How many banned books did you read this year? It's probably more than you think. Take a look at the list of the most frequently challenged books of the last decade — you'll find the usual suspects (Heather Has Two Mommies, The Catcher in the Rye, The New Joy of Gay Sex) mixed in with titles like Where's Waldo? and the children's classic Bridge to Terabithia. Neither of those last two have been conclusively proven to cause children to go on Satanic murder sprees, but I'm sure the right-wingers have their reasons. Maybe Waldo was hiding in a gay bar. Maybe abortion was legal in Terabithia. Banned Books Week seems like a good time to ask: What the hell is wrong with these people?
There's no telling, of course, though British journalist Ben MacIntyre has a guess: "The American list of opposed books reveals a society still struggling with major hang-ups about sex, race, religion and Holocaust victims who are insufficiently jolly." (The last sentence refers to a handful of Alabama bureaucrats who challenged Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl because it's a "real downer.") That might explain the existence of pro-censorship groups like Citizens for Literary Standards in Schools (bravely taking on, one supposes, all the citizens against literary standards in schools) and Parents Protecting the Minds of Children (run by Laurie Taylor, who has famously — and unsuccessfully — tried to ban over 50 books from Fayetteville, Arkansas, school libraries). It might also explain the actions of Greg and Tina Angeletti of Newark, Ohio, who are challenging Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon in their daughter's high school. Morrison's book is widely regarded as one of the best American novels ever written, but Greg Angeletti is having none of it: "As far as I'm concerned this is pornography . . . How can we raise our kids to be good, quality people, bring them to church every Sunday and then put stuff like that in their hands?"
So how do you manage to write a book that doesn't get challenged by reactionary parents? It helps if you're white. Laurie Taylor's two lists of objectionable books are heavy on African-American authors (Toni Morrison, Eric Jerome Dickey, Sapphire) and Hispanic and Latin American authors (Luis J. Rodriguez, Rudolfo Anaya, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Julia Alvarez, Laura Esquivel, Isabel Allende, Alex Sanchez). As for gay-themed books, you can probably guess how the book-banners feel about those. (Not warmly.)
What can you do? The American Library Association has a list of ways you can celebrate Banned Books Week, from sponsoring author readings to writing editorials for your local newspaper. Maybe the best way is just to read a banned book, and then give it to a high school student. It's sad that we've gotten to this point, but if we need a samizdat to get worthy literature to teenagers, then so be it. The stakes are too high to let the crypto-Fascists win this one. Do it for the kids, but also for Waldo and the poor Terabithians. They didn't ask for this.