Saw a list of banned books from the 1980s that had almost nothing to do with politics

Was looking through old library records from a small town in Ohio last week and noticed something weird. People always assume censorship is about sex or violence, but half the titles banned back then were challenged because of bad language or supposed occult themes. Things like a fantasy novel with a talking cat got pulled from shelves because a parent said it promoted disrespect. It made me wonder if we focus too much on the big national bans and miss all the quiet little local ones that happen every month. Has anyone else dug into old school board meeting minutes and found weird reasons for pulling books?

2 comments

2 Comments

skyler_anderson6520d ago

Well I'll be. I was reading about this same thing just the other day. Some parent in the 80s got a book pulled because a character said "shut up" and that was considered bad language for kids. Makes you realize how much of this stuff goes on without anyone noticing.

the_max20d ago

Hold up I gotta push back on that a little. Sure there were some goofy complaints about cats talking and kids saying shut up, but the 80s had a ton of political book bans too. I remember reading about how a school in Texas banned "The Color Purple" because it had a lesbian character. And "Slaughterhouse-Five" got pulled in a lot of places for being unpatriotic. Those weren't quiet small town choices, they were national fights pushed by conservative groups. I just think lumping all bans together makes the political ones look less serious than they really were. Do you think those bigger political battles got more attention back then?