, a blog linkup co-hosted by My Scribbler’s Heart and CatholicMom.com with a roundup of what participating bloggers have been reading lately.

I’ve been re-reading two old favorites from my fiction shelves. It’s pure coincidence that my first #OpenBook entry happens to include two books mentioned by other bloggers last month: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith and In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden.

The first time I encountered A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was about 40 years ago in a Reader’s Digest condensed version for kids (“Best-Loved Books”). “Condensed” makes it sound about as appealing as canned soup, but Smith’s Francie Nolan came to life for me and sent me hurrying to the library for the full novel in its unedited glory. A book about a child, yet not a children’s story, it has drawn me into Francie’s Brooklyn of 1912 over and over again.

Each time I re-read this book, I’m struck anew at how such a rich, moving story is conveyed in thoroughly unsentimental prose. Fair warning: at whatever age you pick up the book, the characters and what their creator calls their thin invisible steel will not let you walk away easily.

And then there’s Brede, Rumer Godden’s story about a Benedictine monastery and the delayed religious vocation of a forty-something woman. Reading it now, I see texture and depth that I missed when I first picked up the book as a teenager. And for heaven’s sake, if you come across the TV movie made from the book ages ago, turn it off and pick up the book.

Where my recent fiction reading has brought me back to familiar ground, I’m discovering a lot of nonfiction that’s new to me. After reading Edmund Morris’s The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt a few months ago, I’m now well into Theodore Rex. The second book can stand on its own, but it’s best appreciated after reading the first volume. Next stop will be volume 3, covering Roosevelt’s post-Presidential years.

I’ve read plenty by C.S. Lewis and a little by G.K. Chesterton, but this is the first time I’ve opened Mere Christianity and The Everlasting Man. I’m feeding my inner poli sci grad with Rebecca West’s The Meaning of Treason and John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty. With the possible exception of Mere Christianity (much of which is based on a series of radio broadcasts), none of these lends itself to reading-by-nibbles. Giving these books the time they deserve means cutting back on screen time, except of course with my trusty Kindle – and the fact that I find that a bit wearing startles me.