Readers discuss complaints against “Maus,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “Beloved” and other books.
To the Editor:
Re “Politics Fuels Surge in Calls for Book Bans” (front page, Jan. 31):
I am amazed that all of the people in a frenzy to ban books have overlooked a book that is in most public libraries, and features fratricide, incest, adultery, murder, drunkenness, slavery, bestiality, baby killing, torture, parents killing their own children, and soldiers slaughtering defenseless women and children. It’s almost guaranteed to give children, and even adults, nightmares. If you haven’t guessed by now, it’s called the Bible.
Steve Fox
Columbia, Md.
To the Editor:
Most surprising? That “To Kill a Mockingbird” is among a library’s association’s 10 most-challenged books in 2020.
The book explores the moral nature of human beings. While a work of fiction, it reflects an uncomfortable, painful time in our history.
Fiction transports you to a different era in time. It exposes you to a different community from your own; it expands your worldview. It allows you to understand the problems humanity has grappled with over the ages.
By reading literature like “To Kill a Mockingbird,” children learn to think critically, to imagine, to solve problems. They become caring, thoughtful people. “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view — until you climb into his skin and walk around in it,” Atticus tells Scout.
Ultimately, Harper Lee wanted us to see that good may not triumph over evil. But each and every one of us has the opportunity to make that choice. She told us, in Scout’s words to Jem: “I think there is just one kind of folks. Folks.”
Laurian Pennylegion
Redmond, Wash.
To the Editor:
Let the librarians do their job.
Books do not end up on library shelves by accident. Librarians have guidelines that include reviews, awards, school curriculums and other factors that they take into consideration before deciding if a particular title is worth adding to the collection.
It is important that a well-balanced collection is developed that will meet the needs of all and not just reflect a single point of view. Every library needs to have in place a well-defined protocol to use when there is a complaint from a member of the community. It usually includes a committee of people who have actually read the book and can discuss its value to various patrons.
Calls by politicians and others to ban books they often have not read is censorship.
What about parents’ rights? Monitor what your children are reading and talk to them about it. Tell them to stop reading it, if that is the right choice for your child. You do not have a right to speak for everyone in your community because you do not like the book and oppose the topic.
Many thanks to those students who are speaking up at school boards for their right to have books that are important to them. Adults in the community need to take a page out of their book and stand against censorship.
Marilyn Elie
Cortlandt Manor, N.Y.
The writer is a retired school librarian.
To the Editor:
Re “Tennessee Board Bans Teaching of Holocaust Novel” (news article, Jan. 29):
I’m Jewish, from New York City, and I taught at a state university serving low-income Tennessee students for 25 years. So I need to set the record straight.
Every Tennessee fifth grader is required to learn about the Holocaust. My university, with its minuscule fraction of Jewish students, has a Holocaust studies minor. We host an international Holocaust conference every two years.
To convey the magnitude of six million lost, three decades ago teachers in Whitwell, Tenn., asked their eighth-grade class to collect that many paper clips. They ended up with 30 million, sent to the school from people around the world. These are on display in the school’s Children’s Holocaust Memorial, housed in a boxcar from Germany, which may be the most riveting testament of young people working together to vow “Never again.”
People in the rural South have different cultural norms. After moving to Tennessee, I learned you don’t swear in class. But painting a state as yahoos and Holocaust deniers for rejecting cursing or nudity in one book epitomizes the very stereotype we people who study the Holocaust should always abhor.
Janet Belsky
Chicago
To the Editor:
Re “A Disturbing Book Changed My Life,” by Viet Thanh Nguyen (Sunday Review, Jan. 30):
One could argue that Art Spiegelman’s “Maus,” which depicts the fascism and bigotry flourishing in Poland in the 1940s, mirrors a disturbingly similar political climate, albeit to a lesser degree, in America today. Maybe that is the real reason the Tennessee school board preferred to limit this information to its young scholars.
“Books are inseparable from ideas,” Mr. Nguyen notes.
For that reason alone the current book-banning trend in America is an abomination. It does not belong in an educated, open-minded and enlightened society. From the evidence of late, these attributes do not define America today, nor does their paucity offer much promise for the future. The “dumbing down” of America is no longer a joke.
Michael Dater
Portsmouth, N.H.
To the Editor:
While I certainly agree with Viet Thanh Nguyen that books “are not inert tools of pedagogy” and that “book banning doesn’t fit neatly into the rubrics of left and right politics,” I adamantly disagree with his claim that book banners “are wrong no matter how dangerous books can be.”
As a mother of six children ranging from high school to toddlerhood, I know that not every topic is appropriate at every age. Even the Bible gets edited for content when presented to younger children — no children’s illustrated Bible includes Absalom having sex with his father King David’s concubines so as not to corrupt young minds.
Books that depict graphic sex — and that is the problem with Toni Morrison’s “Beloved,” not the topic of slavery — have no place in school libraries and curriculums. Pornography masquerading as school-age literature is child abuse.
Amanda Bonagura
Floral Park, N.Y.
To the Editor:
On the Kenai Peninsula, where I live, right-wing vaccine-hating opinions thrive. When a librarian reported to the City Council for (usually automatic) approval of a $1,500 grant for wellness books, a commissioner wanted to know if there were any Covid books on the list. The commission delayed the approval until a complete list of books could be provided, even though other commissioners warned of the slippery slope of censorship.
Two enterprising library fans started a GoFundMe site to raise the $1,500 for the books. In two weeks they raised $15,000 for the library. Sometimes the silent majority speaks.
Christine DeCourtney
Nikiski, Alaska
To the Editor:
Kudos to Viet Thanh Nguyen for his fine essay. When I was a young, devoutly Catholic girl of 12, I heard about a book simply called “The Index.” I was told I was forbidden to read books that were listed in it. That proscription was like throwing red meat to a lion. I was becoming interested in sex and thought for sure this must be some hot book list!
I went to the public library in our small town in southern Minnesota and found a sympathetic, if puzzled, librarian to help me. I couldn’t wait to open the small red leather-bound book she handed me, and to see what I should not see.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered the authors listed in this book. They were not, as I had imagined, authors writing about sex. Instead, I saw names of the giants of the Western canon gathered before my eyes! Even I knew who Pascal, Rousseau, Stendhal and Voltaire were, although I’d not yet read them. How could this be? What did the adults not want me to know?
From that time forward I was an insatiable reader of everything I could get my hands on. To this day I support the liberal arts as one important way to open the American mind. And I consider censorship the path toward ignorance and prejudice.
Judith Koll Healey
Minneapolis
The writer is the author of works of fiction, biography, poetry and short stories.
