Censorship and kids' books

I just read an academic journal from 1996 devoted to the subject of worldwide censorship of children's literature -- Paradoxa: Studies in World Literary Genres/Censorship in Children's Literature and it was just as dry and poorly-written as you would imagine. Nonetheless, it contains a few interesting nuggets, which I will pass on to you here.

*Many Western children's classics, such as Winnie the Pooh and Peter Pan, were not made available to a Soviet audience until the 1960s and 70s. Thus, Soviet authors frequently plagiarized these well-known stories in earlier eras. One of the most popular Russian kids' books is a slightly altered version of the Wizard of Oz, which is much better known there than the Frank Baum version.

*After WWII, the General Headquarters of Allied Powers in Japan (mainly the US army) censored any materials which were seen to promote Japanese Imperialism or criticize the American occupation. Thus, suspicion about any kind of censorship is pretty widespread in Japan, across political parties, to this day.

*While censorship was a major component of both Nazi Germany and post-war East Germany, the GDR was much more systematic about it. The Nazi censors were big fans of the Johanna Spyri classic "Heidi," because of its perceived celebration of nature, but the GDR felt it was too bourgeois.

*In locations like the United States, where there is no state-sponsored censorship, "challenges" to books' contents usually comes from parents, school committees, etc. (A point which is not actually made in this volume, to give you an idea of the total lack of clarity with which it is written.) However, criticisms like this can exert a subtle effect on an author. From well-known children's author Lois Lowry:

"In Number The Stars, I knew I would get an occasional outraged or concerned letter about the use of the adjective damn in a book whose audience would sometimes be as young as eight years old. And I did receive those letters...I was willing to defend my use of the word because of the context."

Then:

"I began, after a few books, to consider each bad word that appeared from my typewriter, later from my word processor, and to question whether it needed to be there."

The best thing in the volume is this exchange, cited in a paper about the importance of providing young people books which raise societal issues and address them in complex ways, between a would-be censor and a student:

Adult: You just don't understand how you can be influenced by a bad book.

Student: That's only if you read weak. You've got to read strong.

Read strong, my friends. And have a great weekend!