What’s Your Banned Books Story?

By T. Gail Pritchard, Ph.D., University of Arizona

banned books story, Daddy's RoommateGiven that it is Banned Books Week (September 30-October 6, 2012), I decided that in this first blog of October I would revisit a very public encounter I had with banned books, my “banned books story.” As an assistant professor at a small state college in western Kansas, I happily taught undergraduate and graduate children’s literature courses and various methods courses. I began my children’s literature courses with “Wandering and Wondering”: I would have about fifty books spread across the tables and students would spend about 30 minutes browsing through these books, knowing they would be sharing their discoveries.

One particular week, amongst many other “family stories,” I included: The Relatives Came (Rylant 1985), Nana Upstairs and Nana Downstairs (dePaola 1997), Remember the Butterflies (Hines 1991), Aunt Flossie’s Hats and Crab Cakes Later (Fitzgerald 1995), Uncle Jed’s Barbershop (Mitchell 1998), One of Three (Johnson 1995), My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother (Polacco 1994), Charlie Anderson (Abercrombie 1995), Fly Away Home (Bunting 1993), The Lotus Seed (Garland 1997), The Day We Met You (Melina 1997), My Dad (Daly 1995), Daddy’s Roommate (Willhoite 1994), and Heather Has Two Mommies (Newman, 1989).

As always, students chose the books they wanted to read, spent 20-30 minutes reading, then as a whole class, they could share a book in a one-minute book talk. Given this was in the ’90s, in a rural community, I anticipated some controversy, but what happened next was totally beyond my expectations…

The class sharing was somewhat heated. One student cried when she read, My Dad. She said this was her story and she didn’t know there were books about her family. Other students joked about their siblings and the connections they made with Redheaded Older Brother and One of Three. Lots of students connected with the relatives stories, particularly Rylant’s The Relatives Came.

banned books story, Heather Has Two MommiesEventually, one student brought up the “gay family” books. Several students felt they were completely inappropriate, some felt they needed to include them in their classroom libraries, and still others felt they might recommend them to a parent who asked, but would not have them in the classroom. In spite of the civilized discussion, I could feel an undercurrent running throughout the classroom. Since I had these same students for a Social Studies methods course, where they were putting together text sets on “What it means to be an American” (another story in and of itself) and one strand was on “Family,” I was eager to see which books they would include.

The next week, my husband asked me if I had read the “Letters to the Editor” section of the paper that day. I had not. He said, “Well, you better…” There was a letter complaining that “a certain children’s literature professor [I was the only one in town] had forced her students to read children’s books about homosexuals.” Furthermore, “those books are in our public library where children can find them!” The writer went on to say she felt the books should be removed.

For the next six weeks or so, the “Letters to the Editor” were filled with arguments for and against removal. Ultimately, the books stayed on the shelf, but there was a serious rift in the community. Shortly thereafter, two events happened to me: first, I was not asked to return to teach the Wednesday night seventh grade church group the following year, even though I had been very successfully using picture books to engage students in the weekly lessons. When I asked why, I was told, “You know…”

The other event involved one of the students who participated in “Wandering and Wondering.” The student came to my office asking to borrow all my books on “gay families.” She confided she was gay, that she and her partner had children, and that she wanted to read the books to her children. She ended by telling me, “You have no idea how much it means to me that you have these books and shared them in our class.”

The ALA’s Timeline: 30 Years of Liberating Literature notes that the reason Daddy’s Roommate was challenged was an objection “to the picture book’s ‘teaching of the homosexual lifestyle as another way to show love.’” I never did find out who gave the erroneous information, but I did find out how divisive, judgmental, and dangerous censorship can be. I came out of this experience relatively unscathed, with the support of the library community, and with the two books still on the public library’s shelf. Ultimately, though, what was of most importance to me was that at least one student found herself represented in those books and could now share them with her children.

I suspect many of you have a “banned books story” you can share, so now I ask you: in honor of Banned Books Week, will you?

Journey through Worlds of Words during our open reading hours: Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Check out our two online journals, WOW Review and WOW Stories, and keep up with WOW’s news and events.

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