Post for librarians & other animals

[bunn]

This story in Neil Gaiman's blog made me chortle, and then go kind of bug-eyed.  It's about censorship prudery in the selection of childrens literature.

Comments

[sigisgrim.livejournal.com]

Brilliant, utterly brilliant; the dogs bollocks, in fact.

I now think that "quality literature" must have at least one strotum, or similar word, at least one (consenting) sex scene, swearing or gratuitas nudity.

Censorship is a complete load of bollocks.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that this is about censorship. With every single book that I buy, I have to make a decision on what audience it is suitable for, and this which section in the library the book goes into. A 600 page novel about teenagers having sex doesn't go in the pre-school section.

Librarians in schools have to even more careful. A librarian buying stock for a school library in a school for 4 - 9s won't buy a 500 page novel aimed at 16 year olds, full of explicit sex and drugs. Does this mean they're guilty of censorship? The parents trust that school not to expose the children to things that a general consensus of parents would think unsuitable for that age.

Besides, school librarians are usually very low in the pecking order within a school, and most of them doubtless feel that they'd get into a lot of trouble if they put a book into their library that prompts outraged letters from parents to the Head.

(Though in this case I agree that it all seems very silly. I always find it interesting that America, with all its fuss about free speech, has all these Banned Book issues, while we don't seem to have them over here.)

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Yes, I sort of hesitated about typing that: I wanted to give some description of where the link went without giving away the amusing bit.

'I am not buying this because it's aimed at the wrong audience/too old/too young/not relevant/generally offensive' - not censorship, agreed, and probably not something anyone would make a formal statement to the press about either.

'I am not buying this because it uses a specific word for a part of an animal's anatomy' - if not censorship - over-discrimination? Excessive pickiness? Prudery? Prudery, that's a good word. I am happy to call it prudery. Or dirty-mindedness, perhaps, only that term always makes me think of Steptoe & Son.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

It is excessive prudery. However, it also reflects how the Irate Parents think. Irate Parents tend to explode into fury about the presence of single words, rather than about themes and content, because to complain about the latter actually requires reading the book. I've received furious complaints about The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe ("because it has a witch in it" so is clearly anti-Christian) and The Subtle Knife ("because it has a knife in it" so clearly promotes violence.) The complaints that I'm aware of in local schools are the same.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I once got told we shouldn't be selling The Lord of the Rings, because the edition displayed had "a witch on the cover" and would therefore corrupt anyone who looked at it.

- Creatrix.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Censoring a book because it has an anatomical reference in it is one thing; censoring a debate because it might offend psychotic thugs with tear gas is something else - see my thread about Great Britain and France.