QUESTION: There' a growing chorus of conservative voices asking schools to ban "Goosebumps," the children's book series of scary stories by author R.L. Stine. The American Library Association says the group has received 14 challenges to the series - the most popular ever, selling a million copies a month. Should schools ban the books?
Bonnie Erbe: To those who say schools should ban "Goose-bumps," I say, Get a life. I agree with William Bennett's and C. Dolores Tucker's move to ban young children's access to gratuitously violent and sexually degrading rap music lyrics. But conservatives doth protest too loud when they tell 8-year-olds to stop reading horror stories on the grounds they are devoid of literary merit. What's an 8-year-old to read? Homer? Joyce?Those 8-year-olds who covet "Ulysses" (both of them) are certainly to be commended. But I see nothing wrong with pre-pubes-cents enjoying a good horror book on occasion, even if it has no redeeming social value. There's plenty of time later for children to develop a taste for philosophically enlightening material.
Some educators argue that if 8-year-olds weren't reading the "Goosebumps" series, many of them, from less educated backgrounds, might not be motivated to read at all. Better R.L. Stine than no books at all.
Besides, if conservatives want to get really upset about violence in children's books, they should read the Grimm Brothers' fairy tales. There, birds peck young children's eyes out and limbs, toes, fingers and body parts are lopped off with regularity and abandon. Yet they're not out there urging schools to ban those books.
If the "Goosebumps" series is too scary for some kids, then trust their parents to hold it back for a year or two. But to ban it from all school libraries is government tyranny of the worst sort - something conservatives claim to abhor.
Josette Shiner: Leave it to liberals to cry "tyranny" when taxpayers try to have any say in how public money is spent. The fact is that school libraries actually purchase less than 1 percent of the books published each year. Why shouldn't parents have a say in how those limited resources are spent?
I have read more than a dozen of the 48 titles in the "Goosebumps" series. They have been perceptively described as a "literary training bra for Stephen King." These books cannot be compared to Grimm Brothers' fairy tales, in which children's fears are chronicled as a morality tale. They are the junk food of children's books.
The "Goosebumps" I have read bring relentless horror into everyday life, where neighbors, teachers, doctors and even the family dog mutate into evil beings.
Nevertheless, I have a confession to make: My son enjoys "Goosebumps" books and is allowed to read them on his own time. While there are many popular "beginning reader" series for girls such as Amelia Bedelia, there is a dearth of fun, adventure series that appeal to young boys. "Goose-bumps" has regrettably filled this gap for millions of children. They helped my son make the all crucial transition from being read to to being an independent reader.
I am extremely grateful that my son's school library has "chosen not to purchase" (note, my avoidance of the term "banned") the series. This has forced my son, and many others, to conquer new literary turf quite successfully. This isn't right-wing censorship, just good, sound judgment. And when parents feel that schools have used bad judgment, they should be able to have their say, without being demonized and attacked.
Bonnie Erbe is host of the PBS program "To the Contrary" and legal affairs correspondent for the Mutual/NBC Radio networks. Josette Shiner is managing editor of The Washington Times.