Deb­bie Ja­cob

This is my favourite week of the year: Banned Book Week. Every year the Amer­i­can Li­brary As­so­ci­a­tion (ALA) high­lights great books-in­clud­ing clas­sics like An­i­mal Farm by George Or­well and A Brave New World by Al­dous Hux­ley-that have been banned in US schools. Banned Book Week recog­nis­es the free­dom to read and not have great lit­er­a­ture banned on the ba­sis of con­tent or lan­guage that is tak­en out of con­text. It com­mem­o­rates free­dom of speech. It is a shame that we don't have our own sta­tis­tics for books that have been banned in the Caribbean. I know that books on the CXC list have been chal­lenged. Decades ago, I re­mem­ber com­plaints about curs­ing in The Drag­on Can't Dance by Earl Lovelace. It is sad that a great book like that was ever chal­lenged be­cause of some nar­row-mind­ed peo­ple.

The Hum­ming-Bird Tree by Ian Mc­Don­ald al­so suf­fered from that mis­for­tune. Some schools through­out the Caribbean opt­ed not to use it when it was on the CXC list be­cause mis­guid­ed, mis­in­formed-and might I add nar­row-mind­ed-peo­ple took one in­no­cent scene with chil­dren bathing naked in a riv­er and caused a hul­la­baloo that pre­vent­ed some schools from us­ing the book. Here, in T&T, ig­no­rant ra­dio dee­jays jumped on the band­wag­on of those who com­plained. I re­mem­ber one day two ra­dio an­nounc­ers read a pas­sage from The Hum­ming-Bird Tree out of con­text and in­flamed the sit­u­a­tion with their ig­no­rant com­ments.

I don't have sta­tis­tics for books that are deemed "ques­tion­able" in the Caribbean, but I do know that I was told by Macmil­lan's Caribbean that sales for the CXC Study Com­pan­ion that I wrote for The Hum­ming-Bird Tree plum­met­ed af­ter that con­tro­ver­sy. Sta­tis­tics for roy­al­ties on that Study Com­pan­ion dropped dra­mat­i­cal­ly to about half of what they were. This is sad be­cause The Hum­ming-Bird Tree is one of the most beau­ti­ful books ever writ­ten, equal to the great mod­ern clas­sic To Kill A Mock­ing­bird by Harp­er Lee, which, by the way, al­so con­sis­tent­ly makes the list of most banned books in the US.

Over the past ten years, Amer­i­can li­braries were faced with 4,660 chal­lenges to have books re­moved from school and pub­lic li­braries. The ALA states the rea­sons for those chal­lenges as the fol­low­ing:

• 1,536 chal­lenges due to "sex­u­al­ly ex­plic­it" ma­te­r­i­al.

• 1,231 chal­lenges due to "of­fen­sive lan­guage."

• 977 chal­lenges due to ma­te­r­i­al deemed "un­suit­ed to age group."

• 553 chal­lenges due to "vi­o­lence."

• 370 chal­lenges due to "ho­mo­sex­u­al­i­ty."

• 121 chal­lenges due to "an­ti-fam­i­ly" con­tent.

• 304 chal­lenges be­cause of their "re­li­gious view­points."

The ALA states, "Of these chal­lenges, 1,720 (ap­prox­i­mate­ly 37 per cent) were in class­rooms; 30 per cent (or 1,432) were in school li­braries; 24 per cent (or 1,119) took place in pub­lic li­braries. There were 32 chal­lenges to col­lege class­es; and 106 to aca­d­e­m­ic li­braries. There are iso­lat­ed cas­es of chal­lenges to ma­te­ri­als made avail­able in or by pris­ons, spe­cial li­braries, com­mu­ni­ty groups, and stu­dent groups. The ma­jor­i­ty of chal­lenges were ini­ti­at­ed by par­ents (al­most ex­act­ly 48 per cent), while pa­trons and ad­min­is­tra­tors fol­lowed be­hind (ten per cent each)."

Last year, the top ten list for banned books in the US in­clud­ed the fol­low­ing: 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.

In 2009, the list in­clud­ed the mod­ern clas­sic To Kill A Mock­ing­bird, by Harp­er Lee; the pop­u­lar Twi­light se­ries by Stephe­nie Mey­er; Catch­er in the Rye, by JD Salinger; My Sis­ter's Keep­er, by Jo­di Pi­coult; The Col­or Pur­ple, by Al­ice Walk­er, and The Choco­late War, by Robert Cormi­er. Most of these books are mod­ern clas­sics. The Twi­light se­ries, a pop­u­lar vam­pire se­ries, be­came pop­u­lar with teenagers be­cause of its is­sues of mor­tal­i­ty vs im­mor­tal­i­ty and moral­i­ty vs im­moral­i­ty. Al­though it is a harm­less read, many par­ents ob­ject­ed to the se­ries.

Oth­er pop­u­lar books that have made the Banned Book List from 2000 on in­clude The Kite Run­ner, by Khaled Hos­sei­ni; The Gold­en Com­pass, by Philip Pull­man; The Ad­ven­tures of Huck­le­ber­ry Finn, by Mark Twain; I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya An­gelou; The Gos­sip Girl (se­ries), by Ce­ci­ly Von Ziege­sar; Cap­tain Un­der­pants (se­ries), by Dav Pilkey (this is an el­e­men­tary lev­el book); It's So Amaz­ing! A Book about Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Ba­bies, and Fam­i­lies, by Ro­bie H Har­ris. Last year, a pub­lish­er ac­tu­al­ly re­leased a sani­tised ver­sion of The Ad­ven­tures of Huck­le­ber­ry Finn, re­mov­ing the "n" word that so many peo­ple ob­ject­ed to in this book.

Thank­ful­ly, book ban­ning nev­er seems to ac­com­plish the goal of de­stroy­ing a well-writ­ten book. Usu­al­ly, it makes peo­ple ral­ly to read the book. This week, read a banned book and sup­port free­dom of speech around the world. En­cour­age your teenag­er to pick up one of the great books on the Banned Book List. If you're hav­ing trou­ble get­ting teenagers to read, this might be your best chance to get them start­ed. Hap­py read­ing!

THOUGHTS

• Banned Book Week recog­nis­es the free­dom to read and not have great lit­er­a­ture banned on the ba­sis of con­tent or lan­guage that is tak­en out of con­text.

• I re­mem­ber com­plaints about curs­ing in The Drag­on Can't Dance by Earl Lovelace. It is sad that a great book like that was ever chal­lenged be­cause of some nar­row-mind­ed peo­ple.

• Most of these books are mod­ern clas­sics. The Twi­light se­ries, a pop­u­lar vam­pire se­ries, be­came pop­u­lar with teenagers be­cause of its is­sues of mor­tal­i­ty vs im­mor­tal­i­ty and moral­i­ty vs im­moral­i­ty.