Sunday, March 6, 2011
Censorship: A Poll
I'm in the process of formulating a post in response to a friend's recent comments on censorship, and I wanted to get a better idea of the general thought on the following. If you have a few seconds, I'd really appreciate your help with this poll. You can choose more than one answer.
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7 comments:
Censorship ruins the book because it's not as raw. I agree, however, that elementary students shouldn't have adult novels; thus novels written at a younger level shouldn't have offensive language or content. This is common sense. The genre of the book holds the standards. Censorship takes the author's intent out of the book.
There's a difference between appropriate book selection and censorship. Certain books would not be appropriate for elementary school students while high school students should be mature enough to discern the meaning of the author's intent. An elementary school student could interpret things more literally and would not see the metaphors.
So why abridge the book? Why not just teach it to an appropriately mature class of students.
But ultimately parents need to be comfortable with what their children are reading. I wouldn't want someone telling me what my child should or shouldn't read and I would hope I'd be open-minded enough to let other parents decide for themselves what their children should read.
I watch edited movies...what's the difference. I think that it does change the novel, but if I don't care for the original novel anyway (hence the reading the edited one) then it doesn't matter.
I'm a little torn on the public library thing because that's my tax money going towards trashy novels? It's public, so nothing should be discriminated against, and some people like their bodice rippers...but I don't want to be paying for that.
Laura's first paragraph exactly matches my sentiments.
I would like to know more of how you define censorship. What you call censorship I call collection development. As a teacher librarian, I develop my collection based on scholarly reviews of titles, not just what feels right or good to me. In the case of a book challenge, I need to be able to provide a solid rationale for my selections. For this reason, I have a clear collection development policy in place. I am a strong advocate for not exposing children to things that they do not yet have the capacity to cope with. For this reason, I have been accused of censorship, so you can see why the word sets me off. The word has an ugly connotation, and it is often used interchangeably with collection development - the very reasonable and correct idea that children should be exposed to literature that is age-appropriate.
I agree with Mrs. B - "censorship" is often used in a very negative way and accusingly. Certainly there are many books that simply aren't appropriate for children. There are plenty of books that I don't think are appropriate for *anyone*. That doesn't mean I think they should be denied publication - but, like Laura, I also don't want my tax dollars being spent on smutt and racist screeds. Those people have their right to voice their thoughts (within reason and some poorly defined limits) but it isn't their right for public monies to put them in libraries.
Thanks for the comments, folks. You have all made some really good points!
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