2008 Woodie Awards
An uncomfortable burning sensation
Editorial
DI Editorial Board
Issue date: 10/1/07 Section: Opinions
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This week is Banned Books Week, during which we celebrate all those books that have been banned throughout our history. Books such as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Color Purple, and The Bible. Books that were deemed a threat to society during their time and were subsequently removed. This was an issue, that's been around since the beginning of literature. The first to hit America, however, was in the New England colonies, way back when.
In Boston, there was a huge problem. A man named William Pynchon decided that he was going to spend all his time writing all kinds of books and causing all kinds of trouble. Soon enough, in 1650, he completed and published The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption, and the General Court of Massachusetts had seen enough. Officials rounded up almost every copy of that book and decided, perhaps hastily, that they all be burned. Burning, as many New Englanders will tell you, seems a bit harsh when you say it like that, but they didn't have a whole lot of other options. It wasn't as if they could just dunk them in a giant vat of churned butter.
Today, apparently it's a bit of an issue everywhere. People are writing books about homosexuality, AIDS, profanity, racial slurs, God, and, of course, two male penguins who father an egg together. In Boston, the solution was to have these books burned and, unwilling to let Boston have all the fun, everyone else started doing it too. This created a bit of a problem because today, there exists a Library Bill of Rights. Don't ask how, but somehow this bill escaped burnings, water dunkings, churned butter dunkings, everything - long enough to tell everyone who's out there banning books that "Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment."
This issue of ridiculous people writing about things kept popping up, though. Parents from every part of the country and world were concerned that their children would read these books and want to grow up and nurse an egg with a penguin of the same sex, and this would not be tolerated. So they began complaining to their local school board and had the books removed. Sure, it wasn't as flashy as a public burning, but it was the thought that counted.
In Boston, there was a huge problem. A man named William Pynchon decided that he was going to spend all his time writing all kinds of books and causing all kinds of trouble. Soon enough, in 1650, he completed and published The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption, and the General Court of Massachusetts had seen enough. Officials rounded up almost every copy of that book and decided, perhaps hastily, that they all be burned. Burning, as many New Englanders will tell you, seems a bit harsh when you say it like that, but they didn't have a whole lot of other options. It wasn't as if they could just dunk them in a giant vat of churned butter.
Today, apparently it's a bit of an issue everywhere. People are writing books about homosexuality, AIDS, profanity, racial slurs, God, and, of course, two male penguins who father an egg together. In Boston, the solution was to have these books burned and, unwilling to let Boston have all the fun, everyone else started doing it too. This created a bit of a problem because today, there exists a Library Bill of Rights. Don't ask how, but somehow this bill escaped burnings, water dunkings, churned butter dunkings, everything - long enough to tell everyone who's out there banning books that "Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment."
This issue of ridiculous people writing about things kept popping up, though. Parents from every part of the country and world were concerned that their children would read these books and want to grow up and nurse an egg with a penguin of the same sex, and this would not be tolerated. So they began complaining to their local school board and had the books removed. Sure, it wasn't as flashy as a public burning, but it was the thought that counted.
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Plechazunga
posted 10/03/07 @ 4:22 AM CST
"So today, we haven't had a banned book in years..." - I'm afraid that's only true if you take a narrow definition of banning. Books are challenged all the time in many ways, and it's no use pretending we've made any progress. (Continued…)
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