I read a very interesting article in the School Library Journal this week. It’s about the kind of censorship we never hear about. The kind that’s tucked neatly behind the shelves.
Novelist Barry Lyga’s Young Adult (YA) novel “Boy Toy” is about a 12-year-old boy’s sexual involvement with his seventh-grade teacher. According to the article Mr. Lyga did expect some fall out from his book, at the very least complaints from parents and school boards or having the book taken off the library shelf – but to his surprise nothing happened. Nothing happened because some book stores were shelving his book in the adult section, and many libraries didn’t recommend or purchase the book at all.
Mr. Lyga is quoted as saying, “It’s sort of a soft, quiet, very insidious censorship, where nobody is raising a stink, nobody is complaining, nobody is burning books,” says Lyga about the plight of Boy Toy. “They’re just quietly making sure it doesn’t get out there.”
What do you think?
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katiebabs
on Feb 15th, 2009
@ 12:48 pm:
That is horrible. You had a choice not to open the book, just like you can change the channel on the tv. And parents should know what their children are reading. By hiding a book it doesn’t solve the problem.
orannia
on Feb 15th, 2009
@ 2:39 pm:
*SIGH* Hiding a book or preventing its release is akin to burning it IMO as you’re still trying to prevent people from reading it, just in a more insidious fashion. Have those libraries who haven’t purchased the book given the reason(s) behind their decision?
Karin
on Feb 16th, 2009
@ 1:04 pm:
I find it troubling that a book would be hidden to prevent people from reading it. Like katiebabs said, it’s more important that a parent know what their children are reading than to hide a book so it can’t be read.
Anon
on Feb 18th, 2009
@ 11:09 pm:
Hmm…I guess, where do you draw the line between censorship and what people/libraries choose to purchase, and where they choose to shelve it? I think it’s okay for people to be concerned about a topic like this, *and* I take censorship very seriously, which is why I am not certain this meets the a threshold of censorship.
Maybe it does, but then, wouldn’t any choice by anyone to not expose someone to something qualify? I don’t know anything about *why* the libraries chose not to purchase–do you? As far as shelving in the adult section . . . that hardly counts as ‘censorship.’
Theresa Meyers
on Feb 20th, 2009
@ 9:26 am:
Did any of you happen to notice that this report came from SCHOOL Library Journal? They aren’t talking about regular libraries. They are talking about school libraries. As a substitute teacher, I have to say, as much as I hate censorship, I don’t think this is appropriate material for schools. The subject matter is too close to the impressionable minds of kids just starting to experiement with their own sexuality and they don’t tell their parents everything they are reading. It would be all too easy for them to grab a book off the school library shelf and read it entirely at school that was not appropriate – and frankly if it wasn’t appropriate, word would get around and then it would become the big thing to read it.