Expert talks about banned childrens books
Monday, September 26, 2016 2:00 AM
News
Pittsburg, KS
To prepare for her Banned Books Week presentation on censored and challenged children’s and picture books, Susan Knell pulls out three files overflowing with newspaper accounts of children’s books that have been banned or considered for removal from school libraries.
“This has been going on a long, long time,” said Knell, a professor of teaching and leadership in Pittsburg State University’s College of Education.
Knell’s presentation, at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 28, in Room 115 of Axe Library, is one of three this week in recognition of National Banned Books Week. Knell teaches graduate courses in literacy education, and taught children’s literature to pre-service teachers for 19 years. Her main interests are children’s literature and reading motivation.
Knell said there are many things that can make a book the target of a person or group. For example, the “Little House on the Prairie” series drew the ire of Native Americans because Ma didn’t like Indians, Knell said.
Knell said some people tried to ban “Where the Wild Things Are,” the 1963 book by Maurice Sendak, because they thought children would find it too scary. That book won a Caldecott Medal in 1964, has been made into an animated short film and has sold more than 19 million copies worldwide.
Certain words or themes are more likely to make a book the object of an attempt to ban it, Knell said. Those include witches, fairies and the devil.
“I think now the excitement over the ‘Harry Potter’ books seems to have calmed down,” Knell said.
In 2000, the “Harry Potter” books shot to the list of the 10 most-challenged books and remained there for three years.
In recent years, social issues are often triggers.
“One of the latest books to be the target of banning is ‘And Tango Makes Three,’” Knell said. “It’s a non-fiction book about two male penguins in the Central Park Zoo that hatch an egg abandoned by another penguin and successfully raise the chick. The main complaint about the book seems to be that it in some way threatens traditional families.”
Knell said that although parents “certainly have the right to determine what books their children read for pleasure, they shouldn’t determine what the rest of the class is able to read.
“I’ve never seen any child’s value system change because of what they read for pleasure,” Knell said. “It’s their experience at home that determines what their values are.”
The other presentations in Axe Library’s Banned Books Week observance are “Banned and Challenged Graphic Novels,” with Sandra Cox, an assistant professor in PSU’s Department of English and Modern Languages,” and Jorge Leon, an assistant professor and learning outreach librarian at Axe Library at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 27, and “The NFL, the Whiskey Rebellion and the Meaning of Patriotic Speech,” by James Greene, an assistant professor in the Department of English and Modern Languages, at 4 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 29. All take place in Room 115 of Axe Library and are free and open to the public.