I’m interrupting the series I’ve been posting, a series asking why grown-up writers choose children as our audience, to take on another topic.  A topic that has, just now, thrust itself into the news.

Book censorship.  In particular, the banning of children’s books.

Banning isn’t new, certainly.  But it’s taking on a new twist.  An insidious one.  Because the banner this time isn’t a handful of parents who believe no child should read what they don’t want their own children reading.  The banner is our government.

News is just out that the Department of Defense has removed three books from all DoD schools.  No Truth without Ruth:  The Life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Kathleen Krull; Becoming Nicole:  The Transformation of an American Family by Amy Ellis Nutt, and Freckleface Strawberry by the well-known actress, Julianne Moore.

I have been writing for children for a very long time, and I know a fair amount about censorship.  For many years, my Newbery Honor novel, On My Honor, was on the American Library Association’s list of the top ten banned books.  And of course, Am I Blue?  Coming Out from the Silence, a collection of short stories on gay and lesbian themes, a book I edited and contributed to in 1992, is still showing up on those lists today.

As does E.B. White’s classic, Charlotte’s Web.  (Because of its portrayal of talking animals—some parents believe only humans should be able to speak—and because Charlotte, the beloved spider, dies in the end.  Which is, of course, a downer.)

I believe, as nearly every writer does, in children having pretty much unfettered access to books.  When my own children were young, I assumed, and my assumption proved to be accurate, that their own maturity level would dictate what they were willing and able to read.  At the same time, I have always felt some sympathy for parents who want to protect their children from a world they don’t approve of. There are certainly elements of our contemporary culture that justify caution. 

And I have felt even more sympathy for the librarians and teachers serving such a disparate world of children . . . or more accurately, the disparate world of parents.  When I was young, the teacher was always “right.” Now, it seems teachers can barely breathe without being wrong in some parent’s eyes. 

But when I stumbled upon an article this morning about our government banning books, it quite took my breath away. 

I haven’t read No Truth without Ruth, but that the life of RBG would be—could be!—banned stuns me. 

I read Becoming Nicole some years ago.  It’s an adult book so it would be available only to teens about an identical twin who, from his earliest days, could not live the mold of his gender.  Nicole’s story is utterly compelling, so I can, at least, understand why it might be singled out in today’s social and political climate.  (How sad it is that the tiny proportion of the population who are trans are being forced to carry so much of the weight of our society’s disaffection with this too-rapidly changing world.) 

And I’ve just now discovered Moore’s book, Freckleface Strawberry, a story that has nothing to do with either progressive politics or gender.   It’s simply about being different, about a seven-year-old girl whose difference is freckles.  She is different, in fact, “just like everybody else,” so the story gives other seven-year-olds permission to accept and enjoy their own difference.  A chilling thought.  Right?

But what is truly chilling to me is that this new administration has so many people available to police us that, out of the thousands and thousands of books out there, they’ve already had the time to sort out these three that the children of our service personnel must not be exposed to.

I don’t know about you, but I’m frightened.  Not for my career.  I’m an old lady now, and my career is winding down anyway.  Besides, my books no longer strain at the rules the way they once did.  But I’m frightened for the society that once believed in freedom of thought. 

And I am terrified of those in power who are so afraid themselves that they believe safety lies—or is it power?—in controlling the rest of us.