Quote:
Originally Posted by analogdrift
Is there evidence to support that argument? I do see Huckleberry Finn at number five on the American Library Association's list of The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2001, but how often does a challenge result in the removal of a book from a library or a curriculum? An attempt to bar Huckleberry Finn from a public school would fall to a challenge in court.
Bowdlerization of books is pathetic, but let people do what they will.
Truncate your text,
Bind your own mind—
Literature soars,
Leaves you behind. |
Honestly? I'd suspect it happens a lot more than you think. Schools don't have money to pay teachers reasonably nowadays, much less fight expensive lawsuits in court, and they'd rather just ban the book and move on to something else. Nobody really has standing to sue the school for banning a book from its curricula (it may still be in the library, may not) except the students, and the parents through being the students guardians. And they tend not to sue.
Many schools around here ban books in a more insidious manner, having the "reading list" from which students pick ten or twelve books a year and read them. If the book is not on the list, no matter the level, it doesn't "count." That is what happened to Harry Potter in many of the schools around where I live. The books remained in the school libraries, until a bunch of christian kids checked them out, and they were never seen again. It's suspected they burned the books. The library, getting a budget check and making the big purchase at the beginning and the end of the year, had no other options. Money is tight.