ROCKPORT — Wait, The Wizard of Oz is a banned book?

For Banned Books Week, Rockport Public Library’s Youth Services Librarian Ben Odgren pulled some beloved classics and newer literary sensations off the bookshelves on Wednesday night,September  in a presentation to exemplify which books are still being banned in school libraries all over the nation.

Take the book by L. Frank Baum that first introduced the world to the Yellow Brick Road in 1900. According to Kristina Rosenthal from the University of Tulsa, the reason provided for the book’s banning in all public libraries in 1928 was because the story was ungodly for “depicting women in strong leadership roles.”

Then there’s Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, one of the best novels of the 20th Century and yet, according to the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, one of the most challenged and banned classical books. The reasons have varied over the years from institutionalized racism to vulgar content.

The more young adult literature adapts to the culture of modern times, the more challenges and bans libraries are bound to see. Contemporary favorites such as the ‘Harry Potter’ series has been banned by religious parents for glorifying witchcraft while the dystopic ‘Hunger Games’ novel series has been banned for being anti-family, anti-ethnic, violent and dabbling in the occult/satanic. Even the children’s picture book, ‘And Tango Makes Three,’ which topped the 2010 banned list, got targeted for “homosexuality, religious viewpoint” as reported by the Office of Intellectual Freedom. Based on a true story, the picture book depicts a Central Park zookeeper who observed the close companionship of two male penguins and had built a nest together. So, the zookeeper gave them an egg from another penguin couple to care for. When it hatched, the baby penguin chick named Tango had two daddies. When it was published in 2005, it challenged assumptions about what constitutes a family.

 According to Banned Books Week’s website, “Hundreds of books have been either removed or challenged in schools and libraries in the United States every year. According to the American Library Association (ALA), there were at least 311 in 2014.  ALA estimates that 70 to 80 percent are never reported.”

“It’s mainly school libraries where books gets challenged, which is what has to happen first,” said Odgren. The library has to provide a challenge form which allows the person to provide written reasons for wanting the book removed. The library then has to appoint a committee of citizens, a book jury, if you will, in order to review the complaint and ultimately uphold the ban or dismiss it.  “We’ve never had a book challenged or banned in the Rockport Library, as far as I know,” said Odgren. “I think what parents who do challenge a book want to see happen is that the book is replaced by another on a particular English curriculum. Either they want the book removed for everyone or just want the book changed out for another for their child.”

Odgren said often a banned book has the opposite intended effect, making the young adult want to read it more. “The young adults are wondering ‘what’s in that book that they don’t want me to know about?”

“That’s the problem with banned books in general,” said Odgren. “One person who decides that the book is not fit for his or her child is making the decision for everyone not to read it, once it is banned from a library.”

To learn more about what made last year’s Top Ten banned books on Banned Books Week visit: http://www.ala.org/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/top10

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com