Why do books get banned (and are we really thinking of the children)?

Ask Alice is an online column produced by the #LoveOzYA team, and written by our Secretary, Alice Boer-Endacott, who has published several young adult fantasy novels and a non-fiction essay.

Ask Alice is designed to unpack all aspects of the Australian young adult literary scene, so if you’ve got a question, go ahead and Ask Alice!

This week is Banned Books Week, which, “highlights the value of free and open access to information and brings together the entire book community — librarians, educators, authors, publishers, booksellers, and readers of all types — in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas.”

Although this is movement originates in the United States, as I noted in last month’s Ask Alice, Australia isn’t exempt from efforts to ban books. In fact, it was once one the world’s most censorious nation.

With these things in mind, it seemed natural that this month’s Ask Alice centre around the question: why do books get banned, and are we really thinking of the children when we do ban them? 

To answer this, I’ve drawn on my notes from an event I recently attended an event at The University of Melbourne with Tracie D. Hall, a ‘warrior’ librarian and former executive director of the American Library Association on the subject of banning books, and gone Full Academic™ with research.

So let’s go all the way back to the basics: The term ‘book ban’ is thrown around quite a bit. When we say ‘book bans,’ we can actually mean a several different things. 

Tracie outlined there are three different types of book ban:

First, shadow banning, taking the form of a chilling effect arising from people’s unwillingness to engage with a book following public outrage or scandal over the content.

Second, restriction of access, eg. not allowing people under a particular age to access certain texts.

Third, outright prohibition of a book, either through its removal from libraries, or even an interdiction against selling it at all.

It’s important to differentiate between these different types of bans because we generally think of book bans as falling under the third category, which risks not paying attention to the first and second categories – and the potential harms they can bring.

But there’s another piece of the puzzle. Why do people try to ban books? 

Tracie outlined, the top 5 reasons books are banned are because they have content which contains:

1. LGBTQIA+ representation or themes
2. Characters of colour dealing with experiences of racism
3. Depiction of social activism (eg women’s rights, the Black Lives Matter movement)
4. Depictions of sex or some kind of sexual interaction
5. Some kind of ‘icky’ bodily function (eg menstruation or bathroom-related activities)

The top 10 most challenged books in the US across 2023 reflect this – and, interestingly, all bar one of these books are YA.

This list, and its reasoning, seems to align with much of what happens currently in Australia. In May 2024, Sydney’s Cumberland City Council passed a vote to remove a same-sex parenting guide from its library’s shelves. A review of efforts to ban books in Australia notes: “The most common reason for a book being banned in Australia was that it was deemed ‘obscene,’ meaning it was believed it could corrupt the morals of the reader. This was often used to suppress LGBTQIA+ works.”

But, ‘who is actually so concerned about the content of books that they’re trying to ban them?’

Here, we must differentiate. There are calls for book bans from groups on both the political left and the political right.

To start with those calls coming from the left, two well publicised examples spring to mind. First, the decision to cease publishing six of Dr Seuss’ books due to their “their racist and insensitive portrayal of people of color.” Second, the rewriting of several texts by British Children’s author, Roald Dahl to remove content which includes anti-Semitic comments and terms which are sexist, body-shaming or denigrating to people with disability. Although various territories have declined to publish the expurgated Dahl versions, which are sold alongside the original versions, I echo the stance Tracie put forward and find the rewriting troubling (I’m more uncertain about Dr Seuss as those books are still available, more of them just aren’t being made).

This article quotes academic Dr Sarah Churchwell: “books are not just literary documents but historical documents.” To rewrite a text is to stop future readers from engaging with the reality of the time and akin to rewriting history. Hillary Kelly, responding to the alterations made to Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn in 2012 points out “novels are safe havens for young children, places to explore the dark sides of existence without real-world ramifications. […] In this imaginative exploration of human weakness and error and cruelty, the student also encounters the reality of racism. Indeed, the classroom is the optimal environment for such an encounter.”

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (which I was shocked to see on the list of top 10 most banned books of 2023, despite being published over 50 years ago) is a text I can point to in illustrating Kelly’s point. It’s confronting. Its content depicts racism, sexual assault, and incest. But it is also a really, really important book. To quote the New Yorker, it “cut a new path through the American literary landscape by placing young black girls at the center of the story.” I’ve taught this text several times; few other books so skilfully explore how intergenerational trauma, entrenched racism and inequality affect people. Every student has noted how much they’ve gotten from the book, and how much they have come to appreciate how entrenched racism perpetuates cycles of poverty and abuse through the discussions we have had on this text.

Obviously, Morrison was Black woman writing from a lived experience whereas Twain was a white man. However, Twain was also an ardent anti-racist.

To rewrite content, especially in the context of books we otherwise accept people should read, is to fail to depict the reality of the time which produced those texts. There is value in explicitly acknowledging the discomfort that even someone as liberal minded as Twain used language that is so harmful. There is a distinct value in readers – especially younger readers – encountering something problematic. It can become a launching point for discussion and learning.

I am repeatedly struck by an underlying assumption in discussions about changing or removing books on the basis of harmful content. There often seems to be an implication that readers are devoid of capacity for critical thought, exist outside any societal discourse, or are separate from figures with whom they might unpack the content they read. We know that’s not true (I’m finishing a PhD on this exact topic). Readers consider what they read against the world they know, then form their own judgements. Moreover, younger readers generally exist in environments where what they read can be discussed in productive ways with guiding adults.

Rewriting and banning books restricts such judgments to a particular group, and removes the capacity for that discussion with the reader. Tracie made a great point when she questioned who has the authority to claim a text should be removed or changed, and to what it should be changed, especially when the original content can be discussed critically.

But let’s turn to the other side of the political spectrum.

I wanted to try and present the motivations of politically conservative would-be book banners in a way that respectfully accesses the driving logic and experiences. Honestly, I can’t.

I’d like to take you through Australia’s history to illustrate what I mean. The introduction to Banned in Australia which records the books placed on Australian censorship lists, notes literature can be used by actors who want to create a particular social identity.

There is a moralistic aspect to this. For instance, as the introduction notes, historically, books were generally banned “on the grounds of obscenity or indecency, but the definition of obscenity was understood and interpreted in very diverse ways” which ranged from swearing, to birth control, to bestiality, to “60s free love and liberation,” to “what is now and was then defined as hard-core pornography.” It’s worth observing this ‘obscenity’ reasoning is the same used today to justify banning content – similarly to wondering who has the authority to decide what we might expurgate, I do wonder who has the authority to decide what is and isn’t “obscene.”

Underlying this moralism is a more sinister motivation: the desire to maintain a particular social order which empowers a particular group. An examination of the notes of the Book Censorship Board (renamed to Literature Censorship Board, then the National Literature Board of Review) from the 1960s focuses on the notes of Dr L. H Allen, a member of the Board, and later, its chair. Allen expressed concern about what would happen to the ‘social order’ of Australia if literature which portrayed Black characters experiencing profound oppression and actively seeking greater rights (eg James Baldwin’s 1960 novel Another Country), were freely available.

In a societal context where the White Australia Policy was in full force and Indigenous Australians were denied enfranchisement, there is something decidedly icky about restricting the access to certain books due to the suggestion they might influence a movement to give people of colour – especially Indigenous Australians – greater rights.

The ABC notes book bans often arise out of moral panics, citing the work of Dr Ronald Pies who states “Moral panics are a mass social phenomenon in which a perceived social problem is blown out of proportion and transformed in the popular consciousness into an existential threat to the very fabric of society.”

Obviously, in the same way that reading a book which has racist content isn’t going to make an individual from a background that values respect and diversity suddenly turn into a raging neo-NAZI, reading a book with LGBTQIA+ representation isn’t going to make someone develop a same-sex attraction they otherwise would never have held.

But what it might do is make a LGBTQIA+ child or teen who might be still navigating their identity, or – god forbid – living in a deeply conservative and intolerant household, feel like they are not a ‘freak,’ not alone, and that they not only deserve happiness, but can attain it. The overwhelmingly YA books which are banned are “engaging with kids on their own terms.” Moreover, these books signal to broader society that these are experiences and identities which are part of the human experience and should be treated with acceptance.

For conservative social movements who hold significant social power, much of their power is premised upon regulating people’s behaviour – and sexuality. For them, the possibility that individuals might behave in ways unsanctioned by them does in fact post a risk to the fabric of their society – and societal power.

Frankly, if such books take away the power from people who are raging racists or homophobes, good. It should.

To reign in my righteous anger though, these are still people with whom we must coexist in the world. To refuse to engage with their perspective and claims, and label them ‘racist,’ ‘sexist,’ ‘homophobic,’ or ‘bigoted,’ isn’t going to make them go away.

With that in mind, when someone starts expressing outrage at the content of a book, it’s worth remembering most people who call for books to be banned often haven’t actually read them all the way through. Interestingly, as the ABC notes: “When books are read, they are far less likely to be banned.”

Tracie outlined her response to people who emailed her with complaints about certain books within her library was to (politely) confirm whether they had read the book(s) in question, invite them to do so if they hadn’t, then suggest once they had, they meet to discuss the resultant concerns.

I like this approach. There’s something inherently classy about it, while maintaining the kind of invitation and engagement I believe we should always strive to exhibit.

In my book (pun intended), we aren’t going to get rid of calls to ban books; we will always be discussing and debating the content of what we read. But to me, that’s the exact point of a good book.