Pablo Wegesend
LIS 611
Fall 2013
Assignment #6
Banned Books for Young People
1) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
This book was the first in the Harry Potter series that captivated many young readers and
later inspired a popular film series. The series focused on a boy in a world of wizards and
fictional creatures. Even though it was obvious that the stories are about a non-existent world
with non-existent characters and was just made for pure entertainment purposes, it still scared
many religious fundamentalists who felt the stories promoted Satanism, witchcraft,
paganism, and the occult. That the characters also rebelled against rules, parents and teachers
also scared some parents and religious leaders. Even though the stories were never meant to
portray reality in any form, many religious fundamentalists felt those stories promote a
competing worldview that might tempt their children to question their family and their
church.
2) His Dark Materials Trilogy, Book I: The Golden Compass
This book was a part of a trilogy of an alternate world run by a theocracy. It was
viewed as a subtle mockery of the Roman Catholic Church and therefore was criticized
and challenged by many Catholics. The author, Phillip Pullman, was an atheist, which
further angered many religious conservatives who felt his stories promoted atheism and
mocked religions. Ironically, the protests against the book’s inclusion in libraries led to
higher sales at bookstores which increased the profits to author and publisher being
protested against.
3) Impressions Reading Series
This was a series of language arts textbooks for elementary school students. The
textbooks had a collection of various stories from various well-known children’s authors.
The textbooks were meant to teach reading through a “whole language” approach which
has been known to produce lesser results than a phonics-based approach. While the
differences in style of teaching literacy is a reasonable concern in making sure our
children develop necessary academics skills, most of the protests were not related to that
issue. The religious fundamentalists claimed the stories featured in the Impressions
Reading Series promoted paganism, Satanism, New Age religion, witchcraft, and
socialism. Even well-known fables featured in the series weren’t immune to ridiculous
criticism. For example, The Gingerbread Man was accused of promoting cannibalism,
whereas Beauty and the Beast was accused of promoting drug and alcohol. Other
complaints included the presence of an Aztec calendar, rainbows, and characters who
defied authority.
4) The Witches
This story was written by prominent British children's author Roald Dahl. The
story focused on a boy who lived in a world where witches hide among ordinary people.
The witches later meet and turn children into mice. Just the presence of witches in the
story brings critics to accuse the author of promoting witchcraft and Satanism. That the
story mentions how to recognize witches and that witches don’t go after children who are
dirty brought complaints from parents who fear their children will take those obviously
fictional details literally. The story was also accused of desensitizing violence, promoting
disrespect of adults and promoting offensive language.
5) Forever
This novel was written by prominent Young-Adult author Jude Blume. The novel
focused on a teenage couple’s romantic adventures. The couple’s sexual situations were
described in detail. This disturbed many parents who were shocked that the novel was in
many school libraries. The book was accused of being a “sexual how-to book”, as well
as promoting birth control, masturbation, pre-marital sex, promiscuity, and rebelling
against parents. There was also a homosexual character, who though just a minor
character in the story, his presence alone was controversial.
6) Perks of Being a Wallflower
The novel was written as a series of letters by a 15-year old. He witness sex acts
at parties, ranging from date rape to homosexual intercourse. He mentions masturbating.
His friend committed suicide. These details were seen as too graphic for the book to be
featured at a school library. There were also complaint about the book’s use of profanity
and description of drug use.
7) How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents
This novel was about 4 sisters who lived privileged lives in the Dominican
Republic but lived a less luxurious life after they immigrated to the United States. The
story goes over their culture shock, economic adjustments, mental breakdowns and
sexual situations (some consensual, some non-consensual). This novel was banned from
many school libraries due to vulgar language, violent situations, sexual situations, as well
as the characters disobeying their parents.
8) This Boy’s Life
This book was a memoir of a boy who was forced to move to different cities
throughout his childhood. He had a deadbeat father and abusive step-fathers. He later
went to prep school in which he was expelled. The book’s presence in school libraries
was challenged by parents due to vulgar language, violence, alcohol abuse, and sexually
explicit details (including sexual jokes and homosexuality).
9) Twilight Series
This was a series of 4 books, which inspired a popular film series. These books
were teenage romance stories which involved vampires and humans. The fact that
vampires were idolized by many of the Twilight fans disturbed many religious
fundamentalists, who were also disturbed by the supernatural themes. While the
characters were “chaste until marriage”, many parents felt the stories had too much
sexual detail.
Conclusions
The books mentioned were all written for minors. While a few were written for the
elementary students (ie “Harry Potter”, “Witches”, “Impressions Reading Series”), the rest were
written for adolescents. Because of the age for which the books were written for, they all have
appeared in school libraries.
School libraries are vulnerable to controversies because many parents and religious
leaders want to limit the type of content students are exposed to. They feel that the students are
too impressionable and therefore not ready for certain type of books.
Religious fundamentalists want their children to grow up immersed in their religious
narratives. They are afraid of competing narratives that will turn their children away from God.
Examples of competing narratives are stories with characters associated with paganism. Those
characters include witches, wizards, sorcerers and mythical creatures. Even though such
characters are presented as part of a fictional world, religious fundamentalists still fear that
young minds will tempted to join pagan religions instead of their church.
Religious fundamentalists also have a moral vision of how they want their children to
behave as they become adolescents and young adults. They want their children to obey
authority, remain virgins until marriage, be heterosexual, and to avoid drug use. They worry that
stories of characters doing the exact opposite will tempt minors to do those things. Even when
those characters are portrayed in a negative light in the story, the religious fundamentalist still
worry that the readers will behave like them.
Parents (religious fundamentalists as well as other parents) want their children to remain
innocent for as long as possible. They don’t want their children to be exposed to non-innocent
things, and therefore shelter them from any portrayal of non-innocent things.
The problem with sheltering is that children and adolescents need to be exposed to the
fact that non-innocent situations do exist and they will encounter them even when they don’t
intend to.
As a student quoted in the 120 Banned Books in defense of one of the banned books
“It’s important because it shows us things. All these things happen in real life. By
banning it, it doesn’t give us the opportunity to talk about it before we encounter
it in real life.”
Some parents worry that their children might be too sensitive to read through some of
those banned books and are upset when those books become part of their child’s curriculum.
That could be solved by making those books an optional reading instead of mandatory reading.
Schools can (and should) teach their students about non-innocent situations they might
encounter, but also be aware of how to teach the students. They should make their students aware
that fiction and non-fiction books about those situations exist in the library, but also let the
student decide which of those books they are ready to read.
Work Cited
Karolides, Nicholas J., Margaret Bald, and Dawn B. Sova. 120 Banned Books: Censorship Histories of
World Literature. 2nd ed. New York: Checkmark Book, 2011.