When I lived in Germany, I frequently took my children to the military base library. One day, I found the librarian staring at the rows of children’s picture books with a look of despair. When he heaved a heavy sigh, I asked him what was wrong. "We have too many books," he said. "What's wrong with that?" I asked. In my mind, the more books, the better. "It means we have to throw some away," he responded. I was shocked. "What?" I exclaimed. As it turns out, the US military is under strict media regulations while in Germany. US books are allowed on the bases, but that's the only place. The military is required to burn or throw away all extra books rather than to chance them being released to the public. The military may not give them away, even to American military members living in the area (I know because I asked if I could take some of the books). Sad, but true. How different the two countries are! Germany, while allowing nude calendars to hang up at the entrance to their supermarkets (ask me how I know, lol), will not allow access to many major US news sources and the internet is strictly censored. Streaming services were also censored. (The shows we watched on our German Netflix differed from the ones shown in the US, because Germany had to approve each show and movie first). What is interesting is that I never heard a German citizen complain about their lack of rights or their oppressive government. They simply accept it as a way of life and live peacefully with the decisions made for them, just as we Americans accept our rights as our way of life and fight tooth and nail when anyone tries to take our freedom of choice away. I’m not saying their way is better than ours, nor ours better than theirs. As an American, naturally I prefer freedom to censorship. But I find the differences in cultures interesting.

Words are so interesting. I feel like, for Americans, the term "banned books" immediately brings to mind thoughts of oppression, hidden agendas, and the destruction of our US Constitutional rights. An article titled "Public School Bans Books!" will cause a very different reaction in its readers than one titled "Elementary School Library Selects Books with Care." Don't get me wrong—I don't support book banning and believe American citizens may write and publish whatever they choose, as per their First Amendment Rights. But I think there is definitely some sensationalism being used by the media right now regarding book banning. My local public library is passing out bracelets that read something to the effect of "Don't Support Book Banning." Great. Let people read what they want. But I'm not certain "banning" books belongs in the same category as making sure selected books for certain situations are age appropriate, and in that sense, some censorship of the items allowed into public school libraries may be needed. For example, I'd be dismayed to find The Kite Runner (which I've read and very much enjoyed) in my kids' elementary school library. A descriptive rape scene and use of the f-bomb (among other things found in that book) are simply not age appropriate for eight-year-olds, and I would hope the librarian (or whoever selects the books) is judicious in her selections.

Just a thought...I think a major issue parents are having with these books being in the library is that there is no rating system in place to help children know what they will find inside a book. "You can't judge a book by its cover" has never been a truer saying. For example, my eleven-year-old is an advanced reader and is constantly looking for new books to read. He has long since moved from the MG reading level to YA, and this has presented some problems. A few months ago, he found a sci-fi book in the YA section that looked like a decent read. Knowing about the issue of pornography, he brought the book down to me to double check before he took it home. It was by an author I'd never heard of, but by the cover and summary on the back, it looked like a decent read (space exploration, scientific experiments, etc.--totally a book my science-brained math whizz kid would enjoy). I told him it looked fine, but then on a whim cracked it open to the middle. I kid you not, I opened directly to a page with major nudity, sex, and drug use. The content was definitely inappropriate for my poor 11-year-old, who is still nowhere close to hitting puberty! And this is the major problem I believe parents are having with these books in the library: kids don't know what they're going to find inside a book. I would love to see public schools (could be a state-by-state thing) adopt some kind of system to inform readers what they will find inside their YA and MG books. This could be some kind of code placed on the back (N for nudity, D for drug use, S for sex, etc.) so that children aren't unintentionally exposed to content they don't want. There are a few websites online that claim to rate books, but they are not widespread, and many of them require membership fees or their rating systems are wonky. If there were a shared database with accurate information on book content that librarians and school board members could pull from when they select books for their shelves, I think there would be fewer issues with parents trying to ban books.

I don't agree with the banning of a book based wholly on its topic. Topic and content are different, in my opinion. With consideration to transgender literature, children who are experiencing identity crisis may benefit from reading about the experiences of others. However, regardless of the topic, I also think there is certain "content" that might be considered age-inappropriate for children to read, regardless of the "topic." Content that has shown negative impacts on development and social function, such as pornographic material, would fit into this category, in my opinion, and I have listed some scholarly articles showing effects associated with exposure to this content in a later note.

Yeah, this bugs me. I loved reading Animal Farm.

I would like to play devil's advocate for a moment, however. There are some good examples of stupid banning attempts in this article. However, I think it's important to also consider that 1) there are stupid people everyone, and it stands to reason that somewhere, someone is going to attempt to ban a book that shouldn't be banned, leading to 2) as anyone can find a handful of examples to support any stance, it is worth having more data to discern just how widespread issues like these book bannings are. For example, I would like to know a) how many public schools there are in the USA, and b) of that number, what percentage of those schools are having book banning issues similar to the cases brought up in this article. I think having this data could help us differentiate just how widespread this issue is.

I'm not saying book banning isn't an issue we need to be concerned of (this Animal Farm case clearly suggests we should be concerned), but I would like to see the data in order to better understand the situation.

This article refers to different types of banned books, and I'm not certain they should be placed in the same category. A book with pedophilia and/or pornographic material is a different animal than a book about race, especially as the former has considerable long-term effects on child development, mental health, and social function. See the following academic articles:

https://www.jpedhc.org/article/S0891-5245(19)30384-0/fulltext

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abstract/1874574

https://www.safersurfing.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/rr_the_effects_of_pornography_on_children_and_young_people_1.pdf

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315201702-4/meta-analysis-published-research-effects-pornography-elizabeth-oddone-paolucci-mark-genuis-claudio-violato