Robert's personal anecdote opens a door. I want to open it farther. This is a multifaceted set of issues to which I'm committed in Ohio, nationally, and internationally. Check your state: I work directly with Honesty in Ohio Education (a coalition of dozens of orgs), RedWine.Blue (educating suburban mothers), BannedBooksBox.com (a subscription service run by a Cleveland-area librarian that sends subscribers two banned books each month!), Public Education Partners, Save Ohio Higher Education, AAUP, PEN, American Library Assn., teachers and student groups
I call on all of you to take action inc. local school boards and state reps.
With my close friend and younger colleague, Ashley Perez whose excellent, prize-winning YA novel Out of Darkness is banned across TX and in one county in UT,and threatened elsewhere, published
While Robert's personal story is important, it is not unusual. It can be told more widely (no Robert, I don't think you actually reach 6.5 people :) ) Everyone should read and share the powerful NYT OpEd "My young mind was disturbed by a book. It changed my life"
From basic civil rights to the rights of children (for which we fought for more than 100 years--and now trampled by fake "parents' rights) to our very future: get active!
Hello, My name is Nancy Andersen. I am a member of that "fake" parent group No Left Turn in Education. I didn't realize I was fake, but so be it--if NPR says it it must be true! Actually I was a former general surgeon who decided to stay at home with my kids. I pulled them out of school before covid because my son was receiving assignments on essays representing "the marginalized" from the SPLC, Learning for Justice. The essay was plagiarized. Teachers, or "the experts", had no clue. It also wasn't literature and I traced it to a blog post by a marxist activist in 2000. It remains an assignment on the SPLC website. The SPLC has lists, by way; I'm surprised you didn't mention them. They have been sued millions of dollars successfully. But I digress. I'm sure NPR is all over it.
No Left Turn in Education is composed of parent and grandparents and citizens of all races, ethnicities across the political spectrum. To call it "fake" demonstrates the low level of journalistic integrity to which those who work for NPR have fallen. I have read Out of Darkness. It was horrible literature. This has nothing to do with the character ethnicity or the time period in which it is set. It has to do with. the fact it is poorly written, the themes are scattered and convoluted, the characters are flat and predictable, symbolism non-existent etc etc etc. But even then I would be ok with it in k-12 libraries (I guess). Unfortunately, it has repeated graphically detailed passages of rape, masturbation, sexual abuse, torture, and violence. Those things in and of themselves, indirectly alluded to I could understand as part of the story. But in this "novel" they add nothing, are overtly graphic, to the point of perversion. Parents have a right to be concerned. It is a reasonable sane thing.
As to the rest of Mr. Reich's substack, here ya go:
Robert Reich Calls No Left Turn in Education "Influential"
Berkeley Professor, Robert Reich, in an effort to be relevant, is weighing in the horrific, NAZI-style book banning/burning effort undertaken by those nasty busybody privileged moms who dare to be concerned about their kids' education.
In a recent substack, Robert Reich argues that the attention given to creating lists of controversial books and school boards potentially listening to parental concern, results in more demand for said books. "There’s no better way to get a teenager to read a book than to ban it."
I agree with Mr. Reich to a point. There is definitely going to be curiosity driven by the media reporting which will motivate teens to request these books. But Mr. Reich ignores plenty.
"Banning" is an inaccurate term. If No Left Turn placed a list of books on the website and said they should be "banned", I would insist that be taken down. Reasonable parents are pointing to books rife with unneccessarily graphic and repetetive sexual and violent content. Reasonable parents would like their public k-12 schools to have a standard that elevates and inspires debate and scholarship. Having an age-appropriate "standard" for public schools is not equivalent to "banning". The books can still. be sold, downloaded and available in non-school libraries.
LISTS! While I don't love the idea of lists, there has been an overwhelming influx of anti-intellectual and activist books published under the name of "diversity" or "the marginalized". Schools and librarians have been deliberately deceptive with this material. Parents should be alerted to books they may consider inappropriate for their child. It empowers the parent, educates them, and elevates transparency. Organizations should assist parents in helping to identify books they may want know that their child is reading. The schools certainly aren't doing it. And if the books are so incredibly important, no one should have a problem with that--not even Mr. Reich.
Speaking of banning, I recently wrote an op-ed about the Orange County NC decision to keep some of the mentioned books in circulation. In researching this issue, I found that Orange County lacked multiple minority/LGBTQ authors: Robert Woodson, Larry Elder, Thomas Sowell, Dave Rubin among others. If Mr. Reich and others are going to comment on "banning books" should he at least look into the lack of viewpoint diversity available in these school libraries? Let's see what books have really been suppressed by the "experts".
Mr. Reich mentions Out of Darkness. It does not appear he read it. If he had he would understand why parents have concerns--at least I would hope he would. Of course he does admit to never having read The Great Gatsby either--it was never banned so his interest was apparently nil. He should read those books, and perhaps then he could understand the difference.
In the meantime I wonder why Mr. Reich doesnt have a problem with the fantastically poorly researched and mis-construed "hate-maps/lists" published by the Southern Poverty Law Center. And did he speak out when people wanted Dr. Seuss banned?
Okay, bring on the "white supremacist", privileged, "Fox-news" loving comments.
In the meant time please listen to James Lindsay here regarding the sexualization of children for an important history lesson:
Nancy, I have no idea what you are saying. Just who or whom are you ranting at? Me, Robert, literate people? Who or what are "left" or "Marxist"? You can't say!
I do not believe that you read my colleague Ashley Perez's nationally prize winning Out of Darkness. Your description simply does not accord with the 400 page text. In no way. You are parroting the Keller, TX illiterate Kathy Booher who demanded that her local school board ban the novel in contradiction of its own guidelines to defend her own children--who had already graduated from the local schools!
Ashley's and my response to Booher is forthcoming in the Dallas Morning News; we also published a statement in the Salt Lake Tribute in response to the Washington County, Utah school superintendent who violated his own written rules to ban the book.
I write as an internationally know historian of literacy and of children and youth. You are a resigned general surgeon who advocates violating written rules and laws.
All other list members: defended the rights of the young to learn and mature. Demand that the banners actually read the books and present evidence for their claims. Read the increasing flow of testimony from school-age youngsters about the importance of their reading and choice of books.
Defend the young and Constitutional--not fake--freedom NOW!
also I don't think in my original response to you and Mr. Reich I mentioned "the left", outside of the name of the organization. as to that explanation just go visit the website.
Reread what you wrote. I also glanced at your link to "New Discourses." That's a pack of ignorant lies, similar to the favorite right-wing fake journalist Christoper Rufo who gleefully admits to making up quotations that he attributes to highly reputable legal scholars about critical race theory.
Mr. Graff, this says it all right here, "I write as an internationally known historian of literacy and of children and youth. You are a resigned general surgeon who advocates violating written rules and laws."
Congratulations on your successes. Us mere plebes should be more grateful.
"I you only ask. that you read what is written or printed". Well obviously that isn't true--you didn't ask that. And I suppose I could now ask the same as you. I subscribed so I could comment after a friend sent me the essay. Yes I did read Out Of Darkness. But again, you the expert and me the lowly plebe "resigned" general surgeon obviously cannot compare to the likes of you. I look at critical thought (if there is any) and ideas more than credentials. Credentials aren't very meaningful these days.
All the right-wing backlash against "The 1619 Project" was what prompted me to read it and am so glad I did. It exposed to me to an entirely different way of looking at racism and the systems of racism throughout our history, nothing of which I had been taught in any school I ever attended. Now I'm working my way through Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States". The first chapter on Columbus, the Indians and Human Progress just shattered the very limited knowledge that I had been taught about that time.
Oh yeah, so true. But there is also a lesson there. Do we give more power to books or other work that we don't like by "banning" them morally, if not legally?
I am thinking of people like Jordan Peterson, a fellow Canadian whose work I knew before he started popping off on gender pronouns. The controversy made him famous (and rich I am sure).
I disagree with everything he says on the topic, but I wonder whether it would have been better if we had reacted with something like - "think what you like, you are entitled to, but it's kinda stupid. After all, you are basically asserting that you have a right to be rude and in a way that uniquely hurts the people you are determined to be rude to. Ok, you're a jerk. Whoopee. Good for you."
In a similar vein, in freshman English, we read some of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, and the prof pointedly warned us not to read any of them that were unsuitable for polite young ladies and gentlemen. He particularly cautioned against “The Miller’s Tale.” When class ended, I practically jogged over to the library to check out an unabridged edition. I read the Miller’s Tale on the spot, and laughed so hard that I feared I would be thrown out of the library. I remember more about that story than anything else we covered that semester. Brilliant teacher.
Same here, Michael! In fact, I wrote a paper in college on Chaucer's use of farts and other verboten words in his stories. As I recall to this day, "Never did farm horse pulling cart fart with more prodigious sound." He did have a way with words, stronger in the Middle English originals.
It is sad that the very same people who disparage "the woke left" as snowflakes want to erase ideas, and reality, that might cause them to feel uncomfortable.
Not just teenagers! I never read Maus, but I just put it on hold at my local library. I am infuriated by the far-right attempts to limit the books that are deemed “appropriate “. The decision to read anything should be an individual choice.
Banning books widens the divide between red and blue. Though some kids may seek out banned books, others won't have a chance to read them with the guidance of a teacher. This lack of a common understanding and culture widens the divide. I suspect Republicans are doing everything possible to make it happen because they need constituents who are uneducated and hostile to culture.
I love the drastic backfire! A bookstore, I think it’s BN but not positive, set up a sale table with a sign that says Books banned in 2021! It’s working well. This is actually very inspiring. We will cause backfires every inch of the way and show them that we will flex our power in numbers. Time fir us all to pushback everywhere.
Occasional mentions of sex in books just doesn't have the appeal it used to have for sex-starved teenagers in the 50's and 60's, now that they can see anything they want to for free on the internet. Sorry Lady Chatterley, your time is past. And the depiction of a naked mouse (the Jews were mice in Maus, hence the title, while the cats were the Nazis) in Maus isn't as titilating as it might have been half a century ago.
But why would anyone ban Catch-22 or Gatsby? Two of the great books of the century. It makes no sense at all.
I ran into the same problem back in the 70's when educational book publishers tested their books in Texas, which as a large market for textbooks had an inordinate sway over the content of textbooks nationwide. Mercifully the Texas no-nothings don't have the power they once had but I'm sure they still won't purchase textbooks for biology with graphic drawings of genitalia, or history texts with the "far-left commie" view that the Civil War was fought because rich people wanted to keep slaves, when they purport to know it was all about constitutional differences.
Power trips are stupid. Being able to say what can 'legally' be read is another form of oppressive control of others. like trying to herd cats. 'Curiosity killed the cat'. But! 'Satisfaction brought it back.' I was born in a Chinese astrological year of the Rabbit, (A Cat, according to the Vietnamese). If you want to tell me I can't read something or check something out, It is more compelling than to beg me to do it, (if I am interested in it).
As a 20-something I read Rushdie's "Satanic Verses" after the Ayatollah Khomeini sentence the author to death for writing it. The bookstore wasn't even carrying copies of it out of fear of something bad happening in their stores. They did have coupons you could use to order one (it was in the BI era---before Internet). I ordered it and read it. It turned out to be one more thing to hold against Khomeini! I thought it was terrible though not quite worthy of capital punishment. Probably the book would have died in posterity except for the ayatollah's wildly exaggerated sense of outrage.
As some have said about Maus, Caged Bird & Invisible Man were major influences and touchstones with authors that made sense to me in my early life. Catch 22 & Gatsby were powerful and important to me in my teens. The fight to ban Henry Miller's work certainly had me as a late budding adult wanting to know what the fuss was about and trying to surreptitiously read copies of the Tropics from my parents' book collection in the early mornings before they woke . . . just as the current "puritan" and idiotic attempt to control public thinking will have me tracking down a copies of both Out of Darkness & Maus to add to my bookshelves. Please say "no" to anyone between the ages of thirteen & twenty-six, it works wonders in reinforcing the very behavior you expect to halt!
I would have never read (or even heard) of Henry Miller had he not also been banned from my school library. My friends and I read his Tropics from beginning to end.
I had several books banned by the school board when I was attempting to be a teacher. That never worked out for me, but I did have a method of making sure the books would be read. I'd stack the offending copies on my desk. These included 1984, Brave New World, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Grapes of Wrath or whatever the board had thought too indecent for their little high-school kids to bear. Then I would take a 20-minute coffee break in the teacher's lounge.
When I was in high school—long ago and far away—one of the board members tried to remove "The Diary of Anne Frank" from the school library, claiming incorrectly that it contained references to masturbation. I'd already read the book in fourth grade or so, but I re-read it to make sure I hadn't missed anything.
We had to read "The Great Gatsby" in school. If you've escaped having to read it so far, you're lucky. It is, IMHO, dreadful.
Heretic. :-) But seriously, the only thing by Hemingway I can stand is "The Old Man and the Sea." We had to read "For Whom the Bell Tolls" in school. I find Hemingway just overwrought.
Thank you for this take on book banning. I have been upset by the knowledge that Maus was banned, even though I had never heard of it before it’s banning. I’m still not going to thank the little minded people responsible for banning great literature because as Gov. Desantis would say it makes his constituents uncomfortable.
I’ve read many of these banned books to see what all the brouhaha is about. The latest is “Gender Queer: a Memoir”, a graphic novel, by Maia Kobabe. They (preferred pronoun) struggled for years with their sexual identity. This would be a perfect book for young people who are similarly confused about who they are sexually… and for others who are curious about gender identity. By the way, I’m 76 years old, not a teenager by a long shot.
Robert's personal anecdote opens a door. I want to open it farther. This is a multifaceted set of issues to which I'm committed in Ohio, nationally, and internationally. Check your state: I work directly with Honesty in Ohio Education (a coalition of dozens of orgs), RedWine.Blue (educating suburban mothers), BannedBooksBox.com (a subscription service run by a Cleveland-area librarian that sends subscribers two banned books each month!), Public Education Partners, Save Ohio Higher Education, AAUP, PEN, American Library Assn., teachers and student groups
I call on all of you to take action inc. local school boards and state reps.
As a historian of literacy and of children, I published among other items about the history of book banning and what I have named "the new illiteracy"--banning without reading, unlike earlier campaigns--in Publishers Weekly reaching a nonacademic audience: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/columns-and-blogs/soapbox/article/88195-harvey-j-graff-examines-the-history-of-book-banning.html
With my close friend and younger colleague, Ashley Perez whose excellent, prize-winning YA novel Out of Darkness is banned across TX and in one county in UT,and threatened elsewhere, published
https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2022/01/28/ashley-hope-prez-harvey-j/
I speak on NPR about these issues
While Robert's personal story is important, it is not unusual. It can be told more widely (no Robert, I don't think you actually reach 6.5 people :) ) Everyone should read and share the powerful NYT OpEd "My young mind was disturbed by a book. It changed my life"
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/29/opinion/culture/book-banning-viet-thanh-nguyen.html?searchResultPosition=3
From basic civil rights to the rights of children (for which we fought for more than 100 years--and now trampled by fake "parents' rights) to our very future: get active!
Excellent!
This is very enlightening. You are doing great work. Thank you.
I don't believe you need to diminish Robert's efforts.
Come on! I did not do that....
Hello, My name is Nancy Andersen. I am a member of that "fake" parent group No Left Turn in Education. I didn't realize I was fake, but so be it--if NPR says it it must be true! Actually I was a former general surgeon who decided to stay at home with my kids. I pulled them out of school before covid because my son was receiving assignments on essays representing "the marginalized" from the SPLC, Learning for Justice. The essay was plagiarized. Teachers, or "the experts", had no clue. It also wasn't literature and I traced it to a blog post by a marxist activist in 2000. It remains an assignment on the SPLC website. The SPLC has lists, by way; I'm surprised you didn't mention them. They have been sued millions of dollars successfully. But I digress. I'm sure NPR is all over it.
No Left Turn in Education is composed of parent and grandparents and citizens of all races, ethnicities across the political spectrum. To call it "fake" demonstrates the low level of journalistic integrity to which those who work for NPR have fallen. I have read Out of Darkness. It was horrible literature. This has nothing to do with the character ethnicity or the time period in which it is set. It has to do with. the fact it is poorly written, the themes are scattered and convoluted, the characters are flat and predictable, symbolism non-existent etc etc etc. But even then I would be ok with it in k-12 libraries (I guess). Unfortunately, it has repeated graphically detailed passages of rape, masturbation, sexual abuse, torture, and violence. Those things in and of themselves, indirectly alluded to I could understand as part of the story. But in this "novel" they add nothing, are overtly graphic, to the point of perversion. Parents have a right to be concerned. It is a reasonable sane thing.
As to the rest of Mr. Reich's substack, here ya go:
Robert Reich Calls No Left Turn in Education "Influential"
Berkeley Professor, Robert Reich, in an effort to be relevant, is weighing in the horrific, NAZI-style book banning/burning effort undertaken by those nasty busybody privileged moms who dare to be concerned about their kids' education.
In a recent substack, Robert Reich argues that the attention given to creating lists of controversial books and school boards potentially listening to parental concern, results in more demand for said books. "There’s no better way to get a teenager to read a book than to ban it."
I agree with Mr. Reich to a point. There is definitely going to be curiosity driven by the media reporting which will motivate teens to request these books. But Mr. Reich ignores plenty.
"Banning" is an inaccurate term. If No Left Turn placed a list of books on the website and said they should be "banned", I would insist that be taken down. Reasonable parents are pointing to books rife with unneccessarily graphic and repetetive sexual and violent content. Reasonable parents would like their public k-12 schools to have a standard that elevates and inspires debate and scholarship. Having an age-appropriate "standard" for public schools is not equivalent to "banning". The books can still. be sold, downloaded and available in non-school libraries.
LISTS! While I don't love the idea of lists, there has been an overwhelming influx of anti-intellectual and activist books published under the name of "diversity" or "the marginalized". Schools and librarians have been deliberately deceptive with this material. Parents should be alerted to books they may consider inappropriate for their child. It empowers the parent, educates them, and elevates transparency. Organizations should assist parents in helping to identify books they may want know that their child is reading. The schools certainly aren't doing it. And if the books are so incredibly important, no one should have a problem with that--not even Mr. Reich.
Speaking of banning, I recently wrote an op-ed about the Orange County NC decision to keep some of the mentioned books in circulation. In researching this issue, I found that Orange County lacked multiple minority/LGBTQ authors: Robert Woodson, Larry Elder, Thomas Sowell, Dave Rubin among others. If Mr. Reich and others are going to comment on "banning books" should he at least look into the lack of viewpoint diversity available in these school libraries? Let's see what books have really been suppressed by the "experts".
Mr. Reich mentions Out of Darkness. It does not appear he read it. If he had he would understand why parents have concerns--at least I would hope he would. Of course he does admit to never having read The Great Gatsby either--it was never banned so his interest was apparently nil. He should read those books, and perhaps then he could understand the difference.
In the meantime I wonder why Mr. Reich doesnt have a problem with the fantastically poorly researched and mis-construed "hate-maps/lists" published by the Southern Poverty Law Center. And did he speak out when people wanted Dr. Seuss banned?
Okay, bring on the "white supremacist", privileged, "Fox-news" loving comments.
In the meant time please listen to James Lindsay here regarding the sexualization of children for an important history lesson:
https://newdiscourses.com/2021/11/groomer-schools-1-long-cultural-marxist-history-sex-education/
yeah. thought so: https://twitter.com/RBReich/status/1375938301476139014
Nancy, I have no idea what you are saying. Just who or whom are you ranting at? Me, Robert, literate people? Who or what are "left" or "Marxist"? You can't say!
I do not believe that you read my colleague Ashley Perez's nationally prize winning Out of Darkness. Your description simply does not accord with the 400 page text. In no way. You are parroting the Keller, TX illiterate Kathy Booher who demanded that her local school board ban the novel in contradiction of its own guidelines to defend her own children--who had already graduated from the local schools!
Ashley's and my response to Booher is forthcoming in the Dallas Morning News; we also published a statement in the Salt Lake Tribute in response to the Washington County, Utah school superintendent who violated his own written rules to ban the book.
I write as an internationally know historian of literacy and of children and youth. You are a resigned general surgeon who advocates violating written rules and laws.
All other list members: defended the rights of the young to learn and mature. Demand that the banners actually read the books and present evidence for their claims. Read the increasing flow of testimony from school-age youngsters about the importance of their reading and choice of books.
Defend the young and Constitutional--not fake--freedom NOW!
also I don't think in my original response to you and Mr. Reich I mentioned "the left", outside of the name of the organization. as to that explanation just go visit the website.
Reread what you wrote. I also glanced at your link to "New Discourses." That's a pack of ignorant lies, similar to the favorite right-wing fake journalist Christoper Rufo who gleefully admits to making up quotations that he attributes to highly reputable legal scholars about critical race theory.
Thank you for exposing that credentials don't mean a whole lot, Harvey. Have a blast with your international fame.
Mr. Graff, this says it all right here, "I write as an internationally known historian of literacy and of children and youth. You are a resigned general surgeon who advocates violating written rules and laws."
Congratulations on your successes. Us mere plebes should be more grateful.
Nancy
I only ask that you read what is written or printed. As an MD, you don't respect RELEVANT experience, credentials, authority? Really?
Why do you subscribe to Robert Reich?
"I you only ask. that you read what is written or printed". Well obviously that isn't true--you didn't ask that. And I suppose I could now ask the same as you. I subscribed so I could comment after a friend sent me the essay. Yes I did read Out Of Darkness. But again, you the expert and me the lowly plebe "resigned" general surgeon obviously cannot compare to the likes of you. I look at critical thought (if there is any) and ideas more than credentials. Credentials aren't very meaningful these days.
PS: the marxist activist was jaquline keeler. 4rth grade. "experts".
This idea could get some adults to do some reading too. Just ban the books and people get curious. Most want to see what the big deal is.
All the right-wing backlash against "The 1619 Project" was what prompted me to read it and am so glad I did. It exposed to me to an entirely different way of looking at racism and the systems of racism throughout our history, nothing of which I had been taught in any school I ever attended. Now I'm working my way through Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States". The first chapter on Columbus, the Indians and Human Progress just shattered the very limited knowledge that I had been taught about that time.
There are many things that are not covered in most school curricula.
Zinn's People's History was non-controversial for more than 30 years, Jim
Oh yeah, so true. But there is also a lesson there. Do we give more power to books or other work that we don't like by "banning" them morally, if not legally?
I am thinking of people like Jordan Peterson, a fellow Canadian whose work I knew before he started popping off on gender pronouns. The controversy made him famous (and rich I am sure).
I disagree with everything he says on the topic, but I wonder whether it would have been better if we had reacted with something like - "think what you like, you are entitled to, but it's kinda stupid. After all, you are basically asserting that you have a right to be rude and in a way that uniquely hurts the people you are determined to be rude to. Ok, you're a jerk. Whoopee. Good for you."
In a similar vein, in freshman English, we read some of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, and the prof pointedly warned us not to read any of them that were unsuitable for polite young ladies and gentlemen. He particularly cautioned against “The Miller’s Tale.” When class ended, I practically jogged over to the library to check out an unabridged edition. I read the Miller’s Tale on the spot, and laughed so hard that I feared I would be thrown out of the library. I remember more about that story than anything else we covered that semester. Brilliant teacher.
Me, too. I even memorized the Miller's Tale in Middle English.
Same here, Michael! In fact, I wrote a paper in college on Chaucer's use of farts and other verboten words in his stories. As I recall to this day, "Never did farm horse pulling cart fart with more prodigious sound." He did have a way with words, stronger in the Middle English originals.
It is sad that the very same people who disparage "the woke left" as snowflakes want to erase ideas, and reality, that might cause them to feel uncomfortable.
Not just teenagers! I never read Maus, but I just put it on hold at my local library. I am infuriated by the far-right attempts to limit the books that are deemed “appropriate “. The decision to read anything should be an individual choice.
Banning books widens the divide between red and blue. Though some kids may seek out banned books, others won't have a chance to read them with the guidance of a teacher. This lack of a common understanding and culture widens the divide. I suspect Republicans are doing everything possible to make it happen because they need constituents who are uneducated and hostile to culture.
I love the drastic backfire! A bookstore, I think it’s BN but not positive, set up a sale table with a sign that says Books banned in 2021! It’s working well. This is actually very inspiring. We will cause backfires every inch of the way and show them that we will flex our power in numbers. Time fir us all to pushback everywhere.
Truly great news! Thank you.
I'm pretty sure most of those who want to ban these books have never read them
Occasional mentions of sex in books just doesn't have the appeal it used to have for sex-starved teenagers in the 50's and 60's, now that they can see anything they want to for free on the internet. Sorry Lady Chatterley, your time is past. And the depiction of a naked mouse (the Jews were mice in Maus, hence the title, while the cats were the Nazis) in Maus isn't as titilating as it might have been half a century ago.
But why would anyone ban Catch-22 or Gatsby? Two of the great books of the century. It makes no sense at all.
I ran into the same problem back in the 70's when educational book publishers tested their books in Texas, which as a large market for textbooks had an inordinate sway over the content of textbooks nationwide. Mercifully the Texas no-nothings don't have the power they once had but I'm sure they still won't purchase textbooks for biology with graphic drawings of genitalia, or history texts with the "far-left commie" view that the Civil War was fought because rich people wanted to keep slaves, when they purport to know it was all about constitutional differences.
Simply put, you can't fix stupid.
Power trips are stupid. Being able to say what can 'legally' be read is another form of oppressive control of others. like trying to herd cats. 'Curiosity killed the cat'. But! 'Satisfaction brought it back.' I was born in a Chinese astrological year of the Rabbit, (A Cat, according to the Vietnamese). If you want to tell me I can't read something or check something out, It is more compelling than to beg me to do it, (if I am interested in it).
I’m still mad about the canceling of “to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street,” which is one of the books from which I learned to read.
As a 20-something I read Rushdie's "Satanic Verses" after the Ayatollah Khomeini sentence the author to death for writing it. The bookstore wasn't even carrying copies of it out of fear of something bad happening in their stores. They did have coupons you could use to order one (it was in the BI era---before Internet). I ordered it and read it. It turned out to be one more thing to hold against Khomeini! I thought it was terrible though not quite worthy of capital punishment. Probably the book would have died in posterity except for the ayatollah's wildly exaggerated sense of outrage.
Talk about self defeating censorship.
As some have said about Maus, Caged Bird & Invisible Man were major influences and touchstones with authors that made sense to me in my early life. Catch 22 & Gatsby were powerful and important to me in my teens. The fight to ban Henry Miller's work certainly had me as a late budding adult wanting to know what the fuss was about and trying to surreptitiously read copies of the Tropics from my parents' book collection in the early mornings before they woke . . . just as the current "puritan" and idiotic attempt to control public thinking will have me tracking down a copies of both Out of Darkness & Maus to add to my bookshelves. Please say "no" to anyone between the ages of thirteen & twenty-six, it works wonders in reinforcing the very behavior you expect to halt!
I would have never read (or even heard) of Henry Miller had he not also been banned from my school library. My friends and I read his Tropics from beginning to end.
I had several books banned by the school board when I was attempting to be a teacher. That never worked out for me, but I did have a method of making sure the books would be read. I'd stack the offending copies on my desk. These included 1984, Brave New World, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Grapes of Wrath or whatever the board had thought too indecent for their little high-school kids to bear. Then I would take a 20-minute coffee break in the teacher's lounge.
A comic book store owner has offered to give away 100 copies of "Maus" to families affected by the ban in McMinn County, TN.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/02/01/maus-banned-higgins-comics-conspiracy/
When I was in high school—long ago and far away—one of the board members tried to remove "The Diary of Anne Frank" from the school library, claiming incorrectly that it contained references to masturbation. I'd already read the book in fourth grade or so, but I re-read it to make sure I hadn't missed anything.
We had to read "The Great Gatsby" in school. If you've escaped having to read it so far, you're lucky. It is, IMHO, dreadful.
Oh, agreed. I abhor Gatsby and anything by Hemingway. So boring!
Heretic. :-) But seriously, the only thing by Hemingway I can stand is "The Old Man and the Sea." We had to read "For Whom the Bell Tolls" in school. I find Hemingway just overwrought.
Ha ha! You could ban him and I still wouldn’t read him.
No. Not when there are so many other good things to read.
Thank you for this take on book banning. I have been upset by the knowledge that Maus was banned, even though I had never heard of it before it’s banning. I’m still not going to thank the little minded people responsible for banning great literature because as Gov. Desantis would say it makes his constituents uncomfortable.
I’ve read many of these banned books to see what all the brouhaha is about. The latest is “Gender Queer: a Memoir”, a graphic novel, by Maia Kobabe. They (preferred pronoun) struggled for years with their sexual identity. This would be a perfect book for young people who are similarly confused about who they are sexually… and for others who are curious about gender identity. By the way, I’m 76 years old, not a teenager by a long shot.