Celebrating the Freedom to Read
It’s currently the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week, whose by-line is “celebrating the freedom to read”. Having the freedom to read is always cause for celebration (as is the freedom to write and we should bear in mind those who are persecuted for trying to exercise that freedom). However, having that freedom does not mean that we should advocate a blanket lack of discernment. And it would be naive to think that the reading choices available have not been subject to a selection process along the way: publishers, librarians, booksellers, teachers, parents.
Our Book of the Month back in August, Requiem for a Beast by Matt Ottley (Hachette Livre/ Lothian Books, 2007) caused a great deal of contoversy when it first hit the bookshops in Australia. The misunderstandings about this Australian Children’s Book Council Picture Book of the Year (2008) centered on the fact that this is a picture-book but is certainly not aimed at young readers.
Here’s an extract from our recent interview with Matt:
Requiem for a Beast has now notoriously become the most complained about book for young people in Australian history! That’s because it contains one graphic illustration of a bloodied axe, as well as two vague references to suicide and five incidences of the “f” word. What a lot of commentators didn’t seem to take on board when the book first came to public notice, is that this is a picture book for young adults, not for little children.
My young adult audience has been unfalteringly supportive, and I’ve received the most amazing feedback from them.
The whole ensemble of words, image and music is extremely powerful and the use of swearing in some of the written dialogue is certainly not gratuitous. On the contrary: I cannot imagine that Australian stockmen do not resort to colorful language from time to time. However, this is a book for young adults and indeed adults. It is not for young children – and it was never intended to be.
One of the responsibilities of being a parent or a teacher is to provide young people with the tools to discern and to think for themselves. It can be scary to see where that thinking takes them but we have to trust them to make their choices…
Natasha over at Maw Books has a thought-provoking post with a list of books that have been banned at some point – some of them may surprise you; and she has lots of links to other blogs discussing Banned Books…
September 28th, 2009 at 6:52 am
Unfortunately it seems quite impossible to get hold of (buy) in Europe…
September 28th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Hopefully it will get here eventually – I was fortunate to get a copy sent by the publishers; but other acclaimed books published by Lothian Books, notably Shaun Tan’s, have come out here a couple of years down the line so we can hope – any news on that front gratefully received!