Banning books is never right
By Alfred P. Doblin
This is Banned Books Week, and to be clear, since we are living in strange times, the week was launched by the American Library Association (ALA) in 1982 not to celebrate the banning of books, but rather “in response to a sudden surge in the number of book challenges in libraries, schools, and bookstores.”
That quote from the ALA’s website sadly sums up the current situation in America where book bans are on the rise. The theme for this year’s Banned Books Week is: “Censorship Is So 1984. Read for Your Rights.” The theme is a nod to George Orwell’s dystopian novel.
The ALA also has released the list of the Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2024. I haven’t read any of the books on the list, but according to the ALA’s summaries of each title, four of the 10 books have LGBTQ themes; the others are flagged for sexually explicit material.
In my youth, people were still up in arms over the likes of Henry Miller. Perhaps no one is trying to ban Tropic of Cancer anymore because they think it’s the basis for a Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr, Jack Black film. Yes, I know that was Tropic of Thunder, but I wonder whether most Americans have even heard of Henry Miller. According to a 2025 study by the University of Florida and University College London, daily reading for pleasure in the United States declined by more than 40 percent over the last 20 years.
It's a little ironic that there is a rise in banning books while there is a decrease in reading them.
Certainly, there is a difference between a government ban of a book that could result in criminal charges and a local book ban. But it is not a great difference because the latter is just one or two exit ramps away from the former.
As an author of an LGBT book, this is more than an academic exercise to me, although I doubt my book will rise to the level of attention needed to become a source of outrage for anyone. That isn’t the point. Writers have something to say, and you can listen or not, but in a free society your choice should not become, by default, my choice.
The thing about books is that readers will find things in them that the author never thought they put there. When I was in high school, we read A Separate Peace, by John Knowles. It’s a coming-of-age story set in a prep school in the early 1940s, centering around two boys, Gene and Finny. When I read that story as a closeted teen, it read gay to me.
Years later, I learned that I was not alone in that interpretation. Yet, I also have read that Knowles steadfastly rejected that there was any homoerotic subtext to his book. OK… but, I still believe there is.
I found all sorts of hidden sexual innuendo in dozens of classic books – it didn’t need to be spelled out because I had an imagination. I could romanticize and fantasize to my heart’s content over characters that were not appearing in sexually explicit novels. I can still recall a Tom Swift book – a once-popular series of books for boys – where our hero Tom is stripped, placed in a small boat, and set adrift at sea. It was not written to be erotic, but you cannot control what’s in the reader’s mind. That was Orwell’s point, wasn’t it?
We live in the age of YouTube, phones with apps, and songs with lyrics that are not just sexually explicit, but racist, misogynistic, and homophobic. The 10 most challenged books are books; they are not how-to videos. And let’s be honest, young people have been figuring out the how-to part without the help of authors since the beginning of time. They don’t need a book for that.
What adolescents do need are books where they can find people like themselves. When we’re growing up, we often feel no one is like us, and that is amplified if you realize that you are part of a marginalized community. Books are friends to anyone, but most importantly, they are friends to people who need a friend like themselves.
I’m not a parent, so I cannot fathom what it is like to watch your child navigate their way into adulthood. I get that. I respect that. And I believe parents have the right to determine what their minor child reads and watches. But the ALA notes that “pressure groups and government entities” initiated 72 percent of the demands to censor books in either school or public libraries in 2024. The rise in book bans is not the act of individual parents with a concern, but of organized movements.
I’m not a very “woke” person. I am not moving all that easily through my late 60s, but the opposite of woke is unconscious and that isn’t very appealing either. I would prefer to be curious – open to new ideas, to new points of view even if they are hard for me to hear. I will accept or reject them as I see fit.
It is my choice to make; Big Brother has no place in our society. After reading the list of the 10 Most Challenged Books of 2024, I went out and bought the number one challenged book, “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson. It is a form of activism that I am comfortable with – buying books and reading them.
I hope for the sake of our society in these strange times that I am not alone.
Until next time, Alfred with a P