Partly to mostly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 73F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph..
Partly to mostly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 73F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.
The Gilbertson family makes their versions of the ‘Paper Bag Princess’ at the Lake Jackson library after being read the banned children’s book, “The Paper Bag Princess.”
Ande Larsen, youth specialist at the Lake Jackson library, reads “The Paper Bag Princess” to children. This book was published in 1980 and is one of the most commonly challenged books for people who believe it is anti-family.
Ande Larsen reads the frequently banned book “The Paper Bag Princess” to families Saturday at the Lake Jackson library.
Families from Lake Jackson visit the library to read and discuss the banned book, "The Paper Bag Princess" and create their own version of the characters out of paper bags.
“The Paper Bag Princess” is a book published in the 1980s frequently banned for being anti-family because the girl is the hero and it departs from the standard fairy-tale ending of the prince and princess living happily ever after together.
The Lake Jackson library holds a reading of the banned book, "The Paper Bag Princess", complete with a craft for kids to create their own character from the story.
Ande Larsen sits with children and guardians to read the banned book, "The Paper Bag Princess".
The Lake Jackson library hosts a reading of the book “The Paper Bag Princess,” which has been banned for being “anti-family.”
The Gilbertson family makes their versions of the ‘Paper Bag Princess’ at the Lake Jackson library after being read the banned children’s book, “The Paper Bag Princess.”
Ande Larsen, youth specialist at the Lake Jackson library, reads “The Paper Bag Princess” to children. This book was published in 1980 and is one of the most commonly challenged books for people who believe it is anti-family.
Ande Larsen reads the frequently banned book “The Paper Bag Princess” to families Saturday at the Lake Jackson library.
Families from Lake Jackson visit the library to read and discuss the banned book, "The Paper Bag Princess" and create their own version of the characters out of paper bags.
“The Paper Bag Princess” is a book published in the 1980s frequently banned for being anti-family because the girl is the hero and it departs from the standard fairy-tale ending of the prince and princess living happily ever after together.
The Lake Jackson library holds a reading of the banned book, "The Paper Bag Princess", complete with a craft for kids to create their own character from the story.
Ande Larsen sits with children and guardians to read the banned book, "The Paper Bag Princess".
The Lake Jackson library hosts a reading of the book “The Paper Bag Princess,” which has been banned for being “anti-family.”
When the first mass-print books were introduced following the invention of the printing press in the 15th Century, there was an almost immediate backlash against not only the idea of the masses reading in the first place, but about the danger of ideas.
Over 500 years later, those voices still echo, sometimes in places you wouldn’t expect.
Take Theodor Geisel— known to the world as Dr. Seuss. Many of his books have been subjected to criticism due to their underlying themes, like the moral about racism in “The Sneetches” and “The Butter Battle Book” taking on the Cold War. In 2021, his descendants pulled a half-dozen of his works from further circulation because of what they described as culturally insensitive material. Even the perennial graduation gift “Oh the Places You’ll Go” has come under fire from certain circles for promoting individualism too well.
2022 marks the 40th anniversary of Banned Books Week, held the last full week of September and designed to stress the importance of keeping material in circulation that can be challenging or unpopular.
Lisa Loranc, director of the Brazoria County Library System, said branches in Brazoria County see the week as an important annual event.
“Generally, all of our branches during the Banned Book Week will do a display of books that have been banned at various different points in time and we often have some sort of events,” she said. “It’s an incredibly wide selection that gives us a lot of room to maneuver.”
Events include a Banned Book Story Time, which took place in Lake Jackson, and a teen craft at the Brazoria branch where they could make keychains. A list of all of the events can be found at the library website, https://bcls.lib.tx.us/.
Lake Jackson Youth Specialist Ande Larsen said they chose the book “The Paper Bag Princess” for their event Saturday, in part because it highlights how much things change.
The picture book by Robert Munsch, released in 1980, is about a princess defeating a dragon and rescuing a prince — who turns out to be a real jerk — and deciding she’d rather be on her own. Its diversion from fairy tale norms of living happily ever after and having a family created controversy.
When the children were asked Saturday why they thought people had problems with the story, they responded with the violence against the dragon, the bullying behavior of the prince, the burning down of a forest — but not the original objections.
“We like to approach it by selecting books that maybe we’d consider classics. That, once upon a time, they were banned or challenged, which seems totally ridiculous to us now, but in the hope that this will open people’s eyes to everybody reading very diversely and we all having different approaches to books,” Larsen said.
Other well-known books they’ve rotated through included “Where the Wild Things Are,” “Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?” and “The Story of Ferdinand,” she said.
One of the most surprising aspects of the week is the variety of work that qualifies, Loranc said.
“Almost any book can and has been considered controversial. The Bible — there have been movements to ban the Bible from public libraries. Books like ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and ‘Huckleberry Finn,’ which have long been considered American classics and seminal works of their time, have perennially been on banned book lists,” she said.
“And then there are things like ‘The Snowy Day’ by Ezra Jack Keats which, I mean, if anybody’s read that book seems completely innocuous. It’s about a little boy enjoying a day in the snow, and trying to find what could be objectionable about that takes more than I’m capable of.”
While many of the modern controversies revolve around school libraries, which serve a specific audience and purpose, public libraries have to serve the whole community, a distinction Loranc says comes with its own responsibilities.
She hopes anyone can find what they’re looking for within their collection, or through their connection to the interlibrary loan system that allows people to check out materials from libraries across the United States, Loranc said.
“The public library is a commonwealth of information that we curate and hold for the entire community, so it’s important for us to make sure that we have the materials and information that reflect the totality of our constituents needs and desires,” Loranc said. “Not every book in every library is intended for, or appropriate for, every single public library user.”
That responsibility doesn’t rest solely on what reading material the library carries, but also the very nature of the media itself, as in the case of stocking movies and TV shows, which was a controversial move when it began as a practice in recent decades. Some patrons at the time complained about the lack of educational value. Now, it is the only way people can access certain releases due to the widespread death of video rental businesses.
With regards to controversial content, Loranc said the library does its best to shelve material into what they believe is an appropriate grouping, but parents are the ultimate arbiters of what their child is ready to experience.
“We hope that every parent is active and involved in the education and leisure reading of their children, and we certainly do nothing to interfere with that,” she said.
Some things that used to be controversial have become much more widely accepted in recent years, such as the use of protagonists of different racial backgrounds. However, there’s obviously still a lot being said on the subject, Loranc said.
“I think definitely the current climate has highlighted to most libraries that we need to make sure that we keep our ethics and founding principles of the public library in the forefront,” she said.
Often, it’s the children who have the answer.
“Small kids are great. They look at you and say, ‘Well, if you don’t like it, don’t read it,’” Larsen said.
Kent Holle is a reporter for The Facts. Contact him at 979-237-0154.
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