Banned Books Week 2015

Last year, I featured Fun Home by Alison Bechdel as one of book in our display, since BBW featured banned graphic novels. Back then it was a rather obscure graphic novel with maybe a dozen or so copies in our system.

What a difference a year makes! Fun Home is now an award winning Broadway musical. We have 90 copies in our system, with a hold queue and even more copies on order. The book is still making waves as students at Duke University refused to read the book on "moral reasons" 

Researching about banned books is in my top ten list of things I like to do at my job. I enjoy the look of my patron's and co-worker's faces when they pass a display of banned books and exclaim "Wait? Why was this book banned?"

It's also that time of the year when library staff can be a little bit naughty and entice patrons to read those "dirty books" full of insensitive materials, offensive language and depressing subjects.  I feel like the shady figure lurking on a street corner, with a trench coat concealing black market goods; hungry for eager customers.

Which leads to the inspiration for my display. That odd logo on signs across America, the neighborhood watch creep. Who always has reminded me of Phantom of the Opera.

🎶 The Phantom of the Opera wants you....to read these books....🎶 

What horrors lie beneath?

GASP!

The best part about banned books week is seeing the faces of my co-workers when they pull a banned book from my display and exclaim "Really? Seriously" (Bone, James and the Giant Peach etc)

Also the fact that I had two teen girls ask me to find them copies of Fifty Shades Darker and A Game of Thrones and I reserve them copies/found them on the shelves without any hesitance or judgement.

(Well okay I was judging the 50 Shades kid, seriously if you are looking for erotica I can recommend several more well written titles.)

Banned Book Displays

I get really passionate about Banned Books Week.  Especially in my library which in a community heavily populated with churches and conservative Christian groups, it's my time of year to be "cheeky" for the sake of highlight the wrongs of censorship. I've already ranted about it this month.

I was stoked that BBW was going to focus on graphic novels this year; another part of the library that I'm passionate about. I got the resources, spent a lot of time on the Comic Books Defense League website, discovering new stuff and taking a great deal of time making a display.

We have three display cases in out library that are offered out to local artists/artisans/collectors to display their wares. Usually 2 of 3 are left empty so I got clearance in June from my boss and the library director to use it for September. I had prints out of banned/challenged graphic novels, examples of art work, QR codes so patrons could reserve them and fact sheets all about how books are still banned in the US. I was pretty proud of it. I put it up in the morning, before we opened, and by after lunch I was asked to remove it.

No not because I had offended anyone. Not because a patron thought it was inappropriate to encourage readers to check "bad books". Nope. That would have been worth writing to the papers about.

Instead the "artisan" of the month (and I use that term lightly) demeaned she have all the display cases, including the ones with my display set up in it. She couldn't produce a written agreement, and the person in charge of booking them with the public was out of the office. But she made enough of a stink, yelling at the other libraries that while I was apologized to by administration, I was asked to take my stuff out. I was crushed and humiliated as this old lady patronized me like I was her 2 year old grand-kid (As I younger person working in a library with older patrons and co-worker way past retirement age, I hate when people do this crap to me) While she "thanked" me for moving out my "stuff" I worked in silence because I didn't think I could tell her how heartbreaking this was for me without losing my cool. I had to remove my display about censorship to make way for some cheap ceramic chotskies! (Seriously it the junk in your grandma's curio cabinet that no one wants after she dies)

This is my consolation prize (I guess) I put up a display on the slate wall by the book drop. Which means I will probably get this added onto my work load as well.  There are some great graphic text quotes about censorship accompanying the books. Let me pull all the "sexy" "racy" "nasty" books to shock you as you walk in!

Teens had their own display of their books.

sigh

*If you are looking for a display idea for Banned Books Week covering graphic novels, email me. I have a whole bunch of materials that I now obviously have no use for!*

Sorry for the ranting posts, I'll turn my attention to other matters. Fellow librarians doing collaborative summer reading! Have you seen the catalog and artwork for 2015 yet? What do ya think?

Why would you ban inspiration?

So it's not even September but I'm kicking off Banned Books Week rather early with some personal thoughts.

We pride ourselves in the freedom of speech, press, religion and the right to assemble. The First Amendment, a core to our nation’s principles.  Yet when it comes to kids and minors, they are treated as second class citizen even though they as citizens also have this right. 

Kids are often raised in the religion their parents choose for them.  They have to go to school and learn what government decided what’s acceptable to teach them at the time. A group of assembled teenagers is often treated as a loitering trouble-making mob.  I know that children obviously can’t be trusted to make all their own choice because they are learning and growing.  But it’s ridiculous that they are still denied certain freedoms. What freedoms you might ask? Books.

People still try to ban books all across the United States, yes even here in the land of the free. How can we encourage children to expand their minds and explore the wonders of books, when knowing that out there are people who are ready to take books away from them based on their personal preference. These are books aren’t just ones with adult themes, but children’s books; a medium directed towards theses growing edger minds.

I’m not a person without any morals.  I agree with the reasoning that a kid under 18 shouldn’t be allowed access to an adult book store to purchase sexually graphic material.  Yet I work in an environment where a member of the public is allowed to tell the staff what should and should not available to children. In fact, they expect their request to remove a Roald Dahl book will be carried out.  (Personal account, this has happened to me) We are struggling to get books into the hands of under-privilege kids to encourage not just their imaginations, but literacy: a life skill. We graduate kids from high school who are unable to read. Parents, teachers and other partners in educations are under the stressed deadline of living up to state and federal standards of reading comprehension, projecting these rigorous expectations… on third graders.  If we are in such a volatile situation, is it not absurd to remove books from library shelves, a free and many people only access to books?

Why do we live in a country where books are banned but guns are not?

Every citizen has the right to bear arms. While there are laws of who can buy guns, there is nothing on the books that states people can’t fire guns (for sport and entertainment, not crimes) Anyone can fire a gun. I could let my child fire a gun and there is nothing to stop me. Now, I do not own a gun therefore I will take a neutral stance on gun control. I don’t think I have a high ground being a non-gun owner telling someone who is legally allowed to purchase weapons what to do with their property.

I’m just pointing out the insanity that people think they have the right to ban books and not guns.  You can’t walk into a gun store and tell them to stop selling guns because you don’t like them. Even if you had a really good reason such as guns kill people and guns are dangerous weapons in the wrong hands. But you can walk into a library and raise hell that your kid read a book with “bad language”  Books like Bridge to Terabithia, The Perks of Being a Wallflower and others are being eliminated from libraries and school curriculum because certain citizen find them offensive. Yet, a 9 year old is allowed to handle a machine gun without any proper training. Something that fires real bullets, can kill and obviously we have seen the tragic result from that situation in Arizona this week.

People have died for their belief in books, it’s true but a physical books is not often use to end someone life, unless you decided to beat someone in the head repeatedly with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix .

We give our children guns that kill and deny them books to read. Things that destroy versus things that inspire. If we believe in the values of the 1st and 2nd amendment, it is nonsense to try to take away one thing and not the other or take away any right! I'm not saying ban guns. I'm saying don't ban books or guns.

Perhaps we should be afraid of books. They do contain dangerous things inside them.

Ideas.

“And ideas are bulletproof”- V for Vendetta