I love my local used bookstore and the people who work there. So this criticism isn't so much aimed at them as it is toward the whole "banned book" hysteria they and so many others in the literary world have fallen for (never end a sentence with a preposition!). A recent visit just reminded me of this naive nationwide craze in the industry.
I stopped there on my lunch hour and was greeted by a table of "banned books" which I'd also seen them proudly and bravely boasting about on their Facebook page. What a bunch of rebel women they are. Regular ol' Joan of Arcs. The sign proclaimed: "We don’t believe in telling you what you can and can’t read either!!"
But, actually, they do, according to the logic posited for the other "banned books." Every once in a while, I take in a dozen of my books for them to look at. They decide which ones they want and give me store credit for them. They've never taken all the books though. I assume sometimes they already have that book or they don't think the book will sell, so they return those to me. Fine. It's called a business decision. They didn't ban the book. They just didn't want it. But by the book banning nannies, whoever they are, that could be construed as a ban.
You know what else they "ban"? Books by me. They don't sell Joshua's Ladder, Runaway Trane, or Mustang Lang. And about a million other books they can't fit in their store. Book ban, much?!
The first thing I wanted to say when I saw this table of "banned books" is: "Whoever is banning books is doing a piss poor job of it, because there's a pile of 'em right here available for four dollars!"
You may ask, what books were on the table? They included: The Glass Castle (which I sold them a copy of at one time), The Color Purple, and The Kite Runner.
The problem with most of the books on the table and why they are deemed "banned" is that a school board or school librarian somewhere decided the book wasn't appropriate for the children in that school. It either wasn't age appropriate, didn't fit the curriculum, didn't align with that school or community's values, or maybe was just a crappy book with little to no literary value.
The Kite Runner was removed from the English curriculum of a school outside Chicago for being, in their eyes, having age-inappropriate material, sexually explicit content, and offensive language. That seems like something a school librarian, principal or board should be able to determine.
Do these defenders of the banned think we should be subjecting school kids to inappropriate material, sexually explicit content and offensive language? Someone should ask them. Do they monitor what their kids read and see online? On their phones? Or is it just the Wild West of porn and George Carlin's seven words for their kids?
I believe it's called local control and parental input. What one community or school finds offensive, another may not. Let the parents make their cases for or against to the school board. I can make a pretty good case why Huckleberry Finn should be included in a literature class; while somebody else can make their case why it shouldn't. Let the best argument win. Or better yet let the teacher do their job and if the school board, elected by local citizens, eventually decides that teacher is doing a poor job of making choices, correct them or fire them. A board shouldn't have to weigh in on each individual book in a library.
But if I can buy a book off your table, or off Amazon, you know what? It's not banned! You're just virtue signaling and trying to sell books off a made-up controversy that dissolves when even just a tiny bit of a critical eye is cast on it.
And, frankly, once our institutes of higher learning stop canceling and protesting speakers with a different viewpoint, then we can take this faux outrage about local "book banning" a little more seriously. Until then ...
You bookstores, particularly in the bigger cities, want to be cutting edge? Avante guard? Brave rabble-rousers? Really put yourself out there for criticism and backlash and protests? Try putting out a table full of books by Jewish authors. And post it on your Facebook page. How about a table of right-wing authors. "Come see our table full of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Tucker Carlson books."
Or, since we apparently don't have a problem with "sexually explicit content and offensive language" for kids, how about a table full of Penthouse and Hustler magazines? I think there are book versions of Penthouse Letters or something similar.
Or do you believe in telling people what they can and can't read after all?
