Show’s over. Go home. Nothing to see. The recent book banning debate hit California as a parent complained her child had access to a book on a web based service. It was just a mistake of mislabeling or filtering or something. “This isn’t book banning or censorship,” wrote a member of the Orange Unified Public School Facebook group OUSD Buzz. “This is ensuring age appropriate materials remain where they should be.” Apparently, no one wanted to take books out of the hands of students. Debate over.
But is it, really?
Not for conservatives, not for book banners, not for those whose ideas of freedom spells less learning.
Ray Bradbury says, “There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.” Given the main character of Fahrenheit 451 begins the story as a fireman burning books, Bradbury was always an outspoken critic of censorship. Undoubtedly, he would suspect the Orange County district’s suspension of Sora (related to Overdrive) is not just a simple disagreement over the age appropriateness of books. He’d point at the usual banning of books the kind where people scream “obscene pornography” over LGBTQ stories or the F word.
One must wonder, though, is this conflict more like an expectation for the world to be your child’s nanny?
Let’s face it, the joys of the digital age are expansive. One may even be tempted to use a screen to “supervise” children. But when parenting demands heightened involvement and oversight, and everyone, including disagreeing parents, seem to have their eyes locked on a screen, we tend to blame the screens. It’s a tough spot we’re in, watching out for our youth in a volatile world. We can decry the dangers of the digital age and its access to so much information at our fingertips, yet parenting is still parenting; reading is still reading; and censorship is still censorship. When we put in or take out a book from the hands of our own children, that may or may not be good parenting, but when we take the same book out of the hands of all children, that’s fear.
One OUSD first grade parent remarked that to suspend all access to a library because of complaints of two books is “the equivalent of finding a spider in your basement and taking a flamethrower to your entire home.” Many, including union president of teachers warned of an “organized effort by the extreme right… to transform public education.” Are we listening to the sirens warning of us an encroaching fire?
So while Jill Replogle and Michael Flores write about the brouhaha on LAist, leaving us a chuckle of irony — a mom read aloud the offending passages at the board meeting (gee, I hope there weren’t any children in the room!) — censorship isn’t a joke. We can laugh, but we cannot ignore attacks on books. We must be aware of anyone carrying the tiniest fire of censorship.
Of course, as a parent I recognize there are books I wouldn’t give a second grader to read. But being a book lover, teacher and a reader of book banning attempts over the years, I’ve had plenty of time to consider banning books a threat. But don’t take my word for it: research what others have had to say this year. NPR has its own coverage of the threat of censorship in this article. And there’s an interesting peek at what’s going across the country on the Journal of Intellectual Freedom and Privacy, along with a list of recent attacks on books. There’s a woman on Tiktok who shares the news from classroom libraries in Florida. Check her out here. I admire her for her specificity. Instead of simply crying foul, she’s reading aloud the books that are undergoing the “review” process (which has taken some books over a year). I puzzle why these books have been pulled from teacher and school collections. Another TikTok post featured a man ranting about books he calls pornographic. But here’s the thing: If someone is going to call out a book but hasn’t read it, I have to wonder. If someone calls out books and can’t or won’t even name titles, I don’t have to wonder. It’s noise.
Of course, I had to read the book in question as research. The Music of What Happens by Bill Konigsberg involves two older high school boys whose queer identity is known only to a few close friends and their parents. They haven’t dated because they don’t know how. Their friends haven’t quite received the memo that teasing them about being gay, even in a lighthearted way, is lame, and these scenes convey the struggle many have faced against heteronormativity — that’s a fancy word for saying the boy-girl relationship story is the norm and surrounds us like water. We’re the fish in that story. While we may not recognize that water around us, we can recognize family struggles and friend struggles.
And The Music of What Happens is full of them. Both young men have had to grapple with family issues — a lost father, a mom whose grief and resulting addiction has taken her too far. When the two meet, the young men help each other through some difficult times. Within its pages are tender moments of a growing friendship and then crush, with a sprinkle of swear words that don’t feel gratuitous and if memory serves doesn’t come close to the amount of swear words heard in the halls of schools. Note: nothing in this book come even close to the bar set by Netflix, HBO, Hulu, etc. In addition to a thread of consent, Konigsberg weaves charity, toxic masculinity, and acknowledging trauma along with connection and the realization that true friends don’t hurt you.
Frankly, I was happy that Konigsberg handled the sexuality with a light touch, mostly friends dancing around the topics. The one very difficult scene is a date rape in which the young man is de-clothed. As the character dissociates (a condition in which you may feel disconnected from yourself and the world around you, as in feeling as though the world around you is unreal), the scene is reminiscent of a 50’s sex scene cut away. We don’t see much (my own little modest millie prefers this from most stories). What we do witness is how an unwanted sexual experience can leave a survivor feeling that they may have deserved or asked for the sexual abuse. We struggle with Konigsberg’s character as he wonders why he doesn’t move, leave or hit the abuser. Mostly, the sadness comes after the experience, causing him to shutdown and withdraw. Indeed, this traumatic experience may help readers understand how sexual abuse continues and more importantly, that telling an adult, especially a therapist, can alleviate suffering.
Nevertheless, at the heart of the book is the friendships, the failure and success of dad’s old chicken food truck, and two teens trying to work out what it means to be an adult. I don’t want to give any more spoilers, so I’ll just say that this is a book I’d add to my list of books with authentic characters.
Returning a moment to the riled up school community, Sarah Smylie, argued that a book is “not salacious or pornographic” when it describes a genuine struggle teens face. Identity and how to tell apart the good friends from the toxic ones is what coming of age books are about. As a parent, one of my favorite parts of Konigsberg’s story is the way one of the boys alerts his friend’s mom of his concern. He could’ve walked away, rightly so because he doesn’t understand what’s going on, but he doesn’t. Mom might never have known why her son was suffering without this one brave act. (And this book is filled with plenty of courage.) The mom recognizes the boyfriend’s concern and steps in. She is not only involved in her son’s life, she willingly serves as his advocate and shows him she loves him enough to encourage him to talk about something difficult.
Indeed, we need more books about adults who step up to support kids. Support is having informed discussions about books and media, not banning books. Support is about opening up conversations to help our kids figure out how to be in the world with their values intact, not shoving important questions into a forgotten corner so people have to find answers on their own. Support is sharing, not silencing concerns. Support is listening, reading, advocating for those who haven’t had a voice and need to see theirs on the shelves of libraries.
Support is checking out the books your children are reading, talking about books you’re reading, and having more conversations that help your kids fit into your family’s idea of safe. And not expecting others to do this for you.
Support is taking a hard look at what’s being pulled off of shelves and why. And speaking out against banning books.
Update by LAist: “The Sora app will be reinstated Feb. 6. In a written announcement, Interim Superintendent Edward Velasquez (who just quit) said that the books in question have been reassigned to the correct grade levels. . . No books or categories have been removed from the app.” YET.
But the debate isn’t over. Not by a long shot. Are there any fires burning in your neighborhood or nearby? Tell me about them in the comments.
One Good Mentor is all you need 