Multi-Text Reading Tasks: Censorship of Books

Read texts A, B and C and do Tasks 1–4

TEXT A

It was Joe Dillon who introduced the Wild West to us. He had a little library made up of old numbers of The Union Jack, Pluck and The Halfpenny Marvel. Every evening after school we met in his back garden and arranged Indian battles. He and his fat young brother Leo, the idler, held the loft of the stable while we tried to carry it by storm; or we fought a pitched battle on the grass. But, however well we fought, we never won siege or battle and all our bouts ended with Joe Dillon’s war dance of victory. His parents went to eight-o’clock mass every morning in Gardiner Street and the peaceful odour of Mrs Dillon was prevalent in the hall of the house. But he played too fiercely for us who were younger and more timid. He looked like some kind of an Indian when he capered round the garden, an old tea-cosy on his head, beating a tin with his fist and yelling:

“Ya! yaka, yaka, yaka!”

Everyone was incredulous when it was reported that he had a vocation for the priesthood. Nevertheless it was true.

A spirit of unruliness diffused itself among us and, under its influence, differences of culture and constitution were waived. We banded ourselves together, some boldly, some in jest and some almost in fear: and of the number of these latter, the reluctant Indians who were afraid to seem studious or lacking in robustness, I was one. The adventures related in the literature of the Wild West were remote from my nature but, at least, they opened doors of escape. I liked better some American detective stories which were traversed from time to time by unkempt fierce and beautiful girls. Though there was nothing wrong in these stories and though their intention was sometimes literary they were circulated secretly at school. One day when Father Butler was hearing the four pages of Roman History clumsy Leo Dillon was discovered with a copy of The Halfpenny Marvel.

“This page or this page? This page? Now, Dillon, up! ‘Hardly had the day’.... Go on! What day? ‘Hardly had the day dawned’.... Have you studied it? What have you there in your pocket?”

Everyone’s heart palpitated as Leo Dillon handed up the paper and everyone assumed an innocent face. Father Butler turned over the pages, frowning.

“What is this rubbish?” he said. “The Apache Chief! Is this what you read instead of studying your Roman History? Let me not find any more of this wretched stuff in this college. The man who wrote it, I suppose, was some wretched fellow who writes these things for a drink. I’m surprised at boys like you, educated, reading such stuff. I could understand it if you were ... National School boys. Now, Dillon, I advise you strongly, get at your work or....”

This rebuke during the sober hours of school paled much of the glory of the Wild West for me and the confused puffy face of Leo Dillon awakened one of my consciences. But when the restraining influence of the school was at a distance I began to hunger again for wild sensations, for the escape which those chronicles of disorder alone seemed to offer me. The mimic warfare of the evening became at last as wearisome to me as the routine of school in the morning because I wanted real adventures to happen to myself. But real adventures, I reflected, do not happen to people who remain at home: they must be sought abroad.

(From “An Encounter” by James Joyce, originally published in 1914 as part of the collection Dubliners)


TEXT B

Banned Books Week, an annual event that teachers and librarians across the U.S. mark with a combination of distress and defiance, is here again. The theme of this year’s event, which takes place Sept. 18-24, is “Books Unite Us. Censorship Divides Us.”

It comes amid regular high-profile efforts to remove allegedly controversial or inappropriate reading material from libraries and schools. Nowadays, the small groups of parents who traditionally spearhead such efforts are joined by politicians authoring legislation that would outlaw or criminalize making controversial books available to children.

I teach a class on banned books at the University of Southern California, so I’m prone to notice headlines on the topic, but this isn’t just perception bias. The American Library Association reports that in 2021, it tracked 729 challenges to library, school and university materials, targeting a total of 1,597 books. That’s the highest number of attempted book bans since tracking began more than 20 years ago. This year is on course to surpass 2021’s record with 681 challenges as of Aug. 31, 2022.

Increasingly, bans have targeted books written by or featuring LGBTQ people and people of color. But perennial classics like “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “Huckleberry Finn” and “Grapes of Wrath” also have been challenged by parents concerned about their racist language and marginalization of Black characters.

“Book banning doesn’t fit neatly into the rubrics of left and right politics,” reminds Pulitzer prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen.

What unites these challenges is a professed desire to protect young readers from dangerous content. But attempts to ban books are frequently motivated by misapprehensions about how children consume and process literature.

Many adults presume that exposure to particular literary content will invariably produce particular effects.

Christian author and editor David Kopp acknowledged as much when he addressed the controversy around the 1989 children’s book “Heather Has Two Mommies.”

“[T]he deeper dilemma for many Christians who oppose this book is often not a theological one, but an emotional one. It has to do with what we fear,” he wrote on the faith-focused website BeliefNet in 2001. “We fear our kids will be indoctrinated somehow. We fear they’ll come to consider homosexuality as normal and then … the part we don’t say … become one.”

Kopp found this fear “absurd.” He insisted that a “book, well intentioned or otherwise, isn’t likely to change our child’s sexual orientation.”

Many scholars would agree. Research shows that children’s reading experiences are complex and unpredictable. As scholar Christine Jenkins explains in an article about censorship and young readers, “Readers respond to and are affected by texts in ways specific to each reader in the context of a specific time and place.”

Put simply, children co-create their own reading experiences. Their interpretation of books is informed by their personal and cultural histories, and those interpretations may change over time or when readers encounter the same stories in different contexts.

Neither the supposedly healthy nor the supposedly dangerous effects of childhood reading, then, can be taken for granted. Children are not merely empty vessels waiting to be filled by a text’s messages and images, despite how adults tend to portray young readers as helplessly in thrall to the stories they consume.

Wall Street Journal contributor Meghan Cox Gurdon has argued that parents must be ever-vigilant against books that would “bulldoze coarseness [and] misery into their children’s lives.” Earlier this year, an Ohio school board vice president accused Jason Tharp, author of “It’s Okay to Be a Unicorn,” of “pushing LGBTQ ideas on our most vulnerable students.”

 

Tucker, T. (2023, August 30). Book bans reflect outdated beliefs about how children read. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/book-bans-reflect-outdated-beliefs-about-how-children-read-189938

TEXT C

WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost unveiled legislation Tuesday to combat a nationwide surge in book bans.

Frost, a Florida Democrat, is pushing the “Fight Book Bans Act,” which he discussed at a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol alongside fellow House Democrats and advocacy groups. Frost’s bill would provide funding for school districts so that they can afford to oppose book bans.

U.S. Democratic Reps. Pete Aguilar of California, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Jasmine Crockett of Texas, Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick of Florida, Greg Casar of Texas and Shontel Brown of Ohio voiced support for the legislation.

The lawmakers were also joined by Laura Schroeder, the lead of congressional affairs at PEN America, Maureen O’Leary, director of field and organizing at Interfaith Alliance, and Michael Huggins, director of policy and government affairs at Color of Change. Color of Change is a nonprofit civil rights advocacy organization.

Both the House and Senate have held hearings this year about the recent increase in book bans. These cases of censorship have frequently targeted books about the LGBTQ+ community and people of color.

“What we wanted to do is find a way to give and to arm our school boards with the resources that they need to fight to ensure that Rosa Parks stays on the shelf, to fight to ensure that Roberto Clemente stays on the shelf, to fight to ensure that Amanda Gorman stays on the shelf,” Frost said.

“The Life of Rosa Parks” by Kathleen Connors was banned in Duval County, Florida, according to a report from PEN America.

Earlier this year, a book about Roberto Clemente, a former Major League Baseball player who was Puerto Rican, was pulled from shelves in Florida schools. Poet Amanda Gorman’s book “The Hill We Climb,” was also challenged in Florida in May.

Under Frost’s legislation, the Department of Education would help cover book ban-related expenses up to $100,000 for each school district, Frost said. He said the total appropriation for the program would be $15 million over five years.

“There are a lot of school districts where they just don’t have the money to defend themselves against these efforts to ban books,” Raskin said.

Frost said over 3,000 books have been banned this year. More than 40% of book bans in the U.S. have happened at schools in Frost’s home state of Florida, according to a report from PEN America.

Schroeder said PEN America recorded “5,894 instances of book bans across 41 states” from July 2021 to June 2023.

“This is the first step that we’re taking in ensuring that extremists are no longer allowed to prey upon our children and their education system,” Cherfilus-McCormick said.

Cherfilus-McCormick also said the bill is “one of the first steps that we’re taking to empower our school boards and our teachers and our parents.”

O’Leary said her organization is “deeply concerned with the coordinated national campaign to censor our classrooms and libraries, demonize teachers and intimidate librarians and create hostile learning environments, particularly for students representing minority faiths, races, ethnicities, sexual orientations and gender identities.”

“The Fight Book Bans Act is an important first step to alleviate some of the financial burden falling on districts as they weigh the trade-off between a thorough and often costly review process, or simply banning a book outright,” Schroeder said. “For districts to maintain best practices while faced with increasing book challenges, federal support may be their lifeline.”

 

Dietel, S. (2023, December 6). Florida congressman proposes federal funding to help schools fight book bans. NC Newsline. https://ncnewsline.com/briefs/florida-congressman-proposes-federal-funding-to-help-schools-fight-book-bans/

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