Banned and Censored: More about Banned Books & Censorship

Foerstel offers four perspectives on censorship, covering major book-banning incidents from 1976 to 1992; court opinion and the relevant case law, which he aptly labels "unsettled"; the experiences and views of authors such as Judy Blume and Robert Cormier, whose books have been targeted by censors; and the content and censorship history of what he considers the 50 most frequently challenged books in the 1990s. His findings are based on reports from People for the American Way and the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom. However, the book, which is more a chronicle of censorship than a guide to dealing with it in a library, will be more useful as general nonfiction than professional reading.

"Bound to be of assistance to teachers and librarians besieged by claims that removing vital works of literature will somehow protect the moral purity of children, this collection of essays includes both broad statements against censorship and articles defending individual books that have been relentlessly challenged during the past 50 years--for notorious example, Huckleberry Finn, described as "poison" even by the Human Relations Committee of a Virginia intermediate school named after Mark Twain. One particularly commendable entry is Laura Quinn's "Moby Dick vs. Big Nurse: A Feminist Defense of a Misogynist Text: One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest." Quinn's view may be politically unpopular, but it is quite convincing. The book also includes material that argues that racism often lurks behind claims of obscenity, since a disproportionately high number of books by and about minorities are on the banned lists throughout the nation. Despite the grimness of repression, Censored Books communicates an optimistic belief that the joys of reading eventually triumph." --Aaron Cohen