Banned Books Week: Tintin in the Congo

Not only do I read banned books, but I buy them as well. Let me start with a story.

At the end of August, on my final evening of a lovely trip to Cape Cod, I was checking out Herridge Books in Wellfleet. Herridge Books is a used book store tucked in a corner not far from Mayo Beach and Wellfleet Center. I was looking for Church Mice books, while my daughter wanted ghost stories. You could have knocked me over with a clam roll when I found this:

As Captain Haddock would say--blistering barnacles!

A brief history of Tintin in the Congo: it is unavailable to purchase new in the United States. Period. Despite Tintin's decades of cult status in this country, and a highly successful animated film helped raise the franchise's profile, no one can walk into their local Barnes and Noble, or log on to Amazon.com to purchase a newly minted, 2005 (which is when it was last reprinted) edition of this book. Why not? Because the American publishers of the Tintin books, Little, Brown and Company, have deemed it too offensive for this country. Or, to quote the Forward at the start of the UK edition, (which indeed the copy I bought was) Tintin in the Congo contains "bourgeois, paternalistic stereotypes of the period." And Heaven knows we can't have any of that. Particularly in a children's book. And let's not even get started on Herge's attitude to big-game hunting.

I don't mean to sound glib. The controversy surrounding Tintin in the Congo is actually quite complex, based on the book's publishing history, Belgian colonial history, and Herge's own growth as a writer and the creator of Tintin the character. (The Guardian summarizes the issues nicely in this article about a recent attempt to ban the book in Belgium.) And, truthfully, the book is bourgeois and paternalistic. Embarrassingly so. I doubt that Herge meant to offend readers of the day, or even future readers of a more enlightened period, which I'm sure we all like to think the 21st Century is. But there are readers who will take offense to this book.

Now that I have finally read it, I can see that there's not much to recommend Tintin in the Congo other than Herge's name on the front cover. But as a fan of Tintin, I wanted to read it. As a librarian interested in issues of censorship and free speech, I wanted to read it. As a mother who discusses race relations with a daughter curious about the unequal world around her, I wanted to read it. There are many reasons why I wanted to read this book, and not a single one of them had to do with actually agreeing with its content. Yet look at the extent I had to go to find it--dumb luck at a used book store.

It's very easy to stand up and support books like To Kill a Mockingbird or The Color Purple, challenged and banned books whose literary merit and social importance is inherent. But there are ugly books which need protection, too. I recently read Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 (yet another frequently challenged book,) and I came across this exchange between Guy Montag and Faber:

"My wife says books aren't 'real'"
"Thank God for that. You can shut them, say 'Hold on a moment.' You play God to it." (p. 80)

The Reader plays God to the book. Not the publisher. Not the neighbors. The Reader. Maybe it's because I believe in a God who supports free will as opposed to the manipulation of life to ensure harmony, that I found this quote so appropriate to the issue of intellectual freedom. There is a market in this country for Tintin in the Congo, and Little, Brown and Company should feel free to meet the demand of that market. They should not play God to readers by refusing to publish it. Publish the book, and let the readers play God.

For more information about Banned Books Week--it's the 30th anniversary by the way!--you can visit a couple of sites:
http://bannedbooksweek.org/
http://www.ala.org/advocacy/banned/bannedbooksweek

And if you completely disagree with everything I say, feel free not to read Tintin in the Congo (assuming you can find a copy.)

Choose Privacy Week--and don't forget the kids!

The American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom has declared May 2-8 to be Choose Privacy Week. The focus of the week is to inform Americans about their rights to privacy in a digital age. Social networks Facebook and Google have recently been in the news because of privacy concerns, so this is certainly a good time to establish such a week and to make Americans aware of current and on going privacy issues.

It is also a good time to remember a demographic whose privacy is often a target for mass, while no doubt well-meaning, privacy rights infringement. I am referring, of course, to young readers. This recent article from School Library Journal's "Extra Helping" newsletter about a Florida mom who wants YA books to be labeled at her public library irritated me when I first read it, and continues to disturb me. Putting aside the issue of why some parents so greatly fear what their child might see between the pages of a book (makes me wonder if the same sort of vigilance is applied to the child's TV habits, wardrobe, and behaviour towards their peers,) there is the matter of parental monitoring of a child's reading habits. I'll be honest--I'm pretty liberal in this regard. I'll let my child read anything she wants. I cry tears of joy when I see her chose a book instead of the laptop or her DS. I take her to church to learn about our family's values. I give her a book so she'll learn to think for herself.

Children and teens have as much of a right to choose what they want to read for pleasure--or information--as any adult does. Labels on books cut away at that right. They are a simplistic code for "good" and "bad" that simply does not apply to everyone. Why should a young reader be scared away from a labeled book? Let the child decide if they are bothered by a book's content the way grown-ups do--start reading it. You can be sure that if the child doesn't like or understand the book, they'll put it down. But a label on a book's spine is a big ole target for shame and covert behaviour. If a child wants to read a book with a label, but think they might get in trouble, they have two options: don't pick up the book (therefore self-censoring themselves,) or borrow the book and read it secretly. No one should have to read in secret!

And don't get me started on the subject of parents who want access to their kids' borrowing records, to see what they are reading.

I realize that I have sort of wandered from the point in this post. But I would like adults to remember that while they consider ways to protect their privacy in a 24/7 digital age (and children should be learning these lessons too, by the way,) they need to also be aware of the privacy rights of the younger readers in our society. And the most important right for a free and learned society is this: the right to read anything without being judged.