In a wonderful article in The Huffington Post, children’s book author Julianna Baggott tells the sad tale of Brown Bear.  The hero of the beloved book by Bill Martin, Jr. is no longer out seeing the other animals – he’s been banned by the Texas Board of Education.

Seems that a very different Bill Martin – no Jr. and no children’s books to his name – wrote a very different kind of book, called Ethical Marxism: The Categorical Imperative of Liberation.  The Texas Board of Education understandably felt, as Baggott notes, that there might be “compelling reason not to include Bill Martin’s Ethical Marxism on the curriculum list for elementary school children in Texas.”  And then, just to be sure, they banned all of what they thought were Bill Martin’s other books.  Like – you got it – Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?  Read Baggott’s article for her take on this boneheaded mess; it’s very funny and original, as might be expected from the author of such excellent books as The Prince of Fenway Park and The Ever Breath. 

But there is a serious side to all this.  Brown Bear, Brown Bear isn’t by a Marxist author and isn’t a work of political philosophy.  However, plenty of children’s books do promote political or philosophical viewpoints.  Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax is pro-environmentalist.  Heather Has Two Mommies is, well, obvious.  And some people don’t want their kids exposed to such books.  According to Wikipedia, the picture book And Tango Makes Three, the true story of a male penguin couple raising a chick, was the most challenged book of 2006, 2007, and 2008, and the most banned book of 2009. 

Nor do all objections come from right-wingers.  Some Native American scholars are asking that teachers not use Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books because of their depiction of Native Americans.  My own high school librarian, eons ago, refused to have a copy of Gone With the Wind on her shelves because she felt it demeaned African Americans.  Sometimes politics has nothing to do with it: sex and religion are big button-pushers, too, as reactions to the Harry Potter books, Phillip Pullman’s The Golden Compass and John Green’s Looking for Alaska have shown.  One way or another, dozens of books for children and young adults get challenged and even banned on a regular basis. 

So: where do you stand?  Is it ever OK to ban a book?  Does it matter how old the kids are, or what the “objectionable” content is?  Who gets to decide?  What do you think?

The buzz this week in the world of children’s books is the American Library Association‘s announcement of its 2010 awards for excellence in children’s and young adult literature.

Even if you don’t follow such things – and many avid readers don’t – you may have seen a gold sticker on books like Island of the Blue Dolphins, Shiloh, or The Giver, for the Newbery Medal; or Jumanji, The Snowy Day or Where the Wild Things Are, for the Caldecott Medal.  The ALA issues these awards to one winner and several honor books each year.  (Sometimes the honor books go on to be more famous than the winners; for instance, in 1953, the Newbery winner was The Secret of the Andes, which – if you’re like most people today – you probably haven’t read; but I’ll lay pretty good odds that you know one of the honor books for that year, a little story about some barnyard animals called Charlotte’s Web.)

So, what are these awards?  The Newbery Medal, which recognizes the “most distinguished contribution to American literature for children,” was awarded this year to When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead.  The Caldecott Medal, which honors “the most distinguished American picture book for children,” went to The Lion & the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney.  You can see the list of all this year’s Newbery books here, and all the Caldecott books here.

There are more awards: the Printz Award, for excellence in young adult literature, awarded to Going Bovine, by Libba Bray; the Theodor Seuss Geisel Award for beginning reader books, to Benny and Penny in the Big No-No!, by Geoffrey Hayes; the Coretta Scott King Awards, to an African-American author and illustrator, awarded to Bad News for Outlaws: The Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves, Deputy U.S. Marshal, by Vauna Micheaux Nelson, and to My People, illustrated by Charles R. Smith Jr. (text by Langston Hughes); the Pura Belpre Awards, to a Latino or Latina author and illustrator, awarded to Return to Sender, by Julia Alvarez, and to Book Fiesta!, illustrated by Rafael Lopez (text by Pat Mora); the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults, awarded to Jim Murphy.  A new award, the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award, was awarded to Deborah Heiligman’s Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith.

Does this mean these are the best books of the year?  That’s a subject of hearty debate.  Librarians, booksellers and teachers all over the country talk for months before the awards are announced about the year’s books.  Some have “mock Caldecott” or “mock Newbery” panels, which may – or may not – agree with the ALA.  In recent years, articles have criticized the ALA for choosing books that, in the critics’ view, no kids would want to read (a criticism not likely to be aimed at the very popular When You Reach Me); defenders wrote just as fiercely that the books were great literature.

Bottom line: there are people who take children’s literature very, very seriously.  And that’s a very, very good thing.  Children’s literature nourishes of children’s minds; it should be taken seriously just as children’s nutrition is taken seriously, and children should no more be given a steady diet of junk books than they should of junk food.  Oh, not that there’s anything wrong with some fun, non-nutritive stuff sometimes … but for a healthy, thriving mind, you need excellent books.  So go take a look at those book lists, and maybe check out some past Caldecott and Newbery books, crack open a few titles, and see what you think.

And then share them with the kids in your life.