May 27, 2024 - #mondaymoment #graphicnovels #reading #vacation
Happy Monday, friends! Recently, a friend told me that she had found statements from the book banning crowd that confirmed some of them believe that graphic novels are novels with obscene or otherwise sexually explicit themes. No, graphic novels are stories, sometimes fiction and sometimes creative nonfiction, which include cartoon-like panels depicting the story. Far from children’s picture books, graphic novels are often poignant. They bring to life the struggles and issues of real people and groups. They are very popular among teens and young adults, but their relevance extends to anyone. One graphic novel, Fun Home, even became an award-winning Broadway musical.
I’m the epitome of a bibliophile and I embrace the Japanese principle of tsundoku or buying books without the intention of reading them. If I see a book which looks interesting and I have the money to buy it, I probably will buy it even if I have no idea when I’ll read it. My dream is to have a small house someday which doesn’t have a dedicated library, but has books in every room to the extent that the entire house is a library.
The Empty Library is a public art installation and memorial in Berlin to the mass burning of books by the Third Reich. This particular memorial remembers and mourns the night of May 10, 1933, when a group of students, professors, and librarians—all members of or allied with the Nazi party—gathered to burn books forcibly harvested from public, private, and academic collections. To think that book banning and burning was limited to the past and to one-off moments in small conservative towns, would be naïve. Throughout the United States, state governments and municipalities have passed laws either allowing the banning of books or creating mechanisms where as few as one person can challenge any book and have it removed from school or public library shelves. Where such pleas and request once came from conservative religious groups and targeted Harry Potter, Fahrenheit 451, and Animal Farm—the last two being particularly ironic—the books in question now include Gender Queer; Flamer; Heartstopper; Red, White, and Royal Blue; and other teen and young adult books about LGBTQIA+ characters.
Book bans are alive and well here in Ohio. In fact, a particularly awful bill was introduced at the statehouse on May 15. House Bill 556 would make it a crime for K-12 teachers and librarians and higher education faculty to “pander obscene material.” While the bill defines what a “teacher,” a “faculty member,” and a “librarian” are and defines the distinction between “teacher” and “faculty member,” it does not define “obscene.” Further, it narrows which teachers can present “obscene” material to biology and science teachers. It doesn’t take much to read between those lines and see that the bill is targeting LGBTQIA+ material and calling it “obscene.” While HB556 currently has zero co-sponsors and hopefully won’t pass, it doesn’t need to pass. HB556 and bills like it are meant to create an environment where teachers, librarians, and administrators are too scared to display and promote LGBTQIA+-affirming content and recommend good books to students who desperately need to see happy, healthy depictions of people like them and like the people they will hopefully become.
Have you read banned books? Which of your favorite books have been banned or threatened to be banned?
Let us pray: God, grant us the courage to resist campaigns to ban and burn books wherever they happen and whichever books they target. Warm and convict our hearts if we ever think that a book should be banned or burned. Remind us that while books can be banned, ideas continue and ultimately it is impossible to ban or burn an idea. We ask this through Jesus who was called your Word. Amen.
Blessings on your weeks, my friends! Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.
Faithfully,
Ben
PS. If you want a great book about book bans and book burning which has been banned and burned in some parts of the world, look up The Last Summer of Reason by Tahar Djaout.
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