I’ve tried to recall if my reading was ever censored when I was a kid. In elementary school, I don’t think I ever read an assigned novel. Book reports were required so I must have read something beyond the basal readers we used in class. No idea what.
At a fairly early age, I was given a public library card and was free to walk to the nearby local library. In one sense there was censorship because — if I was there without a parent — I was restricted to the children’s section. I have no memory of wanting to go to any other section. It’s possible I did, but I have no recollection of being turned away.
I lived in a house of books, not the least medical books, since my father was a doctor. I don’t recall sneaking looks in those books. That said, in The Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson — the author, Bette Bao Lord, who was a classmate and good friend of my sister, recounts (in the book) how she and my sister snuck into my father’s office to look at naughty images.
My mother, who was in charge of our reading, did have one restriction regarding what I read, the horror comics of the 1950s. I was a voracious comic book reader, but there were such comics as Horror, Tales from the Crypt, Zombies, and American Vampires. (I like that last title!) My mother had a curious restriction regarding those comic books: I could not bring them inside the house, but I could and did read them on the front stoop. I’m not sure this is censorship. What I recall from these comics was brilliant color and ghoulish creatures. Still, though I did read them I was not (nor am I now) given to acts of violence or the digging up of dead bodies.
In upper elementary school The Amboy Dukes, a 1947 “novel of youth and crime in Brooklyn,” written by Irving Schuman, was reputed to be full of sex. In my school, it was passed around by the boys but only to read certain parts, not the novel as a whole.
Once again I must have read some of it, but have no memory of such, though as I sat down to write this I did recall the title — if not the author.
AbeBooks (an online used book broker) is offering an early paperback edition of The Amboy Dukes for fifteen dollars.
“Condition: Very Good. Avon #169, 1948. First Avon printing. A Very Good copy. Rubs to the corners and spine tips. Some paint chips to the spine edges. Mild dusting to the rear cover. Lightly tanned pages. Cover art by Ann Cantor.”
But a first edition of the Doubleday hardback will cost you $450.00.
Let it be said that as an adolescent I was a big reader. A diary I kept during my senior high school year has long lists of books I was reading — having nothing to do with schoolwork. Impressive authors are noted, Shakespeare, and Milton, among many classic and modern writers. By that time, I had already made up my mind to be a writer. That said, the depth of my 17-year-old intellect may be measured by my favorite phrase in the book. In its entirety, I wrote:
Read Plato. Not bad.
I once visited a class of sixth graders. I asked them what they were reading beyond that required reading. Someone called out, “Stephen King.”
“Does anyone else read him?” I asked.
Half the class raised their hands.
The teacher was astonished. She had no idea.
By way of contrast, many years ago — while on a book tour — I met a woman who proudly informed me that whenever her young daughter told her there was a movie she wished to see, the woman took it upon herself to go see the film first to make sure “it was okay.”
“You must see a lot of movies,” I said.
“I have to,” she said. “It’s my responsibility to keep her from the bad ones.”
But of course, she was seeing all the “bad ones.”
Ah, it must be rough to be a censor.
While it is true that many people who object to a book have never read it (getting the titles from lists) a good number do read those forbidden books.
I think two questions should be required:
- Did you read the book?
- Did you enjoy it?
I suspect they often do.
1 thought on “Censorship”
Absolutely spot on with those last 2 questions to ask someone who is bent of censoring/banning books! And how dare people tell me what my child can and cannot read. I can bet that those people are not monitoring/limiting their kids’ social media scrolling and seeing all sorts of horrors, falsehoods and nasty thoughts that spread there!