Banned Books Month: Guest Post from Helaine Becker: Going Orwell on Your Own Kids

What??? They banned TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD? Again???

Don’t sweat it. There’s an even more outrageous act of book banning going on. Under our very noses. Every day.

I’m referring to parents who ‘pre-reads’ books for their kids. Who selects ‘appropriate titles’ for their tots.  Who nay-says their choices that are too hard/too easy/too scary/too disturbing/too silly/too dumb.

Orca Books, October 2014.

I get it – I’m a parent too. I know that middle-of-the-night-staring-at-the-ceiling thing, thinking, “My God! I’m not doing ENOUGH!!!”

So you stuff your kids’ lunch bags with healthy superfoods (Chia! Hemp!), fill their days with stimulating activity (Karate! Chess!). And make sure all their reading material passes muster (Newbery! Caldecott!).

But it’s counterproductive. Evil, even, when you pre-censor your kids’ books.

You’ve gone Orwell on your own kid.

“But wait!” you say. “I’m only trying to protect them! Letting a kid make their own decisions is risky. They might make:  GACK! Mistakes!!!”

Plume, 60th Anniversary Edition.

So in the name of love, you infiltrate your child’s mind. You become a censor, robbing your kids of freedom, autonomy, and the chance to grow.

But kids need autonomy. They need to make their own choices, and their own mistakes. And in this crazy modern world, there are almost no places left for kids to do so.

Except, perhaps, in the world of books. When a child chooses reading material on their own, they experience the rare opportunity to be free. To follow their own hearts, instincts, moods, interests, passing fancies. To be alive to themselves.

Of course it’s risky. They might choose a book that rattles them to their core. Or makes them see the world from an entirely new perspective. They might – EGAD – learn about sex or pain or really creepy people.

Dancing Cat Books, April 2014.

“So what?” I say. It will, in fact, be GOOD for them. Wildly, fantastically, hugely good.

As you may have guessed, no one selected or censored the books I read as a kid. I read lousy books and dirty books. Beautiful books and goofy books. Books with pictures and magazines with words and no pictures. I read my Dad’s Scientific American and my mom’s McCalls. I read biographies, how-tos, comedy, romance, suspense, horror, poetry. Fredericks of Hollywood catalogues, the backs of soup cans, Mad.

None of it hurt me. All of it made me the person I am today. A voracious reader (still). A committed writer. A determined thinker-of-thoughts and fighter-for-rights.

So to all the well-meaning parents out there who are book banners in your own homes, I say, “let it go!” Trust your child to choose books that are right for her. She’s up to the challenge. Really.

Now go relax. With a nice, trashy novel. It’s ok — I’ll let you.

Helaine Becker

Helaine Becker is the best-selling author of more than 60 books for children and teens, including the #1 Canadian national bestseller A PORCUPINE IN A PINE TREE. Her most recent titles are GOTTIKA (Dancing Cat Books), and DIRK DARING, SECRET AGENT (Orca Books).