{"id":478,"date":"2012-10-14T06:05:53","date_gmt":"2012-10-14T13:05:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bannedbooks.world.edu\/?p=478"},"modified":"2016-07-01T16:39:39","modified_gmt":"2016-07-01T20:39:39","slug":"banned-books-awareness-different-seasons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bbark.deepforestproductions.com\/column\/2012\/10\/14\/banned-books-awareness-different-seasons\/","title":{"rendered":"Banned Books Awareness: \u201cDifferent Seasons\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Stephen King is one of the most recognizable names in literature. His horror-filled library of tales like Carrie<\/em> and The Shining<\/em> are classics on bookshelves and on the silver screen. His intense dramas exploring the human condition, such as The Shawshank Redemption<\/em> and Stand by Me<\/em>, are likewise celebrated.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s another accolade that he is, well, king of: he\u2019s the most censored and banned author in American literary history.<\/p>\n

A status that was emphasized this week because Rocklin High School, in Sacramento, California, is considering banning a book from its library due to a graphic scene.<\/p>\n

\u201cDifferent Seasons<\/em>\u201d is a collection of four Stephen King stories including \u201cShawshank Redemption<\/em>\u201d and \u201cStand by Me<\/em>;\u201d but the page and a half graphic scene in \u201cApt Pupil<\/em>\u201d is what could get the entire book banned.<\/p>\n

\u201cBasically they\u2019re judging an entire anthology on one story,\u201d said Amanda Wong, a senior at Rocklin High.<\/p>\n

Wong is outraged that her high school pulled the book after a parent complained. A school committee decided that a rape scene in \u201cApt Pupil<\/em>\u201d was too much for students.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it was completely wrong of them to do that. I was really upset,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough I understand this parent\u2019s concerns- I wouldn\u2019t want my little brother reading this- I don\u2019t believe it\u2019s the school\u2019s right to take an entire book out of library just over that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wong was also on that committee and was the only one opposed to pulling the book. She was outnumbered, but it didn\u2019t stop her from being outspoken, especially because she\u2019s the only one who read the entire thing.<\/p>\n

She decided to take her concerns to the school board meeting, where she made a plea to board members to take another look.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe instant you do such an action, it opens a big door up. What will we be banning next?\u201d said Wong.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt should be up to parents and students to make this decision on whether they want to read it, not the district or school.\u201d<\/p>\n

The book is back on shelves while a district committee looks at a possible ban.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether it gets banned or not, I\u2019m happy people know,\u201d said Wong.<\/p>\n

The first meeting is Tuesday, and they have 30 days to make a decision.<\/p>\n

CBS13 in Sacramento reached out to Stephen King about the ban.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe stand with Amanda Wong on the issue and admire her principled and passionate plea. We hope she and those who share her views are not disappointed,\u201d King\u2019s agent said.<\/p>\n

\u201cDifferent Seasons<\/em>\u201d had been previously removed from the West Lyon Community Library in Larchwood, Iowa in 1987 because \u201cit does not meet the standards of the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

It has also been removed from the Washington Middle School library in Meriden, Connecticut (1989) after a parental complaint; and challenged at the Eagan High School in Burnsville, Minnesota in 1992.<\/p>\n

It was challenged at the Cabell County Public Library in 2002 for references to, respectively, oral sex and prison rape scenes in \u201cRita Hayworth<\/em>\u201d and \u201cShawshank Redemption<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of his other popular titles that have been challenged or banned include \u201cIt<\/em>\u201d which was challenged at a Lincoln, Nebraska school in 1987; and placed on restricted reading at the Franklinville, New York Central High School library in 1992.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Stand\u201d <\/em>was restricted at the Whitford Intermediate School in Beaverton, Oregon in 1989 because of \u201csexual language, casual sex, and violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

A brief rundown of his other titles that have been challenged and\/or banned are:<\/p>\n

Cujo<\/em>\u00a0, Carrie<\/em>, Christine<\/em>, The Bachman\u00a0Books<\/em>, The Eyes\u00a0 of the Dragon<\/em>, Firestarter<\/em>, Four Past Midnight<\/em>, Gerald\u2019s Game<\/em>, Night Shift<\/em>, Pet Semetary<\/em>, Salem\u2019s Lot<\/em>, The Shining, The\u00a0 Skeleton Crew, The Talisman, Thinner, The Drawing of the Three<\/em><\/p>\n

A middle school in Florida had targeted two of his books,\u00a0The Dead Zone<\/em>\u00a0and Tommyknockers<\/em> in 1992.<\/p>\n

Media outlets were seeking a comment from King at the time. His typical response was to ignore them and toss the phone messages, but on second thought he decided that \u201cthe author could not be reached for comment\u201d shtick seemed a bit lame.<\/p>\n

He wrote a guest column in the Bangor Daily News, first addressing the kids- his readers.\u00a0\u00a0He urged them to not argue with authority and not to waste their time in\u00a0protest.\u00a0Instead, he encouraged them\u00a0to \u201chustle down to your library\u201d for a copy; and informing them that John Steinbeck, J.D. Salinger, and Mark Twain all faced censorship.<\/p>\n

He then addressed their parents by\u00a0challenging their parenting skills and hinting that these book burners knew better how to raise their children.\u00a0 He asked them to consider the matter\u00a0carefully by reminding them that these censors \u201cdon\u2019t believe in democracy, but rather in a kind of
\nintellectual autocracy.\u201d\u00a0 He\u00a0assured them that if they didn\u2019t pay attention and didn\u2019t defend their\u00a0children\u2019s rights to read, that there would not be much left.\u00a0 King indicates that if only the fairy tale happy ending stories are left for their children to read,\u00a0their minds will not be sharpened for the future decisions they will be faced with.<\/p>\n

King\u00a0also addressed the citizens of the towns banning books, that\u00a0book-banning is censorship, and implying that book-burners are people who feel that the entire community should think and feel as they do.<\/p>\n

King does not believe all books should be made available to\u00a0young minds, saying that schools are \u201c\u2026a\u00a0managed marketplace,\u201d and books like \u201cFanny Hill\u2019 or \u201cAmerican\u00a0Psycho,\u201d probably should not be read by young people, at least not from a school library.<\/p>\n

King was very clear on his personal position of censorship.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t want to\u00a0spend his time defending his books in every state, in every school\u00a0district- he wants to write stories for people to read.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo I believe a defense should be mounted? Yes. If there\u2019s one American belief I hold above all others, it\u2019s that those who would set\u00a0themselves up in judgment on matters of what is \u201cright\u201d and what is \u201cbest\u201d\u00a0should be given no rest; that they should have to defend their behavior most\u00a0stringently. No book, record, or film should be banned without a full airing of\u00a0the issues. As a nation, we’ve been through too many fights to preserve our\u00a0rights of free thought to let them go just because some prude with a highlighter\u00a0doesn’t approve of them.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For more information on the Banned Books Awareness and Reading for Knowledge project and the complete list of titles covered, please visit the official website at http:\/\/www.deepforestproductions.com\/BBARK.html<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Sources: CBS 13 Sacramento<\/a>, Prince Rupert Library<\/a>, Marshall University<\/a>, The Censorship of Stephen King<\/a><\/em>
\n\u00a9 2012 R. Wolf Baldassarro\/Deep Forest Productions<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stephen King is one of the most recognizable names in literature. His horror-filled library of tales like Carrie and The Shining are classics on bookshelves and on the silver screen. His intense dramas exploring the human condition, such as The Shawshank Redemption and Stand by Me, are likewise celebrated. But […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[29,42,67,70,97,100,106,154,203,206,281,288,301,313,331],"class_list":["post-478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-change","tag-apt-pupil","tag-banned-books","tag-carrie","tag-censorship","tag-different-seasons","tag-drama","tag-education","tag-horror","tag-libraries","tag-literature","tag-sacramento","tag-schools","tag-shawshank-redemption","tag-stand-by-me","tag-the-shining"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bbark.deepforestproductions.com\/column\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Seasonsking.jpg?fit=350%2C533&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbark.deepforestproductions.com\/column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbark.deepforestproductions.com\/column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbark.deepforestproductions.com\/column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbark.deepforestproductions.com\/column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbark.deepforestproductions.com\/column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bbark.deepforestproductions.com\/column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1356,"href":"https:\/\/bbark.deepforestproductions.com\/column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478\/revisions\/1356"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbark.deepforestproductions.com\/column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbark.deepforestproductions.com\/column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbark.deepforestproductions.com\/column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbark.deepforestproductions.com\/column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}