A Week to Remember
September 27, 2009

A celebration called Banned Books Week seems an oxymoron. But it’s not, because it doesn’t celebrate the banning of books but the freedom to read. This year, BBW runs from Saturday, September 26 and through October 3, and during that time the American Library Association asks America to remember that the freedom to read is still threatened. For many of us that just seems impossible. But it is not.

Since BBW was launched in 1982, more than a thousand books were challenged in attempts to ban them. Just in the last two years—from 2007 to this date in 2009—. And they are likely to continue. If you are interested in being involved either this week or at any time during the year, you can find a list of suggestions that work for librarians, booksellers and concerned individuals. No one need wait for this annual week. Those who would ban books never do.

One of the earliest book censors, though he didn’t ban books as much as take their hearts out, was Thomas Bowdler, an English physician born near Bath in 1754. He retired from his profession in 1818, moved to the Isle of Wight, and published his first book, the Family Shakespeare. He had grown up listening to his father read the original plays out loud, and later came to realize that what he heard had passages omitted or altered to suit the ears of the family. Bowdler himself felt that other fathers who were not sufficiently “circumspect and judicious” might appreciate an expurgated edition. In 1807, the first edition appeared in four volumes. It contained twenty-four of the plays. Then in 1818, a ten-volume set appeared “in which nothing is added to the original text; but those words and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family.” It was so popular that by 1850 eleven editions had been printed. Among the changes: Lady MacBeth’s famous cry of “Out, damned spot” became “Out, crimson spot!”

It’s easy to laugh at the change, but it set a dangerous precedent. Among those who felt Bowdler, while doing a good thing didn’t go far enough, was Anthony Comstock (1844-1915), a man who has given his name to a word loaded with fanaticism: Comstockery, meaning an overzealous censorship of material considered obscene.

Comstock passionately crusaded against anything he considered immoral. And that was a lot. Little is known about his early life, though he did enlist and serve on the Union side in the Civil War where he apparently objected to the profanity he heard from his fellow soldiers. After the war, he became active in the New York’s YMCA before founding, in 1873, he founded the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, an organization dedicated to wiping out anything he viewed as immoral. But the most astonishing thing about Comstock was that he not only persuaded Congress to pass the Comstock Law, making it illegal to deliver or transport “obscene, lewd, or lascivious” material (including birth control information) in and around the U.S., but that he was actually used his political connections in New York to have himself, a civilian, appointed a special agent of the Postal Service with police powers including, among other things, the right to carry a weapon.

George Bernard Shaw wasn’t the only enemy Comstock had, but he was perhaps the wittiest: “Comstockery is the world’s standing joke at the expense of the United States. Europe likes to hear of such things. It confirms the deep-seated conviction of the Old World that America is a provincial place, a second-rate country-town civilization after all.” In turn, Comstock referred to Shaw as an “Irish smut dealer.”

Comstock’s reach was so extensive and his beliefs about what constituted “smut” so broad—even anatomy textbooks for medical students and the draping of mannequins in public view in shop windows offended him—that through the various campaigns he waged it is believed he ended up destroying fifteen tons of books, 284,000 pounds of plates for printing “objectionable” books, and nearly 4,000,000 pictures. He even boasted that he was responsible for 3,000 arrests and fifteen suicides. Looking at the logo for the Society, it is easy to believe those statistics.  

No such organization as his exists today, at least none I know of. But the work that Comstock did shows up in smaller doses, sometimes through community groups, sometimes through individuals. One 2008 incident that Jamie Larue, director of Douglas County Libraries (Castle Rock, CO), wrote about involved a single family who believed that their objections to a children’s book called Uncle Bobby’s Wedding should determine library policy for everyone else. Larue, in his official role, wrote the patron back a thoughtful letter explaining his decision and among other issues, addressing the question of “inappropriateness”:

You say that the book is inappropriate, and I infer that your reason is the topic itself: gay marriage. I think a lot of adults imagine that what defines a children's book is the subject. But that's not the case. Children's books deal with anything and everything. There are children's books about death (even suicide), adult alcoholism, family violence, and more. Even the most common fairy tales have their grim side: the father and stepmother of Hansel and Gretel, facing hunger and poverty, take the children into the woods, and abandon them to die! Little Red Riding Hood (in the original version, anyhow) was eaten by the wolf along with granny. There's a fascinating book about this, by the bye, called “The Uses of Enchantment: the Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales,” by psychologist Bruno Bettelheim. His thesis is that both the purpose and power of children's literature is to help young people begin to make sense of the world. There is a lot out there that is confusing, or faintly threatening, and even dangerous in the world. Stories help children name their fears, understand them, work out strategies for dealing with life. In Hansel and Gretel, children learn that cleverness and mutual support might help you to escape bad situations. In Little Red Riding Hood, they learn not to talk to big bad strangers. Of course, not all children's books deal with “difficult issues,” maybe not even most of them. But it's not unusual.

I doubt many if any of BiblioBuffet’s readers support censorship, though I have no doubt those who are parents struggle with the question of appropriateness throughout their children’s lives. I’m not a parent. I can see and even sympathize with the mother who doesn’t want her child to read this particular book. When I had my newspaper column, I was once attacked by a reader who disliked my BBW column and accused me of wanting to put Hustler magazine in second-grade classrooms. I understood the fear behind the letter, but exaggerating his point to ridiculousness did not help his case.

I think that applied generally too. Concern is important. But when concern escalates into attempts at banning and censorship, when one person decides she has the right to decide for others, then that concern loses its power to address issues and becomes merely a heated rod that divides viewpoints and hardens positions.

Now I don’t believe that books like And Tango Makes Three and Uncle Bobby’s Wedding are bad for children to read. The real world is composed of many lifestyles, and understanding people’s choices, even those with which we disagree, is healthy. But I can also appreciate if parents do not wish to expose their child to those choices—yet. It’s sad for I believe that knowledge is far more powerful than ignorance. It allows us to make informed choices whatever those choices might be. But when a parent or a community group wants to expand their personal family choices into rules or laws that’s when I have real problems. And that’s what the Banned Books Week is really about—the freedom to read as each of us sees fit. I would no more force my choices upon someone than I would accept someone else’s choices for me. Freedom is not an easy thing to support at times. But without it we can all be sure of one thing: we may still disagree; we just won’t have the right to say anything.

Upcoming Book Festivals:
This upcoming weekend is going to be busy with festivals so quite a number of people all over the U.S. will have the opportunity to spend a weekend with books.

Opening on Friday, October 2 and running through Saturday, October 3, Maine will host the third annual Bangor Book Festival. Keynote speaker Douglas Preston will appear at the opening reception. Twenty-five more authors will be there on Saturday to share their books. Unfortunately, even at this late date no schedule for the 2009 event has appeared. There is an e-mail address on their home page, so I would suggest writing to them for more information.

Also running from October 2 through October 3 is the Santa Fe Antiquarian Book Show in New Mexico. Nearly three dozen booksellers will be there with a number of local authors. The show opens at 4:00  pm and runs until 9:00 pm on Friday, and the hours on Saturday are from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm. Two popular local restaurants will be there to energize the crowds, and a door prize from the Hacienda Doña Andrea de Santa Fe will be given away. In addition to used and antiquarian books, attendees will also find ephemera, postcards, photographs, maps, and posters.

From October 2-4, Ft. Worth will be hosting the North Texas Book & Paper Show, another antiquarian book show. For five dollars, attendees will have the opportunity to ogle and buy used, rare and collectible books, ephemera, autographs, photographs, maps, prints, postcards and more at the Amon G. Carter Jr. Exhibits Hall. Show hours are from 5:00-9:00 pm on Friday, 10:00 am-5:00 pm on Saturday, and 10:00 am-4:00 on Sunday. 

The South Dakota Festival of Books will also take place from October 2-4 in Deadwood. More than fifty authors, nearly thirty vendors, and numerous events will highlight the three days beginning at 10:00 am on Friday. Most of those are free, though there are some ticketed events including a Writer’s Support Workshop, the Deadwood’s Social Club “The Dakota Diet,” “Literary Feast: Rapture and Ruin,” and more. Free events are workshops, panels, presentations, and speakers in the areas of fiction, nonfiction, children’s/youth, history/tribal writers, poetry, and writer’s support.  

Vermont will be hosting the three-day Battleboro Literary Festival from Friday through Sunday, October 2-4, in downtown Battleboro. With nearly three dozen authors and a wonderful selection of special events, panels, presentations, author events and signings, as well as events geared especially to children and young adults, this festival promises a lot of fun to all readers.

On October 3, 2009, Lanham, Maryland will host the Capital BookFest. This festival will feature a day of readings, panel discussions, children's storytelling, conversations, and authors talks with fifty authors and a wide variety of exhibitors and vendors.  

New Jersey will also be the scene of its own book festival on Saturday, October 3 when the Collingswood Book Festival will culminate a full week of literary activities. More than forty-five authors, special poetry events, talks and panels, author presentations, book appraisals, workshops, children’s entertainment, teen events, a crafts area, poetry, and more.

California will see three book festivals on October 4. One is the Orange County Children’s Book Festival, which will take place in Costa Mesa from 9:30 am to 4:30 pm. Its name says it all: its focus is exclusively on children’s books, authors, and illustrators. In addition to the authors and illustrators, there will also be entertainment, food, health screenings, model trains and train rides, various stages including a storytelling one, a live animal stage, a Grandparents Rock Illustrator Stage where the children can learn to draw, and eighty book and literary-related vendors. 

The West Hollywood Book Fair is one of California’s major festivals with a full day (10:00 am to 6:00 pm) of literary activities and book events. More than 400 authors and artists; 100+ panels and book signings; fifteen stages (eight for panels, three for live performances, a Ghost Story Telling Tent, a Ten Stage, and Writing Workshops); plays, comedy, readings, poetry and spoken word performances; a children’s area with storytelling, music, theater, dance, and arts, crafts and games;  workshops, a Comic Book, Horror & Sci-Fi Scene, and the Algonquin West Hollywood Literary Award are squeezed into this one fantastic day! 

A little farther north up the California coast from Hollywood, the city of San Luis Obispo will be hosting the ninth annual Central Coast Book & Author Festival. This festival has one of the loveliest settings around—it’s historic downtown area where walking is sheer joy. This year the children and young people have a special treat—an appearance by Spiderman. Events for adults include panels on women’s fiction, writing, and life’s journeys, readings throughout the day, a silent auction, dance performances, and nearly seventy-five exhibitors. 

Over on the east coast, New York City hosts the Great Children's Read at Columbia University. Thanks to the New York Times, which partners with the Brooklyn, New York, and Queens libraries, celebrities from film, television, the community, and Broadway will spend the day reading to attendees from books. There is also featured entertainment including the Big Apple Circus, The Lion King, Making Books Sing, Word Puzzles, and more. If you live there, this is one not to be missed.

The Pub House:
Candlewick Press is an independent publisher of children’s books that focuses on books of quality. That’s an easy statement for a publisher to make, but in this case the publisher is its employees—it’s 100 percent employee owned—so their picture books, easy readers, middle grade and young adult fiction, nonfiction, poetry collection and novelty and activity books  are produced with particular love and care. Among their current books is a middle-grade novel, Adam Canfield: The Last Reporter by Michael Winerip, the story of a school newspaper and its young staff who find themselves chasing more than hot leads after the school board shuts it down for exposing the town’s most powerful family. Angel in Vegas by Norma Howe, blends teen romances, a psychic fair, a dead frog, and Las Vegas, producing high jinks and wicked comedy in this young adult novel. 

Of Interest:
An interesting online exhibition from the University of Toronto focuses on Nineteenth-Century British Literary Annuals, volumes published from the mid-1820s through the 1840s. They were designed specifically as “appropriate” gifts for young ladies and contained a mixture of prose and poetry from famous authors of the Romantic and Victorian periods as wellas their aristocratic contemporaries. They were also beautifully designed with “elaborate bindings of glazed paper, gold-blocked leather, and watered silk to detailed engravings produced with the newest printing technologies.” It was a new genre, and it was despite criticism—“picture-books for grown children” was how Poet Laureate Robert Southey described them—a publishing success. This exhibition is a fantastic look at this important genre in British publishing history.

This Week . . .
Borders, the chain bookstore, will, beginning September 29 (and continuing through October 7) be offering a thirty percent discount on not just books but nearly everything in the store to “current and retired teachers, librarians, licensed homeschoolers, school administrators and daycare facilitators.” The discount can be used for school or personal purchases. I assume identification will be required so it’s a good idea to have it with you when asking for the discount.

Until next week, read well, read often and read on!

Lauren