News

Challenged book controversy
Certain Rockbridge Regional Library books questioned

By STACEY GRIJALVA

Harry Potter books such as Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets regularly top the ALA's most challenged books list. The Rockbridge Regional Library, however, has not received any challenges concerning the Harry Potter series.
Photo by Drew Scarantino

Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling’s internationally popular boy wizard, is found at all five branches of the Rockbridge Regional Library.

While not a surprise, this is news because the series is at the top of the American Library Association’s most challenged books.

With 115 complaints nationally, the 10-year-old series is most commonly accused of promoting witchcraft. The characters in the story attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Yet Rockbridge County, demographically religious and conservative, has multiple copies of the books in all the library branches.

Furthermore, the library does not often receive formal complaints for any of the materials on hand.

The last request for reconsideration was in 2005 for a murder mystery book on CD by Elmore Leonard.

The patron, Elaine Thornton, objected to the vulgar and derogatory language used as part of racial stereotyping.

The patron said she is against banning books but wanted the library to label Mr. Paradise with a sticker to warn unsuspecting patrons of the language which was disturbing to her.

“That sort of language in a book, you can glance over it,” said Thornton. “But to have it said over and over and over again out loud, it gets to you.”

The Board of Trustees for the library decided that no action should be taken because the offensive language is part of the style and culture of the racist contract killers in the book.

The committee also added that “materials in a library collection do not appeal to all patrons. The patron has the freedom - and the responsibility - to stop reading, listening, watching material he/she finds offensive.”

Any patron who wants reconsideration fills out a request form that was passed by the Board in 1989. The patron is asked specifically what in the work the patron objects to and recommendations for action.

“We consider everything that someone says,” said Beverly Slaydon, the library’s administrative assistant and development.

The librarian and several groups evaluate the material to decide on an appropriate action.

The library bases any decision partly on the ALA policies that advocate free, unrestricted, and equal access to all materials in spite of chronological age or educational level because of an obligation to all library users.

These policies state that “parents - and only parents - have the right and responsibility to restrict the access of their children - and only their children - to library resources.”

Yet Thornton feels that the language is so offensive that a warning is necessary for unsuspecting listeners. She points to a library employee’s reaction when she repeated the language of the book.

“This woman heard me and came out screaming and berating me,” said Thornton. “How dare I use that language and I had no right to call the employee that. If someone goes off the deep end because I said it out loud, that shows how people object to the language.”

Thornton said the library admitted that if they had known of the language, they would not have bought it because they weren’t comfortable with it.

The library bases book decisions partly on reviews from a library journal, which had not mentioned the swearing and derogatory terms.

Thornton said she understands that the library is uncomfortable banning a book after having bought it because she herself is against book banning.

Yet she thinks a mature sticker on Mr. Paradise or a note on the back description is not asking too much.

“The ALA discourages doing so,” she said. “If you label it, some people will go looking for those.”

Besides the surprising and offensive nature of the language, Thornton’s worries about the effect on listeners are especially meaningful during Black History Month.

“It is so racially prejudiced,” she said. “We’re trying to raise a new generation where we don’t’ judge based on the color of skin. Putting down a race in such a way can never be acceptable, even if such swearing becomes commonplace.”