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 One of the organizations on the front lines of book challenges is The Kids’ Right to Read Project, a collaboration between the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression and the National Coalition Against Censorship. It is stunning to me not only some of the books it has joined the battle over, but the reasons advanced to ban some of the books. Here’s a sampling of its cases from December 2006 to May 2008:
- Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was challenged at the Manchester (Conn.) High School because of racially sensitive language. The book was being read by 11th graders.
- The principal of the Wilton (Conn.) High School cancelled a student play about Iraq called Voices in Conflict. He said he did so due to questions of political balance and context.
- Vamos a Cuba by Alta Schreier was banned in April 2006 by the Miami-Dade County School Board because a local parent complained that the book painted too favorable a picture of Cuba. The U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a 177-page decision earlier this year that, by a 2-1 vote, upheld the school board’s action on the grounds the book was removed from school libraries because it was inaccurate, not for political purposes. In the course of the opinion, the two-judge majority noted that removing a book from a school library “is not book banning.”
- In early March 2007, a local pastor challenged Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher, which was being read in 10th grade English classes at Missouri Valley (Iowa) High School on grounds of “objectionable language.”
- An organization calling itself the Livingston Organization for Values in Education challenged five books at Howell (Mich.) High School: Black Boy by Richard Wright, Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut and The Freedom Writers Diary by Erin Gruwell. The group complained the books contained for sexual themes and profanity. When the school board voted to keep all the books, the organization filed complaints with the Michigan Attorney General and the U.S. Department of Justice, claiming the books violated laws against child pornography and sexual abuse.
- A parent in Appomattox, Va., sought to have John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck removed from the 10th grade English curriculum at Appomattox High School becuase of graphic language in the book.
Now I understand some parents want to strictly control what their children read. Although I may not necessarily agree with them, that is their choice. As I’ll talk about later this week, both the Sioux Falls School District and Siouxland Libraries allow parents to restrict what their children read. What they try to avoid is what I find most offensive with the efforts above — the parents and organizations in these cases are trying to prevent access by anyone in the school.
That is the problem with banning books. Your freedom to decide what you and your family will read does not give you the right to tell me or my family what books we can have access to and read.
Let children read whatever they want and then talk about it with them. If parents and kids can talk together, we won’t have as much censorship because we won’t have as much fear.
Judy Blume
It was simply coincidence that I began reading John Christgau’s Enemies: World War II Alien Internment the week of September 11. Yet it reinforced that the book may be more relevant today than when first published 25 years ago and Santayana’s observation that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
 Enemies focuses on a camp near Bismarck, N.D., used to detain “enemy aliens” during World War II. The camp, Ft. Lincoln, was used primarily to hold German nationals but also would be used for Italians, Japanese nationals and American citizens of Japanese descent who had indicated they wanted to be “repatriated” to Japan. Although the book examines a program of detention that was in place 60 years ago, there are times it seems to be about American detention policies during the so-called war on terror, something Christgau specifically addresses in an afterword for this edition from Bison Books.
What is most striking is the breadth of the actions taken by the government. Immediately after September 11 and for a number of months thereafter, the government swept up hundreds of foreign nationals — nearly all of them Muslims — and American citizens, holding many as so-called “material witnesses.” A federal appeals court recently said some of the detentions were “repugnant to the Constitution, and a painful reminder of some of the most ignominious chapters of our national history.” The World War II program, however, caught up many more, some 31,000 so-called enemy aliens and their families.
Another element of the World War II detentions that echoes today are some of the procedures followed by the government. While the internees were to be afforded a hearing if they requested one, this was done as a privilege, “not as a matter of right.” The hearings were held by the same entity that had detained them in the first place. Internees could not be represented by an attorney, although they could have an “advisor”– who could not object to questions asked at the hearing or make argument about the evidence presented. Then Attorney General Francis Biddle would later note that these features of the hearing “greatly expedited action [and] saved time.”
The program Christgau examines is not the well known internment program that swept up thousands of Americans of Japanese descent and Japanese in 1942. The people of Enemies include not only those incarcerated as a result of the Enemy Alien Control Program — created by presidential executive order after Pearl Harbor — but some who were detained months before the U.S. entered the war. Christgau takes a rather unique approach to the subject. Rather than simply a chronological history compiled from his extensive interviews and documentary research, he looks at the policies and the camp by focusing on eight internees.
Among those we meet is Kurt Peters, one of several hundred German seamen stranded in the U.S. but whose deportation was prevented by the war in Europe. Peters would arrive at Ft. Lincoln on May 31, 1941. There’s Eddie Friedman, a German lawyer of Jewish descent who escaped to the U.S. in 1939 after having been held in a German concentration camp. He would be arrested the day afer Pearl Harbor and held at Ft. Lincoln amidst a variety of Nazi supporters. Dr. Arthur Sonnenberg, a German physician, emigrated to the United States in 1923. He, too, was arrested on December 8, 1941 — nine days before he was to take his U.S. citizenship exam. Granted, there were many in the camps who were Nazi party members or supported Germany or Japan in the war. Yet Peters, Friedman and Sonnenberg are just three among many who saw the U.S. as a refuge but were held without any firm evidence that they were a threat to the U.S. Instead, the were simply assumed to be enemies of the U.S.
Undoubtedly, there are differences between the “enemy aliens” of whom Christgau writes and today’s “enemy combatants.” First, with a very few exceptions, none of today’s detainees were within the borders of the United States. Rather, they were taken into custody in or near combat zones. If anything, though, that would lend support for the conclusion — not reached by the U.S. Supreme Court until late June 2006 — that the Geneva Convention applied. And that is one of the areas in which the Roosevelt Administration took a different view than the Bush Administration,
When the Roosevelt Justice Department issued its first guidelines for the treatment of enemy aliens following the country’s entry into the war, it said the Geneva Convention would apply, even though the internees were not prisoners of war. The rationale was that the government did not want to do anything that provide an excuse for harsh treatment or abuse of Americans.
Enemies indicates that, some 60 years later, we not only forgot the flaws of the Enemy Alien Internment Program but also our views of the Geneva Convention. That makes the book not only a worthwhile history but a sad reflection on not only the policies of another generation but our failure to learn from them.
Events in this country since 9/11 have resurrected the nightmares and mistakes of the Enemy Alien Control Program.
John Christgau, Enemies: World War II Alien Internment
Perhaps ironically apropos for Banned Books Week is the following: “When author J.K. Rowling was proposed as a recipient for the Presidential Medal of Freedom, [President George W.] Bush nixed the idea because Rowling’s Harry Potter series ‘encouraged witchcraft.'”
Truly a WTF??? moment. Now whether Bush himself canned the idea is open to debate. The book that is quoted actually says “people in the White House” objected because “the Harry Potter books encouraged witchcraft.” Still, the fact the executive branch of a 21st Century America is worried about witchcraft ought to frighten anyone.
Also, whether Rowling had earned this country’s highest civilian award could be debated. To earn the Medal of Freedom, an individual must have contributed to: (1) the country’s security or national interests, 2) world peace, or 3) cultural or other significant public or private endeavors. I can see Rowling being honored because her series truly got children reading. But to reject someone who introduced thousands of kids to the “magic of reading” on the grounds of witchcraft demonstrates who truly is living in a fantasy world.
I have met thousands of children now, and not even one time has a child come up to me and said, “Ms. Rowling, I’m so glad I’ve read these books because now I want to be a witch.”
J.K. Rowling, Oct. 21, 1999
 As part of the posts this week in support of — and in the futile hope of eliminating the need for — Banned Books Week, here’s one opinion on 50 banned books everyone should read.
The list is broken down by categories and while I may not necessarily agree with a particular book’s placement in a particular category, it is a worthwhile endeavor. The original list also gives the reasons why each book was challenged. The books I’ve read are in bold.
Protect the Children
1. Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger.
2. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.
3. Forever by Judy Blume.
4. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman.
5. Lord of the Flies by William Golding.
6. The Harry Potter series by JK Rowling.
7. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson.
8. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl.
9. And Tango Makes Three by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson.
10. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle.
11. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier.
12. The Giver by Lois Lowery.
Religion and Politics
13. The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie.
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving.
15. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.
16. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriett Beecher Stowe.
17. The Lorax by Dr. Seuss.
18. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.
19. 1984 by George Orwell.
20. Animal Farm by George Orwell.
21. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift.
Sex
23. Lady Chatterley’s Lover by DH Lawrence.
24. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller.
25. Fanny Hill by John Cleland.
26. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.
27. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald.
28. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.
29. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.
30. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes.
31. The Awakening by Kate Chopin.
32. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert.
33. Rabbit, Run by John Updike.
34. Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.
35. Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov.
Race and Gender Issues
36. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
37. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck.
38. The Color Purple by Alice Walker.
39. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou.
40. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.
41. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.
Multiple Reasons
42. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.
43. Native Son by Richard Wright.
44. Beloved by Toni Morrison.
45. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner.
46. One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest by Ken Kessey.
47. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.
48. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote.
49. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut.
50. East of Eden by John Steinbeck.
The books I haven’t read plainly shows a hole in my reading experience. That is particularly so in that I know that, between the books listed in the “Protect the Children” category and classics I know they’ve read for school, each of my daughters has read more banned books than me.
Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.
Voltaire, “Toleration,” The Works of Voltaire
 Think the fact a book is a classic or widely respected grants it protection from book banners? Think again.
In 1998, the Radcliffe Publishing Course, now the Columbia Publishing Course at Columbia University, announced its selections for the 100 best English language novels of the 20th Century. According to the American Library Association, nearly half of those books have been challenged or banned.
Here’s those “best” novels that raised the ire of banners, listed in order of their appearance on the Radcliffe list.
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
The Color Purple, Alice Walker
Ulysses, James Joyce
Beloved, Toni Morrison
The Lord of the Flies, William Golding
1984, George Orwell
Lolita, Vladmir Nabokov
Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
Catch-22, Joseph Heller
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner
A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
Their Eyes were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison
Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
Native Son, Richard Wright
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey
Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut
For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway
The Call of the Wild, Jack London
Go Tell it on the Mountain, James Baldwin
All the King’s Men, Robert Penn Warren
The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Jungle, Upton Sinclair
Lady Chatterley’s Lover, D.H. Lawrence
A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
Sons and Lovers, D.H. Lawrence
Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut
A Separate Peace, John Knowles
Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs
Women in Love, D.H. Lawrence
The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer
Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
An American Tragedy, Theodore Dreiser
Rabbit, Run, John Updike
Imagine claiming that students or others shouldn’t be able to read Steinbeck, Harper Lee or Hemingway, to name a few. American Library Association provides background for the challenges to many of these books in its summary.
The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book.
Walt Whitman, quoted in Intimate with Walt
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