Children and Censorship: What We Permit Children to Read and Why

3 units

The books that raise the issue of censorship most intensely are those written for children, not adults. Today, when parents seem more concerned than ever about what their children are exposed to, what children should read has become a burning issue, but an issue that often divides communities rather than uniting them. What is appropriate for children to read? Has this changed over time? Who determines what is appropriate reading material? And how have the issues of gender and race affected these determinations? In this course we will read and discuss many controversial children's books and comics, starting with Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Helen Bannerman's Little Black Sambo, and work our way through to such modern children's authors as Sherman Alexie, Judy Blume, Maurice Sendak, Walter Dean Myers, and J.K. Rowling as well as R. Crumb's controversial and sexually explicit underground comics.