Luna’s Prose Ramblings

Apparently, the days of burning have not faded into history. Earlier this year, the West Bend Citizens for Safe Libraries have petitioned their local library to remove a selection of books from their shelves. Among them is a book by Francesca Lia Block, Baby Be-Bop, which deals with youth homosexuality and bullying.

The citizen group requested the West Bend library to have the title removed from the children’s section and only make the book available to adults so that they would be aware of their child’s choice of reading. When the library did not immediately complied with the request, the group organised a petition to be sent. In response to this move, a second group called the West Bend Parents for Free Speech was formed to oppose the objections. Consequently, at a meeting beginning of June, the library board received two petitions, one with 700 signatories supporting the move and 1,000 opposing it. The library voted unanimously to sustain their initial decision.

But the story gets better. Once the library sustained their refusal to move certain books to the adult section, the Milwaukee branch of the Christian Civil Liberties Union (CCLU) joined the ranks of complainants by filing a suit against the library motioning to have Baby Be-Bop not moved to a different section, but to have it removed from the library completely by stating that the book is offensive. According to the suit, the book is “explicitly vulgar, racial (sic) and anti-Christian”.

But the CCLU goes further than that. Robert C. Braun, president of the Milwaukee branch, has written a fax message to the West Bent Daily News stating that “Mayor Kristine Deiss and the West Bend Library allowed a hate crime book, which offends minorities, gays and Christianity to remain in the public library, despite the fact that both prayers and God’s name have been removed from public places”. He also writes that a vigil is planned outside city hall to “pray for [the] West Bend mayor and city Library Board” and he invites interested individuals “to join us at a later date when we burn the “Baby Be-Bop” book”.

It seems the CCLU has no problem with destruction of public property.

After the case was originally dismissed, a 2-1 majority opinion of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the claim by Miami-Dade County School Board that they were in their right to remove Vamos a Cuba by Alta Schreier, published by Heinemann Library, from school libraries for reasons of it not being an accurate representation of life in Cuba.

The case was picked up by the Miami-Dade County School Board after complaints by several people including a former political prisoner of Cuba. The book offended mainly because it depicts smiling children wearing uniforms of Cuba’s communist youth group and the book tells of “carnavals” that in reality are commemorative days celebrating Cuba’s revolutionist history. According to the complainers, the fault of the book is one of omission as the aspects of totalitarianism that effect Cuban life are not covered.

Over at Children’s Book Examiner Diane Petryk Bloom questions where the line lies between books being age appropriate and inaccurate.

Every once in a while, I am amazed when I hear about literary freedom being compromised. However, I am astonished if it happens in my own city.

The BBC reports on the cancellation of a reading and book signing that Waterstone’s Cardiff branch would host for Welsh poet Patrick Jones. His collection of poems ‘Darkness is where the stars are’ is described as questioning the beliefs in society. However, a campaign by the christian organisation Christian Voice, led to Waterstone’s deeming it prudent to cancel the event to avoid potential disruption to the store and consequently led to the author signing his books on the street.

Waterstone’s spokeperson said ‘(t)he book remains available through Waterstone’s and we are very happy for that to be the case. We don’t act as a censor, we stock books in the tens of thousands and would only remove them from sale on the advice of the publisher’.

Stephen Green of Christian Voice said the decision was a triumph ‘for the Lord, not for us. Just the knowledge that we were on our way has put the fear of God into the opposition’.