Book Lover - September 18, 2009

In Search of Banned Children's Books
by Cynthia Crossen

I recently learned that the wonderful children’s book “Karlsson-on-the-Roof” by the Swedish author Astrid Lindgren is largely unknown in U.S. According to Wikipedia, the book was banned in some libraries and schools in North America. Is that true?

—Pavel Gurov, Nottingham, Md.

There doesn't seem to be a single verifiable record of banned books, but "Karlsson-on-the-Roof" by Ms. Lindgren, author of more than 70 children's books and creator of Pippi Longstocking, appears to have met with some protests in the U.S. One list of challenged books says Karlsson was suspected of inculcating "subversive views on babysitters." It probably didn't help that when it was published in 1955, it became was a huge best seller in the U.S.S.R. I have just read it, and I'm mystified by the controversy.

The Puritans brought censorship to America, and it has thrived ever since. Boston was the epicenter of censorship in the early 20th century; in 1927, Boston banned novels "The Hard-Boiled Virgin" and "The Marriage Bed," both of which sound like pretty wholesome messages. Over the years, Boston censors also turned away Sinclair Lewis's "Elmer Gantry"; Theodore Dreiser's "An American Tragedy"; and Erskine Caldwell's "God's Little Acre." But the publisher Alfred Harcourt of Harcourt, Brace & Co. said in 1926, censorship efforts "certainly do not have any marked effect in curtailing receipts."

Looking at lists of books that have been challenged or banned (many protests against books are unsuccessful) around the world, I was surprised to find a children's book I remember fondly, "Ferdinand the Bull" by Munro Leaf. The bull who just wanted to smell the flowers was apparently going to seduce children into being Communists or pacifists. William Steig's "Sylvester and the Magic Pebble" has been challenged because the police are imagined as pigs—but then Sylvester is a donkey.

Among adult books, a few of my favorites that have provoked the censors somewhere are "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes; "Beloved" by Toni Morrison; "Sophie's Choice" by William Styron; "This Boy's Life" by Tobias Wolff; "Ordinary People" by Judith Guest; and "All Quiet on the Western Front" by Erich Maria Remarque.

My opinion of censorship was neatly expressed by Clare Boothe Luce: "Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but unlike charity, it should end there." And why blame books rather than the behavior they reflect? Artists, said Edward Albee, should be "holding a mirror up to people and saying, 'This is the way you behave, and if you don't like it, you should change.' "