ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, September 15, 1996 TAG: 9609180009
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LEILA CHRISTENBURY
A RECENT People for the American Way report, detailing a significant rise in censorship attempts on books in public schools (a record 475 times this past school year), should surprise few. The concern that certain books are considered dangerous and should be kept out of young people's hands is an old impulse.
Plato argued in "The Republic" that poets and dramatists, who did not always adhere to the truth, be banished from his utopian society. In 1615 in his "Leviathan," Thomas Hobbes advocated state censorship for the good of the people. In this country, the American Library Association continues its yearly ``celebration'' of Banned Books Week by detailing the many books which have been challenged or even removed from libraries and classsrooms.
Yet beyond the usual debate regarding censorship, what is particularly fascinating about the recent People for the American Way report is what has made the list of the 12 ``most frequently challenged books in public schools.''
A number of the titles are famous and recognizable, many written primarily for adults: ``The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,'' ``Native Son,'' ``Of Mice and Men,'' ``I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,'' ``The Color Purple,'' ``Catcher in the Rye." The other half, however, are young-adult books, a genre of literature written for and marketed to young people in middle and high schools.
Some of these books may not be familiar to adult readers, but it is important to note that all are written by recognized and much-praised authors in the field of young-adult literature. More to the point, the works are ethical, thoughtful and thought-provoking - just the kind of literature one would assume any concerned parent or teacher would want a young person to spend time reading.
These books are good literature. They are also moral to their core, and the deep irony is that they are appearing on a banned-books list. Let's take a look at some of the titles:
Lois Lowry's ``The Giver,'' winner of the prestigious Newbery Award, is both fantasy and science fiction. Compelling, written in a spare style, the novel convincingly demonstrates the drawbacks to a controlled, monitored society (albeit a completely painless and anxiety-free one), questioning whether such a futuristic ideal is ultimately humane or even human.
Robert Cormier's ``The Chocolate War'' is a highly praised, tightly plotted, realistic novel that takes place in a boys' high school. What starts out as the innocent selling of chocolates to raise money for the school becomes a titanic confrontation between good and evil in which one brave young person refuses, at his peril, to go along with the crowd and mindlessly conform.
``Go Ask Alice,'' a continuing best seller, stands as one of the most effective (and anonymous) anti-drug novels ever written in this country, giving young readers a harrowing portrait of a drug user and, by example, almost every reason imaginable not to do drugs.
``Bridge to Terabithia'' by Katherine Paterson, another Newbery Award winner, presents a believable, nonsexual friendship between a boy and girl and seriously considers questions of family relations, spiritual belief, death and the afterlife.
The Colliers' ``My Brother Sam Is Dead,'' also a Newbery honoree, is a fine example of historical fiction, giving a dramatic, memorable picture of the Revolutionary War and its effects upon real people.
Robert Newton Peck's ``A Day No Pigs Would Die'' is a much-praised portrait of a rural, poor farm family and the love a young boy feels for his embattled father.
Aren't these the kind of books we want young people to read? Aren't these the kind of issues we want young people to think about? Aren't the moral questions raised in these books important for our students and for our children? Why are we challenging these books in school instead of putting them - jamming them - into every young person's hands?
Perhaps we need to remember the words of John Milton, the 17th-century poet and writer whose major concern was God, man and salvation. A man of deep religious beliefs, Milton also was one of the first and certainly most famous of Western civilization's anti-censorship warriors, who fought the suppression of books in England. He wrote in 1644, in the famous anti-censorship statement, ``Areopagitica'':
``As good almost kill a man as kill a good book: who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's Image; but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself, kills the Image of God, as it were, in the eye.''
These books are good books. Let's not kill them. Let's not ban them. Let's consider what these books are actually saying and doing - and make sure they are in the hands of our young people. Which is where they most surely belong.
Leila Christenbury, a professor of English education at Virginia Commonwealth University, is editor of "English Journal" and "Books for You."
LENGTH: Medium: 96 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: NANCY OHANIAN/Los Angeles Timesby CNB