Alvah's Books

In The New York Times City Room section, I stumbled across this interesting story about Hergé’s Tintin in the Congo:

A Library’s Approach to Books That Offend

by Alison Leigh Cowan

The cartoonist Hergé is popular again, as is his adventurous reporter Tintin, who will be featured in a Stephen Spielberg movie due out in 2011.

But if you go to the Brooklyn Public Library seeking a copy of “Tintin au Congo,” Hergé’s second book in a series, prepare to make an appointment and wait days to see the book.

“It’s not for the public,” a librarian in the children’s room said this month when a patron asked to see it.

The book, published 79 years ago, was moved in 2007 from the public area of the library to a back room where it is held under lock and key.

The move came after a patron objected, as others have, to the way Africans are depicted in the book. “The content is racially offensive to black people,’’ a librarian wrote on Form 286, also known as a Request for Reconsideration of Library Material [pdf].

Libraries often have policies that allow patrons to complain about content they find objectionable. New York City libraries have received almost two dozen written objections since 2005. But the book about Tintin (pronounced Tantan in his native Brussels) was the only challenged item to have been removed from the shelves, library officials said.

To read more about this and see some of the disputed artwork, go to The New York Times City Room blog.