
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, November 1, 1994                   TAG: 9411140020
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By MICHAEL EBERT
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SOME BOOKS SHOULD BE BANNED

J.D. SALINGER'S ``Catcher in the Rye'' is about a young man, Holden Caulfield, who goes through life in a deep, deep funk. Holden wishes he were dead. He wants to have sex with a prostitute but can't quite do it because he is so melancholy.

Some describe the 1951 release as an American classic. I guess it summed up the doom and gloom of the anti-war generation. Those were their hang-ups, though, and I wish they'd stop trying to push them on everyone else.

I might have forgotten about ``Catcher in the Rye'' if it weren't for the American Library Association's annual list of banned books. ``Catcher'' makes the list every year, probably because its profanity, sex and suicide theme disturbs parents and students alike. But when you read the ALA's 1994 report, you find the book was challenged just once. The ALA knows the book is in no danger, but does serve as a very useful icon for its agenda.

Groups like People for the American Way and the ALA crank out such hyperbolic reports each year because they want you to view people like me as intolerant and dangerous.

The local library invited someone from our organization to come down and read from a banned book as part of its ``Banned Books Week'' celebration this year. Had I been invited, I think I would have read a selection from ``More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.'' It's found in many elementary schools. ``Wonderful Sausage,'' one of the book's stories, is about a butcher who kills his wife, grinds her into sausage and sells the new product to townspeople. The sausage is popular so he kills children, kittens and puppies to meet demand.

When 7-year-old Megan Wohlgenant's first-grade teacher read that one to the class (complete with an illustration), Megan had nightmares and refused to eat meat for months. Her parents argued that flesh-grinding and cannibalism were not appropriate topics for elementary-school reading, and many townspeople agreed. PAW labeled Megan's parents ``censors.''

Or I could have read a passage from ``Annie on My Mind,'' one of the nation's ``most challenged'' books, according to these groups. It's about a lesbian relationship between two high-school-age girls.

Pro-homosexual groups are donating the book to many public-school libraries. Some parents say the book has an agenda (not a very subtle one at that) that is inappropriate for their schools. But when they've voiced that opinion, PAW and the ALA label them censors.

These reports primarily attack parents. Apparently, these groups believe that once a book is in the classroom or on a library shelf, it is sacred. No one can question it, no matter how inappropriate, distasteful or low-quality it is.

Public libraries are agencies of local government. Groups like the ALA brand critics as censors and show them the door. That's a convenient strategy, but civil servants who try to insulate themselves from the voices of taxpayers are only buying trouble.

Michael Ebert is a public-policy representative for Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs, Colo.

by CNB