Leave it alone
~a column by Colleen O’Brien
I remember a moment in Jefferson’s Carnegie library when, as a freshman in high school, I see my dad in the reading room and ask him to pick out a book for me. He says, “Glad you asked!” — which I think is kind of amusing — and takes me to the stacks, hands me By Love Possessed by James Gould Cousins and returns to his New Yorker in the reading room.
I go to the desk, where Leona, fabulous librarian who knows everything, starts checking me out, when a woman behind me says, “I can’t believe your father would let you read that book, Colleen!”
I look around to a mother of a friend of mine as Leona stamps my book rather ferociously, hands it to me, smiling as she says in a frosty tone, “Clem picked it out for her, Mrs. ___.”
The woman purses her lips and says no more.
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It took me a couple of decades to understand why my dad picked that book for me — and to understand his “Glad you asked” comment . . . the revelation within the novel being vaguely ‘watch out for males’. I was not having an affair with an adult, but I was crazy-mad for a classmate.
In the current era of banning books, I think of this tiny interlude in my past and smile. If Dad were around right now, he would suggest that book to my great-granddaughter just to get the goat of any book banner.
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This week, Oct. 4 – 10, is Banned Book Week in the U.S and other countries — Sweden, UK, Hungary, Canada…. It is celebrated each autumn to remind Right-wingers and nosy Parkers to cool their interference in others’ writing and reading habits.
The Banned Book motto is “Let books be. Protect the freedom to read.”
I like “Let books be and we’ll let you be.”
Or, ‘What if we started censoring you?”
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My daughter’s sixth grade teacher snatched from her desk the Young Adult book, “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret,” because some parent told the school it was indecent. This incident caused a problem with me, so my girl did get the book back. She and her 10-year-old buddies were reading it as Margaret figured out the mysteries of growing up, friendships and changing bodies. Horrible information you don’t want your child to know, right?
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In our current political situation, the publication of a 922-page directive called Project 2025 turned out to be a directive for the federal government on how to interfere in our lives and ruin our democracy. Its very presence has increased the number of books banned in schools from hardly any to 23,000 titles.
Here are a few startling objectionables with title, publication date, and reasons for a suggested ban:
To Kill a Mockingbird, 1960, a southern lawyer defending a Black accused of murder
Are You There God? It’s me, Margaret, 1970, pre-teens looking for facts growing up
Charlotte’s Web, 1952, talking animals and themes of life and death
James and the Giant Peach, 1961, “potentially” frightening
Harriet the Spy, 1964, examples of children questioning adults
Captain Underpants, 1997, disobedience to authority and toilet humor
1984, 1949, subversive, anti-government messages
The Call of the Wild, 1903, dark tone, anti-authoritarian radicalism
A couple of these books are older than our parents and grandparents and are being banned now. If this isn’t hilarious, I don’t know what is. Why haven’t they banned The Bible if they are afraid their children might be affected by murder and mayhem.
And just think: We grew up able to read anything! How terribly were we damaged?
As you can see from the list, a bit of banned literature is kid cartoon-like books with talking animals. Didn’t we live a lifetime ago with the big bad wolf, the witch who just about baked the kids and trolls under the bridge?
If you want to guide (or interfere with) your child’s excursions into books, it is your privilege; but you have no business in my business or my child’s, do you?
And why you are interested in reducing your rights (First Amendment’s freedom of speech and the press) is a mystery to me. If you like being a totalitarian or encouraging others to tell you what to read, move to an already totalitarian country and leave this one alone with its declarations of independence for each individual.
Like the censorship from our president of journalists’ news stories, the banning of books is another blow to us and what we think and prefer to read. If you don’t approve of either, don’t read them.
It’s like the banning of abortion: if you don’t want one, don’t have one; if it’s against your religion, it’s not against mine, so leave my private life alone. We do live under a Constitution that not only separates church and state but holds a couple of important truths to be self-evident: we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
I’m tired of my “one wild and precious life”* being preyed upon by intrusive eejits.
*from “The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver
