This weekend, on the afternoon of August 10, a group of Idaho authors organized as Authors Against Book Bans is scheduled to hold a reading. But not the usual kind.
Authors often are asked to read a passage from their works, typically at an event like a book signing. What’s happening here is different. The public invitation reads: “Bring your favorite book, banned book, current read, or whatever kind of book you'd like - we're celebrating our right to read freely on the front steps of the Idaho State Capitol building.”
Rather than a literary activity, this is part of a political voter-registration event, in effect a protest against the new library materials measure (House Bill 710) passed this year by the Idaho Legislature. The American Civil Liberties Union argues about the new law that, “Rather than ‘protect’ children from ‘obscene’ materials, HB 710 offers vague and overbroad language that threatens to censor library books and materials. It also allows ordinary people to file lawsuits and even receive monetary awards for these legal claims.” The law in practice is an attack on Idaho’s libraries, both public and private.
All true, but I’d add another dimension to the case against the bill: That it can’t possibly accomplish its stated purpose, because of a misunderstanding about the nature of most human beings.
At the Saturday event there might reasonably be some emphasis on the “banned book” element, with readings from the challenged materials serving as a pushback against the new law.
The readings also could serve as a metaphor for the way the law is likely to collapse in on itself. The measure is purported to try to keep “harmful materials” out of the hands of children. One immediate difficulty is that hardly any two people will find perfect agreement on what might or might not be harmful to children; my list of bad materials may be very different from someone else’s, which means trying to legislate to an arbitrary, ever-shifting and ever-variable standard.
But the problem goes further than that. In practice, to the degree the law actually has an impact, it likely will drive those materials of most concern directly into the hands of children.
For people said to be so deeply interested in the family, these legislators seem not to understand who drives a lot of children.
Let me explain through my earliest memories of visiting my city’s public library, well before I started elementary school.
I would wander around (this was a place I could freely explore on my own, which by itself was great), but at that age I mostly was on the lookout for anything good about dinosaurs. The children’s section was hopeless (back then), and I spent almost no time there. Instead, I was all over the science sections in the adult stacks. If I had to pile up chairs to reach the upper shelves, so be it. I wanted whatever I was interested in; other subjects had little purchase on me. How could they? They were just undifferentiated rows of books.
And so, I suspect, it is with a lot of children, whatever their interest may be. You’re not going to keep them away from reading about something they’re curious about by moving it from one section of a library to another, or trying to block them away using bureaucratic rules. They’ll probably find it, wherever it is. If they’re told no, they’ll get more determined.
Except that today, compared to a generation or two ago, the point of access is broader. As much as I continue to appreciate (and use) libraries, I know they’re just one place among many I can pick up on whatever I want to read. Every child with a smartphone (not to mention a computer) can easily find anything they may be looking for, including some things that really could do them some damage.
Nothing grabs a child’s attention like being told they can’t have - or see - something.
The present-day censors could succeed in damaging libraries, cutting public literacy, and driving away librarians.
But keep kids from reading whatever attracts their interest? Good luck with that.
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