LGBT Children's Books and Why I'm Celebrating Banned Books Week

Today marks the start of the 29th annual Banned Books Week, the American Library Association’s celebration of the freedom to read. Children’s books with LGBT content always seem to draw challenges (formal requests for removal or restriction), even if they contain no material that falls into other potentially objectionable categories, such as being sexually explicit or using strong language.

Topping the ALA’s list of Most Challenged Books three years in a row, for example (2006-2008), was And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, based on the true story of two male penguins who raise a chick together. It dropped to number two in 2009 (the last full year calculated), but remains at number four on the decade’s Top 100 list (2000-2009).

Out of the top 10 this year, but at number eight in 2008, isUncle Bobby’s Wedding, by Sarah Brannen, which features a young guinea pig who wonders if her Uncle Bobby will have time for her anymore after he marries his boyfriend Jamie. The book’s theme is a universal one, a child figuring out her relationships with the adults in her life. The fact that Bobby and Jamie are both male is incidental to the tale. No matter -- and no matter that Tango is a tale about two actual penguins at the Central Park Zoo in New York. If they show same-sex couples, they are inappropriate for children, some say.

Lauren Myracle’s book Luv Ya Bunches, for example, came under fire a year ago when publisher Scholastic decided to remove it from the company’s book fairs because one of the main characters has lesbian moms. The moms play only a minor part in the book -- it is not “about” having lesbian momsper se, but even that was apparently too much. Thousands of Change.org members came to Myracle’s defense and Scholastic reinstated it -- but only to middle school fairs, even though the book has elementary-school protagonists.

Just as ridiculous, one library patron in Parker, Colorado even challenged Uncle Bobby in 2008 on the grounds that same-sex marriage is illegal in the state. Library director James LaRue responded in no uncertain terms, “Thousands and thousands of our books feature true or fictional tales of murder, robbery, kidnapping -- all of which violate Colorado laws. . . . I concluded that the principle, in general, would be impossible for libraries to apply.”

Marriage of same-sex couples may be the hot issue now, but note that in 1959, Garth Williams’ The Rabbits’ Wedding was removed from libraries in the South or transferred to reserve shelves because it depicted the marriage of a black rabbit and a white one. Many felt it promoted interracial marriage and was thus inappropriate for children. The guinea pigs are picking up where the rabbits left off.

When we move into young adult books, however, which sometimes deal with issues such as sexuality (of all types) and drugs, and may use stronger language, we reach a trickier area. Myracle’s ttyl series, for example, comes in at number two on last year’s "Most Challenged" list -- not for “homosexuality,” but for being “sexually explicit,” containing “offensive language,” "drugs," "nudity," and being “unsuited to age group,” among other things. Even more liberal parents might hesitate to have their children read such material.

The issue, however, is not about whether books discuss actions that are illegal nor whether they have content that could be considered “inappropriate.” The issue is whether anyone else has the right to make that determination on behalf of my child. It's about whether I as a parent am providing proper guidance to him when he does run into something that conflicts with our family morals or beliefs or is beyond his current understanding. He’s bound to do so unless I isolate him from the world -- and doing that would conflict with my responsibility as a parent to help him get along in life.

So read a “banned” book this week, or attend the Banned Books Readout if you are in Chicago. Consider, too, that “at least 46 of the Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century have been the target of ban attempts,” according to the ALA. Our culture would be much poorer if we did not have books that show a diversity of families, actions, and ideas, and if they didn’t challenge us to reflect on our own.

Photo credit: American Library Association