Books are a gray area...

Books are a gray area...
Photo by austinevan

Sunday, November 30, 2008

A little too graphic

Do comic books seem to be getting increasingly edgy? Pushing the limits of art and storytelling with their visual depictions? Corrupting young minds?

Well this isn't a new complaint. This site has a general history of comic book censorship through the decades.

http://www.weeklywire.com/ww/09-08-98/alibi_feat2.html

Still going strong, even the history of comics is being challenged and censored. In California, Manga: 60 Years of Japanese Comics was challenged due to a mother's complaint. Here's some articles collected about this particular case.

http://www.paulgravett.com/articles/041_californiancontroversey/041_californiancontroversey.htm

A book which can be considered an history of a modern art genre is not allowed to be circulated. Next will images of Renaissance art be taken off shelves?

And an article from 1997 about the history and escalation of comic prosecutions:

http://www.awn.com/mag/issue2.4/awm2.4pages/2.4alstonlegal.html

For those interested in looking deeper into this, here's a great bibliography from the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund

http://www.cbldf.org/research/biblio-30s.html

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Banned books and other forms of censorship: Independent bookstore in Moscow challenged

While I really want to focus on book challenges and bans in the U.S., it would be pretty narrow minded of me not to bring up anything about the books challenged and banned all over the world. Let us always remember that the freedoms that let us challenge books are the same that let us keep them.

I came across this great blog that has a number of international censorship concerns.

Banned books and other forms of censorship: Independent bookstore in Moscow challenged

What is really interesting is the mention of how the market is getting monopolized by megabookstores. While not censored, sometimes smaller independent stores have to deal with the pressures of not being able to compete with larger chains. It's much easier to control one large thing that a bunch of small ones. Something we might have to watch out for in the future...

Also on this blog is a little about the distruction of libraries in Iran since the 1980's. Perhaps it's just because I'm so much of a bibliophile, but I feel that the destruction of those books, the lost culture and history, is a crime against humanity.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

K.L. Going

I was directed t the blog of K.L. Going, author of Fat Kid Rules the World. These posts in particular deal with responses and challenges to her book.

That's probably the best part about blogs, the direct intercourse between people. An author is able to connect to readers around the world, and learn the effect of their writing.

http://klgoing.wordpress.com/2007/03/

http://klgoing.wordpress.com/2007/08/16/another-book-challenge/#comments

The comments are amazing, so many different views are accounted for! People get so passionate about this subject. Book challenges are raised a few notches when kids are involved, it seems.

Monday, November 24, 2008

I vant to suck your... books?

So with all this hype over the new movie Twilight, I was wondering why there was no uproar like over the Harry Potter novels. While talking to a friend, I realized that I was under a rock, because there has been. However this was not because of the supernatural forces, but because of age appropriate materials.

It turns out that in an Orange County school district, the books were banned for about 4 days, then inexplicably returned to library shelves...

http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_10609383?nclick_check=1

And in slightly more depth:
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/books-school-series-2175239-district-library

I agree with some of the comments below the article, that people are objecting to books, when there is so much more out there on the Internet and film which they could be objecting to. I'm not saying that they should object, only what they chose to focus on is interesting. It's a story, and the fantasy genre is a particularly interesting medium to explore the issues facing a developing personality (i.e. children and young adults), because they are able to bring them more fully to light. It's a sort of empathy. Your parents don't like your boyfriend? Well, at least he's not a vampire!


I'm trying to get a chance to read these books (right now school is really getting in the way *sigh*).

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Brave New World?

I came across this article from earlier this month up in Idaho, how a school board is trying to prevent the use of Brave New World in ciriculum. What got me most was its satirical tone.

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/local/story.asp?ID=267872

Yes, please, let's block a book that's over 70 years old. That literature is bound to start a fire any day now...

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Censorship and the web

The internet is probably a place where people can feel the most free to speak their minds and put new ideas out there for everyone to see. Which makes filtering software sort of an irony.

But there are factions on both sides of the censorship of books struggle using the web to promote their cause. So here's a website of each.

National Coalition Against Censorship. (2008). NCAC - National Coalition Against
Censorship. Retrieved 11/4/2008 from http://www.ncac.org/home.cfm.

This site represents the cooperation of fifty organizations, and arranges reports of censorship in their focused areas of art, media, literature, science, internet, education, and entertainment, as well as a large selection of subdivisions. There are resources for dealing with challenges, advocacy, and education, as well as events in support of their cause. This site provides a great number of resources, is very well organized, and frequently updated.


Parents Against Bad Books in Schools. (2008). Controversial and challenged books in schools -
PABBIS. Retrieved 11/4/2008 from http://www.pabbis.com/.

This site based out of Virginia aims at alerting people to objectionable content in books being read in schools. Along with numerous passages out of context, it also has links to various reviews of books, and what is and is not said about them. There are resources concerning Virginia's laws on what can be done to challenge books, how to report "bad books", and ideas for challenging books and attempting to "change the system." This site, while it does raise awareness if a parent is wondering about the content of a book, can misrepresent the snippets taken out of context and could cause misleading perceptions of literature.

and just to throw this one in for good measure:

American Library Association, (2008). American Library Association: Banned Books Week. Retrieved 11/4/2008 from http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/oif/bannedbooksweek/bannedbooksweek.cfm.

This is a website for the celebration of increasing awareness to book challenges in the U.S. There are resources for statistics on frequently challenged books and authors. It also links to the official organization's site (www.bannedbooksweek.org), which provides links about pro-and anti-censorship sites, and encourages reporting of challenges. This is an interesting resource that is somewhat obligatory to this topic, since Banned Books Week is often talked about and has been observed for twenty-seven years.