For some reason, the recent article in the New York Times “Century After It was Banned, Place of Honor for Twain Tale” (http://nyti.ms/ouvoDQ) about Twain’s book Eve’s Diary, has intrigued me. According to the article, the book was banned in the Charlton (MA) Public Library in 1906 because “…the illustrations showed a naked (though not graphically so) Eve…” and “…the town’s librarian, one Hattie L. Carpenter, had perused the Twain book before putting it into circulation and informed Frank Wakefield, a trustee, that she “had her doubts.”
While it is encouraging that Richard Whitehead, a new library trustee, rectified the situation by reinstating the book 105 years after the fact, I tend to wonder whether things have changed all that much in the ensuing years. It is so common these days for someone to challenge a book due to its content, its illustrations, its appropriateness (or lack thereof) to a particular audience.
As evidenced by the ALA’s list of top 10 challenged books for 2010 (see below), these books run the gamut from Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World to Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed. According to an article in the Beford Journal (http://bit.ly/pmiS0b), the Bedford parent who challenged Nickel and Dimed was concerned about “…the book discussing issues of profanity, a portrayal of a Christian tent revival, and ways to avoid a positive result on a drug test.”
I hope that librarians like Hattie L. Carpenter don’t exist, but I know that we librarians do grapple with what books should and shouldn’t be in our collections. I hope that we, as a profession, would never deny someone the right to read what he or she chooses. I also hope that everybody reads a banned book this week. I noted that And Tango Makes Three has been on the list since its issuance in 2006 so I’m going to read that one. Yes, it’s a children’s book but so what. I went to high school with one of the authors, Peter Parnell. Hey, Peter, I haven’t seen you since 1970, but I’m proud of you for having written a banned book!!!!!
Top 10 Challenged Books of 2010
1) And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson; 2) The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie; 3) Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley; 4) Crank, by Ellen Hopkins; 5) The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins; 6) Lush, by Natasha Friend; 7) What My Mother Doesn’t Know, by Sonya Sones; 8) Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich; 9) Revolutionary Voices, edited by Amy Sonnie; 10) Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer
As promised, I read And Tango Makes Three. It is a wonderful book which lovingly discusses its topic. And best of all, it is the true story of two male penguins forming a family and hatching an egg laid by another penguin family. Is this surrogacy in other species? I highly recommend this book.