Freedom to Read Week

Can you believe I forgot Freedom to Read Week? After years of making displays in the school library and coming up with all sorts of contests, I forgot. It slipped by! I didn’t even release a banned or challenged book out into the wild using BookCrossing! Oh no!

I did however participate in a discussion over on AgentQuery about sex, sex scenes and in the end, self censorship in one’s writing. Originally it was supposed to be a sort of gender discussion, but it took a slightly different direction regarding intention with scenes in one’s work as well as the perception of others (readers, family, editors, etc).

When you think about it from a writing perspective, there are a zillion levels of censorship. The first level begins in the writer’s head. Then it moves onto the page. Then in editing. Then it moves away from the writer when agents, editors and publishers add their own levels of censorship (if deemed necessary). From there, depending on the work in question and its content, themes and language, it gets censored by the bookseller (whether to buy and sell the book or not) and then on to the reader who too, may censor it as well. I mean, have any of you ever put a book down because it offended you on some level? Did you not read a book because its content was offensive?

And how about libraries? I know as a school librarian, there were books that I censored. Books I did not buy due to inappropriateness (where exactly is the line between age appropriate and censorship) or books that I pulled from the shelves.

What about parents? Where is the line between censorship and age appropriateness?

In the end, no easy answers for censorship issues and I commend those that fight so we as individuals have the freedom to choose for ourselves.